1st review - Pearl Western 12/28/08-1/4/09

[mrose1120]

overall the fiance and I had a great time on the cruise, it was my 2nd overall cruise (Carnival a few years back, and this one), Fiance is more experienced being from Miami, shes now cruised RCI, Carnival and Norwegian.

 

 

Got to the port around noon on sunday, we were on the boat about 12:35-12:40...very smooth

Had champagne and took the spa tour, decided that $99 for the spa package on a port intensive cruise wasn't worth it. Lunch was next, we went to the Garden Cafe and contrary to a lot of people on here, we thought the food at the buffet was good (Buffet being better than the Carnival lunch buffets in 2006). We then watched the boat sail away, waited for the room to be ready and made sure our luggage made it. Oh and also, we had the honeymoon/anniversary package, so champagne and strawberries awaited! (Great package btw, get it!)

We went to the CAS Party, which was mediocre, but had a few drinks and thought the food they served was mainly disgusting, it was like they tried too hard to make it "high class", Caviar, etc. After this we made our reservation for Le Bistro, for the following night.

We ended up eating a late dinner at Indigo, wrapped around a couple trips to the casino.

 

Monday- first day at sea

we woke up, and got to breakfast around 10:20am, and were out with a few minutes to spare for the CC meeting. I waited a while for an omelette and was disappointed as the chef rushed it, it was more like scrambled eggs, but the breakfasts were MUCH better from here.

CC Meeting was fun, meet some staff, went our seperate ways, but it was good to put faces to screen names (im fairly new here!)

We hung out by the pool most of the day TRYING to get time in the hottub. There was a huge family trip going on, and every single day they were getting hammered in the adult hottubs for HOURS! We had to wait till 5-6 pm just to get a small dip and relax! Ate lunch at the grill outside, again, found the food very good. At 4pm though, I went to the beer tasting for $15 , and GO to this if you like beer!!! It was great, got to try 5 different beers and take one with us, I took a "Celebrator" and it was excellent and I was feeling nice when this was over ;)

 

That night, had dinner at Le Bistro, had our free bottle of wine and declined to be sang to! Dinner was very good, the best memory of dinner for me was the cream of mushroom soup bread bowl... mmmmmm. . I believe Monday we went to see the second city act and thought they were very funny. Followed this off by going to Monte Carlo night in the casino. We got a couple tickets for the raffle, fiance got yelled at by an over zealous slot player. Short story, she was playing slots, they started the champagne pour, so she stopped, the other lady was demanding she leave the machine since she wasn't hitting "spin", fiance rightly declined, and we told her if there was a problem, she can go grab a casino host. She obviously declined and moved on. We had a good laugh about this throughout the cruise. Oh, the raffle, I won a "pearl" bracelet for her, who knows how real or good it is, but it looked pretty and she was happy. I also won a bit in craps, good night! :)

 

Tuesday - Roatan

We didn't have an excursion planned so we got off the ship around....eh 10:30am, walked outside and found a cab to take us on a tour and to the beach (got back to port around 3pm) for $30 each + a tip....worked out, we saw what is to see on the island, the sunken ships, a few beautiful views, and layed on the beach for a few hours, dipped in the water, all around a few rain showers which served as a nice cool down!

Got back on the ship, hung at the pool again for a little while, waited but with no luck tonight on the hottub, and went to dinner again at indigo (keep this as a normal occurrence, we ate there every night except Monday and found it very good each time). Once again, a small trip to the casino, made a few friends there (not staff, but other cruisers). Not much else goin on tonight, went to bed early.

 

Wednesday - Belize

We had the lost world canopy and rapelle tour planned. We met in the theatre at 9:45am, thought we would all get on the same tender, but that was a mess! They had announced about 45 mins earlier that a tender ticket was no longer needed, and it was still a madhouse down there! We ended up all gettting over to land, but our 10:15am but i believe it was, got going at like 10:30. We were always behind. Had a nice kabob lunch before going, dealt with a loud obnoxious cheerleading family (sorry if I offend anyone on here, but its fine if you have kids into cheerleading, but a bus full of people cranky from a long bumpy ride, already being late and just wanting to zipline, its not the time to encourage them to do cheers!). The ziplining itself was great, very exciting, the staff was professional, knew what they were doing and personable. On the ride back we grabbed a seat far away from the cheerleading family and barely heard them, great move by us! Our bus barely got back to the port before 4pm, last tender was at 4:30, ended up the boat left a few minutes late, I Guess other tours were late too.

