Sky review, March 6-9

[Dukegirl5577]

I just submitted my review, but it probably won't be up for a couple of days, so I'm copying it here.

 

___________________________________________

 

If you're looking for a great short getaway, this cruise is ideal. It was very short, but we couldn't take too much time off from work, so this worked perfectly for us.

 

Port of Embarkation:

We flew in the afternoon before to Miami, and stayed at the Clinton Hotel in South Beach. We loved this stylish little boutique hotel just 2 blocks from the beach. It was super convenient, and right in the heart of everything, yet because it was a couple of blocks from the beach, it was very quiet at night when we wanted to sleep.

We got way too tipsy (ahem, perhaps more than tipsy) off of the mojitos at Sea Cafe, so we decided to skip a fancy dinner and instead went to Puerto Sagua, this great little Cuban diner. The ropa vieja was to die for. I just wish we'd known how big the portions were -- we easily could have shared.

 

The next morning, after a nice walk on the beach, we checked out and took a cab to the port (about $25) around 11-ish. From the time the cabbie dropped us off and we handed our bags to the porter to the time we stepped on board and were handed a glass of champagne, it was less than 15 minutes. Seriously. I have never experienced such a smooth check-in. Nice job!

 

Cabin:

For such a short, port-intensive cruise, we decided that a balcony wasn't necessary -- in fact, we spoke to several others on the cruise who had balconies, and they never used them the entire time. We decided to save money and get an inside cabin, particularly because we sleep so well without any natural light. We knew we would want to fall asleep right away when we went to bed, because the itinerary was packed with ports and we wanted to be as active as possible. The cabin itself was fine. Very small, but that's to be expected. It did smell like cigarettes when we first walked in, but all I had to do was mention that to the cabin steward and he took care of it right away. The next time we entered, it smelled like lemons and we never smelled the smoke again.

 

Food on ship:

Overall, I found the food to be quite good, although perhaps a little bit slipped from the last time we'd cruised NCL. But still very good.

We had lunch on embarkation day in the Palace main dining room. We'd planned to go to the buffet, but ran into 2 Cruise Critic friends who suggested we avoid the crowds and dine with them instead. We really enjoyed getting to know our online friends over lunch, although the lunch itself was really nothing to write home about. It was good, but not terribly memorable.

 

Dinner on the first night was much better. Fantastic, actually. It was our 5th anniversary that night, so we got the Anniversary Package ($79 -- includes dinner for two with wine at Le Bistro, a bottle of sparkling wine in the cabin, chocolate-covered strawberries in the cabin at embarkation, canapes delivered on the last night, an anniversary cake, a cake and sparkling wine party that we skipped because it took place at 4 pm on the day we were in Nassau, and an 8x10 photograph of our choice). We'd never tried any of the specialty dining rooms on NCL before, and I can wholeheartedly say that we will definitely return to Le Bistro next time we cruise. It was delicious and the ambience made our special night very memorable. For appetizers, we both had the French onion soup, and then the sea scallops (melt in the your mouth tender). He had the beef tenderloin and I had the rack of lamb. For dessert, we had the waitstaff send the anniversary cake to our room so we could have the chocolate fondue instead. Excellent choice!

 

The second night was Lobster Night, aka Dress Up or Not Night. We ate in Crossings main dining room. For appetizer, I had a watermelon and fried feta cheese salad, which was SOOOO good. Very unexpected. He had a caesar salad. Then we both had the ginger crab bisque soup, which eas excellent. Our dining companions (a mother and daughter we met from Cruise Critic) warned us that the lobster was just a tiny tail with a small piece of fish, so we all ordered a second tail. I must admit that it was not the best lobster I'd ever had, but it was still lobster. And it was still good, just not great. All in all, this might have been the least memorable dinner of the cruise, although the ginger crab bisque was amazing.

 

The third night we ate at Crossings again. I had a chilled melon mint soup, which was very interested. For my main course, I had the monkfish, which was very tasty. My husband had the salmon, and he enjoyed that. We skipped dessert, because we'd been eating so much this weekend. LOL!

We ate breakfast in the buffet on debarkation day, and in Palace main dining room on Great Stirrup Cay day. We ate our anniversary cake for breakfast on Nassau day.

 

Entertainment:

Welcome show was fun. The comedian (Tim Kaminski) was hilarious in both the welcome show and his comedy show. However, they announced that he was leaving the ship to get married, so unless he returns for another contract sometime, I guess this part of my review is superfluous. The dancers were quite proficient in the Miami Sound Machine tribute medley on the first night. The singers were OK, but the dancers were quite good. Unfortunately, we missed Soul Rockin' Nights, the Broadway-style show on the second night, so all I saw of them was their little 5-minute thing on the first night.

