Tag: trip

Hello MSC Divina, We’re Back!!

It’s been almost a year since our last sailing on the Divina, and being that this has proven to be one of our favorite ships, I’m glad we’re getting a chance to check it out again and see how things compare to our past 3 experiences. It also gives me a chance to see how my “is the MSC Divina right for you post” has aged.

Kicking things off, embarkation. Generally, this is supposed to be a non-eventful part of the trip, just something you have to deal with in order to get to the fun, but checking in to the Divina for this sailing, I have to say was pretty frustrating. We decided to arrive later than our normal 11am-12pm time that we shoot for in the hopes of a crowd-free stroll on to the ship, this time arriving at the port around 2pm. Didn’t quite work out that way. After breezing through security, we arrived in the lobby to find one of the longest check-in lines I recall seeing for any cruise (if you follow us on social media, you may have seen my pictures of it). Upon entering the line, you’re split off into one of two separate lanes by someone working there, and we definitely ended up in the worst one. After about an hour, we got close enough to see what was going on. For some reason, the line next to us had roughly 12 people serving the check in counter, while we had 4. The girl working the front of our line saw the issue and on several occasions walked over to (what appeared to be) supervisors behind the counter to get things sorted, but each time I saw, her concerns were just met with shrugs. At one point they did open a couple more stations on our side, but usually only to relieve someone else leaving. By the time we got up there (almost an hour an a half after we got in line), there were only 2 people actively working our line. We actually tracked a couple of people who arrived an hour after us that ended up in the other line, and they made it to the check-in counter 10 minutes before we did. Ouch. Score one for the Yacht Club embarkation experience.

Once on, we dropped our carry-ons in one of our rooms and headed for a late lunch. Thankfully the pizza station had plenty of the four cheese variety that I love of theirs, so I grabbed a couple of pieces and found a table for us at the back of the ship. We wished we’d also grabbed some dessert at that point, as we arrived at that station a while later to find most of it (the things we wanted, anyway) had been cleaned up already. I guess the lesson here is to go back to our early boarding time so we don’t miss out on buffet items in the event of slow check-in!

After the required safety drill, we headed to guest services to change out our room cards. There are four of us in two separate rooms this trip, and we decided that morning to change up who was staying where, so after a short wait in line, the woman working the desk got us set up with the appropriate keys. As far as the rooms go, we’re happy with what we have. We booked inside rooms through the travel agent program, but early on logged in to find out we’d been upgraded to balcony rooms. They’re at opposite ends of the ship, but that’s perfectly fine, I’m very happy to have a balcony 😊. Bayley and I are in a forward cove balcony, cabin 9054, while Jen and her mom are in an aft balcony, 10275. While the aft balcony is very roomy (really deep) and has my favorite view on a ship, the one downside seems to be lack of airflow. It’s been pretty hot and humid out on theirs, so I like that I’ve got the cove to come back to, as it has plenty of airflow. My only issue with cove balconies is the lack of view, with the bottom half being steel instead of glass. No complaints here though, it’s a balcony we weren’t expecting, and it’s comfortable! I do have 360 shots of both rooms and will post them after I get back, as I’m currently having issues with the Ricoh Theta software preventing me from uploading full 360 shots.

For dinner, we’ve got late seating in Villa Rosa at the back of the ship. This is a welcome change of venue, since we had Black Crab on our first Divina sailing in 2015, and felt it was too crowded. We do prefer early seating, but decided to stick with this, as we also have a dining package that allows us to eat in three of the specialty restaurants, so we won’t be eating at 8:30 every night. After last night’s dinner in the MDR, however, I’m pleased to say that so far our dinner experience is vastly improved over our 2015 sailing. Our waiters were great last night, and the full meal took just over an hour, far better than the 2+ hours we averaged on that 2015 sailing. Last night’s food was pretty good too, but then again, I went with the pasta for my first two courses, and as we know, being an Italian line, they definitely know how to do pasta!

The evening saw us head to the Black and White Lounge for the entertainment staff intro. Pretty sure they used to do a game here, so a little disappointed it wasn’t something like that, but still fun, and there were plenty of people out on the floor dancing, so a good time was had by all!

Our first full day aboard also happens to be a sea day, one that we used to relax and let go of some of the line stress from the past couple of days (we visited Animal Kingdom the day before we boarded). We started off with breakfast in the buffet, and every time I eat at the buffet on board, I’m reminded of another reason I love Yacht Club. Eating breakfast up at The One Pool is so much more relaxing, as you’re not subject to the standard buffet crowds. The passenger behavior at the breakfast buffet this morning, complete with people using their hands to put food back on the buffet, made our lunch decision easy, skip the buffet and head to the MDR! Come on people, there’s a certain etiquette around food that just makes things better for everyone.

