1/22/2006 Roll Call for Wonder Cruisers

[Tahoe]

And we cannot get rid of the 80° - 85° temperatures

We FINALLY didn't make it over 69 today! Yippee! So I can relate to you! I'm still walking around in sandals. BUT, it does dip into the 30s at night--roast during the day and freeze at night in our poorly insulated houses. It's starting to feel a little like winter now.

DD's birthday party is on Sunday (real b-day is the 25th ), so I probably won't be writing until next week, but I will try to keep up on the conversations!

Have a great weekend! (Is it really just 6 weeks away??!)

 

[num1tigerfan]

yet again more snow last night.....We had another 3 inches last night and 2-3 more are expected this afternoon, then the cold is supposed to hit. The are forecasting Monday night to be -3 degrees farenheit. Yes we usually get -10-15 degrees but usually not this early. YUCK. I will really be ready for some nice 60 degree Florida weather.

Kelli, did you get the dining linked? Seperate tables? My TA said she could to if she needed to. I did get ours changed to late.

Alvaro....go enjoy the nice warm sun for us that can't

Hope your party goes well Karin!

 

[dzneprincess]

Guess it IS mean when told to someone in Georgia... or Iowa... or ... Wyoming??? Sorry!

I cant complain to much! LOL I at least dont really NEED a jacket except for 1st thing in the am! LOL

 

[num1tigerfan]

I cant complain to much! LOL I at least dont really NEED a jacket except for 1st thing in the am! LOL

I'll trade you! I took Joe and Leah outside Thursday and taught them how to lay in the snow and make snow angels. That was pretty fun though, I just hate the cold. We got DD car fixed and she drove very slowly to work today but I told her I'd drive over and follow her home tonight since it is supposed to be pretty bad. How's things going for you and your family? We are thinking of putting up the tree today and decorating.

I ordered some motion sickness stuff for the cruise for DD just incase since she gets car sick so easy. Anything else I need to think about since I am a newbie?

 

[M4travels]

Michael--still waiting for your trip report! And your cruiseline comparisons!

We actually had a very nice time on the Thanksgiving week cruise. It was out of Los Angeles so there was no flight to worry about, just wondering how long it would take us to drive the 30 miles to port! We made it surprisingly quickly, only about 45 minutes!

Now, please note that this is NOT a comparison to DCL, so if you're looking for that best move on to the next post as our first DCL cruise will be the one in January (though if you look at my signature line you'll see something else is coming up!!!!). This report is also not meant to bash either of the 2 lines that I've sailed with in the past, just some comparisons.

This particular cruise was with NCL and it was the Norwegian Star, 8 days Mexican Riviera. We should have thought a bit more about what the make up of the ship would be passenger-wise, but we really didn't think parents would pull kids out of school as much as they did!!! Out of 2200 passengers there were approximately 600 kids. That was a bit more than I could deal with as there really wasn't an "adult" area to escape to unless you count the many bars on board, and if you were to look at my bar bill you'd make a very good assumption that that is what we did!! This is NOT meant to be a kid-bashing review, either!!! The vast majority of the kids on board were EXTREMELY well behaved, they just sort of took over the jacuzzis and pool area. But that was all right as I made GREAT friends with Ruth up in the Biergarten!

This is a line that has gone over to "freestyle" cruising, meaning you can basically do whatever the heck you want whenever the heck you want to do it (dining, mostly) as long as you can get the reservations in the restaurants that you'd like. Marc and I never ate dinner in the main dining room but availed ourselves of the specialty restaurants that were scattered around the ship. Some of them (4) had an additional cover charge (anywhere from $12.50pp to $20pp) and the others were all covered in your cruise fare.

I wasn't overly impressed with the buffet that was laid out each morning and noon, but at the same time, the kitchens are feeding 2200 guests!!! This is where I think Princess did an exceptional job. In August, while up in Alaska, the morning buffets were different every single morning. Yes, you had eggs and bacon, but the other offerings were so much more. On NCL I really didn't notice that much of a difference at all. HOWEVER, if you enjoy muesli, NCL had the most WONDERFUL that I had had in ages.... maybe I did enjoy that buffet after all........

