TR: Norwegian Pearl Pt. 5: Doing Nothing is Awesome (1/5-1/8/2012)

Travel, when done right, is a window to the world. Its a way to experience personal growth. And sometimes it is none of that. Sometimes, it is about going to the cruise ship pool and doing laps, learning that your fat ass barely moves on the slide up on deck 12, eating delicious food is delicious, and on and on. That was the final three full days of our cruise.

We intended, originally, to depart via tender to Grand Cayman and snorkel off the shore. Then we saw that it was a long slow tender ride to the port on the island furthest from the area we wanted to snorkel. And it was cold and threatened rain. So we stayed on the empty ship, ate, slept, used the pool, sat in the lounge and drank, played tennis, whatever we wanted to do that wasn’t real activity. We work hard, we lounge hard. At night, we saw “That’s Entertainment”, the required production show that features Dancing Queen, as dictated by Maritime Law. There was also a suite only free drink session with the big wigs of the ship that we attended and talked to no one at except ourselves. There was free drink after free drink, and after 4 rum punches and a glass of wine, it is entirely honest to tell you that I wasn’t the least bit drunk. What a let down.

TR: Norwegian Pearl Pt. 4: A Coaster For All Seasons (1/3-1/4/2012)

Following our day at the private island, it was onto an at sea day and all the doing of nothing that came with it. We made plans early on with our butler to have dinner brought to the room from the steakhouse, taking care of dinner preparations. Aside from that, we did next to nothing. Some walking occurred. Some visits to the buffet. Lots of time spent with books or the Kindle Fire. Not much was “done” aside from relaxation. We did take in the production show: a Frankie Valli tribute that was competently performed and featured some unintentional guffaws when the lead of the ground crashed into some teenager who was headed for the door during a run up the stairs. There was also a invitation-only free drink cruise talk for the Latitudes members (like us) which we attended, cared little about, and departed from, forgetting almost the entire thing.

On the sun deck, the place was packed with humanity. Chairs and people were all over the goddamned place, it was loud, and difficult to get through. All the more reason to head back to our private balcony. Our dinner from Cagney’s was good, but not $25/pp upcharge good. If you do order, get the fillet. I chose the ribeye but I didn’t think it was anything more impressive than what was on the every day menu over at Indigo (one of the free restaurants on board). The sides were very good, to their credit.

TR: Norwegian Pearl Pt. 3 Embarkation and Beach (1/1-1/2/2012)

Every time I saw the words “Port of Miami” listed on a sign from the taxi cab I sat in intended to take us there, I could only imagine it being said in the gruff voice of Rick Ross, followed by a low rolling “BOSS”. Miami has just become a center of cool in America in recent years, just looking from the windows of a yellow Crown Vic, it appears exotic in ways I simply never remembered it being as a kid. There was no time to experience anything about the city and its culture; this just a journey on the way to a destination.

The line of boats in the port ended with the Norwegian Pearl, our home away from home for the next week. NCL only really had one line into the cruise terminal for customs, something I wish had been changed to accommodate suite passengers such as myself. Once in the building though, we got to head to a special check in area and were quickly whisked onto the ship. We took some brief walks to inspect its interior and to drop off valuables in our safe before heading up to lunch at Cagney’s.

TR: Norwegian Pearl Pt. 2 (Boat Review, 1/1-1/8/12)

For the second part of the trip report, I figure I’ll give a review of our cabin, wait staff, public areas, et al. That will give me more time to focus on the actual itinerary rather than reiterate certain aspects of the ship’s design/operation.

Most of the cruises my wife and I have taken are on boats similarly sized and with similar numbers of passengers to the Pearl. In all honestly, the Pearl was perhaps more packed than usual because of the holiday that we were sailing over. In fact, 2/3 of the passengers, we were told, were from outside the US. There were a substantial number of accents and multiple languages being spoken, and many announcements made over the loudspeaker were in a Costa-esque 5 languages. All the crew was very capable of speaking english and we had no communication problems whatsoever.

TR: Norwegian Pearl; Pre-Cruise (12/29/11-1/1/12)

(Sorry for the delay in writing this: Just been busy ever since getting home. Happens sometimes.)

Any number of things can justify a trip. Sometimes its the location. Sometimes its the sense of adventure that’s in the journey. On other occasions, it may be that one simply wants to get away and relax for once. All three of those things played into the booking of our fifth cruise together on the Norwegian Pearl over the New Years. It would be a longer trip than many we’ve taken in the past, with three nights spent in hotels leading up to the trip itself, and then seven nights aboard the first repeat of a cruise line I’ve had yet.

NCL had been the first line we had taken all the way back in 2008 (trip report: http://tinyurl.com/78qvlh6) and we returned to them again for a number of reasons. First among them was amenity level. With suites on their ships, food from both the specialty restaurants and main dining rooms could be brought to the room. Balconies were large. Room size was large. Those are all things we like and have become, to some degree, accustomed to in our travels. NCL does have a downside, which is that it has few really exciting itineraries for us. We ended up choosing a somewhat general Western Caribbean cruise that would bring me to my first stop at Ocho Rios, a new private island, and a couple of repeat ports that we could take or leave (Cozumel and Grand Cayman).

TR: Norwegian Dawn & Albany (4/26-5/4)

Usually, my TRs are based on day to day activities. Cruise ships are not really conducive to that sort of reporting when there’s extended at sea sections and but one real port of call (in this case, Bermuda). The days very much blend together, and seeing as your transportation, accommodations, entertainment venues, casinos, restaurants, and so on are all together in one somewhat compact package, I find it essentially impossible to separate them. Besides, how fun is “eat, sleep, eat, sleep, gamble, gamble, eat, eat, show, sleep,” to read?

Deviating from that, I’ll first review the ship and the ports, then the destination for the cruise (in this case, pseudo-nation state Bermuda), and then Albany. Seems only just.