Cruises – Page 12 – Wanderlist Vacations

MSC Divina: Day 2 Recap

I woke up around 8am with a pretty good headache, which turned in to a full blown migraine by the time I got dressed and headed up to the buffet, so I admit my patience just want there, but if this morning was any indication, the buffet is going to be a bit frustrating this cruise. While I came in really excited about the layout, the reality of it exposes poor design for a large ship.

As show in the picture above (click it to see the larger version), very little is repeated, so when I got up there just before 9, there was a line for the only waffle & pancake station that was a good 30 people deep. Wanting to get something in my stomach ASAP, I just grabbed some rolls and cereal, and did two laps around the entire buffet before finding a spot to sit. I noticed several others feeling just as frustrated. The other issue is that the isles around the buffet are really narrow, so there’s only one thin lane to pass those in line at any given station, which really slows things down.

After eating and resting a bit, my head was feeling better, so I met the family for the 10:45 trivia. They had just finished making Christmas cards, which both came out really well.

So far, I’m liking their trivia a lot. Not the same canned questions we’ve had on other lines, these general knowledge questions were pretty hard. We got killed, but again, had fun. Interestingly, those looking to win some sort of trinket to put on display back home (ala Carnival’s ship on a stick) might be disappointed. In the round of trivia we attended night one, the gave the winners a voucher for the specialty restaurants, but no symbolic trinket. I never did see what the winners of today’s trivia got. Not a bad prize for that first one, though!

Our trivia loss behind us, we headed to the Black Crab dining room for lunch. Again, the food was very it or miss. The contents of the loaded nachos were cold. While they were still good, that struck me as odd, as I thought “nachos” was Spanish for “chips piled high with warm goodness” (I’m kidding 🙂 ). My spaghetti and meatballs were really good (and warm!), but once again, my desserts were split. The sundae was pretty good, but the chocolate duo was not, and left a rather odd taste in my mouth.

Jen’s experience also highlights something I failed to mention in the last post, that the language barrier on this ship seems to be a much bigger issue than past cruises we’ve done. She ordered fish and chips, and asked for the malt vinegar referenced on the menu. At first they thought she wanted olive oil, and after repeating that she wanted malt vinegar, they then brought over two other bottles that weren’t what she asked for either. Finally after her saying it was on the menu under this item, they figured it out, and 10min later finally brought some over. She did like the fish and chips once she got to eat it.

Our post-lunch activities included watching mega-Jenga, taking Italian lessons, and relaxing a bit before dinner. There was plenty going on outside, too, despite the high winds that had part of deck 15 closed. The pool in the Aqua Park was pretty busy.

Tonight was gala night, the first of two formal nights, and while the service was much, much better, the food was once again hit or miss. There wasn’t anything on the appetizer or soup and salad portions off the menu that I liked, so the first thing I had was my entrée, the surf and turf. I’m not a seafood fan, so I just ate the filet (but I hear the prawns were delicious). They never asked how we wanted the steak cooked, and all three of us got varying degrees of pink. All in all it wasn’t a bad steak, definitely better than some other MDR steaks I’ve had. Dessert was a warm brownie with ice cream. I didn’t see any mention of nuts on the menu, but there were several in the brownie. Not bad, but the lemon tart my wife got looked really good too, so I was second guessing my decision.

During our post dinner stroll around the ship, we walked through the buffet and saw what other reviewers mentioned, that it appeared to be barely open during dinner hours. At 7:30, there were only a small handful of stations open at the front with a few basic selections like pizza, hamburgers, and a few other small items, which seemed odd. If you don’t want to eat at the MDR, just be aware that you’re going to be limited on free options. Didn’t see anything other than tea or water on the beverage stations, either.

After walking the ship a bit, it was time to head to the theater. Tonight’s show was a nod to an old Jim Carey movie; The Mask. This definitely redeemed last night’s mediocre welcome aboard show, and was a solid example of the reputation MSC has for outstanding entertainment. Dancing, acrobatics, musical numbers, this show had it all! If you’re sailing on this ship any time soon, do not miss this show!

