Cruise Reviews
Cruise Line: Norwegian Cruise Line
Ship: Norwegian Majesty
Date of Cruise: December 17
A Trip to the Southern Caribbean With NCL on the Norwegian Majesty
By: Kimberly Ann Nolet
This trip was for our belated honeymoon on December 17th. We decided on it due to a good special NCL was running. Turns out that many got better deals on airfare than we did and they also booked through NCL/travel agent, so we were a bit peeved, but so it goes.
Flew in on United. Ok service. We had to wait 45 minutes after landing for a free gate. The flight crew entertained us by asking some trivia questions and gave away bottles of champagne to help pass the time and keep us happy. San Juan's airport is very small and pretty ugly. They are doing remodeling though, so maybe that will help. As a side note, we ate in the American Café in the airport on the way home. It was by no means spectacular.
DAY 1
At the airport we claimed our luggage and found a guy walking around with an NCL sign, so the many of us that came in on the flight gathered with the NCL rep who walked us just outside of the terminal (porters were available if you needed them-tip only required) to put our luggage into a truck that would get the luggage to the ship. We then boarded a nice enough bus to go to the ship, which was only about 5 minutes away. When we got to the ship, there was a big building that you go into, where they hand you a slip to fill out so you I guess can be identified as having to meet with immigration officials when you go to certain islands. Being from the US we never had to do that, but I know some others from other areas of the world did. I guess I don't know much about all that. Anyway, you need to have that filled out before you check in to make it go quicker. We had a pen in my fanny pack (man I hate fanny packs, but they are so convenient) so we filled ours out in line. When we got to the check in counter, it went quickly. Have your cruise documents handy, plus picture ID. They give you your boarding pass. Don't loose it! Then they take your picture a million times as you make your way to the ship-you know the kind that they hope you buy later. You then make your way onto the ship and to your stateroom. Many staff members are available to help if you can't find your room. Our stateroom was on the third floor. Decent sized with plenty of closet and drawer space for two people and a big window. The bathroom was tiny of course. Oh well, I had expected it all to be smaller, so I was happy enough. Our room keys were on the desk in the room waiting for us. Along with that was a folder with lots of info. Our travel company had arranged a bottle of wine to be waiting for us. That was nice. We stuck it in the fridge for later. TV had CNN, ESPN, a cruise info channel, port information channel, and an English & a Spanish movie channel with rotating movies. It was time to explore since our luggage wasn't there yet. We oriented ourselves about the ship. Went to the Onboard Credit Desk to open our shipboard credit. That went quick and easy since we already had the form filled out. It was about 6 pm by then and we were a bit hungry. Since our luggage still wasn't there and we were both in jeans and shirts, we just went up to the Royal Café buffet for dinner. Very casual. This was what we ate: Various hard rolls and breads, salad with marinated tomatoes & onion, zucchini & carrot sticks, deviled eggs (very bland), mini shrimp salad, bowtie pasta salad, loaded baked potatoes, I had the sea bass in dill-Chardonnay sauce (yum!) and a pork cutlet (pork wasn't very good), Chris had Roast Beef that a chef was cutting fresh for you with a homemade horseradish (good and potent!), fresh fruit, and great desserts. All said, a decent dinner. Went to the Excursion desk to book an Aruba excursion. Decided on an all day Jeep tour for $89.00 each. After more exploring, checking out the three other cruise ships in San Juan and looking out over the city, it was getting time for us to embark. We sat down with a few drinks on the pool deck and awaited pulling out of port. Drinks were approximately priced as follows: 2.75-3.25 for a beer, 3.75-4.75 for a mixed drink, $6 for a smoothie or a fruity tropical drink (in a souvenir glass you keep). Mixed drinks and fruity ones were tasty. Of course, no cash was used, as you sign for everything. The Captain came over the speaker system to announce that we'd be pulling out of port late, as a plane of passengers was stuck in NY for a long time and only now was on their was to San Juan. Expected time for embarkation was 2 am. Ugh. We ate the midnight American Snacks (bar food basically-nothing special), had another drink, listened to the band on the pool deck, along with introduction of staff. We walked around some more and hit our stateroom. Our luggage had arrived, so we unloaded and went to bed.
