Day 1 Aboard the NCL Pearl

Day 1

REVIEW WRITTEN BY BOB

We got to the port around 11:30 and we're on the ship by 12:15. Very quick, our room was not ready yet so we went to the Sky High Bar for a drink. After we called everyone who knew about our previous days escapades and letting them know we indeed made it on the ship OK, an announcement comes over the PA saying that the rooms are ready, we were in 4596 with a porthole oceanview. Decent sized room, good sized bathrooms, not bad at all. We immediately called Teppanyaki to get a reservation, and we were set for 8pm that night.

My goal was to find a place to watch the Pats-Chargers AFC Championship game, and we saw that the place to watch it was in the Atrium. We explored the ship before kickoff and found the Bliss lounge where they had bowling alley's and they had the Nintendo WII set up in there. It was quite cool, after a couple of games of tennis we were off to the Atrium to watch the game on a 40 FT, yes 40 FT big screen TV. Unfortunately right after kickoff we were informed that everything was shutting down for the muster drill. I stayed until I saw people coming into the Atrium with the lifejackets on (how lucky were you if your muster station was right in the lounge.) After the drill I watched a little more of the game and at 4:15 we took a little break to take in the Sailaway party.

It wasn't bad, however my head was elsewhere (and anyone who saw my bright red lucky Tom Brady jersey knew it). Just then a Carnival ship passed us, I thought it was cool I had a 40 FT TV to watch the game on. They had a giant TV on the deck. I could clearly see what the score was on their ship. The TV Had to be a good 2000 yards away. After the sailaway party wrapped up it was back to the Atrium for the 2nd Half. San Diego was trying to make their move. Everytime they made a big play most of the crowd cheered. My wife couldn't beleive how many San Diego fans were on board. I had to explain to here they weren't all Charger fans, and that the Patriots were basically the Yankees of football.

After the game ended we got ready for dinner, I hit the casino while my wife was getting ready and promptly lost $80 at the black jack table.

TEPPANYAKI

I wasn't exactly looking forward to this one. I'm a Pizza, Burger, Steak guy, and just didn't see Japenese food appealing to me. My wife really wanted to go, so we went. I WAS IMPRESSED. The chefs put on a great show, the food was excellent! I was kind of dreading it on the way in and was expecting to stop at the Garden Cafe afterward so I could it...I left thanking my wife for insisting we go. Teppanyaki is a must do!

After dinner it was off to the Spinaker for the 70's party. This is our third NCL Cruise since Nov 2005. It was the same 70's party as the first two times. NCL, you have a lattitudes program where you want people to come back for cruise after cruise, yet everything is the exact same thing cruise after cruise. I propose somebody comes up with another week or two worth of activities and parties and rotate them. If they had two weeks worth of activites what are the odds I'd see the same one three times in a row. What are other activities on a 14 day cruise, is it the same itinerary on a back to back?

Then after the party it was Karaoke. It was much better run then on the Norwegian Dream, good selection of songs. It only lasted about 45 minutes so get there early if you want to sing. Then back to the Casino (broke even this time). A late night meal at the Blue Lagoon and off to bed.

We get back to the room and hear this annoying noise...but we were both just so tired from the previous day we passed out.

DAY 2 - DAY AT SEA

It rained, the seas were rough but we were going to make the best of it. At breakfast we bypassed the Garden Cafe and went straight to the Great Outdoors (we learned that trick on the Jewel), plenty of seating, no line for the buffet. Had a few drinks, and went off to play Bingo (we usually don't play but there wasn't a whole ton of stuff going on with the bad weather). After Bingo we went outside to see it had finally cleared out and the Caribbean band was playing so we stayed there, had a drink or two and it was off to the Summer Palace for dinner. Food wasn't bad, then we noticed it was about 9:25 when we walked past the Stardust lounge and we figured we'd check out the Jean Ann Ryan Company production of Sea Legs.

It was a funny show...granted it wasn't supposed to be. The people who did acrobatic stuff were outstanding. The lead vocalists weren't bad. The dancers did some back-up vocals...the dancers needed to just be dancers. Take 12 of your friends and have them start singing songs, most of them will be off key, singing different notes...well thats basically what this sounded like. The song choices were pretty bad too. I mean, a show like this is clearly geared to an older audience, so why are we singing "Sexyback," by Justin Timberlake and "Crazy Right Now" by Beyonce and Jay-Z...and more importantly, why did they include Jay-Z's rap part? They could've done the song without the back-up dancer who looked like Kirk Cameron doing the rap part. Didn't Kevin Federline teach us that back-up dancers shouldn't be rapping under any circumstances? Anyway, they whole show seemed flawed, do a show that'll attract parents and grandparents, and basically do songs that drove those same parents and grandparents insane when their kids and grandkids played them on their stereo.

Then it was time for the Not so Newlywed game hosted by Ray Ray the cruise director. Ray Ray was a mediocre CD. He had a very deadpan, sarcastic delivery, his jokes often fell flat. His deadpan delivery just doesn't do it for a cruise ship IMHO. It didn't help that the couples he got weren't that great for the game. He had to force a couple of them out to play. Boring couples, boring CD (though it's the hosts job to make the couples more interesting...it's not the couples job to be entertaining on their own) made the game...well kinda boring.

After that it was back to the casino (up $60 whoo hoo) and off to bed. Well that annoying noise was back and this time I wasn't overtired. It was this high pitched shreik that would last 6 seconds then go silent for 2 seconds and back for 6 more seconds. After a few hours I couldn't take it anymore and went to reception to see if they had anything else available, they got me in 8505 for the night. My wife had somehow fallen asleep so i went off to 8505 and finally crashed around 5am.

I'm gonna take a little break here, before moving on. I just want to say we had a blast on this cruise and I still love NCL. I know I'm doing a lot of bashing...This is my 4th cruise, and I am comparing some aspects to the other 3, maybe a bit unfairly so. I'm totally in the camp of a bad day cruising is still a great day (and to say we had bad days would be incorrect), so try to keep the review in that context...and I'll answer any questions you may have about the Pearl or the review so far. Again, we had a lot of fun.

Coming up Cozumel, Grand Caymen and how NCL handled the high pitch noise.....