Our activities today were pretty standard; lost a couple rounds of trivia, Bayley played in the foosball tournament, we wandered the ship a bit, and of course attended tonight’s show, The Mask. It seemed like they’ve changed up the show quite a bit, which is a good thing. As I’ve mentioned in the past, we do enjoy their shows, and tonight’s performance was just as entertaining as part ones. Oh, I almost forgot, we also attended bingo this afternoon, and were happy to see the bingo boys are still around! I always worry that someone’s going to decide that it’s too juvenile and cut it, but frankly things like this are a big part of the allure of MSC for us. It’s nice to see an entertainment team that’s trying to have fun, and not just going through the motions.

One other change for us on this trip, we’re actually eating at some of the specialty restaurants! With the dining packages they have, it just seemed like too good of a deal to pass up. We’d talked about it on past trips, but enjoyed the food and service so much in Yacht Club on the last two that we never got around to it. Tonight, with nothing on the MDR menu that we were all excited about, we hit Eataly Steakhouse. With the dining package you get one appetizer, one entrée, and one dessert per person. As you can see in the picture, I went with the beef carpaccio, filet mignon (ordered medium rare and cooked perfectly), and for dessert, the bomboloni, which is three donuts with vanilla ice cream. It was all excellent, well worth the price of admission. The cannoli was Jen’s and it too was delicious!

We closed out the evening in the Black and White Lounge once again, this time for the Stardust dance competition. As with our last sailing, Bayley ended up being a judge for this, as knowing a member or two of the entertainment team has its advantages 😊. Good stuff, I always love watching events like this, and have nothing but respect for anyone willing to get up in front of a crowd like this and have fun on the dance floor. There are things I’ll participate in during the week, but this just isn’t one. Partly due to a foot injury I’m dealing with, but mostly because I just flat out can’t dance.

That about does it for our opening day and a half. We’ve got three ports on tap, starting with Jamaica! We’re spending the day on the beach at Sandals, so I expect to be completely wiped out by the time we board tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned, there’s more fun to come from the MSC Divina! Be sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter to check out the ship and activities!

Sailing With Disney – Debark and Final Thoughts

Finishing out my series on our adventure aboard the Disney Dream, I wanted to cover our debarkation experience and look back at what we liked and didn’t like about this sailing. If this is the first post you’ve read in our Dream series, I encourage you to hit this link and check out our previous posts first!

Debarkation was a bit of a whirlwind for us. We’d tagged our bags the night before and put them out at the required time of 10pm, earlier than any other sailing I recall. We’d been given Daisy tags, and assumed they’d be calling the characters in a specific order, similar to numbered debarkation order on most lines. We were wrong.

When we woke up in port Friday morning we started getting ready, and after Jen turned her phone on, she started getting a series of texts letting her know of a bit of a family emergency going on back home. This suddenly meant our plans had changed, and that we needed to get off the ship and back to NC as soon as possible, so we headed to guest services to see if we could get off before our character was called. That was the point at which we found out there is no real debark order, you just get off whenever you want and head down to pick up your luggage from the zone that matches your tag. That was a first, and boy was it fast. We headed right for the exit, and with everything going on, I never had a chance to get any pictures, but one nice touch as we exited was that the Captain was there seeing guests off.

After exiting the ship and finding our luggage, we headed for customs, which was also a breeze, as we didn’t need to fill out and present a declaration form. We simply handed him our passports, he asked if we had fruit, and as soon as we said no we were on our way. It might have been 30 minutes from the time we started walking down the gangway until we arrived at our cars in the hotel parking lot. It was all very smooth, which we really needed at that point. A+ for debarkation, it was nice and smooth.

Moving on, there are a few things that stood out to me over the course of this sailing:

  • It’s all about the Disney product. For example, on other lines, we’re used to the crew being introduced before the show on the last night of a sailing, but that never happened during this trip. Additionally, we’re used to the entertainment team being the face of your trip, but that never seemed to be the case here, it was all about Disney, and they made sure you remembered that. Not saying that’s a bad thing, just something different than what we’ve seen elsewhere. The experience comes first, just like it does in the parks.
  • Anyone that’s been to a Disney property knows how good Disney is at separating parents from their money, and the ships are no different in that regard. Other than the jewelry /purse “sales” on some ships, I rarely see people buying things like shorts, toys, or other line-specific gear, but this is Disney. The shops were busy most of the week, and I admit we even bought DCL shirts among other trinkets, and we never buy cruise line shirts. I’m sure they sold a number of pins on trading night, and a bunch of gear leading in to pirate night, too. I don’t recall a single sailing on any other line where I’ve seen the shops as busy as they were on the Dream.
  • The department heads were out checking on their areas more than on any other sailing I recall. That’s not to say it was in any way a distraction, they stayed out of the way, but it was impressive to see how often they were around making sure everything in their respective area was running smoothly. That alone made it obvious that this is a Disney operation.