DAY 2
At sea. Temp was in the 80's. Great view of the ocean from our stateroom. Setting sail woke me up in the middle of the night, but wasn't as shaky as I thought it would be. It didn't wake Chris up. I had difficulty figuring out the hot water in the shower. You have to press the red button in. We missed breakfast, which was fine after our midnight pig out last night. Mandatory Safety Drill that morning. Just about a half an hour process. Boring. Went to Music/TV theme song trivia. Only about 8 teams played. We won. Oh boy, NCL can coolers as prizes. Went to casino. Dropped $20 in slots in about 15 minutes. Boo. Decided we'd had enough of the casino for this trip. We did go to the bingo game that everyone had free cards for. That was the last thing they did during the bingo session, and we couldn't sit through all the other stuff, so we left. Went to lunch in one of the dining rooms. They both serve the same menus. Got seated with an older couple and a single mom whose kids were out wandering the ship. You can ask to be seated by yourselves if you'd like, but if you don't specify, they seat you with others. Chris ate: Potato garlic soup (blaaaand!), conch fritters (tiny portion), and the club sandwich (very average). We both had the bread they serve you at every meal, which is always great. I had: the same soup, and some kind of fish (I forgot what kind) with rice and veggies (yuuum). Skipped dessert. Went to room & changed. Went to sundeck to read and tan. Clean beach towels available on pool deck. They have staff to bring you cold, icy towels and squirt bottles of water. Waitstaff are always wandering by seeing if you need bar service. Got a bit red in our 1 hour of sunning. Went back to room, watched a bit of "The Patriot", ordered room service snack on individual veggie pizza, fruit and chocolate mousse (outstanding mousse-bland pizza, but decent). Corked our wine in the fridge. Napped. Most afternoon entertainment didn't excite us at all, so we didn't feel bad about napping. Woke up, went up to Internet café to send an email back home. It was about $3.50 to send an email plus .75 per minute you were on. It only cost that when you sent email, not when you were reading incoming messages. They print you a statement and it's automatically billed to your account. Went to Credit Desk to make sure that our $100 as part of our honeymooners free package had been put on account. It had. Our free package included: $100 credit to only be applied to beverages (alcoholic or non), breakfast in bed (a glorified room service menu), 2 free cocktails, 1 free portrait, and a honeymooners cake & champagne party. Went back to the room to get ready for that party at 5pm. Dressed up, as it was formal night. We didn't dress up tooo much. I brought a nice black pants outfit and he wore green kakhi's, dress shirt and tie. Many were quite a bit dressed up. Looked like Prom, as many teens were on board. If you didn't want to dress up, there were other dining choices. Party was short and sweet. Lots of free champagne. More pictures being taken. Every night they were running around taking your pictures. Went to Rendezvous lounge. Awesome bar area! Very quiet and relaxed, lounge entertainment, great bar staff. John and Kresna were awesome bartenders. Chris taught them how to pour a Guinness beer from the tap. Figured that it was late and they would probably let us in the dining room even though we were not dressed up as much as many were. We requested a table by ourselves and everything was fine. We drank too much. Food was good. Both of us had the Wild Mushroom Bisque and Gala Salad. Very good. Chris had the Bourbon Shrimp and I had a wonderful crusted grouper. The chocolate mousse for dessert was unlike the mousse from room service and I was disappointed. Fewer calories for me I guess. We went back to the Rendezvous after a quick stop in the jewelry store on board. Chris was looking for a watch. We debated if we should shop for it on the islands or not. We don't like to shop that much. I looked at cheap cocktail rings. Nothing too great that I felt I needed. Beautiful selection of jewelry and other items in the shop though. NCL has a price guarantee that if you find the same item on shore cheaper, they'll refund you the money. After some drinks in the bar, I led Chris back to the room, as he was in no shape to be up drinking anymore!