After getting on and minutes after using it though, my better digital camera said the memory card was corrupted!! NO!!!!! I decided not to use it but after a bit of testing, I think its the camera and not the memory card. The camera is new, so I can return it, but if it is the corrupt card, I need to try to recover those. We used the older digi cam the rest of the trip.

Once again, to the pool we went, and this time, got in the hottub at around 7pm, stayed in for a little while and ate a late new years dinner. Went to the 7th floor in front of the 30 foot screen around 11:30EST, watched NY celebrate and then hung out until the ship celebration. IT was fun, but the band almost played through new years!!!! We stayed up a little while longer, but were exhausted and passed out quickly.

 

Thursday - Cozumel

We went parasailing at about 10am. We were off the boat about 10:45am, with plenty of time left in port. Also, we had received a survey to receive 20% off a cozumel excursion, so thats why we booked this one and not a parasail at GSC, it ended up being a good deal cheaper, so be on the outlook!

Once done parasailing we wealked all around cozumel, eventually found an internet cafe for $2 an hour (much better than on ship), checked some email ( we are planning a wedding, a lot to do!), looked up some news and relaxed a bit. We then did some souvenir shopping and picked up a few $1 coronas :) Nice!

Got back on, found a nice couch looking thing on the 12th deck near the window and just chilled and read for a while. No casino today, just dinner, a nice walk around and watched the juggling act, very funny, very good.

 

Friday- Sea day

I woke up at 7am to get one of the bed type things on the 12th floor and promptly fell asleep on it again! LOL, we were back and forth all day from there, but basically spent the day at the poolside, and then came the cuban rafters fiasco. I think a lot has been said, so i will just say to look at my posts in the other thread, I firmly feel terrible for those guys and wish some other fate could be in store, and also stand by the captain and his remarks as I feel they were not anti american and simply how he felt, and not offensive to anyone.

 

later, went to dinner, had some lobster, a bit small and chewy, but fine overall, not the best i've had. At 9pm we went to the liquor raffle for 50% off your order, we had only spent about $100 on duty free, but the guy who won had spent over $500!! Good for him for winning!

 

Saturday - Great Stirrup Cay

We got up late, went to breakfast and got off, no hammacks, no chairs, no room! Had a burger, and back on the boat, back to an empty 12th deck and the couch thing by the window :) Hung out there, pooled, hottubbed. Went to dinner that night, came back and made sure to pack. Then we did hit the casino again and I won enough to come out even, so thats a success!

 

Sunday - disembarkation

I got up at 7am, had breakfast, and we did self disembarkation at around 8:30am, we were off the boat 15 minutes later, and flew back this morning after spending the night w/ the fiance's parents.

 

All in all, it was a great trip. Pros you can read in between the lines to see most was a pro, including food,staff and honeymoon package.

 

cons -

besides people like the large drunk family or cheerleaders? lol

Does every cruise director need to talk so much and so early? I understand getting on to say that we are at port, but we don't need a 10 minute speech and reminders every 10 minutes, you can do a wake up call or set some sort of alarm, most of us are adults :) Linda was great by the way, nothing against her.

our cleaning crew wasn't extremely friendly or efficient. There were a couple nights where we put the turn down cabin up, at about 6pm, arrived back at 10-11pm and no turn down!! The button was still the same. Also, I went to exchange towels a few times and politely asked "can I please get a couple new towels?" and the response was a blank looked "ok". I dunno, with how the rest of the staff was, this was a bit disappointing, nothing to say I won't cruise for this though!

The tendering in belize needs to get fixed, they need to keep the tickets going longer, because as I said, our time to go off was a complete disaster. It worked out in the end, but it could be better.

 

 

all in all, would absolutely cruise Norwegian again and likely will one the wedding is done and what not late next year :) Thanks everyone for the tips prior to going aboard, they helped tremendously.

 

Feel free to ask any question as I likely forgot something, lol.

[becwe]

Hi , just few questions please.

You don't have to answer, but what type of cabin did you have?

(At 4pm though, I went to the beer tasting for $15 , and GO to this if you like beer!!! )

Was this the only tasting you did. Did you see a wine tasting offered?

(We ended up eating a late dinner at Indigo)

Did you happen to catch how late they serve dinner til?

