My dad & Sue had booked a cruise that fell right before my birthday, and so I was invited to come along. Free cruise! This trip would be on the Norwegian Spirit, and we would be stopping in Nassau, St Thomas & St Maarten before returning to Port Canaveral.
Thursday, February 25th, 2016
I had booked a 7:10am flight out of Hartford, so I had basically the whole day in Florida. The flight was mainly uneventful, with one notable exception. About an hour in the flight attendant asked over the loudspeaker if there were any medical personnel onboard. A gentleman across the aisle was a doctor, and checked out the sick passenger. No emergency landing was needed, but they did have EMTs meet the plan to disembark her first. The nominal delay was just enough to eliminate my usual wait time at the baggage claim. After my dad & Sue picked me up, we headed to Gator’s Dockside for lunch, and then went back to the house for a bit. Later that afternoon I had wanted to check out Lava Lounge at Disney Springs (the new name for Downtown Disney), so we headed out to there. Lava Lounge was unimpressive, so we decided to head further down the marketplace to Jock Lindsay’s Hangar Bar, which was a brilliant revision. Jock Lindsay was the pilot who flew Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the bar was filled with all sorts of cool memorabilia. By far the neatest feature was right next to our table, where a giant press made globe ice cubes one at a time, and then conveyed them under the floor to the bar. According to our server, the imagineers came in all the time to check out their ice-making invention, and although it was fascinating to watch, it wasn’t the most reliable invention of all time. Anyway, after that we headed back to the house and spent the evening there. One more day in Florida, and then we set sail!
Friday, February 26th, 2016
Continuing my hot streak, on Friday I wanted to check out Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto at the Polynesian Resort, but when we arrived there we were told it didn’t open till 4pm, so we were about three hours early. We opted to head to Old Town for lunch instead, which worked out well as a backup plan, as I hadn’t been there in many years. After lunch we walked around for a bit, and then headed back to the house for the evening so my dad & Sue could pack and get everything ready for tomorrow.
Saturday, February 27th, 2016
Around 9am we headed over to Port Canaveral. The Spirit was sailing out of a terminal we hadn’t used before, and it was clearly a new build. Very nice, and once you figured out how to navigate it, quite easy, with lots of seating for those waiting to board. We began boarding around 11:30, so our wait was relatively short. After boarding we stopped at the Shanghai Bar for our welcome aboard cocktails, and then headed to Windows Main Dining Room for lunch, which was lovely. Our room was ready by then, so we stopped there and dropped off our tote bags. The room, while nice, was more snug than balcony rooms on other ships. This was accurate to what I had read only about the Spirit before sailing – beautiful ship, designed for the Asian market, but with smaller staterooms. We met our room steward, Roberto, right away, and he did a great job for us all week. We wandered the ship a bit prior to the lifeboat drill, and then after the drill headed up to the Biergarten for sailaway. The Biergarten on this ship was larger and nicer than on other ships I had sailed, by a lot. After we left Port Canaveral, we went to Champagne Charlie’s for Name That Tune, which was lots of fun. Here was our first exposure to the couple I will refer to as “The Cheaters”. The Cheaters won every music trivia I attended, by an implausible margin. They also sat in back, and never swapped papers with anyone, so they were scoring themselves each time. Coincidence that they kept winning? I think not. Anyway, after trivia we went for dinner in the Garden Room Main Dining, and then spent the rest of the evening checking out the ship. I made it to Sing It If You Know It, which is an entertaining game show to watch, and then decided to make it an early night.
Sunday, February 28th, 2016
Today was our stop in Nassau, and we had all opted to stay onboard for the day and treat it like an additional sea day. Nassau has never been one of my favorite ports, and I was just as happy to skip it. I filled my dad with all the fun & cheezy shipboard activities that I love, starting with shuffleboard, trivia, Win, Lose or Draw, some bar hopping & lunch, and rounding it out with Name That Tune. That night my dad and I decided to check out the show, called World Beat, which did two or three songs each from different regions of the world. It was done very well, and we both enjoyed it. After the show we wanted to head up to the Galaxy of the Stars lounge, since the band was going to be playing country music, but we were early and unfortunately happened upon the majority of the first round of karaoke. The first girl we heard sounded like a cat being strangled, but no one else was terrible, and one or two were quite good. The country music set was pretty good as well, with a lot of variety. Off to bed, sea day tomorrow!