DAY 3
Aruba. We slept til 7 and pulled ourselves out of bed to get ready for our 8:15 tour we had scheduled. I had put a card out before we went to bed the night before so that we'd have room service breakfast ready. I knew I'd be hungry and "hangover boy" wouldn't be, so I figured that was an easy solution. Breakfast was bad. Milk (it was whole-I assumed it would at least be 2%-your other choice is skim which you must specify), oj, hard rolls (but they were out of a sweet bread and mushy-yuck), muffins (fruitcake-eew!), danishes and fruit. Went off the ship-they have towels for checkout when you go off the ship, so get them if you have beaches/snorkeling type activities. Guides outside to point you to the correct tour bus and take your tour tickets. Bus took us to the jeep rental place. Chris was feeling horrible. Our tour guide welcomes us and tells us that we will have 4 to a jeep, so pair up with others and he will need to see a driver's license if you will drive at all. If you didn't have a license with you, they had waivers to fill out. Kinda funny. Jeeps were actually all early to mid 90's Suzuki's-manual transmissions. Oh boy. Ours didn't even have seatbelts in back. They were all open- no cover. Therefore this tour was known as "the shake and bake" tour. For $89/person, what did I expect? Anyway, we hooked up with a couple about our age from Texas and hit the road with 6 other vehicles plus the guides Suzuki. Drove along city roads past the hotel area-very nice resorts. Then some nice home areas he referred to as "Aruba's Beverly Hills." Then we visited the California Lighthouse. We stopped for a little history lesson from the guide and picture taking. Chris excused himself to the bathroom during all of this. He came back feeling much better! From the lighthouse (not much to see, but nice views of the areas we had just drove by and the coastline). Aruba's golf course also there. Aruba is very windy, as a side note. Drove on for a bit and started off-roading it. Wow, were these roads bad! The whole island is barren and covered with coral and rocks. Lots of washed out dirt roads. The "shake" of "shake and bake" could now been experienced! Pulled up next to a rocky coastal area called wish beach, or something like that. This is the big area where people can partake in the great Aruban hobby of rock stacking. In all seriousness, they believe that if you stack three rocks (one for health, one for wealth, and one for happiness) by the sea, it will come true. Turns out we see these rock stacks alllllll over the island. Therefore we kind of started to make a joke of it. We made our wish rocks though and took some pictures with some sea spray against the rocks. We then drove up to a water storage tower, which happens to be on a very high hill (still on some bad roads!) to take some nice island overview pictures. Then off to a Spanish settlement church. Spoke of religious items and history. A funny thing that happened in this time is that on the way up that one hill, the Lords Prayer was written on signs. One line per sign, kind of like the old Burma Shave Billboards. On the way down the hill, Hail Mary was on the back of the signs. Odd. Then it was off to the gold mine/fort ruins. Very neat looking, got some good pictures. You could climb around, but not any more than the ruins to see there. Off next to the Natural Bridge. It was Aruba's first major tourist attraction. They are very proud of it. It was pretty, but again, just nice views, not much else. There were refreshments and a gift shop there. Now we hit the most off-roading I'd ever done in my life. It was actually very scary in spots. Chris was driving at that point. It's a good thing I trust him! We drove through the Arikok National Park area. Not real exciting, just rocky. Went next into town to catch a ferry over to DePalm Island to have lunch and snorkel (which was included in the tour). Lunch was good-BBQ chicken and ribs, rice, veggies, rolls and fruit. Got our snorkel gear. Were able to rent lockers in the women's changing room area from waitress by the snorkel rental. It was $5 plus a refundable $5 for deposit. Snorkel gear was a believe $10 for complete set (snorkel, mask, and feet). Anyway, went out snorkeling. Word to the wise for first timers (like I was): Test your mask first to make sure it fits. Mine didn't, but I was