Tips for The First Time Cruisers

With summer just around the corner many people are thinking about vacations and possibly taking their first cruise.

My husband and I have been very fortunate in that we have been able to take a cruise at least once a year for the 21 years we have been married so I have picked up some tips along the way that I thought I would share.

The cruising industry has changed considerably over the years and I am finding that most regular cruisers have chosen a particular line such as Norweigian Cruise Lines (NCL), Royal Caribbean, Carnival, etc. because the more you cruise with one line the more benefits you receive.  Everything from discounts on future trips, upgrades on cabins and special parties on board can be had for those loyal customers, but not all ships are alike and neither are the amenities so maybe I can help you wade through some of this with my experience with the various lines.

One tip that I find helps those first time cruisers is to decide what is most important to you on your vacation.  Entertainment is a given and all ships provide that in one form or another, however, choice of dining experience, shopping, on board activities, and service are all different depending on the ship.
 When I first started cruising in the late '80's you were assigned seats and times for dinner and everyone ate in the main dining room no matter what cruise line you were on.   There was an "early seating" and a "late seating" and you were  placed with the same group of people for the entire week.  If you didn't hit it off with them you were basically stuck with the situation.  Most of the time we were in good company, but occasionally we found ourselves with people who didn't speak English and so there was a lot of nodding going on.

NCL started a new program several years ago called "freestyle cruising".  Instead of having just the main dining rooms for people to have their evening meal they added several upscale International restaurants with cuisines from France, Japan, Italy and Spain as well as a 5 star steak house.  For an additional fee you could have dinner at any one of these restaurants and choose your own time table.  Originally this was relatively inexpensive but the charges now are anywhere from $10.00-$30.00 per person extra.  This is my favorite kind of dining experience as I feel the service is better and the food is more authentic then you might find in the main dining rooms. You also have a change of scenery as each one is decorated according to the cuisine served.

Now many of the other cruise lines have added an "anytime dining" alternative to their standard fare, but generally offer only one or two additional restaurants.  I think this has a lot to do with the fact that cruising is becoming more popular and the need to compete comes into play.

The "Anytime dining" works well for the days you are in port until the late evening as you can relax and enjoy yourself without the worry of rushing back to the ship so that you can have enough time to change and still make it to your scheduled dinner hour.   Many times we had to race back to grab a shower and a quick change because we opted for the early seating which was 6:30.  There is always a full buffet served on the upper decks until at least 10pm so you never go hungry, but the food is not the same and it's self serve.
Unfortunately you sacrifice one thing for another among the different cruise ships.  The specialty restaurants on NCL are exceptional in service and flavor but the ships themselves leave a lot to be desired as far as decor.  This is just my opinion, but this is not a ship I would choose for ambiance. 

If you want really great food without worrying about a time table then I would suggest you opt for a ship that has the "anytime dining" and at least try one of the restaurants other than the main dining room during your trip.  This is not to say that the food in the main dining rooms is bad. Far from it.  They offer a variety of main courses as well as specialty dishes and a host of desserts, but the experience can become mundane day after day.

Another area that has changed considerably over the years is the type of service you receive on board. There isn't a whole lot you can do about it, but I do have some tips to make it a little better and I will be posting about that next time.

My Eastern Caribbean Cruise Journal, Pt.3

We landed in Samana, Dominican Republic around 10am and this is what the island looks like as we were coming into it. The boat with the red stripe is called a "tender'. Each of the cruise ships has several tenders that they use to transpot people into the ports when there either isn't enough room or the waters are to shallow for the large ships.
Each tender holds about 150 people and can get a little warm as there are few windows that are opened.

This picture is of the dock where the tenders were coming in. They usually run back and forth all day.

This picture of the "bridge to nowhere" was taken from the tender on our way over to Samana.

It was built with the idea in mind that the tiny island on the left would house a resort, but nothing ever became of it so this literally goes nowhere.

Ralph and I stopped for a drink and an order of fries just to sit and watch the sites. It was a hot day that day and it was nice to get out of the sun. Ralph likes their Presidente brand of beer.

This is a common mode of transportation around the island. Sort of their idea of a cab.

We met a man while we were shopping at their "straw market" who asked us if we would contact his brother in Miami and ask that he call him. Apparently the earthquake in Haiti has destroyed the phone system for calling out and he wanted us to let his brother know he needed some help.