(We didn't have an excursion planned so we got off the ship around....eh 10:30am, walked outside and found a cab to take us on a tour and to the beach )

Do you have the name of the beach. Was it nice? Facilities or no?

(We got up late, went to breakfast and got off, no hammacks, no chairs, no room! )

This has me very worried. Is there no turn over on the chairs at all?

Thanks

[mrose1120]

Hi , just few questions please.

You don't have to answer, but what type of cabin did you have?

(At 4pm though, I went to the beer tasting for $15 , and GO to this if you like beer!!! )

Was this the only tasting you did. Did you see a wine tasting offered?

(We ended up eating a late dinner at Indigo)

Did you happen to catch how late they serve dinner til?

(We didn't have an excursion planned so we got off the ship around....eh 10:30am, walked outside and found a cab to take us on a tour and to the beach )

Do you have the name of the beach. Was it nice? Facilities or no?

(We got up late, went to breakfast and got off, no hammacks, no chairs, no room! )

This has me very worried. Is there no turn over on the chairs at all?

Thanks

 

 

You don't have to answer, but what type of cabin did you have?

We had an inside cabin on deck 8 (8579) it was fine for us, we paid a lot for a new years cruise and wanted to use the extra $$$ for casino, excursions etc etc.

 

 

Was this the only tasting you did. Did you see a wine tasting offered?

They offered Wine tasting I believe, Margarita, Martini, Beer and finally Whiskey + Bourbon, but I only managed to make it to the one.

 

Did you happen to catch how late they serve dinner til?

I believe most nights Indigo served until 10:30pm

 

Do you have the name of the beach. Was it nice? Facilities or no?

Tabiana Beach, and yes, they had chairs for rent, a couple places to get drinks or food and bathrooms.

 

This has me very worried. Is there no turn over on the chairs at all?

At Great Stirrup Cay? I can't be 100% sure, but we got off the boat at like 11:30am, and nothing was available and when on the boat, I kept looking over and it appeared to still be full ALL day, so i'd say get out early if you want anything.

[ddakrt]

Thanks for the informative review! I really hope it's just the camera and not the card...

 

One of my memory card pooped out with all my pics from Cozumel, all my swimming with dolphin pics and videos and all... We've recovered about 80% of the pics, and most vids are still messed up. I'm going to bring it into a camera store and see if they can help at all...

 

Good luck!

[mrose1120]

Thanks for the informative review! I really hope it's just the camera and not the card...

 

One of my memory card pooped out with all my pics from Cozumel, all my swimming with dolphin pics and videos and all... We've recovered about 80% of the pics, and most vids are still messed up. I'm going to bring it into a camera store and see if they can help at all...

 

Good luck!

 

Good news on that, I went into best buy today and got the card read on a memory card reader and the pics are there, so its the cam! Bad news, is that bestbuy.com where i bought it no longer carries it and they didn't offer too good of a deal for another cam, so i will likely call and tell em to cancel the whole thing (since its within the return time line) and just get my money back and wait for something else... oh well

[terrymtex01]

Nice review. As I always say it is nice to read well balanced reviews.

 

I do have to say I agree with you about the 'cheerleading' family. I don't know why people think it is appropriate for thier kids to be all loud and stuff. Some places it is ok and appropriate, but stuck on a bus, it isn't in my opinion. I do firmly believe in letting kids be kids (I'm not a parent mind you so I can say that..LOL), but there are times where they shouldn't be allowed to be so loud.

 

I am sorry you were some what displeased with your cabin stewards. I would have been too. We have always been so fortunate to have great cabin stewards and to me, they can really make or break your time onboard.

 

As far as GSC, I do agree if you want a good spot, get off the ship as early as you can and claim it.. What we usually do is get off the ship as soon as we can and get a table under the trees right off the beach. We always end up meeting some nice people who ask if they can share our table for a while. They usually take one end and we take the other. We usually do not spend much time on GSC, just long enough to swim a bit, eat some lunch, then we usually head back over to the ship after lunch to enjoy the deserted ship.

[CanadianTwosome]

Thanks for the review! I may have to seek out one of those tastings... I just wish they offered them in the evening!

[zazou]

Great review and a lot of information. Thanks!

 

Oh no, the spa pass increase to 99$ (previously was 75$)... too bad for us since we are going at the end of February. Is the day pass still at 20$/day?

 

thanks,