 

Ports:

Nassau was a little underwhelming, but probably part of that was that they switched our stingray excursion from the morning to the afternoon without telling us. Well, not their fault. If we'd booked through NCL, we would have known, but booking independently, they have no way of letting you know. Fortunately, the people at the docks were friendly and they helped us figure out what was going on. But it through our planned itinerary for a loop, so we had to switch everything around and explored the historic donwtown and the fort in the morning, which meant that we had to skip our planned trip to Arawak Cay for the Fish Fry. But that's OK, because we discovered a totally untouristy (actually, we were the only people in the restaurant) hole-in-the-wall on a quiet street called the Pepper Pot Grill. DELICIOUS! It was hands down the best meal we had the entire trip. We both had the codfish and ackee special, which was this spicy fish stew served over rice and beans with plantains. My mouth still waters thinking about it. Yum! Then that afternoon, we went to Blackbeard's Cay to swim with stingrays. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip! The rays were super friendly and so soft.

 

Our favorite stop, though, was Great Stirrup Cay, NCL's private island. What a great little beach day! Just a perfect way to relax. The water was cold at first, but if you snorkeled and stayed underwater mostly, it was fine. There was tons of fish. The BBQ on the island wasn't fantastic, but it was included in the cruise price and was quick and good. A perfect snack in between bouts of snorkeling.

 

Debarkation:

Very smooth. As soon as we were ready, we just walked to the gangway and maybe waited about 10 minutes total to get off the ship.

 

Downsides:

NCL's stateside customer service is somewhat lacking. Nobody seems to have any clue what's happening. One person tells me that there was an error on the website and even though the Everglades tour isn't showing up, it's available. The next person tells me that she's not sure why someone would tell me that, because the tour operator has stopped offering the Everglades tours on the 3-night Sky trips. Of course, we find this out after we've already booked our airfare for later in the afternoon, so we go about renting a car to do it on our own, only to discover once we're actually on the ship that they ARE offering the Everglades tour on debarkation day after all. But seriously, if that's our only complaint, then there really isn't anything to complain about, because we still got to go to the Everglades anyway.

 

All in all, a great weekend escape! I'm ready to book it again!

[tiggerfan616]

Dukegirl thanks so much for the great review. We are doing the 4 day in October and are excited about getting a little rest after running around Disney with an 8yr old.

Would you mind telling me who you booked the stingrays through, that is what we are looking to do in Nassau

[SaySumthing]

I agree, the more details, the better. For me the best ones are long, but are divided into sections some way (by port, day, area being reviewed, etc) so that you can skim if you want to only see one area of the review.

[sitter]

Tell me more about the Everglades tour you ended up doing?

[Dukegirl5577]

Would you mind telling me who you booked the stingrays through, that is what we are looking to do in Nassau

 

We booked it through Bestonbahamas.com for $42/person (and there's a $37/person price for children). NCL was offering it for $62/person. Literally, it's the exact same excursion -- you take the same ferry over to the same island and swim in the same area of the beach at the same time. The only thing that the NCL excursion offered that ours didn't was that they let them know that the tour was postponed to the afternoon, and they escorted them from the cruise terminal to the pier behind the straw market (about a 5 minute walk at most).

 

Tell me more about the Everglades tour you ended up doing?

Like I said, when I tried to book the Everglades tour through NCL (we wanted to do it this way because it included transportation to the Everglades and then afterwards to the airport and you could leave your luggage on the bus the whole time while you did the excursion), it wasn't showing up as an option for Miami when I actually logged in. It was on the website, but once I logged in to book it, it wasn't there. So I called NCL, and they told me that there was a glitch in the system but they would manually add it to my order. So I had them do that, and booked my airfare for 4:35 pm (it had to be 3:30 or later if you were doing this tour).

 

The day after I booked my airfare, I checked online and the Everglades tour stull wasn't added to my reservation, so I called again. This time, the representative said that the tour operator running this tour had stopped offering it on Monday mornings for people getting off the Sky because so few people were signing up. Since it's a weekend cruise, most people were grabbing the first flight out and heading back to work. But since we'd already gotten our airfare, we had to do something that day.

 

So we rented a car instead. I did some research online, and found Gator Park (http://www.gatorpark.com), which is one of many airboat tour operators along US-41 in the Everglades. We loved it! The guide was funny and told us many interesting things about the Everglades system. He took us in an airboat for a ride through the "River of Grass" and pointed out alligators, iguanas, turtles, and tons of birds.