already out there when I realized it. Still I got some snorkeling in, but didn't enjoy the salt water I inhaled! We forgot our underwater disposable. Too bad, because there were lots of nice fish out. After awhile there, we went back to return the jeeps, bus took us back to ship. Got back on ship, took a shower and went to dinner. We figured we'd eat on ship since we were really trying to watch our money and we had a good authentic lunch. Chris had: Coconut curried chicken salad, a wonderful pumpkin lobster bisque, spinach salad with honey yogurt dressing, steak with a fruit based sauce, and we both had the cake that I forgot the name of. It's layers of chocolate, strawberry, pineapple and such. I had a great appetizer of shrimp, mussels, grouper with fruit salsa and jalapeno lime marinade, spinach salad, and Mahi Mahi with fruit salsa (very good!). Tried a bite of macadamia nut ice cream too-yum! Waitstaff did a fun conga line through the dining room. Not a bad idea to take your camera to dinner at nights. You can catch some fun stuff. We took a disposable camera for those occasions so we could slip it in a pocket and carry it around. Went back on the island at about 7:30pm since we didn't leave port til 1 am. Island was dead! No shops were open. We hear that Carols and Charlie's was hopping til late at night. Chris's previous night of drinking made us shy away that night though. We went to the gas station outside the ship and bought 1 liter of Coke and 1 liter of water for $5 to put in our fridge. Much cheaper than buying it on board. Noted to myself that I needed to get a bottle of rum tomorrow to sneak back on board & I could then drink rum and cokes in the room. Took some pretty nighttime pictures of the ship in port. Went back onto ship. Checked out the comedian Phil Tagg that night. Pretty funny show. Went back to room, finished our wine from the night before and went to bed.
Final thoughts on Aruba: not nearly as beautiful as I thought it would be. Very barren and rocky. Make sure to wear plenty of sunscreen when you are out all day! Too windy for hats generally on the Jeep tour. Girls wear your hair up if possible! My snarls were bad! Harley Davidson and scooters available for rent, but off-roading was very cool. Resorts seemed very beautiful.
DAY 4
Curacao. Found out it's pronounced "Kur-a-sow" , not "Kur-a-co". Call me a Midwesterner. Our wake up call didn't work today. Since we had no NCL booked tours planned, we woke up somewhat leisurely and went to breakfast in the dining room. Chris had a made to order omelet; I had poached eggs with artichokes and parmesan. Pretty good for both of us. Our skim milk was served lukewarm. Toast cold. Muffin boring. Nice selection of main courses though.
Got off ship around 9 am with no direction. Immediately taken by the charm of the island. It has a huge noticeable Dutch influence. Colorful buildings (tours explain how that came to be), and many neat features. Much of it reminded me of a New Orleans atmosphere. Decided to go over the neat footbridge into the shopping area. Considering we don't like to shop, that was a bust. Tried to find scooter rental to tour the island. No luck. Chris was getting frustrated. I suggested we try to rent a taxi for a few hours to show us the sights. He just thought that was a hassle and said we should try to get on an afternoon NCL tour. I tried to appease him and we went back to the ship. Shore excursion desk was closed. I convinced him we should get a taxi, so we headed back outside. There was a tour recruiter there at the end of the gangway. Only $15 per person, for an air-conditioned bus tour of the whole island that would take about 3 hours. We would also have to pay a $6 entrance fee per person if we wanted to go into the Hato Caves. The tour started at 1:00. Perfect timing! As it turned out, since we got off the ship late, all those kinds of private tour vendors were already off on the morning tours. We were instantly happy! We had time to go back on the ship and have a leisurely lunch before the tour left. We went to eat at the Royal Café for the buffet style lunch. Pretty much the same thing we had the first time we ate there. Great chocolate éclair for dessert! Tour bus left a little late, but we had a very nice, easy to understand guide. Stopped on their very tall bridge that connects the two halves of