So on to our positives and negatives. First up, the positives:

  • First and foremost, we had a great time. While it seemed to be busier than most sailings, mainly due to having a 21 year old that still loves the character meet and greets ;), the sailing was an absolute blast, and we’d do it again in a heartbeat.
  • The food was good all week. You can’t always say that about MDR and buffet food, but I can safely make that statement here. I don’t recall a single thing I had that I didn’t like. When you factor in the brunch buffet at Palo, it was some of the best food we’ve had any one sailing.
  • Our cabin service was excellent all week. We did have an issue with a misplaced item of clothing the first day, but it was located and things were good the rest of the week.
  • The shows were very entertaining, and offered sets and casts that overall were better than the vast majority of lines we’ve sailed. As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s hard for me to compare the shows themselves to any other line, because Disney has a catalog of popular stories that they don’t have to pay royalties on like other lines would, so it’s not really a fair fight. I will say that the singing and dancing was on point all week, some of the best we’ve seen on any ship.
  • Castaway Cay was awesome. One of our favorite private islands, and frankly I wish we’d have been on one of the sailings where you stop there twice. Having a separate area for adults was outstanding, along with tram service between all points on the island. I’d have easily traded our stop in Nassau for a second day at Castaway Cay.
  • The Aquaduck was probably the best water slide I’ve ridden on a ship to date. I’m a fan of the Aqua Racer on Norwegian’s Escape as you can see in our video, but the Aquaduck was better in my opinion. The night ride didn’t hurt 🙂
  • Rotating dining rooms almost every night is cool, definitely adds something to the experience on the ship. I just wish our repeat had been Animator’s Palate vs Enchanted Garden.
  • When you want to get away from the kids, there are plenty of adults only areas to give you some relaxation. A couple of different pools, and after 9pm, a whole “district” area at the back of the ship with multiple venues to choose from.
  • Having an on board movie theater with first-run Disney movies is awesome. Pirates of the Caribbean 5 came out a couple of days before we sailed, so getting to watch that on pirate night while sailing in the Caribbean was really cool. Add to that the snack bar (which does cost money) and ability to bring food from the buffet, and it’s definitely a nice touch.
  • We really liked our room, cabin 7004, a Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Porthole (OV). It was the first time in a while that we haven’t had a balcony, but I can’t say I ever really noticed. Having so much space (including plenty of storage) along with two bathrooms. Feel free to take a look around with this 360 degree shot!
  • The ship is in excellent condition, well decorated, and was always clean.
  • The entertainment options throughout the day were so much fun. There was so much to do that I don’t think we ever made it to any of the trivia events. The girls especially loved the drawing classes, something they were sad to see removed from Hollywood Studios. Getting to draw Stitch is always a highlight for Bayley!

The negatives, of which there were few:

  • Going in, we heard a lot of “this will ruin cruising for you due to that legendary Disney service” comments. Yea, none of us really agreed. If you’d never sailed before, the whole package (food quality, characters, the Disney experience) might make it hard to sail any other line, but we never really felt like the service lived up to that Disney level they’re famous for in the parks. I’m not saying it was bad (with the exception of my next bullet), as the crew was good all week, and the entertainment team was fun, but we’ve had service that’s been just as good on other lines, so I can’t really say it met those pre-set expectations.
  • The only really bad employee experience was in one of the shops. We wanted to buy a Pandora charm or two, since they have a couple they only sell on the ships, and the woman working the counter seemed less than interested in helping. We did buy one, but only after having to really push to get her to show them to us or tell us anything about them.
  • Something I mentioned in an earlier post, the dining speed. It really seemed like there were too many tables and not enough staff to handle them. That first night was brutal, taking well over 2 hours for the full meal (other tables had the same issue) and causing us to miss one late night activity we wanted to see. No complaints on our dining staff, they were great, they just seemed overworked.
  • The Midship Detective Agency apparently closes at midnight. I get it, most people doing it are likely well asleep, but Bayley was trying to participate one night while we were walking around late, only to find this had shut down a few minutes before we got there.
  • While the mixology class we did on day 2 was fun, we’d hoped that we’d actually be learning to make more drinks. We put together 3 of them, but in reality only truly made like 1 of them. For a couple of them, items that were part of the mix were prepared ahead of time, like some of the mashed fruits.

That’s really it for negatives, and none of them are really worth complaining about in my opinion. Our week on the Dream was excellent, and none of the above items took away from our fun at all.

In closing, I’d have to say that if you’re a Disney fan and have never sailed with them, you’re missing out! We really enjoyed our cruise, and would easily sail Disney again! They’re obviously a very family oriented line that provides a great experience for the kids while giving the grownups a chance to have fun as well. If a Disney cruise isn’t on your list, it should be!