Regarding the entertainment, I think Princess wins out. All of the Princess shows are produced in house and I thought they were quite good. NCL uses an outfit out of Florida, Jean Ann Ryan, I believe. (The spelling on that could be wrong, sorry!) The problem that I found was the music is taped so if there is something wonderful that happened performance-wise and you wanted to go wild and stand and scream and applaud for 15 minutes and ask for an encore immediately, it could never happen.... at least not without A LOT of work. With Princess (at least the ship that I was on) it was a live band and those possibilities did exist.

Ports of Call.... I'm actually not going to comment on these as we did this escape to, well, just escape. We didn't do any excursions and while in Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas we went and visited some of the old haunts that we frequent each time we're there. I will comment on Acapulco in that I didn't enjoy the time there. Now (once again, this is ONLY my opinion!!!), it was hot and extremely humid and I hated being hit upon by all the vendors who wanted me to go to their families market in the flea market area. Marc lost his cool (in more ways than one!) at this point. We really aren't loud guys and we're also pretty easy going (STOP LAUGHING!!!!), but this just did Marc in. We were back on the ship lickety split.

For those of you who are going to think about cruise lines that do "freestyle cruising," please understand what you're getting into before you board. We understood what was going on and, in our easy-going way, just sort of went with the flow. There were others on board who were complaining the whole time about this and that and the other and were demanding Guest Relations change this procedure immediately and were just NOT happy campers. EACH line is different. EACH line will have its supporters and its detractors and each will hold to their opinion with a vengeance. We met up with about 12 others on board and most of us dinners together. All of us had differing opinions on the form of cruising. Marc and I will do this again (especially out of L.A. cuz it's so close and easy!!!), but not all of the guys we met will. Some said absolutely not, others said maybe. Hey, to each their own, right?

On board.... there were LOTS of daily activities for everyone. For those who like to gamble, the casino was of decent size and the payoffs were plenty. There were 3 or 4 piano bars scattered around with someone at at least one of them at all times from the afternoon on.

Do you like having your picture taken.... I have NEVER seen so many photo ops. They had the Grand Atrium filled every night with 3 different spots for family pictures, formal pictures, group shots. You name it, you could do it. A bit overkill for me, I think. The spot to look at pics was EXTREMELY narrow and congested. I remember on Princess that they had an area that was quite open and easy to manuever through; this got quite claustrophobic.

One sore spot for me... BINGO. I love this game. I've played bingo as a youngster, teen, college kid, and now grown. This had to have been the worst bingo ever organized. No one seemed to be in control, though the assistant cruise director was supposed to be. It was extremely pricey (now, granted that was my choice to play the number of cards I wanted, but it was PRICEY!!!!) I only played once and refused to go back. Have I mentioned that I'm pretty easy going? Guess not when it comes to bingo!

Smoking - I'm not a smoker and I TRY not to harp on those who do. What was nice about NCL (and Princess) was that on the pool deck one side of the ship (Port) was smoking and the other was non-smoking. If you wanted to get a fix without lighting up yourself you could just walk on the port side. If you wanted to breathe the other air, you walked on starboard. No big deal! Restaurants were all nonsmoking. I'm pretty sure cabins are as well, but I could be wrong there. If you are allowed to smoke in the cabins you couldn't tell it by ours as it was as clean and smoke free as possible!

Also, this was an 8-day cruise. Princess was a 7-day cruise. I think the 7 days was just right.

Will I cruise NCL again? Yup, and I'll keep my frame of mind in exactly the same light. It was an inexpensive cruise (less than $100 per day for a balcony cabin) and the overall experience was just fine. Will I chose Princess over NCL? Yup, if they're doing the same itinerary. Why? I used to work for Princess and I'd be a fool to pass up the savings I can get as an employee (former). Also, if we sail on Princess at reduced rates, I can save up the money I need for Disney, both the parks and the cruise line!

Seven short weeks till we leave for Orlando, kids!!! See you on there and on the boards!!!

Michael

 

[num1tigerfan]

Thanks for the trip report Michael. Glad to see you made it back! I agree, I think an 8 night cruise might be a bit too long, but I am a newbie to cruising so I could always change my mind! Hopefully our DCL trip won't spoil us to other trips!

 

[kellib36]

Michael, thanks for the great report!!!