Curacao. Got some very nice pictures. Went to Curacao liquor factory. No real tour, but an explanation of how it's made, samples of the liquor and medicine they made from the liquor. Bought some bottles at decent prices. Went to visit a beautiful home area. On top of the hill we went to a home that was converted to a scenic overview and gift shop. Again, got some nice pics of the other side of the island. Had a locally brewed Amstel Beer. Drove though town. Very nicely kept up areas. Got some nice info on local customs and history. Proceeded to the Hato Caves. These are naturally formed caves that are like many you may have toured, but lots of neat coral and you actually walk through a bat filled area! Some people didn't like that part some much! Very pretty-make sure to bring your camera! Saw the airport, lots of goats and flamingos, oil refinery, told of unique government housing programs to promote home ownership. All in all, a very nice island. Our favorite in many ways of the trip. Got back into town, ran to the liquor store to buy some rum. Got a bottle of Curacao rum for $7. I put it in my tote bag and they never check your bags getting back onto ship. I don't even think the metal detector they have you walk through actually does anything. It think it is there for intimidation. If you do bring in liquor that they see, they take it, write your name and stateroom number on it, and it gets stored until the last night of the cruise when it is delivered to your stateroom. No big deal. Had a cocktail back in the room and went to dinner. Ate in the dining room after we watched the ship pull out of port. We never seem to have to wait in line at dinner, but we've seen many times there were lines. Before 6 and after 8 seem to be the best times to dine. Chris had the Crab Chowder, garden salad, and tenderloin with mushrooms. I had the Gueryre cheese crepes, beef consume (bland), and the tenderloin. Skipped dessert. Went to Rendezvous for drinks. Chris started to get sea sick that night, as waters were choppy, so we went for a walk around deck 7 for some fresh air. Went up on pool deck to sit and I had a drink. Drink of the day-small- for 3.85. I guess that was ok. It was awfully empty up on the pool deck tonight. Usually that is where many teens and singles hung out at night. Usually a little band playing up there. Went to bed fairly early.
DAY 5
At sea. Woke up to 9 am room service for our Honeymooners Breakfast. It was pretty good. Chris had an omelet and I had eggs benedict. Waves were very choppy. Went up to jewelry store on board and checked out the watch sale. Decent watches, but Chris didn't like many of them. Stopped in at gift shop since it wasn't crowded as usual. Chris began to get sick so we went back to the room. He decided that he was too seasick and needed to rest for most of the day. I wandered around, had a drink, read a book on deck 7 outside. At 2pm Chris awoke feeling better. We went up to the Royal Café to grab a late lunch. A little different selection today. A cold mushroom a chicken salad that I put on my salad, fresh carved lamb, roasted potatoes, and nice desserts. Got books and went to sit on deck 7 again to read. After I almost fell asleep in my lounge chair, I decided to go back and take a nap. Watched movies for awhile, ordered room service at about 5 for a snack since we had very little for lunch. Chris had the roast beef sandwich (boring) and I had my standard fruit and chocolate mousse. Drank some rum and cokes. At 7:30 we decided to get dressed for dinner and go wander before eating. We checked our email, found out Chris typed one address wrong, so nobody got the email we sent. Wasted money. At 8:30 we decided that the dining room menu didn't sound very good, so we decided to check out the Royal Observatory. It is a pasta dining room. Very quiet, dark, and a nice view. We both had the Crème de Pomadoro (tomato with leeks and basil soup), Caesar salad (kind of boring) then Chris had the Pork medallions with stirfried vegetables with Penne in a cream sauce (yum!), and I had bowtie pasta in a tomato sauce with prochuito (boring). Dessert was excellent-a raspberry sherbet with Chardonnay soaked grapes. A very good experience. Romantic. Went to have a drink in the Rendezvous. There was an excellent piano player that night. Went for a walk and retired for the evening.