 

Turns out, though, that we COULD have done the tour through NCL after all. Not sure why the customer service rep said they've stopped offering it for Sky passengers, because the shore excursion desk was selling it on the ship. Oh well. It was slightly more work for us to rent the car and do it ourselves, but I'm glad we did, because we got to stop at a fabulous BBQ joint on the way back from the Everglades to the airport (whereas the cruise excursions only allowed you to buy food at the airboat tour operator's restaurant).

[legalwife]

I just submitted my review, but it probably won't be up for a couple of days, so I'm copying it here.

 

___________________________________________

 

 

 

Dinner on the first night was much better. Fantastic, actually. It was our 5th anniversary that night, so we got the Anniversary Package ($79 -- includes dinner for two with wine at Le Bistro, a bottle of sparkling wine in the cabin, chocolate-covered strawberries in the cabin at embarkation, canapes delivered on the last night, an anniversary cake, a cake and sparkling wine party that we skipped because it took place at 4 pm on the day we were in Nassau, and an 8x10 photograph of our choice). We'd never tried any of the specialty dining rooms on NCL before, and I can wholeheartedly say that we will definitely return to Le Bistro next time we cruise. It was delicious and the ambience made our special night very memorable. For appetizers, we both had the French onion soup, and then the sea scallops (melt in the your mouth tender). He had the beef tenderloin and I had the rack of lamb. For dessert, we had the waitstaff send the anniversary cake to our room so we could have the chocolate fondue instead. Excellent choice!

 

The second night was Lobster Night, aka Dress Up or Not Night. We ate in Crossings main dining room. For appetizer, I had a watermelon and fried feta cheese salad, which was SOOOO good. Very unexpected. He had a caesar salad. Then we both had the ginger crab bisque soup, which eas excellent. Our dining companions (a mother and daughter we met from Cruise Critic) warned us that the lobster was just a tiny tail with a small piece of fish, so we all ordered a second tail. I must admit that it was not the best lobster I'd ever had, but it was still lobster. And it was still good, just not great. All in all, this might have been the least memorable dinner of the cruise, although the ginger crab bisque was amazing.

 

 

Okay, so now I am thinking it is good to do Le Bistro on first night of three day? What do you think?

[tiggerfan616]

We booked it through Bestonbahamas.com for $42/person (and there's a $37/person price for children). NCL was offering it for $62/person. Literally, it's the exact same excursion -- you take the same ferry over to the same island and swim in the same area of the beach at the same time. The only thing that the NCL excursion offered that ours didn't was that they let them know that the tour was postponed to the afternoon, and they escorted them from the cruise terminal to the pier behind the straw market (about a 5 minute walk at most).

Thanks so much that is who I was looking at, but they are only showing 1 tour time on the website

[Dukegirl5577]

Thanks so much that is who I was looking at, but they are only showing 1 tour time on the website

 

Yeah, their website only showed 9 am, which is why I chose that, even though I much would have preferred 1 pm anyway. But the 9 am got canceled apparently (and they never told us...we had to find out from a nice man on the docks working for the seahorse snorkeling excursion) so they told us to take the 1 pm.

 

Apparently bestonbahamas.com is just a booking agent for Blackbeard's and every group that goes to Blackbeard's (except for the Yellowbird Party boat) takes the same boat over to the island (the Coral II), so it really doesn't matter who you book with (the only difference is the price). There's a 9 am and a 1 pm every Saturday, even if bestonbahamas.com only lists the 9 am.

[Dukegirl5577]

Okay, so now I am thinking it is good to do Le Bistro on first night of three day? What do you think?

 

Well, the reason we chose that night was because that was actually our 5th anniversary that night, but otherwise, I might have chosen the Sunday night, simply because I was more interested in the menu in the main dining room on Friday night than on Sunday night. That being said, doing it on the 1st night is nice, because it's a great way to start the weekend, and also because you probably have a little bit more time to dress for dinner than when you're rushing back from port.

[timeforadaiquiri]

Thanks so much for doing the review! I appreciate knowing all the little details.

[Dukegirl5577]

I know it's been said before, but Plantation Club has 2-for-1 martinis every night from 6-8 pm. They're delicious and relatively inexpensive. And htat bar is always relatively quiet. It's at the top of the ship on Deck 12 with a nice panoramic view outside at aft.

 

My husband and I both had the banana martinis, which were amazing. We also had a sip of the chocolate martini (yummy!) and I heard the pear was great, too.

[sspeechly]

Great review! The Sky is well worth the $'s for these 3/4 day trips.

 

Good to see you continuing to support Obama's plan................LOL

 

Sam