Finally got all the laundry done...got the Christmas decorations put away. Tomorrow I'll have to go through the mail and pay bills and such here...then Thursday, when the kids go back to school, I can start back in at work on a fairly normal basis. Whatever that was.
I was trying to remember where I left off on the trip report. I know I hadn't said anything yet about Roatan or Belize...but I had a few observations about NCL in general.
Freestyle Cruising (eating whenever and wherever you want) is great in theory & practice. It's really nice to take your time after being on an excursion all day, and just say "Okay, let's wander up to such-and-such for dinner now". Or to just hit the buffet any time of night... The downside is that unless you really go out of your way to engage in conversation with the servers, it isn't any different than a restaurant at home. The automatic tipping has taken away the incentive for some of them. Not all...but some. My plan, if there were to be a next time, would be to tell our server as we were seated, that we prefer to tip after each meal, and hope that we'd get some interaction that way.
The only truly bad example we had of that was one night at dinner, Jay had corn chowder. For some reason, there was fish in his chowder. We've come across that with clam chowder, but never with corn chowder. Jay's allergic to fish. If he only gets a small bit, he can usually open his throat back up by drinking a Coke. He asked the waiter for a Coke, and told him that he needed it right away.....when he couldn't wait any longer, and the waiter was nowhere to be seen, we had Jared run to our room (thank goodness we were close) to get one of ours. The waiter never did bring one. (Thank you for the Pepsi, Monica...you may have saved Jay's life!)
The rest of the waitstaff was pleasant enough, and the service decent, but we only had a few servers who were really chatty and fun. I guess the better side of that was that we were always done early enough to get to the show.
The Port of Houston is very industrial, like the Princess terminal. But it fit its purpose, and they have it down to a science as far as getting people in and out. They give colored cards and call you onto the ship by color. The good part was this eliminates standing in a line. They had plenty of chairs to sit and wait in.
They took our picture as we checked in, they had the camera thing on their computers...I forget what those are called. I don't have one, because I don't know anyone else who has one that I could talk to "live". But it was funny the way the guy just held up the little thing and pointed it at us.
Checking in was great, I had already given them our information and passport numbers online, so all they did was check the photos, give us our key cards and send us on our way.
I liked that this ship had more pools, but they were salt-water, so they didn't fill them until late the first night when we were well out to sea. They emptied them each night and refilled them. I was always asleep when they did it, so I never got to see how exactly it was done.
I was surprised at the number of photos that no one ever went and claimed. On the last night, there was still a whole wall full of Embarkation photos. I don't know if people just didn't know where to go get them, or if they didn't care.
They had a Catholic service for Christmas, and a Christian. They had Hanukkah services every night.
The ship was small, but it was also pretty cool in some ways. The balconies didn't have any plexiglass...just iron railings. That was great for a short person like me...I could see out, even when I was sitting down.
There are stairs that go down the side of the ship...seemed a little scary at first, but once I got used to them, that was pretty cool, too. It was like walking right on the ocean. I'll have to post a picture so that you can see what I mean.
Anyway...if I think of anything else interesting..I'll post later. Heading for bed.
Only took us from about 3:00-9:00 and we broke for dinner and a trip to Wal*mart. Not bad. Gotta love the packing lists we've created over the years. If it's not on there we don't need it! 