Sailing With Disney – Let’s Get This Party Started!

I’ve mentioned before that embarkation day is a love/hate thing for me. Going in to this boarding day, I was excited enough to not care how painful boarding would be, but we still decided that we weren’t going to rush to the port, instead opting for a slightly later arrival in the hopes of avoiding some of the crowds. Well that didn’t really work, as in our excitement we still left a little too early :). Around 11:30, after moving our cars over to the cruise parking area at the hotel we’d stayed at, we grabbed a Lyft and headed to the port. For anyone who’s familiar with the area, it took all of 5 minutes to get from our hotel, the Radisson, to the port. So much for a more relaxed arrival time that would allow us to walk on with little wait!

After passing through security, we headed for check-in. For non-concierge folks, there are two possible lines you end up in, either the first time Disney cruisers line, or the Castaway Club line. Being our first Disney cruise, we obviously landed in the former. It moved pretty quickly, and start to finish I think it might have been 10 minutes before we had our cabin keys are were off to wait for our turn to board. Not too bad! Part of that check-in is getting your boarding group number, which in our case was 25, about 22 from where they currently were. No biggie, we decided to get in line for a picture with Minnie prior to boarding, which definitely killed some time, as they were all the way up to group 17 by the time we finished.

 

After wandering the boarding area for another 20 minutes, our boarding group was called, and it was time to get things rolling. One of the cool things about boarding on Disney is that as you walk on to the ship, you’re welcomed on board by name:

Once on board, we headed for Royal Palace, as we wanted to try and get reservations for the brunch buffet at Palo, and hadn’t been able to prior to sailing. Having boarded at 12:55, we only had 5 minutes before they opened the room to allow passengers to come in and request dining changes like this, so we jumped in a line that was surprisingly short, with only 5 or so groups in front of us. As you’ll see in a later post, we did manage to get the reservation, so that little victory behind us, we headed to lunch. We’d decided ahead of time to eat our first meal in the Dream in Enchanted Garden to avoid the buffet crowd. Not a bad call, other than somewhat slow service. The dining staff were very friendly and quick to respond to whatever you needed, but it seemed like there were too few of them in a space where there are too many tables crammed around each other. The sundae at the end of the meal made up for it, however. Amazing. That proved to be a common theme on the cruise, as their ice cream is delicious!

 

After lunch, we headed to the room. We were booked in cabin 7004, a Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Porthole (OV) all the way forward on deck 7. It’s a fairly spacious cabin with plenty of storage with a porthole that overlooks the front of the ship. One thing I really like about the room’s design is the split bathrooms. One bathroom with a sink and toilet, the other with a sink and bathtub/shower combo. Having another bathroom with its own sink separate from the shower allowed more than one person to be getting ready for dinner at the same time. So nice :). My only gripe about the room was the slanted front wall, due to that being the front of the ship. I intentionally chose that side of the bed (power outlet and USB ports in the alarm clock FTW!) and ended up hitting my head more than once. Really, that’s all I’ve got in the complaint department where the room is concerned, I really liked it. Here’s the 360 shot of it, take a look around!

Here are a few more of the room, including the bathrooms, and one of the couch after it’s been turned into a bed:

 

After dropping our stuff in the room, we gave Bayley a tour of the kids club since it would be the only time she’d be able to go in. As expected, Disney’s got a great setup down there. I posted some pics of it during our tour of it back in December, but to recap, some of the highlights include a Star Wars themed section where kids can fly the Millenium Falcon, Andy’s room from Toy Story, and large video enabled floors where games can be held. As we walked through, there was in fact a game going on at one of them, which Jen and Bayley happily took part in. Jen thinks they were frogs, stepping on the screen to throw out its tongue and catch bugs:

 

After a little walking tour of a few areas, we headed up to deck 12 to take in the sail-away party. Having mis-judged the number of people who’d be attending, and getting there as it was starting, our initial spots weren’t that great, so I moved around a little to get a better view:

 

It’s a good time, complete with a number of Disney characters, so if you want a good view, get there a little early and get up against the rails on either side of deck 12, or up front by the stage on deck 11.

After the sail-away party, we explored the ship a little more before heading to the main show. We’d been assigned late dining (8:15), which we normally don’t like (this trip did nothing to change that), so we were in the early show. The first show of the sailing was the Golden Mickeys, an awards-style show geared towards celebrating Disney’s vast catalog of movies. We do like the Dream’s theater, as it’s fairly open throughout, with excellent sight-lines in most places. They do use the forward balcony boxes in the shows, so the closer to center the better, but we sat on the sides a couple of times and had clean views of the stage itself. Couple that with snack bars just outside the theater by each entrance, and it’s up there as one of my favorite theaters on any ship we’ve sailed. Far better than whatever it is that Carnival decided to do with the main theater in the Vista.