Here we see Smurfette leading the kids in for the show, along with the whole cast of the show, and a shot of the captain with his senior staff.

As mentioned yesterday, feel free to follow us on Twitter or Instagram to see pics of the ship and our stops along the way!

MSC Divina: Day 1 Recap

Embarkation is a love/hate thing with me. I love that I’m getting on a ship, but I hate the wait and crowds associated with it. We consider it another sea day, so we like to board as early as possible. While I’ve read others state that boarding’s not so smooth with MSC, we found it to be one of the easiest we’ve had.

Ignoring the 2pm time on our boarding passes, we pulled in to the garage at the port at 11:30. From that point, we dropped our luggage with a porter, went through security, and were at the desk checking in by 11:50. Not too shabby. They gave us a boarding card with the number 6 on it, designating our boarding zone, and we headed over to some empty seats to sit. This is where it got amusing.

Shortly after noon they started boarding. One little issue, however; passengers here seemed to be far more pushy than any past boarding I recall. A large group of people were huddled up by the boarding entrance, similar to what you see at an airport gate, and just like those situations, most of them had later boarding numbers. They made multiple announcements to try and get people to move, and sent a guy over to try and force people to make a hole. It only partially worked. You can see the crowd on the left side of this shot.

Regardless, our number was finally called, and we headed up. As I was entering the line, some lady about ran us over with her suitcase as she pushed past, only to stop at the top of the escalator to let us all go so she could wait for someone who was way back in line. Seriously people, you’ll all get on, relax.

Once on board, we walked around a little, checking out the Divina’s beautiful lobby before heading to the buffet for some food. The eats on the buffet were hit or miss. The pizza is outstanding, and easily the best I’ve had on a ship. The burgers and hotdogs were barely warm, fairly bland, and for some reason the burgers had mayonnaise already on them. I look forward to giving the buffet another run when it’s in full swing on a sea day to see if that was a fluke. I definitely look forward to more pizza, too 🙂

After a bit more exploring, we headed back to our rooms to unpack. Jen and I have a balcony on 9 that’s rather small, and has me missing our balcony on the Escape:

Bayley had an interior on 12 that has a better layout and more storage than our room:

Moving on, after an amusing 5pm muster drill that saw most people wearing their life vests when we were told we only had to carry them, we headed to dinner. We have early seating, which is earlier than we’re used to (5:45pm).

Being the first night, I’ll reserve overall judgement, but the service wasn’t the best, and the food was hit or miss. Bayley and I ordered fettuccine Alfredo as our main course, which was really good, but the portion we got was that of a side, not a meal. For dessert, toffee cheesecake and the cannoli. The cannoli was amazing, one of the best I’ve ever had. The cheesecake was just okay.

With dinner over, we headed to the welcome aboard show. The singers were really good, but the song choice seemed to target an older demographic, and we all agreed it was a bit boring. Being that the acrobatics weren’t a part of this one, we’re looking forward to the shows that do include it.

One quick note, this is one of the most beautiful theaters we’ve seen on a ship. There don’t appear to be any obstructed views, and the seats are comfortable, save for the lack of legroom. The seats also appear to be staggered in a way that attempts to avoid your view being blocked by the person in front of you.

After a little stint in the (smoke free!) casino, we hit the 10:30 trivia, which was an absolute blast, before heading off to bed. The entertainment staff on the ship has been great so far, so we’re really looking forward to the sea day activities.

All in all, a good embark day. With two sea days ahead of us, we’re looking forward to exploring the ship, playing some more trivia, and relaxing :).

Feel free to follow us on Twitter or Instagram to see pics of the ship and our stops along the way!

Opinion: Tipping on Cruises

This has been a hot-button issue as long as I can remember, and while I don’t expect my small voice here to change anything, I read something the other day that really made my blood boil, and I felt the need to vent about it.