Ralph took the number and called him as soon as we got home. I wish I would have thought to get a picture of this man. He kept offering us a picture he painted as payment but we told him we were just happy to help.

Here is a closer look at the 2 tenders used by the NCL Pearl.

I took this picture to show what the inside of the tenders look like. We were headed back to the ship around 1pm so it wasn't very crowded.

My husband bought this wooden statue for our 8 yr. old grandson for getting such good grades on his report card. The little turtle was something I picked up for a future mosaic. We weren't planning to eat the canapes that were delivered that night so Ralph put our purchases on the plate.

I took a picture of us in the mirror in back of the bed just before heading out to dinner.

We had dinner in the Japanese restaurant and tried every appetizer they had. Following that was a show featuring "The Jersey Boys" from Las Vegas and a juggling/comedy act called "Sharkbait".

When we got back to the room our cabin steward had this monkey made of towels sitting on the bed.

Tomorrow we dock in Tortolla, then on to St. Thomas.

My Eastern Caribbean Cruise Journal, Pt.2

I left off last time with pictures of the Penthouse cabin my husband surprised me with so now we are leaving Miami and this first picture is the one taken off our balcony. We have a "sea day" tomorrow, but the following day we will dock in Samana, Dominican Republic.

One of the great perks of being in the Penthouse or Garden Suites (Garden Suite is what they call the Owner's Suite and it is as large as a home with their own private patio and pool. The room goes for anywhere from $10,000 and up per week)is that we are given our own little restaurant to have breakfast and lunch. This is an area on the 12th floor of the ship with windows all around that can only be accessed with your room key. I loved the decor in this room with the cowhide skin backs on the black leather chairs.

The meals in here were superb as well as the service. In the morning we had our own mini buffet with choice of juices, fruits, pastries, cheeses and coffee. This was in addition to your meal. Ralph and I tried the Eggs Benedict one morning and the french toast stuffed with cream cheese and lingonberries another morning. Breakfast was served until 10am so we missed it a few times and went for lunch instead.





The next three pictures are of some of the food we had there for lunch on the first day out to sea. Ralph is having the jumbo shrimp cocktail which was followed by Veal Marsala and I had the salad and seared scallops. Of course dessert is served at all the meals so Ralph had the cheesecake and I had carrot cake.

By the time we finished the late lunch we decided to tour the ship and see what the deals in the stores were for the night. Each day the shops offer a table full of deals. One night I bought a pair of sunglasses with a little bling on the sides and a cute little black purse, each for $10.00.

When we got back to our room the "butler" stopped by with some hors'devours. This night it was little tartletts and a yummy dark and white chocolate truffle. Sometimes it would be canapes and others times it was chocolate covered cherries, but around 5pm every night you knew he would be stopping by.

This is the picture of the sun setting on our first night. We just poured ourselves a glass of wine and were eating our little desserts.

For the following day, since we would be out to sea, we planned to lounge around and catch up on our reading.

I still have lots of pictures to share and a many more adventures so I hope you will continue on this journey with me.

Cruising to the Eastern Caribbean

My husband and I are going on a cruise for 7 days in the Eastern Caribbean (map shown) so I will not be posting for a few days unless I can find somewhere to hook up my laptop. It would be great if I could blog with pictures each day, so I will see what it takes to do that.

We love cruising and it's the easiest kind of vacation when you live in Florida because you don't have to even see an airport! The drive to Miami isn't too bad and we plan to stay over so that we will have a fresh start in the morning.

Last time we were there we went over to the shops and ate at "Bubba Shrimp Company", but I think we'll just get some dinner and take it to the room and watch one of the movies we pack.

I will be posting pictures when I get back of any tours we may take or just some of the local stuff. We will be visiting Tortola/British Virgin Islands, St. Thomas/US Virgin Islands, Samana/Dominican Republic, and NCL's (Norweigan Cruise Line) private island in Stirrup Cay, Bahamas. We have been on 3 cruises now that were to stop at their island and each time the weather didn't permit so we ended up somewhere else for the day. If we make it this time we plan to walk all around the island then stop for the BBQ they set up. We aren't sun bunnies so we either find a tree to lounge under or head back to the ship.