The show is where I really started to appreciate Disney’s ability to provide outstanding entertainment regardless of location. Prior to this, MSC held the title of best entertainment at sea in our eyes, but Disney’s on a whole other level. For that very reason, I still categorize MSC as the best in the contemporary non-Disney class when it comes to original shows. When you factor in Disney’s vast catalog of movies and cartoons that they can pull from for the show (without having to pay royalties), there’s really no way for anyone else to compete, as Disney’s in a league of their own. The show itself was outstanding, with excellent performers and vocalists, a theme that held true all week.

The theater is also where I started to notice and appreciate Disney’s enforcement of the rules. Leading in to the show, they’d warned people multiple times that no photos or video recording were allowed in the shows, and as usual, people didn’t listen. What set them apart from other lines is that they actively enforced it. In Cats when we were on the Oasis of the Seas, a woman a few seats over recorded a large chunk of it fairly obviously (the screen on her phone was large and bright), and none of the staff members did a thing even though we were all warned before the show about doing just that. In here, the ushers quickly spotted those with even the dimmest screen, walked over, and told them to stop. It made for a much more enjoyable experience. I admit I did take one picture, but well before the show started so I could show our viewing angle:

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After the show ended, we still had time to kill before our 8:15 dinner seating, so we headed to D Lounge to catch part of the Family Fusion game show. Good stuff, similar to the Match Game. I didn’t stay in there long, I wanted to get some outside shots as the sun was going down, so I headed out to get a few shots while the girls watched the game:

 

After that quick stroll outside, I headed back in to meet up with the girls so we could head to our dining room for dinner. For those that haven’t sailed Disney, they have multiple dining rooms that you switch between each night, with your dining staff following you. For night #1, Animators Palate was on tap. That’s a really fun venue, and probably our favorite MDR of the sailing. Being that we had 4 nights in 3 dining rooms, one was repeated, and I really wish it had been this one. Beyond the cool decor, Crush is jumping between the different screens talking to various guests at their tables while they eat. If you’ve ever been to Turtle Talk with Crush at Epcot, it’s very similar, just in a dinner setting.

 

Dinner itself was delicious. From the top left, moving clockwise, I had the Black Truffle Pasta Purseittes, Baked Potato and Cheddar Cheese Soup, Ginger Teriaki dusted Angus Beef Tenderloin, and the Cookies and Cream Sundae. Like the sundae at lunch, it was outstanding. I could have eaten sundaes all week and been perfectly happy :).

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Our only complaint with dinner was how long it took. Felt like we were never going to get out of there, taking just over 2 hours from the time we were seated until we were done with dessert. One of the reasons we prefer early dining is that they actually have a set schedule to keep, needing to get people out quickly so they can clean up for the next seating, a deadline that’s just not there with late seating. Our wait staff was great, it just seemed like another case of too many tables for too few staff. It took so long that we missed one activity that started around 10pm or so. Might have been a character meet and greet, but I forgot to note it unfortunately.

Our dinner finally over, we headed to the Quest game show, which was followed by their version of the marriage show. Normally we like to play along during Quest, but getting there so late and being completely full from dinner, I really wasn’t up for it. There weren’t any really convenient seats for running up to the host, either, so we just watched this round. The host for both of these events, Chris, was outstanding. I highly recommend attending the late night stuff he hosts if you’re looking for fun without the kids :). In case anyone from our sailing happens to read this, I’ll close this post out with some shots from those games, including a picture of the marriage show couples. Couple #1 was one of the funniest pairs I’ve ever seen in this type of show, for reasons that should stay on the ship 😉

 

At this point we’d only been on-board for half a day, but were having an absolute blast, and for the most part our Disney cruise was living up to the hype. Next up, the ship makes its first stop. Did we get off in Nassau? Stay tuned! In the meantime, enjoy a few more pics from day 1:

 

Sailing With Disney – Our Expectations

Kicking off my Disney Dream cruise review, here’s a look at the expectations we went in to this sailing with!

Taking a short break from my Norway series (which I’m way behind on already), I wanted to get a few posts up on our experience sailing on the Disney Dream while it’s still fresh in my mind. I don’t consider a sailing on a Disney ship to be your average cruise experience, and as such I want to give it my complete attention for a few days. To that end, I’ll start by documenting our expectations going in to this sailing.

To start with, this was very much a last minute booking for us. Some agent rates opened up about 3 weeks before the sailing date, and the timing of it fit perfectly in our schedules, so we decided to jump on it. I’d have liked to have had more time to research things, but thankfully the Facebook group that already existed for our sailing provided us with a ton of useful information. We’ve joined sailing-specific Facebook groups before, but have never found them as active or helpful as this one. Generally we’d be looking at the Cruise Critic roll-call for whatever sailing we were on, but in this case, the group was incredibly active and I don’t even recall looking for a CC roll-call leading up to the trip as a result. For Disney sailings, I definitely recommend searching Facebook for a dedicated group related to your sail date.

