Review: Norwegian Cruise Line - Crown - [October 23 , 2005]

[Net Reviews]

Review By:

Reviewer Comments:

This was a cruise which was to go from Philadelphia to Miami via the
Bahamas, San Juan, St. Thomas, St Maarten, Curacao and Aruba, leaving
on October 23rd and arriving in Miami November 5, 2005. I've already
done the trip journals, so here is the review.

Embarkation: A-

Except for the tie-up at the exit ramp due to the Eagles game (which
if we'd been 40 minutes later would have been no problem and which
really wasn't NCL's fault) and the difficulty finding a place to get
gas that wasn't charging an arm and a leg and the place to turn in the
car at the airport, this went well. We got out of the cab and handed
our luggage over and got in line. I even managed to evade the
boarding photographer, although he caught Bob. It took us less than
half an hour and was quite orderly and the lines moved quickly. The
hardest part was walking up the ramps to deck 6. They gave us a
Freestyle daily at the gangway which they failed to do last year. We
went to our cabin and dropped Bob's carryon about 1:15, and then were
at the Yacht Club (buffet restaurant) to have lunch by 1:30.

Cabin: B+

Deck 6 - the same deck as the main restaurant and the tour desk,
inside in the center which was very convenient and also we didn't feel
the motion of the ship much, as we were essentially in the middle. I
still think the bedspreads are ugly, but the carpet was blue instead
of beige and didn't show the stains as much as the other one did. We
had the capability to sleep 4 because there were two upper bunks
which also meant that we couldn't make the beds into a double, but we
didn't do that last time anyway. The one plug behind the TV was
inconvenient (even with the power strip) because it was across the
room from my bed and I customarily write in bed. I liked the
arrangement of the bathroom better and everything worked fine in
there.

We had no mini bar but our cabin steward kept the ice bucket full
morning and night. I think he sometimes had to scramble on the sea
days to get stuff done in the room while we were at breakfast (we tend
to eat early), but he managed. I also did a towel lobster, and hung
a towel monkey on the mirror. He gets an A+++

Food A

I thought the food was very good. I've heard from others on the same
cruise that they did not like it, but I only had one dish that I
really didn't like and that was a fish pate appetizer so I just didn't
eat it. What I particularly liked was that the portions were not too
large, so that I could eat one of each segment of the menu and not
feel overstuffed. If someone had a bigger appetite there was usually
no problem ordering an extra helping.

Service in this restaurant was uneven. Sometimes very good and
sometimes a bit slow. We were always seated almost immediately, but
we always said we would share, and we always came early (about 5:30 or
soon thereafter) because otherwise we wouldn't get finished in time to
go to the first show. We never ate in any of the specialty
restaurants. I couldn't figure out far enough in advance what I would
have liked to eat on any particular night to make a reservation.

We almost always ate breakfast and lunch in the Yacht Club. Bob liked
being able to look at the food before he took some. For breakfast I
usually got a muffin, eggs or a couple of blintzes, a piece of bacon
and sometimes some yogurt or grits or oatmeal. Bob usually got figs,
a lot of bacon and some Danish and toast. We usually drank cranberry
juice and hot tea or hot chocolate. They also had an omelet station
and a waffle station. Sometimes it was hard to find a place to sit.

My one complaint about the food service is that if we had an early
afternoon (noon or 12:30) tour, it was very difficult to eat first
because the restaurants didn't open for lunch until 12 noon. It would
have been nice to get lunch at 11:30.

Shows: B+

Last time we didn't see any shows except the last one. This time we
went to more shows. I really enjoyed the comedienne Geraldine Doyle
and her straight man/husband Horizontal. Greg Otto wasn't bad. The
singers dancers were really good and put on a very high energy show.
The ventriloquist was also amusing and entertaining. The next to
last night the shipboard staff put on a show which included two
singing solos, one of which was our cabin steward.

I also enjoyed the shows put on in conjunction with the audience like
the Liars Club, the Newlywed-not-so Newlywed game, and the various
dance contests. Bob went to one movie and one show without me which
he said he enjoyed.

We really enjoyed the Team Trivia which was at 9 each evening, but I
think they dropped the ball in the end and did not account for the
scores in a satisfactory manner. The people whose paper we graded got
22 points, and they were given credit for 38 point for instance.

Casino - we did not do anything at the casino except walk through it.
I found the noise of the machines going ding ding ding very
irritating. It sounded like someone trying to tune a piano who
couldn't get off of one note.