I’m hoping a Princess cruise to Alaska is in our future!!! Did you do the land/sea or just cruise? We’re looking at the train/cruise package.



You mentioned specialty restaurants on NCL. What all did they have?



Where did you go in Cabo? We REALLY enjoyed Cabo in May, but I see that Carnival also leaves about 4pm…..seems awfully early to me! I’d like to know why it seems to work that way…..wonder who’d know? Maybe the Caboites get weird after dark?!?!?



You mentioned about not knowing whether smoking was allowed in the staterooms….on our Carnival cruise, smoking was allowed, but it wasn’t noticeable in any of the 3 rooms I was in during the trip, but I did smell it as I walked by some other rooms, both with and without the door open. But it's REALLY strange if you’re used to DCL.



Bingo….bummer that it wasn’t very organized!! Here’s a (very old) joke….you do know how to make 150 sweet 80 year old ladies say the “F” word? Have another sweet 80 year old lady yell BINGO!!!!



Anyway, I really enjoyed hearing about yet another Thanksgiving cruise! Thanks!

 

[kellib36]

Kelli, did you get the dining linked? Seperate tables? My TA said she could to if she needed to. I did get ours changed to late.

Uh oh, I knew I was forgetting something....I'll PM you .....

 

[M4travels]

Michael, thanks for the great report!!!

I’m hoping a Princess cruise to Alaska is in our future!!! Did you do the land/sea or just cruise? We’re looking at the train/cruise package.

We just did the sea portion. I would have loved to have done land and sea, but it was all I could do to convince my mom to come on the cruise (it was mom and dad's 50th anniv present from the 6 kids). She HATES flying so she made dad drive from Michigan to Seattle. We did the White Pass Railroad out of Skagway so I felt we got some rail time in!

I believe Princess has a phenomenal land and sea package. If you've got the time, DO IT!!!!

You mentioned specialty restaurants on NCL. What all did they have?

There were 4 restaurants where you paid a cover.
1. Ginza - Dive into the traditions of the Far East. Enjoy the perfumes of Orient. Course by course you will experience an unforgettable Culinary Degustation, with a palette of traditional Thai, Jananese, and Chinese flavors. Your meal will be an enchanted journey to their land. A land where Chefs are Artists. (STOP LAUGHING!!! I'm just typing from the menu cover!!)

This ran $12.50 pp and had things like Miso Soup, Szechwan Hot and Sour Soup, Thai Chicken and Coconut soup, Tempura Shrimp, Asian BBQ Duck, Asian Pork, Beef Tenderloin with Black Bean Sauce, and Sukiyaki. You could chose 2 items plus a dessert. Additional items were $2 per plate. They also had a teppanaki (sp?) table that could seat 12. They took 3 reservations for that table nightly. We ate here once.

2. Le Bistro - Come and enjoy the romantic atmosphere of our upscale and elegant French restaurant. Course by course you will experience an unforgettable culinary degustation (dontcha just LOVE that word!!!).

This was $15 pp and was well worth it. Seafood timbale, asparagus, and escargot in garlic butter (which was heaven!) as appetizers; French onion soup, a cream of mushroom soup served in a sour dough loaf, and a beef consomme with julienne of vegetables served en croute. The consomme was as clear as it should be. A yellow-fin tuna salad, spinach salad, or Ceasar salad and then on to either a filet mignon (just like butter!!), salmon, chicken breast with a tiger prawn mousse or the seabass. For dessert they had a different flambe every night. We missed the crepes suzzette, but had a mango flambe that just sort of knocked your socks off! We ate here once.

3. Cagney's Steak House - the name sort of says it all.

This was $20 pp and we liked it so much (yeah, I'm a red meat eater) we ate here 3 times. Appetizers such as shrimp cocktail, oyster rockerfeller, crab cakes, clam chowder, French onion soup, Caesar salad; entrees were filet mignon, striploin steak, New York cut striploin, boneless Rib Eye, T-Bone, Salmon, Rack of Lamb, pork porterhouse steak, veal chop. They also had the various accompaniments; baked potato, potato wedges, garlic mash, rice pilaf, onion rings, asparagus, CREAMED SPINACH; dessert were cheesecakes, apple tarts, cheese tray, chocolate cake.