Normally the first time we sail a new line we go in without any real expectations, but Disney’s a different beast, one with a land product we know pretty well. We’ve been to Disney World a number of times over the years, staying both on and off property. We’ve visited Disney Land a couple of times as well, including one last summer where we stayed at Disneyland Resort in an effort to compare the on-property experiences. In short, there is no comparison in my mind. Disney Land is fun, for sure, and offers a smaller park experience that has its benefits, but nothing compares to the fully immersive experience a stay on-property at Disney World offers. They’re exceptional at, among other things, making people forget there’s a world outside of the one they’ve created, a feeling we didn’t really get with the “on-property” stay at Disney Land. They’re also very good at customer service (something true for both sets of parks), and frankly, we went in expecting both to hold true aboard the Dream.

Past experience at the parks wasn’t all we were basing our expectations on, however. Additional things included our tour of the Dream back in December of last year, a couple of days prior to sailing on the Carnival Vista. Seeing the ship in person, we saw that Disney’s attention to detail wasn’t limited to their land properties. The decor was outstanding from bow to stern, and they were meticulous with upkeep. Heck, on the tour, all agents were asked to refrain from pictures in areas that hadn’t been cleaned yet or were in the process of being cleaned, because they only wanted the ship shown in the best condition possible. That’s the first time on any ship inspection that we’ve had that request. We were impressed throughout the tour, and having spent those 2-3 hours on board were really excited when the agent rates opened up for this ship.

We’ve also talked to people in the past who’ve sailed on Disney, as well as some of the normal contemporary lines, and have heard phrases used like:

  • It’ll ruin cruising on other lines for you
  • The food is some of the best we’ve had on any line
  • Their private island can’t be beat
  • You’ll need a vacation from your vacation

I’m sure there were others, but those were the ones that have stood out over the years. When you add it all up, we definitely went in to this with high expectations. We were definitely looking for that Disney magic they’re so good at in the parks.

Did the experience live up to the hype? Keep up with this blog to find out, as the next post begins my review of our time aboard the Disney Dream on the May 29th sailing!

 

A Short Sailing on Hurtigruten’s MS Nordnorge

After finishing up our stay at the Snowhotel, it was time to board Hurtigruten’s MS Nordnorge for the cruise portion of our trip. As you may have read in an earlier post, things didn’t quite go as planned, and we ended up getting off of the ship after only 36 hours. Nothing’s changed with my feelings on what went down both onboard the ship and since then, but we’ll get to that later. For now, I wanted to offer up what I feel is a fair review of our time onboard.

Getting from the Snowhotel to the ship was a breeze. Hurtigruten has excursions that allow you to tour the hotel when they’re in port in Kirkenes, so we were just able to hop on one of the tour buses when it returned to the ship around noon, and do so without charge, which was nice. Upon arriving at the ship, we wren’t quite sure where to go to check in, assuming we needed to find a building outside of the ship to head into. Wrong! We were told to take our luggage and board the ship, checking in once we got up the ramp. Check-in was an absolute breeze, too. We handed over our passports, she looked up our reservations, and handed us our stateroom keys. No real line, just get your stateroom key, set up your on-board account, and head to your room with your luggage. All in all it may have taken 20 minutes, counting the time we spent waiting on the people in front of us complaining about various things.

Once we checked in, we immediately headed to our cabins to drop our stuff. We had two cabins in two different categories, with Bayley having her own room on deck 3, a Polar Outside room, and Jen and I on deck 5 in an Arctic Superior. Both rooms were fine. Well appointed, comfortable, but a little small compared to your average cruise ship room, and quite lacking in storage space.

As for how a sailing on Hurtigruten compares to other cruises we’ve been on, well, it doesn’t. We knew going in that it wouldn’t, we selected this specifically because it wasn’t your average cruise. They bill it more of an adventure/exploration sailing, as your journey takes you through a number of ports between Kirkenes and Bergen. Some of the stops are short stays of 30min or less, designed to deliver supplies and/or ferry people/cars, so in those ports you’re not getting off the ship, but at the longer stops, you can walk around town, join an excursion if one’s available in that port, or even join the expedition team on an adventure in the area. That last one depends on whether or not your ship has an expedition team, which ours did. We actually put in a lot of time planning the whole trip around ensuring that we were on a refurbished ship that also had an expedition team. Well, that really didn’t end up paying off, did it? 🙂

After boarding and grabbing some lunch in the buffet, we checked out the various decks on-board. The ship itself was really nice. There are 7 decks, with deck 1 being the crew’s deck, and not available for passengers to visit. Half of deck 2 is where the cars are stored while in transit, also not open to guests. That leaves 5.5 passenger decks, with most of your time as a passenger likely spent on deck 4 (restaurant, guest services/excursion desk, shops), deck 5 (outside deck where you can walk around the entire ship), or deck 7 (panoramic lounge, bakery, sun deck). I would have thrown deck 6 in there for the outdoor jacuzzis, but they weren’t operational. Local law requires video surveillance in place, which they had yet to install.