Monday, February 29th, 2016
Leap day! Today was our scheduled Cruise Critic Meet & Greet, which for the first time ever, I hadn’t organized. It was actually quite nice not being in charge for once, and the woman who arranged things did a good job. It was a small group, and I saw a lot of them throughout the cruise. After the meet & greet we headed to trivia. Our chant for the cruise became “We’re mediocre! We’re mediocre!”, as our score was right in the middle 90% of the time. After lunch I headed to the casino for the first round of the slot tournament, where I was considerably less than mediocre. After the casino I headed upstairs to watch the navigation presentation, and from there decided to try my luck at Deal or No Deal. It’s always amazing to me to watch people turn down perfectly good financial offers, just to end up with fifty cents. At 5:15 each night was Name That Tune, and tonight’s theme was classic rock, which I figured I could do slightly better than usual at. Surprise, surprise, the cheaters won, but at least my score wasn’t embarrassing. From there we had dinner, and then went back to Champagne Charlie’s for some post-dinner cocktails and live guitar music with Pablo. Pablo was a pretty good guitarist, but I didn’t care for his voice, so it was a mixed bag for me. Rony, our favorite bar server, took excellent care of us throughout the cruise. Tomorrow we’ll be visiting St Thomas.
Tuesday, March 1st, 2016
Due to a medical emergency, we arrived in St Thomas two hours early, which would explain the choppy seas last night. Our excursion to St John wasn’t until 1:30, so we decided to spend a little time browsing in the port area, which worked out great and killed just enough time to allow us to have a quick bite before heading to our meeting place on the pier. From there we took a forty minute ferry ride over to St John, which was narrated with local history and sightseeing. On St John we stopped briefly at several locations around the island, many of which included pristine beaches, and then headed back to the dock to catch the return ferry. While waiting for our ferry to depart we were treated to quite an exciting view of ships trying to dock and missing each other by inches, which is terrifying if you are on one of the nearly-missed ships. I have no idea how there were no collisions! After dinner we decided to check out the Pub Quiz at Henry’s, and spent a chunk of the evening there. They had great little tables outside, and we met a really pleasant couple from Maine who were doing a back-to-back itinerary. Some time at the casino and then off to bed.
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016
We had not scheduled an itinerary for St Maarten, but I did have one item on my to-do list, which was visiting the Yoda Guy Museum on Front St. I’m a Star Wars fan, and while I had stopped at the gift shop on a previous visit, this time I was determined to go through the whole museum. So after breakfast we disembarked and took the ferry across the harbor ($7 roundtrip to save a long walk) and I made my way to the Yoda Guy, which was on the second floor over some shops. Shortly after arriving, Nick Maley, the Yoda Guy, came over to introduce himself to me, and made the suggestion that when going through the museum, I take the time to watch the videos and read the descriptive plaques. Without doing that, I was assured (correctly) that I would miss a lot. I spent about an hour going through the exhibits, and it was fantastic! Not only was there ample Star Wars memorabilia, but there were items from lots of other movies, as well as lifecasts (plaster masks used to create costuming or statues) from celebrities and famous historical figures. They had an original lifecast of Benjamin Franklin! When I finished going through, the exit was right next to Mr Maley, and he took about ten or fifteen minutes to chat some more with me. He was actually in the process of restoring two figures from Men in Black: the alien baby Will Smith delivered, and one of the worm guys. Once complete, they would be added to the museum. It was an amazing experience, truly the highlight of my trip, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend stopping there to anyone. After I finished, we completed our circuit of Front St and the Boardwalk, including the obligatory stop at the Guavaberry Rum Emporium. There were lots of cute little restaurant/bars, but as both were free to us on the ship (we were all sailing with the unlimited beverage package) we opted to dine on the Spirit instead. Later that afternoon I tried the darts tournament (epic failure), afternoon trivia (more mediocrity), and then 50s and 60s Name That Tune (probably the highest score we got all week, but the cheaters once again took home the trophy). We had a 7:30 reservation at Le Bistro that night. Both my dad and Sue receive a complimentary dinner for two there as a Platinum status perk, and dinner was excellent. After dinner we stopped at Champagne Charlie’s for a bit, then a brief visit to the casino before calling it a night.