We’re headed out on the MSC Divina for a Christmas cruise this coming Saturday, so I spent last week following Scott Sanfilippo‘s blog posts covering his time on the Divina. We know little about the ship, or even the line, so it was nice reading about his experience and seeing the pictures he was posting along the way. While reading his day 6 wrap up, this part stuck out:

(Side note: As I’m sitting here writing this, a couple is telling another couple that they removed their gratuities from their account over the missed port call in Great Stirrup Cay. Shameful and quite frankly selfish. The gratuities that are added to each passengers shipboard account daily are divided among the entire ships crew – from people you see every day, to those you don’t see working behind the scenes. The gratuity is what makes up the majority of the salary the crew members make, to pull that away from them over a missed port due to no fault of the crew or cruise line, is just unthinkable. Then to go and tell others to do the same? Ugh. I want to scream!)

Yea, me too, and I’m not even there. To recap: They had to head back to San Juan about 4 hours after they left the dock due to a medical emergency. This forced them to miss the next stop in Great Stirrup Cay, which apparently warrants removal of the gratuities for people who had absolutely nothing to do with the decision. Again, this all happened so the ship could rush someone with a medial emergency back to a hospital, which meant whatever happened was more than the doctor on board was equipped to handle.

That kind of reaction is unconscionable to me. Was it an inconvenience to their vacation? Sure, but how would they have felt if it was a loved one of theirs? I’m sure they’d have been more than happy to see the ship turn around and head back in that case. I know I would. Someone’s health was at risk, sorry you missed your port and had to “suffer” with more sea time and a short stop in Nassau. The Horror!

In my humble opinion, I have yet to hear a valid reason to remove gratuities from my bill. As numerous posts (such as this one and this one) have stated, it’s not just the crew you see that get a cut of your tips, it’s also the ones behind the scenes that helped make your cruise what it was. Other excuses I despise:

“The cruise lines should pay their employees a living wage and not make them depend on tips”: Okay, that’s true (I’d say the same for wait staff on land as well), but you removing your tips to “protest” it (example here) does nothing but hurt the people who worked hard for you on your cruise. No one upstairs cares, because it does’t negatively impact them directly. You want to change things? Write the CEO. Get the word out in the media. Do something productive that doesn’t involve shorting the staff of their income.

“Tipping isn’t a thing in my country”: Neat. It is here. Do the right thing and take care of the people who took care of you instead of thumbing your nose at the practice and refusing to tip. If you don’t want to tip, don’t travel to a region where it’s standard practice.

“I just tip the cabin steward and waiters directly and remove the automatic gratuities so I can make sure the money gets to the people who actually took care of me”: Well, in doing so, you shorted the people you don’t see who also worked hard to make your vacation a good one.

“My <waiter / cabin steward / whoever> didn’t do a good job, so I removed the gratuities”: Yea, sometimes bad service from a crew member happens for whatever reason. I’m not punishing the rest of the staff for one person’s bad day/week (we all have them), I’ll leave the tips in place and contact the cruise line later to pass along the issues I had with that one crew member. That’s just me, though.

Those are probably the most common reasons I hear for people to remove tips, so I’ll get off my soapbox now. All I ask is that anyone considering removing their tips take a step back and put serious thought into the impact it will have. A lot of people on these ships work hard to give their passengers a great vacation every week.

Five Delicious Eateries on the Norwegian Escape

The Norwegian Escape boasts 28 possible places to fill your belly as part of their whole Freestyle cruising setup. Being that there was no standard MDR with assigned dining times, we decided to give a few specialty restaurants a try, and pre-purchased the 3 meal dining package. Prior to this, I think we’ve only eaten in two or three specialties on all of our past cruises, so this was a big change for us. When it was all over, we hit 12 different restaurants over the course of this trip, including the free options and Supper Club.

We spent a bit of time trying to decide where to eat on the dining package, and after some back and forth finally settled on Teppanyaki, Moderno Churrascaria, and La Cucina. We set up reservations for all three ahead of time out of concern for seating availability once we got on board, as we only had certain nights available due to our conference schedule.