4. Soho Room - described as High End Pacific

This was $15 pp and we were going to go here the last night, but got roped into joining a small group of 13 up at Cagneys (I think I mentioned I was a red meat eater!!!)
Appetizers here included Sea Scallops, ahi tartare with caviar, vichyssoise with smoke salmon and poached quail egg, oysters; entrees included monkfish (it may taste good but it's the UGLIEST fish I've ever seen! Go check out some of the old Julia Childs videos!!!), Tiger shrimp, Rack of Lamb with Pommery mustard, cider marinated veal chop, and a veggie dish as well. You could also get caviar or foie gras here as well.

5. Endless Summer - Tex-Mex food. No cover charge. Best dang margarita on the whole ship. Very tasty food, but the wait time for our waiter/server to notice us was a bit disappointing. We did go here twice, once as a group of 6 and once as a deuce. The second time the food was just as good EXCEPT it was extremely hot. I don't mean spicy, I mean you could have gotten 3rd degree burns if it had been dropped on you! Someone must have complained about their food being cold because I can tell you that that was NOT going to happen again!

6. Trattoria - Italian food. No cover charge. We didn't go here so can't really report. What was strange however was that it was the 2nd side of the buffet up on the pool deck. Every night they reset all the table with tablecloths, created a cute little Italian restuarant decor and had table service. People were raving about how good the pastas were.

Where did you go in Cabo? We REALLY enjoyed Cabo in May, but I see that Carnival also leaves about 4pm…..seems awfully early to me! I’d like to know why it seems to work that way…..wonder who’d know? Maybe the Caboites get weird after dark?!?!?

We try and vacation in Cabo at least once a year. Marc's brother and SIL own 6 weeks at a timeshare right on the beach. We do our best to fanagle an invitation down every January (well, we're gonna miss this January cuz we'll be all of you!!!). We hightailed it over to the resort, Club Cascadas de Baja www.clubcascadasdebaja.com, to say hi to some of the folks over there. We then went to Panchos in town for lunch. After lunch we went back to the beach and I jumped into a parasailing boat and took off for a flight! I had always wanted to do it, but just never did. Now was the time!

All the ships seem to leave early. Princess gets in about 8 and leaves at 2. We were in at 7 and left at 4:30ish. I think the ships just need to get going to make their next port on time. It didn't really matter for us and the next day was a full sea day, but....

Bingo….bummer that it wasn’t very organized!! Here’s a (very old) joke….you do know how to make 150 sweet 80 year old ladies say the “F” word? Have another sweet 80 year old lady yell BINGO!!!!

GREAT JOKE!

Anyway, I really enjoyed hearing about yet another Thanksgiving cruise! Thanks![/size][/font]

Sorry this reply was so long!!! Yeah, I wanna go back, I've just decided!
Michael

 

[num1tigerfan]

hope everyone had a great weekend. it has finished snowing here and is now -4 degrees F.

Karin, Thanks so much for sending the pins. We got them already yesterday. The kids were really excited and wore them on their shirts all afternoon. Hope DD's party went well.

 

[M4travels]

Good morning, all. A question for those of you who have travelled on Disney previously. Have any of you shipped packages to the port to be delivered to your cabin when you arrived? If you have, could you please give any feedback on your experience.

We are considering sending our pirate stuff ahead of time so that we're not lugging too much but don't want to get into a situation where we might not meet up with our loot. We know that we should be able to ship it home once we get to WDW after the cruise, but would rather not pack it with the rest of our clothes.

TIA!
Michael

 

[num1tigerfan]

Good morning, all. A question for those of you who have travelled on Disney previously. Have any of you shipped packages to the port to be delivered to your cabin when you arrived? If you have, could you please give any feedback on your experience.

We are considering sending our pirate stuff ahead of time so that we're not lugging too much but don't want to get into a situation where we might not meet up with our loot. We know that we should be able to ship it home once we get to WDW after the cruise, but would rather not pack it with the rest of our clothes.

TIA!
Michael

I haven't specifically done this myself but have read many reviews on people that did. I even have the address and instructions of what you need to do here somewhere, I just have to dig them out. Anyway I was thinking of doing the same for the kids sand/beach toys so we are not lugging them around along with some of their costumes. If you want the addres just let me know and I can PM it to you.