Around 4pm, those of us who boarded in Kirkenes (around 40 people, maybe) met in the conference room on deck 4 for the required safety briefing. That mainly consisted of a video showing us what to do in the event of an emergency, including how to put on the cold water survival suits, yet another reminder you’re not in the Caribbean! During this meeting, the expedition team also gave us a little talk on what their purpose was on-board, and what sort of talks they’d be giving over the course of this sailing. Because of the change in itinerary, they were also responsible for giving us information on what had changed, what the compensation for the change was, and also hosted a Q&A on the changes. Frankly, this is where things started to go off the rails. During the Q&A, one of the other groups onboard expressed serious displeasure at the reason for the change, which was met with a very non-empathetic “well, you get to see the scenery”. Considering we chose this to be able to stop at a number of towns along the way, most of which were now cancelled, that response just made things more tense. If you take a look at the southbound map, you’ll understand. After Tromso, all stops until Bergen were cancelled. At this point, we didn’t realize we’d also be missing key stops before Tromso, too. Yikes.

After the meeting broke, we headed to the excursions desk to see about signing up for the midnight snowmobile excursion, something we were really looking forward to. That’s when we found out that we were getting close to some heavy wind, and that as a result we’d likely be missing the ports involved, as you get off in one port and rejoin in the next one after finishing up the excursion. While it was extremely disappointing, bad weather happens, regardless of where you’re sailing. That meant the only excursion we still had a shot at on the entire sailing was the midnight concert in the arctic cathedral once we got to Tromso the next day. I’m pretty sure that’s when all 3 of us started considering our options for leaving the ship.

After the disappointment at the excursions desk, we headed to our rooms to unpack before dinner. At some point during that time, we did head up to the sun deck for the first expedition team talk during our time on-board. This ended up being somewhat disappointing, as it was almost impossible to hear her unless you were right up front near her. We saw several people around us walk away indicating the same issue. I did catch some of it, with information on the area and birds that you might see if you were looking. I think it lasted 20-30 minutes max. Honestly, I found the idea of an on-board expedition team more exciting than the reality of it. I pictured a small team that in addition to giving the talks, could, at any minute, throw you into a zodiac and head to land for some snowshoeing up a mountain, vs a team that basically was on board to give short talks and walk around towns giving local history. Not saying that’s bad, just not what I think I was expecting. We didn’t sit in on any other talks during our short time on-board, and didn’t follow them around at either of our stops, so I can’t speak to anything beyond that initial meeting and talk.

At some point in here (it may have happened before the talk, I don’t quite remember), we had our first stop in Vardo. This was a short one, about 45 minutes, so we took the short walk over to Vardøhus Fortress, about the only scenery available in that amount of time. It was a pretty icy walk, so we were glad we had our ice grips with us! The expedition team also led a walk over there for anyone who wanted to go, giving a history of the place along the way, but we did it on our own.

Dinner was up next, and was delicious. I was expecting fish to be served every night, but our first night on the ship actually brought us some more reindeer, this time a filet. While I’m here, I should cover eating on board overall, too. All meals are in the restaurant at the back of deck 4. Breakfast and lunch are buffets, and are seafood heavy, which we completely expected. Dinner is a typical 3 course meal, and is the only time you have an assigned seat in here. When entering the restaurant, you are supposed to use provided antibiotic gel, similar to other lines, and you also have to scan your room card, so that the kitchen knows how much food to prepare. This is true for every meal, as they’re trying to avoid a lot of food waste. There’s no special dress code for dinner, just wear what you had on during the day, and no formal nights. It was nice not having to take a second set of clothes for dinner! No way could we have pulled that off having only taken one suitcase each.

We’d entered the windy portion of the cruise prior to dinner, so Jen and Bayley were already feeling pretty uneasy. After dinner, we headed back to the room so they could rest a bit. It was at that point when we decided staying on the boat really wasn’t an option. After discussing where we would want to spend our time after getting off in Tromso, I spent an hour or so looking at flights and hotels for that intended itinerary before approaching the guest services desk to ask about the possibility of getting off the ship. Frankly, we could have done so without asking, all we had to do was close out our on-board account and check out right before debarking, so upon learning that, I spent another 2-3 hours Sunday night getting everything booked while the girls attempted to rest and feel better. I briefly covered the new itinerary in the vacation reset post, and will be covering each stop in upcoming posts, too. Honestly, I don’t remember doing much else that night, other than dealing with booking stuff and trying to get answers out of guests services on a refund of our cruise fare. Frankly, I found dealing with the on-board guest services manager to be a pretty frustrating experience.