DAY 6
Tortola. Watched us pull into port despite another wake up call not working. Had breakfast in the Royal Café. I had cereal, a roll, bacon and potatoes. Chris tried the French toast. Eggs looked gross and runny-must have been powdered. Disappointing breakfast. Went ashore. Found a tour bus available for $15 each to take us around the entire island. Glad we didn't rent a car as we intended and tour ourselves, as roads were skinny, steep, and traffic was bad. Botanical Gardens were nice. Small, but nice. Wild chickens were all over. Lots of picturesque views of Atlantic and Caribbean on the high elevation roads. Very lush and hilly island, but it seems fairly impoverished. Stopped at Cane Garden Bay and lounged at the beach for an hour on the tour. It rained for less than 5 minutes, then cleared and was sunny again. Seagulls were funny, diving in and out of the water. Had drinks at a beachside bar with some disgusting bathroom. Decided not to grab a snack there. Went up the road to a hilarious rum distillery. It looked like an 1800's moonshine distillery. No electricity, no windows in the building, two men working. HAD to buy a bottle of rum from there-it was only $5 for the white, $6 for the dark and more for spiced. And they let you sample. Took a long drive back along the coastline to the ship. Had lunch in the dining room. Chris had the Chicken Cordon Bleu (good). I had the Mushroom Cheese Crepes (pretty good). Both had Gumbo. I had the seafood quiche appetizer-yummmm! Chris had a yummy chocolate cheesecake and I had a mediocre bread pudding. Walked the short trek to downtown to do some shopping. Bought some neat spices and such at Sunny Caribe. I recommend going in there. Went to Pussers to buy Rum. Neat place. I hear they make good Painkiller drinks there and the food is pretty good. They have some good spices, etc too and some neat nautical items. Took some pictures of the Methodist Church, as Chris's parents are both ministers. Went back to ship with our big 6 pack of rum and some spices. Checked the liquor with the desk so it would be kept by them til the last night. No big deal. Went to Shore Excursion desk and booked a San Juan Rainforest tour. Went to take a nap. Had an early dinner, as the Chocolate Buffet was at midnight. Chris had French Onion Soup, Chicken fingers with an orange horseradish sauce, salad with champagne dressing, and steak Diane. I had Pheasant consume (yuck), strawberry salad (delicious), and lobster. They come and shell your lobster for you. How nice! No dessert tonight! Went to jewelry shop on board and bought the Fossil watch Chris had his eye on for $67.00. Also bought two T-shirts for $20. Hung out at Rendezvous and met up with some other honeymooners. Swapped stories and had a good time. Walked deck 7. Went to chocolate buffet. Long line. Unfortunately everything was cut into by the time we got there so pictures weren't as nice as I'd hoped. Too many big pieces of cake & tortes. I hoped for more bite-sized things. There were some though. Lots of stuff kind of tasted the same. Dipped fruit, brownies were dry, ice cream…some good cakes, tortes. Lots of choices, but they give you a tiny plate. Boo.
DAY 7
St. Thomas. Woke up without a wake up call (I gave up on that) and went to Royal Café to have the omelet chef make us breakfast. Usually a line, but we were doing a fairly late breakfast, so we didn't wait long. Decided not to do a tour of St. Thomas, but to shop more and if something presented itself, we'd do it. Downtown was a big hike away, better to grab a taxi. We started by shopping the area by the cruise ships. Didn't find a whole lot, but not bad stores if you don't want to go downtown. Some guy stopped us to see if we'd do a tour of Bluebeards Castle and listen to a 1 hour timeshare presentation. We'd get a free bottle of rum, a $25 gift certificate good for many attractions and stores on the island, and a choice of free airline tickets (with minimum stay at timeshare hotels at your expense), a 3 day Bahamas cruise (I'm sure it's on an old boat & you have to get to Florida on your own), or 3 nights hotel free at one of their timeshares. We said why not. They took us up to the resort. It gave us a gorgeous view and people were nice. Took some good pictures of St. Thomas. Timeshare was a decent deal, but we couldn't even think of it right now. Got our free rum (Cruzan 2 year old dark), airline tickets (in retrospect, should've taken hotel stay), and the $25. Gave us a free taxi to wherever we wanted to