 

[M4travels]

If you want the addres just let me know and I can PM it to you.

Thanks, Julie.
We've got the address but I'm just sort of nervous about the whole thing. I usually just go with the flow and know that all will work out, but I've just got a "feeling" about it. Oh, well... just bite the bullet, right?

Michael

 

[num1tigerfan]

Thanks, Julie.
We've got the address but I'm just sort of nervous about the whole thing. I usually just go with the flow and know that all will work out, but I've just got a "feeling" about it. Oh, well... just bite the bullet, right?

Michael

Yep, it's what I am going to do. Oh well if they for some reason don't make it, you could always just go as yourself instead of a pirate. I really don't think that will happen though as I read about people shipping down cases of water/diet coke etc. and never heard of any problems. They just said to remember to put along with your name, the ship name and your sailing date and cabin # if you have it. Sounds pretty slick to me. Hopefully the weather will cooperate, but anything is better than the -12 that we had this morning!

 

[M4travels]

Yep, it's what I am going to do. Hopefully the weather will cooperate, but anything is better than the -12 that we had this morning!

I like your thinking! Thanks again! (btw, only in the 50s here this morning!!!! brrrrr...)

Michael

 

[num1tigerfan]

For those of you that have cruised Disney before, I need some advise. How big of a deal is the pirate night. I am trying to decide whether to spend the money for costumes or not. If most people don't dress up, DH said he would feel silly. I do not want to waste the $$ if nobody else is.

Also is anyone else getting costumes for the kids? TIA. I just want to get them ordered if we think we are going to need them.

 

[kellib36]

Have any of you shipped packages to the port to be delivered to your cabin when you arrived? If you have, could you please give any feedback on your experience.

We sent boxes to the Magic before the Panama Canal trip, as did just about everyone else!! My stuff was waiting for us in our stateroom when we got to the room the first time! No problems whatsoever! I'd wrapped some frappucino bottles in some clothes and sent them, along with a few bottles of fruit water, our scrapbooking gift, our tropical night things, pirate night stuff, etc. Nothing was damaged, except one box really was trashed good. I'd taped the heck out of all 3 boxes, so even tho the one box was crushed, the tape held everything together. I was mostly shipping heavy things, including the glow sticks I had for my group gift.

I don't know myself, but I remember reading somewhere here on the Disboards, that DCL has discontinued this "service". I can understand why if some of the rumors I've heard are 100% accurate. Such as that one person shipped over 50 pounds of wine TO THE SHIP for that cruise.

 

[dzneprincess]

For those of you that have cruised Disney before, I need some advise. How big of a deal is the pirate night. I am trying to decide whether to spend the money for costumes or not. If most people don't dress up, DH said he would feel silly. I do not want to waste the $$ if nobody else is.

Also is anyone else getting costumes for the kids? TIA. I just want to get them ordered if we think we are going to need them.

Julie
In my experience mot people did not dress up (we didnt) but it was neat to see others who did.

 

[Tahoe]

For those of you that have cruised Disney before, I need some advise. How big of a deal is the pirate night. I am trying to decide whether to spend the money for costumes or not. If most people don't dress up, DH said he would feel silly. I do not want to waste the $$ if nobody else is.

Also is anyone else getting costumes for the kids? TIA. I just want to get them ordered if we think we are going to need them.

I'm struggling with this too now, mostly because I haven't gotten on the ball and ordered anything yet. I think, though, that if we (my family) don't dress up we'll be disappointed. If we are all in a group together at the same seating and we're all dressed up, we could have a TON of fun! From what I've read, the servers love when people get in the spirit. Okay, so I'm going to say that our family will for sure be dressing up!

 

[Tahoe]

hope everyone had a great weekend. it has finished snowing here and is now -4 degrees F.

Karin, Thanks so much for sending the pins. We got them already yesterday. The kids were really excited and wore them on their shirts all afternoon. Hope DD's party went well.

I'm glad they got there so quickly! And I'm glad the kids enjoyed wearing them!

Caroline's party was fun. She loved it. It was a gymnastics party at the local YMCA, where she has been taking gymnastics. The best thing for me was that it wasn't in our house! It was 2 hours start to finish. Perfect. I'll try posting a pic of our family. We finally got one of all of us together!