Drinks Servers: The drinks servers never bothered us any after we
refused the first drink. So I'd give them at least a C on that
account.

Internet Access: C

I don't have much respect for the guy who ran the internet cafe. I
was completely unable to send emails twice and he had no clue and it
cost me 30 minutes to find that out, which were not refunded to me..
He told me that my second internet plan would be heavily discounted,
and it was not. He also didn't always show up when he was supposed to
be there. You can't get the internet in your cabin, but if you have a
laptop there are hot spots around the ship.

Ship B+

All the elevators worked on this cruise, and we didn't have as much
roughness as last time even though we were avoiding Hurricane Wilma.
The ship was small (614 feet) and carried only 1100 passengers, which
I felt was good - it didn't take too long to get to anywhere. The
exercise room was nice - you had the best view forward of anyplace on
the treadmills. The captain kept us updated as to our progress and
there was a chart posted outside the Yacht Club with our track on it

Excursions: C

They kept rescheduling and dropping excursions so that we were on two
at the same time. .It was pretty easy to fix, if the excursion desk
was open, which was not always the case.

Ports:

We skipped Great Stirrup which was OK with me and came into San Juan
early which was double OK with me. I was able to get to see both Old
San Juan and El Yunque rainforest. I got to see the two things I
wanted to in St. Thomas (cheaper than a ship's excursion) and I saved
a lot of money there by doing no shopping. St. Maarten's morning
excursion was the waste of a good morning. The afternoon one was
good. Curacao was nice, although I didn't go into the caves with the
48 steps. I thought the snorkeling boat in Aruba was seriously old
and not very nice. Only one of the two heads worked.

Debarkation C+

There were two other (larger ships) there at the terminal in Miami.
We were not high priority because we had no flight on debarkation day.
We were supposed to have brown tags for this but the steward was out
of them and gave us fuchsia instead. When I asked the cruise director
he didn't know anything about it. And we didn't know whether they'd
called our group or not - they called it pink, but I didn't know if
that was us. People DID stand talking at the exit blocking other
people from getting off in spite of being asked not to We had to go
up an escalator and along two moving walkways, but the line for the
escalator down (why couldn't we just have walked on one level I don't
know) extended all the way to the middle of the second walkway, so if
you used the moving walkway, you had to get off and go walk back.
Since I didn't buy anything except one place mat, customs was very
quick. The Enterprise van was quite a trip especially for the guy in
the wheelchair who had to sit bracing himself so he wouldn't fall out
the doors.

Cost: A

Since I did not purchase any high price items from the ship, our
entire cruise including transportation to and from the ports was a
little more than $3000.00 for 19 days.

According to our travel agent, we got the last inside cabin which cost
us $874 each for the 13 day cruise which I thought was a bargain as it
was just a little more than a 7 day cruise to Bermuda on the same
ship.

We spent an additional $130 each for the mandatory tips, plus we
tipped the cabin steward extra $30. I spent $203 for internet access
on the cruise (about 600 minutes of which I had 18 left at the end),
and we took 10 excursions (5 each) which amounted $402. Tips on tours
were about $6.00. Some tour drivers we did not tip as we didn't feel
that they deserved it.

We did not gamble, or buy photos or have drinks or have a soda card or
do anything else that was charged to our shipboard account.

We rented a car to get to the port since we live about 90 miles south
of Baltimore. The car was $73.40 including the collision damage
waiver (since we don't have collision on our cars at home), and we
paid $10 in tolls and $16.81 for gas to fill it up before we turned it
in after 198 miles. We paid the taxi $22 including tip to drive us
and our bags from the airport to the ship.

On the tours we drank $5 worth of water and juice (did not buy any
from the ship) which was one water bottle in St. Maarten and a peach
juice and a sprite in Curacao. Bob also bought some fudge in Curacao
for $2.00 and then realized that he had to eat it because we couldn't
bring food back on the ship. I bought a place mat in the same place
for $4.25 and got $3.00 worth of Curacao money for the grandkids.

We rented a car from Enterprise in Miami to go to our daughter's house
and stay for awhile (about $200 for the week). I tipped the van
driver from the airport $5.00. We will fly from Miami on Thursday on
a pass which will be $21 each back to BWI and rent a car there to
drive back home (about $53.00)

I did also send 3 rolls of film to be developed so that will cost
something.

However I think that we've had a very cheap vacation ($3028.46 for
everything except the film) of 19 days. And we really enjoyed it.