So how was the food? Honestly, it was all really good, which I wasn’t expecting. This is all going probably to come off sounding like I’m trying to suck up to NCL, but I mean every word of it. If we didn’t like something, I’d be more than happy to call it out, like I keep doing with the Supper Club. I truly left the ship amazed at how good these five restaurants were. Let’s take a quick look at the pay restaurants we ate at, in the order we dined there:

Teppanyaki: We love Japanese steakhouses. The ones we usually eat at are mostly chains (Kabutos, Nakato, Benihana), with our favorite being Kabutos. This blew those away. Absolutely delicious from start to finish. Service was great, the food was great, and our chef did an outstanding job. It really set the bar for the rest of the cruise in all apsects, as it was the first real meal we had on board. I had the filet and green tea cake. The fruit pic is my wife’s dessert, which the menu claimed to be exotic fruits. She liked it, but didn’t really feel it was all that exotic. Regardless, we left quite happy. One thing to note here, you never run out of rice. They cook enough for everyone to have at least two servings, so you can ask the chef at any time for more, as it’s sitting there on the grill staying warm throughout your meal. Another thing on the rice, they grill it up with garlic and butter, something we’ve never seen in this food genre. As my wife put it: I didn’t think fried rice could be improved, but I was wrong. The rice is amazing!

Food Republic: We decided to eat here on a whim on night three. We hadn’t planned to pay for any food above the three we’d already booked, but it was well worth it. You order everything on an iPad at your table instead of the traditional server-based ordering, and the food itself was outstanding. Jen had chicken skewers and sushi (don’t recall specifics on that, unfortunately) and she really liked it. I had the 18oz Wagyu bone-in rib eye and it was some of the best meat I had all week, and was perfect with the chimichurri sauce that came on the side, although it stood on its own just fine too. As shown in the picture (which I wish was better quality), it arrived pre-cut, and every piece was perfectly cooked. If you only eat at one specialty on the Escape, this one should be at the top of your list. As shown, we had a window seat and ate as the sun set, which made the experience that much better.

Cagney’s Steakhouse: Again, not on our original list, but we totally backed in to this one. Some friends or ours, also fellow agents, had been invited here by one of the NCL execs, Alex Pinelo, and they were able to invite two other couples along, with us being one of them, which we appreciated very much. We can’t thank him enough for the hospitality, and I have to say that the food, wine, and service was excellent! One of the best ship-board steakhouses we’ve eaten at, with our filet being perfectly cooked all the way through. Didn’t hurt that this happened on my birthday, so added bonus for me! We both had the baked potato soup and the 8oz filet. I had mac and cheese as my side (that was just okay) and the yummy chocolate cake for dessert, while Jen had the apple crisp. I think my only issue is how long it all took. Start to finish, I think we were there for more than two and a half hours, possibly three. I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth though, it was an excellent evening.

Moderno Churrascaria: I love a good Brazilian steakhouse, so this was mostly my choice. Any place where people keep coming by my table with meat is good by me. I don’t remember a lot about the salad bar, other than there being plenty of choices, so I’ll go straight to the meat. My favorite was probably the signature steak, which if I recall was some sort of flank cut. Really, really good. The sausage was also a favorite of mine. Mmmmm. In addition to the signature, my wife’s other favorite was the grilled pineapple, which was also popular with both tables around us. The only filet I had was the well done one as it turned out, but by the time I realized it I was too full to try the medium version unfortunately. That was the only issue I had all night, and only an issue because I wasn’t paying attention when he said it was well done. All in all a really good night, and as usual I left the green button up way too long :). The plate of meat you see was shot right after I realized that and flipped the card to red. The dessert is a delicious cake they brought me for my birthday, which could easily have been shared with three to four people.