We went on a cruise last year and bought the "Couples" spa package for the use of their steam rooms. The limit was 10 people total for the ship so we were lucky. They have 3 seperate little rooms off of one big room and each one is a little different. One has a heavy and very hot steam coming in and you sit on long wooden benches. they have hoses and sinks you can rinse off as you go; then they have one (my favorite) that only holds 4 people at a time but has this lovely eucalyptus steam they pipe in that is heavenly. The third room is larger and has warmed curving tiled benches that you can lounge on while getting steam.

They also have 6 loungers seperate from the steam rooms that are heated, tiled and curved to fit your body shape. You can just lie there and close your eyes and relax. It's wonderful because it's very quiet and you can hear the trickle of the water fall.

This is a new thing for us and we loved it. I wasn't sure my husband was going to really want to go much, as the package allowed you to go anytime the spa was open for the entire week, but he really enjoyed it and we went at least once a day. Our skin never looked better.LOL

Bahamas Cruise for $20.00, Part II

In my last post we were just leaving Miami on our cruise to the Bahamas.
This is a photo of the sunset that evening. I wish it were better as it was a spectacular sunset.



Our travel agent ordered some chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of merlot to be sent to our room. What a nice way to begin a vacation.

The following morning at 8am we arrive in Freeport. The sun is shining and it looks like it will be a great day.

There are 700 islands in the Bahamas but only 38 are inhabited. Freeport is a very casual quiet little island that supports itself with various goods such as rum and conch (pronounced konk).

This is a view of our ship on the pier in Freeport. We were able to pull up close and walk off the pier.

This is a longshot of the pier from the ship.

We decided to take a tour (on our own) and paid $25.00 each to be taken around the island. This included a stop at the shops, a rum tour and a wonderful commentary of the lifestyle of the islanders by our driver (pictured left taking her fee from the other couple in our tour).

The shopping in Freeport is great. There are lots of people from the island that sell their wares. Many fine sculptures of wood can be found here for a very reasonable price. We bought Justin (our son) a mini motorcycle that was quite detailed for $16. The original price was $20, but Ralph haggled it down. I am not good at that but it is part of their selling just like in Mexico. Once you enter their "area" they will hound you to buy, but there are some great deals.

Another view of the shops.

During our tour our driver took us up close to the mansion occupied by the owner of all the KFC's and Domino's Pizza franchises on the island. They are a couple in their 70's now. The only time anyone else is invited to their home is an annual party they hold for the underprivileged kids from the area.

This is Butler & Sands, the shop where you can go in and taste the various rums they make on the island. We bought a bottle of the Mango Rum. Yummm!

We got back to the ship around 1:00 and went to the main dining room for lunch. Here is a menu to give you an idea of what was available. You will have to click on it so it will enlarge to read it. They have 6 appetizers, 6 entrees and 4 desserts to choose from. If you are like Ralph, you can order 2 of each or more.

Here is Ralph checking out the menu for lunch, but I took this picture for the mural painted on the wall in the back of the main dining room.

This is a longshot of the well-known "Atlantis Resort" in Nassau. We did not go there this time around as we saw it on a tour when it first opened.

After a long day we went to one of the specialty restaurants called "Cagney's Steak House" for dinner. Here is Ralph showing how huge the shrimp were in our appetizer.

It is now Wednesday morning and we arrive in Nassau. This is a view of the indoor shopping just off the pier. Behind this building is a main street with one shop after another. Mostly jewelry.

There was a bit of a walk from the time you got off the ship all the way around the pier to the shops so we stopped and took this picture of me with our ship in the background.

Our room is the 4th one from the right on the 2nd row of balconied rooms just above the NCL logo.

A closer photo of the Festival Place where you can shop indoors.

This is the Govenor's Mansion in the heart of the main street in Nassau. There were about 50 protesters on the opposite side of the street. Not sure what it was about but it had the police keeping an eye out for any problems.

Here is a traffic cop along the busy street of the shops.

This little guy was our greeter when we first entered the Festival Place shops.

A band welcoming the tourists.

I got a shot of Ralph in this getup. He is the 2nd head from the top. lol

This is a view from our dining table in the main seating room. The chandelier was beautiful and the large table below it is the Captain's Table.
There are windows all around the front edges of this room for some great views while eating.

This is the "Stardust Lounge" where all the large production shows are held. We had one night of Broadway shows and one night of a very funny comedian in addition to some variety acts. This is a first-come first-served basis so one night we did get stuck up in the very corner of the balcony.