go. We went downtown. Found it very clean and nice. Lots of unique shops. Bought some nice placemats and napkins at a linen store for Chris's mom. Found a Godiva chocolatier. Yum! Stopped in at Bobby's bar and grill for lunch. Tiny, but very cool atmosphere. Sandwiches and Burger selection good (6.95-8.95 for sandwich and fries). Very good sized portions and tasty. Relaxed there for a bit with some beer. Went on to do more shopping. Bought lots of liquor (Johnny Walker Red for $7, Stoli Orange and Strawberry Vodka for $9.95 each, Absolute for $9.95, Bombay Sapphire for $15). They had a service that guarantees delivery to your ship so you can avoid hauling the box around while you continue your day, but we told them we wanted that done after paying for it, and apparently you have to tell them before. Oh well, we headed back to the ship by taxi. $3 each. Traffic was horrible and it took us a bit to get back to the ship. Again checked in our liquor. Went back to stateroom for a quick drink and then back out to St. Thomas to use our $25 gift certificate to ride the tram for free. It was within walking distance. Nice and relaxing. No line that late in the afternoon. Hiked a bit on top of the hill and took some nice pictures. Rode back down and headed back to the ship. Stopped to buy more soda for drinks on the way back. Again, napped for a bit, then headed to dinner. Went to Royal Observatory at 8:00. There was a 1 hour wait there. Put our name in and went down for drinks at the Rendezvous. Listened to singers in the Royal Fireworks for a bit. Back up for a wonderful dinner at the Royal Observatory. Had a tomato and cheese appetizer, Caesar salad, and we both had the shrimp in tomato sauce pasta. Yummy dinner. No dessert, as we were both very full. Back to Rendezvous for one more drink, said our good-byes to the bartenders since it was the last time we would see them. Took their pictures and went back to room to pack. Packing went quick. Left out necessary toiletries and clothes. We only had a fanny pack, a camera case and our full liquor boxes as carry-ons, so we kept out little. Chris put special tour tags on our luggage and set it outside the door before bed. They take it at night and when we get into port the put it outside in groups according to luggage tag color. I called the reception desk to make sure our wake up call would work. It did. We were early so we went to have a quick breakfast in the Royal Café. Realized our tour tickets were packed in our luggage that was no longer in our possession. Also realized I had no picture ID to check into airline, as it was in a shorts pocket in the luggage. Ugh. Shore excursion desk not open. Found the excursion people at our designated meeting spot. Told them and they escorted us off the ship to get our tickets. Had time to open luggage and get my picture id. Realized that I had the room key in that pocket too (Chris left his on the desk in the stateroom to turn it in). An NCL rep told me just to keep it. Ok. Anyway, we went to tour bus area. Found where airlines were to check our luggage. Checked in for flights and luggage right there. Very cool. Hopped on tour bus with our carry-ons and were off to the rainforest. First stopped at Ft. San Cristobal (no clue if I spelled that right) in Old San Juan. Kind of a neat old fort. Then off to the rainforest. Very cool. Many nice photo opportunities and time for a short hike on some trails. Back into town for a long drive around. San Juan not that nice it seemed. Back to the airport. Our flight was delayed by 2 hours. Still got to Chicago on time to catch our flight back to chilly Milwaukee.
Overall impressions:
- Not enough activities geared towards late 20's-early 30's crowd on ship. Lots of gambling if you like it.
- Food was good, but not as extraordinary as I thought it would be. Thought there'd be more jumbo shrimp, crab type things. Not the case.
- Enjoyed Freestyle dining and dress.
- Internet café too expensive.
- Hot tubs need to be available in more secluded, relaxing areas.
- Kids need a curfew.
- Ports were nice, nice length of stay in many of them.
- Majesty was beautiful, I thought.
- I'd do it again, Chris more hesitant. I think our next one would be an Alaskan on a smaller ship.
- Didn't have any outstanding waiters. A few good, but none that really stick out in our minds as outstanding.
Keep in mind this was our first cruise, so we don't have much to compare it to, and we are both pretty laid back, so not much stresses us if something goes wrong.