Thursday, March 3rd, 2016
Unfortunately we started the day off on a bad note, as we received word from home that my grandmother had passed away. While not unexpected, it did require some additional time in the internet café to coordinate a bit with back home regarding her service and such. After breakfast we spent some time at The Café, which is the coffee shop on ship. Every day in the library they provide puzzles, and we would do them after breakfast over coffee and mimosas. We did better at those than at trivia, which we did attend around 10am. After trivia was the Officer’s Profile, where the captain, hotel director, and chief engineer held a Q&A. Once the Q&A was over we spent some time on deck and at the casino, and then mid-afternoon we stopped for the Weakest Link Game Show. The two finalists were actually both from our roll call, and it was a close game, so it was fun to watch. Some more outside time and then we did 80s Music Trivia before dinner (we’re mediocre!). After dinner we went to Champagne Charlie’s to check out the Music Maker duo that we hadn’t seen yet, and they were wonderful! Far and away the best of the non-production talent onboard. The duo was from the Phillipines, and the female vocalist had an absolutely beautiful voice. My only regret was that I didn’t find them until near the end of the cruise, because I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them. They played till about 9:30, and then after a quick stop at the casino we called it a night.
Friday, March 4th, 2016
Our last sea day! We did our usual breakfast, puzzles at the Café, and then morning trivia. At noon we had agreed to meet up with the rest of our roll call for lunch, which was nice. It ran a little long, so I missed my opportunity for a comeback at darts, but that’s okay. We spent most of the afternoon between the Biergarten, Henry’s Pub, and the casino, just relaxing. While at Henry’s Pub I decided to throw three darts, just to see if my luck had changed. Now that there were no witnesses, and the score didn’t count, I hit a bullseye, a triple-16, and an 11. It figures! After dinner we went to Champagne Charlie’s, where Music Maker would be playing later, but first was Pablo the guitar guy, so I wandered a bit while he played. Music Maker was just as excellent the second time around, and they played for ages without a break, everything from Adele to CCR. When they did break we ended up chatting with them a bit, and they were super-nice. My dad and Sue are slated to sail on the Spirit again in April 2016, so they will get to enjoy them again.
Saturday, March 5th, 2016
We were off the ship fairly early, and made it back to my dad’s house by about 10:30am. We dropped off the luggage, called the family (we had only communicated by email onboard and needed to touch base about my grandmother) and then headed to Brick House Tap & Tavern for brunch. While it was good, it was not quite as good as previous visits. Nothing major, but my dad’s Seadog blueberry beer was no longer garnished with blueberries, the potato hash casserole was overly spicy, and our server was in training, so it just didn’t go as smoothly as usual. After Brunch we headed to my dad’s, and spent the afternoon outside on the lanai, playing games and chatting. Tomorrow morning I head home.
Sunday, March 6th, 2016
My flight out of Orlando was at 9:20am, so I had to leave for the airport by 6:45. My dad would be bringing my luggage home for me next week when he came up, so I was able to skip checking my bag, but it took 40 minutes to get through security. No obvious reason why, just extra-long lines. I still had plenty of time to grab some breakfast before my flight, and although Au Bon Pain had closed, I was able to grab an egg & cheese from Jersey Mike’s. I tried to claim my free birthday coffee from Starbucks, but the line was literally at least 30 people deep, so I skipped it. My flight was easy and uneventful, and Dave & Jared picked me up promptly at the airport. So that’s it for my trip – thanks for reading along! My next cruise isn’t slated to be till April 2017, but there is the possibility of a Vegas trip in the works, so you may hear from me again sooner than that.