La Cucina: We ate here on our last night, and scored a table outside. If the weather is right, this is definitely the way to go, the ambiance outside is outstanding. Eating a good meal out on a nice quiet deck at night? Yes please! We both had the meat lasagna, and agreed it was excellent. There’s a place near us (Arooji’s Wine Room) that has some of the best lasagna I’ve ever eaten, and La Cucina beat that. Hard to do, in my opinion. I’d definitely eat here again, especially if we could sit outside. We both had the beef carpaccio in addition to the aforementioned lasagna. I had the chocolate torte for dessert, while Jen had the lemon curd ricotta cheesecake. That chocolate torte was super rich, but I powered through and finished it 🙂

That about covers the pay restaurants we ate at. As mentioned in the last post, all of the other restaurants we ate at (Taste, Savor, Margaritaville, Manhattan Room, O’Sheehan’s, Garden Cafe buffet) were good too, with the notable exception of the disappointing food in the Supper Club for the Brat Pack show. We were very happy to see that Norwegian’s put some effort into improving the quality of the food on board, it’s definitely paying off. If anyone has specific questions on any of the dining venues we ate at, feel free to ask in the comments!

Full disclosure: I’m very much a meat and potatoes guy, and in no way claim to be a foodie, so YMMV 🙂

Norwegian Escape – First Impressions

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, kicked off by a cruise on the Norwegian Escape that sailed on 11/19, the first full 7 day sailing since the ship arrived in the US. While I plan to go in to more detail in future posts, I wanted to get one out on our overall impressions of Norwegian’s newest ship. First, a little history.

I’ve mentioned before that we haven’t cruised NCL in quite a while due to issues we had on our first sailing with them, on the NCL Jewel in March of 2006. The MDR food on that sailing was horrible, but that paled in comparison to an injury our daughter suffered to one of her hands due to negligence on the part of one of NCL’s tour operators. NCL’s response to the incident was pretty bad as well, and that played a big part in our decision to stay away from them as long as we have.

Fast forward to this year, and our company’s national conference aboard their newest ship, giving us the chance to see how much has changed with the line. It was just my wife and I, and we both went in with open minds. So what did we think? In a word: Redemption. We had a blast, and saw that many things have changed for the better. As mentioned, I plan to go into more detail on certain areas in later posts, but here’s the overall pros and cons list:

Pros

It’s a beautiful ship, not gaudy like others.
Our room, a standard balcony, was excellent. Having the bed next to the balcony door was great, there was plenty of storage space for the two of us, and there were more outlets (including USB ports in each of the bed-side lights) than most ships we’ve sailed. The bathroom layout was great too, with a ton of shelf space.
The food was much better than last time. We only ate at the included restaurants on 4 occasions on this sailing, with all being good. The only place we had food we really didn’t like was in the Supper Club during the “For The Record: The Brat Pack” show.
The specialty restaurants we ate at were outstanding. I’ll go in to more detail later, but the list of ones we ate at: Cagney’s, Teppanyaki, Food Republic, Moderno, and La Cucina. Some of the best specialty restaurants we’ve eaten at on any ship.
The “For The Record: The Brat Pack” show was one of the best shows we’ve seen on a ship. Again, the food in here was pretty bad in our opinion (as was the service), but the show more than made up for it.
We never felt like there were 4,000+ people on the ship, even when debarking in each port. Getting off in port went a lot smoother than other sailings on smaller ships.
The staff was outstanding. It can’t be easy dealing with over 700 travel agents, and they all did a great job all week.
The photo setup is cool. Whenever you get your picture taken, they scan your card, and your pictures are put into a specific folder for you in the photo area, so no searching through dozens of other pictures to hunt yours down.
The only slide we had the chance to ride (due to the others being closed during times we were free), but the AquaRacer is a blast, especially with the tandem tubes. There’s a shot taken from the clear section of it while Jen and I were riding tandem in my pictures below. Here’s the full video of that same run:

Cons

The smell of smoke around the casino is flat out bad. We noticed it as soon as we got on while walking around the Atrium, as the smell is already embedded in everything in the casino, and the ship only had two sailings prior to ours. The problem here is that it’s in a central area, being open to the Atrium like other ships in it’s class, so you have to put up with it any time you walk through there. They need better ventilation here.
The movement of the ship, even in calm seas, is more than we remember on any past cruise. It was rocking back and forth pretty much the whole cruise, and at one point even started getting to me, and I’ve never gotten motion sick in my life. Someone mentioned that NCL was using smaller keel technology, not sure if that’s true, but whatever the issue is, it’s very noticeable based on a number of people I heard complaining about it both on the ship and after the cruise. It also caused a constant creaking sound in our room as the ship rocked.
Lack of bar staff. There was almost always a wait at the bars when we went up to get our soda cups refilled. In most cases, there was only one person behind the bar, which during the day on sea days was problematic when there were 10+ people waiting for drinks of some kind.
Margaritaville’s setup is bad. Good food, and the same key lime pie from the main restaurants, but the wait was ridicu-bad. On sea days, it wasn’t uncommon to find a 2+ hour wait around meal times (we got in after a 40min wait on a port day), all while half the tables sat empty. We heard after the cruise that the kitchen in there was too small to keep up with the demand when full. Again, no idea if that’s true, but regardless, they had to deal with it. They’ve since changed it from a free option to charging for items a-la-carte. It actually started with the 11/28 sailing, which IMO is wrong. Announce and give people warning it’s coming, but to blindly do it right as people are about to get on just feels wrong.
I’ll say it again, the food and service in the Supper Club for the Brat Pack show were both bad, start to finish. Both can be fixed, so hopefully Norwegian listens to the feedback from us and other guests.
I’m not a fan of their “Freestyle” setup. I get the point, it allows guests to only pay for the food and shows they want, but it means having to plan part of your schedule ahead of time. We felt like we needed to make reservations for specialty restaurants and shows before we cruised, which doesn’t really feel “freestyle” to us. We also don’t like the lack of assigned MDR seating from one aspect: getting to know your servers. It’s always fun getting to know them, and in many cases they learn your habits and will have things ready for you that they know you’ll want.
The outside setup on the ship is odd. There isn’t much space on the upper decks to hang out on sea days due to a good chunk of the space being taken up by clubs. The open area around the main pool is tiny compared to other ships we’ve been on, and my own pet peeve, the only place to watch the wake coming off the back of the ship (outside of aft cabins) is deck 8, which has no chairs to sit and enjoy it on. Spice H2O takes up the other good spot, with a huge video display taking up the center of the back of the deck.
The main theater’s design is just, well, bland. It’s really the only area of the ship where my earlier “it’s beautiful” comment doesn’t apply. Additionally, whoever designed the cup holders needs to be reassigned. They aren’t big enough to hold NCL’s own soda package cups, unless you put one of their plastic water cups in there first and then put your soda cup in that (picture below).
The announcements from, well, anyone, were pretty difficult to hear and understand, when we actually got any. Example: when waiting to get off in ports, we never got any updates as to when they expected to be able to allow us off, or even where to go, so people were just sort of wandering around until we finally got the announcement that the gangway was open. On other lines, our CDs have been good with ensuring guests are kept up to date with any delays, where to go after debark starts, etc.
Show scheduling was an issue all week. Our early show the night we boarded (The Brat Pack) was cancelled due to cast illness, with them re-booking us for the later show, which was also cancelled. We ended up seeing it the next night, but ours wasn’t the only show with this issue. Million Dollar Quartet also had cast illness (heard later it was Jerry Lee Lewis) that resulted in them cancelling the last 3 nights of shows. They did fly in Tenors of Rock for the final night, which we caught, but whatever was going on with the other cast members must have been bad (hope they’re okay), we’ve never seen show cancellations like this.

Yea, there were a few negatives above, but all in all it was a great week that gave us a much better experience this time around, and we’d definitely sail them again as a result. I’m not going to comment on the cruise director, her staff, or any of the on-board activities they run, as we never had time to enjoy any of it. On sea days, we were in sessions for our conference and missed out on all of that.

I’ll be posting reviews of the specialty restaurants and our excursions separately, but in the meantime, enjoy some shots of the ship! Oh, and that last picture calls out one more highlight from the cruise: Guy Harvey was on board for this sailing!