This little guy is just one of the many animals the room steward makes up each night during the "turn down" service. Ralph put the chocolates on for the eyes. This is made from 2 towels. Too cute.

My last hurrah is in the casino. We were unable to go to the private island owned by the NCL as the weather was poor so we walked around the ship and ended up in the casino. We put one dollar's worth of quarters in the slots and won 5.00. Here I am holding the check.

The slots on the ships don't pay out much so I don't waist my time on them, but we just had to play once.





Ok, it is now time to tell you how we did this lovely cruise for only $20.00.

First of all we have a credit card that is through NCL(Norwegian Cruise Lines) so that all we spend racks up points towards our next cruise and we had enough for 500.00 off.

Second, we booked this cruise during our last cruise and got an additional 100.00 off for pre-booking. You have 2 years from the time you book to actually take a cruise and get the credit.

Third, we were given$80.00 in shipboard credit as a pre-book discount for choosing a balconied room, which we used for our additional fees for the specialty restaurants and a few purchases we made, so that is the same as cash.

We also received a $50.00 shipboard credit from our travel agent because she booked us as one of a group.

The total of credits comes to $730.00 and the cruise cost for two was $750.00, therefore, we paid $20.00 out of pocket. If you include the strawberries and merlot package that cost $30.00 we actually made $10.00 on this trip.

Bahamas Cruise for $20.00, Part I

Ralph and I just returned from our 5 day cruise to the Bahamas out of Miami on the Norwegian's "Sky" ship.This ship was originally designed for cruises to and around Hawaii so the interior is decorated in the island theme, but has recently been added to their fleet for the Bahamas cruise.

We arrived a day early and stayed in Miami just to be sure we didn't miss the boat. You never know what might happen on a 3 hour road trip.
It was still early when we got to our hotel so we headed over to "Bayside", a shopping mall of sorts along the water. The stores were nothing special (I was hoping for specialty boutiques), but the people congregated anyway as you will see in the pictures below. It is a beautiful area in the downtown part of Miami.

Before I get any further let me tell you that it is not a joke that we paid only $20.00 for this cruise and I will reveal how we did it in Part II of this post.



Here is a shot of one of the cruise ships in the distance that we took from the Bayside Shopping Mall.











This is the restaurant we chose to eat dinner. It is named Bubba Gump Shrimp Company after the famous movie "Forest Gump". The decor is all about Forest and what he did in the movie. There are also lots of shadow boxes displaying the various clothes he wore during the film.


The waiters are very friendly and outgoing and even quiz you on parts of the movie after taking your order. It's just a fun place to eat and the food is good. We decided to just have the clam chowder, but I have had their shrimp dishes before and they are quite good.


Not the best shot here of a band and people dancing near the waterfront. It was so crowded I could barely get a picture at all. This is also at Bayside.









Kids bouncing way up in the air and doing flips. Looked like a lot of fun.

We boarded the ship around noon the following day but were not set to sail until 5 pm so we decided to head to the main dining room for lunch.
One of the nices things about NCL is that they offer "freestyle cruising", which means you can go to their specialty restaurants (for an additional fee) and their main dining rooms anytime during the specified hours. You are not assigned seating so you can choose to dine alone or with a group. I think it makes it nice as sometimes you get stuck with people who are not very friendly or maybe you just want to kick back one night and eat in the casual buffet on the Lido deck.

When we finally got underway I took some pictures as we were leaving the port from our balcony off our room.

This is some of the multi-million dollar homes along the water.

Ralph thought this building was interesting so he took a picture of it.

Downtown Miami has many tall buildings of businesses as well as residential condos.

This is our pilot boat helping us to get out of the port. See the guy with the gun? Port security is a serious business.

This little plane had just landed before we got this picture. It can skate along the water as well as fly.

Again, we are still leaving Miami and
we thought these tall buildings were unusual in that they had cut-outs in the center. You can see it in the one on the right side of this photo. I am not sure why this was done as we were too far away to tell, but all three buildings had it.

The clouds look ominous and we definitely had some rain as we headed out to sea but the weather for the rest of the trip was really nice.

Part II will show pictures of the cruise ship and the ports we visited including Freeport and Nassau, Bahamas. I will also reveal how we got this cruise for the $20.00.