The next morning, after a little breakfast in the main dining room, we continued on our quest to get our refund sorted out, and figure out if they were going to cover our hotel stay in Tromso. It had been offered the day before, and if they were going to offer, we were going to take them up on it. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite come to pass as expected. Knowing Tromso was a popular town, and seeing that there weren’t many rooms left when I searched the night before, I’d already held one, as our existing experiences with their customer service left me feeling like they weren’t going to come through, and I was right.

The wind was still pretty bad, with us hitting gale force conditions overnight, and continuing on into the morning, so the girls spent part of the morning resting in the room while I explored the ship a little, trying to stay upright in the process. At some point, we also had our final stop we could get off the ship at before Tromso, in Hammerfest. We were here for about 90 minutes, if I recall, long enough to check out the area around the port, so we took advantage of it. We just walked around, checking out a few stores, and stopping in a delicious little cafe for some hot chocolate. Bayley and I agreed that they had some of the best (if not the best) hot chocolate we’ve ever had. If you’re in Hammerfest, stop in and give Cafe Cozy a try!

The rest of our day onboard was pretty uneventful. It pretty much consisted of packing, resting, walking the ship, trying to get an answer on our hotel out of guest services, and eating. Dinner was some fish none of us were really interested in trying, so we actually paid to eat at the little cafe mid-ship on deck 4. Jen and I had pizza, while Bayley got a burger. Not bad, to be honest. After dinner, I headed over to guest services one last time to settle our on-board account. It was “fun” having that handled by the same guest services manager who had promised more than once that day to get back to us on the hotel issue, only to have her not even acknowledge she recognized us as I checked out. Personally, all I ever wanted was a full refund, so I was ready to move on with life and enjoy the rest of the trip.

Around 11:30pm, we pulled into Tromso as scheduled, with the 3 of us hanging out on deck 4 with our backpacks, ready to debark. They do have a luggage room on deck 3 near reception, so after vacating our room around 8:30pm, we’d stashed our suitcases there. After waiting for the crowd to debark, we gathered our suitcases and debarked the ship one last time. Our hotel was around a quarter mile away, so we bid farewell to the ship, and headed out into the snowy center of town, excited about what was in store!

I’m sure a sailing on a Hurtigruten ship under normal circumstances is a cool experience, but in this case, it was 36 hours we were all happy to forget. In an odd twist of fate, we actually ran in to a large group of remaining passengers on Friday while walking around Bergen, so Jen decided to walk over and talk to one of them. Sounds like we made the right call in getting off, as they had at least one more rough day, and the last couple of days weren’t all that fun in general. None of them looked all that happy, and I’m sure it didn’t help that they were all standing in the rain outside the Neptune hotel Hurtigruten had put them up at waiting on a bus to the airport, also provided by the line.

One piece of advice I’d like to add to anyone thinking of sailing Hurtigruten: do your homework, and know what you’re getting in to. That’s not a knock on them at all, that’s a statement based on one family we ran into several times. They’d brought their 3 kids, all under 12ish, and seemed really miserable. When we first checked in, we were behind them in line at reception listening to them complain about the lack of kids activities on the ship and affordable excursions on land. It was quite obvious that either they didn’t research this, or if they used a travel agent, he/she didn’t do it for them. This isn’t a traditional cruise line, and really isn’t meant for young kids in my opinion. Based on our research and what we saw on-board, these are things that should absolutely infuence your decision if you plan on bringing a family:

  • There is no kids club, and there aren’t any kids activities.
  • There aren’t a lot of crew-led activities in general, outside a small number of expedition talks each day (if your ship has an expedition team)
  • Some excursions do tend to cost more than what you’d see on most US-based cruises
  • The average passenger age is probably over 50
  • There are a lot of potential add-on charges, including the water package for meals, WiFi (which was reasonable, and pretty fast), among other things. Work with your travel agent or Hurtigruten rep to be sure you understand them all ahead of time.

This is all stuff we knew and expected going in, but we also spent a lot of time researching what to expect. I’m sure I missed a few things here, too. Regardless, I went in thinking this would be a life-changing, bucket list type of thing, so the way it turned out was a huge disappointment to me. The idea of getting off of any cruise ship early had never crossed my mind, and to have to do it here was crushing, but led to some incredible memories that will be discussed in upcoming posts. Additionally, it’s taken a ton of time and effort after we got home to finally get someone in customer service to actually respond to us (copying a couple of key executives on an email tends to do that), but it looks like we have agreement from them for a full refund of the original fare, which was all I ever wanted in the first place, and we all felt was more than warranted given the reason for the changes.

I’ve probably gone on long enough here, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments, and enjoy a few more pictures from our time aboard!

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