Bermuda Cruise - Norwegian Majesty
Sunday
Saturday evening, the night before cruise departure, was a full house. We had my son James plus friends Bill and Billy in the library and my Dad in James' room. Bob and I were up very late getting the house ready and packing up. After having only fallen asleep around 5:30am, we woke up at 7:30am at the call of the alarm clock. James, Billy and Bill were already awake. When I came out of the shower, Dad had gotten up as well. I put on my lacy white dress that I'd gotten 10 years ago for a Mensa AG. This was the dress that Bob always called my "wedding dress" as it looked quite embroidered and elegant. I called this my Titanic dress as it made me feel like a Titanic passenger to be in white lace. Everyone else thought that it was quite amusing to want a cruise to be like the Titanic :) Bob finished up the packing as we got everything into order, and put the pre-printed bright yellow luggage tags onto our bags.
In no time at all it was 9:30am, and Knight's van was in our driveway. Bob ran out to greet him, and the driver let Bob know twice that we had to leave immediately because there was another person to be picked up that had a plane to catch. We promised that the remaining 2 people (mom & Len) would be here shortly and we began bringing our bags down. The driver then made a comment that we should have just gotten a personal van for our group of 8. This even though the shared van for us was $180 and the personal van was almost $300. I think ... NOT! I understand the driver wanting to get going, but it made us a bit worried that he was so persistent about it, that he might make us leave without Mom and Len.
Luckily we kept watching the road for Mom & Len and they did show up a few minutes later. We were off. The van driver took the longest route known to man to get to the other man's location - a hotel in Westboro. Then we drove in to Logan. Luckily there was plenty of room for all of the luggage, and plenty of room for us, so we talked merrily the entire way in. After we plunked the guy at Logan, we headed in to the port. We passed sis Jenn and her party walking out as we drove in! Just then she called me on her cell phone - she said she was on her way to breakfast. As it was already 11am (i.e. time we wanted to get on the boat), I convinced her to get to the car and meet us at D with her luggage. We were dropped there ourselves and the luggage guys immediately took all of our non-carry-on stuff (pre-marked with those bright yellow tags) and rolled them away in carts. We didn't have to touch them. Soon it was just us with our carry-on, at the curb-side D area.
Jenn took a little while getting to us. Since James, Billy, Bill and I were all in one cabin, we decided to go in and left Bob's information and cabin tickets with him. There was an escalator up to an upper floor and then a zig-zag of ropes to lead you to the main desk. Luckily as we were so early, not only was the zig zag deserted, but we immediately went to a desk area!
The lady at the desk complimented me several times on being so well organized. I had each pre-reg printed out and the name of the pre-reg person highlighted on each. I had the permission form signed for each child, and the passport or birth certificate/photo ID all ready. The woman also said "congratulations" due to my dress :) Everything was in order. She zipped through it all and in only a few minutes she was taking photos of each of us for the security system. She gave us a boarding pass and sent us along.
I called down to Bob and discovered that Jenn had not brought her tickets!! Luckily they let her up anyway since she was all set with her other documentation. James etc and I went forward into the "waiting to get onto the boat" line which was actually stuck, since the boat wasn't boarding yet. There were probably 6 rows of 8 people per row in a snake, sitting or standing. It was now probably around 11:20. We waited here for about 10 minutes.
Luckily we had entertainment. We were RIGHT over the baggage X-ray and handling area. We could literally see the screen that looked into each bag as it passed, and watch it flash when it detected an unusual shape. Let me note here that the baggage is NOT handled by NCL - it is handled by the Boston Port authority. After the X-ray came the exciting part - when they would take each bag and FLING it onto the cart. Larger bags would be flung. Smaller bags - like ones for kids - would be shotputted into the cart. We laughed ourselves silly at this, it was like watching a commercial for luggage companies. I highly recommend not packing anything breakable in your luggage :) While we were in line, a lady took our boarding pass and returned with four key cards, each with our name on it. The key card is the shape of a credit card, and besides your name it has your departure date, your emergency muster station and the ship's telephone number. For security reasons it does NOT have your room number on it. There is a spot for you to sign it on the back.
Really after only a short wait, at about 11:30 they were ready to let us onto the ship. They sent us past the photo stop and while I had talked about bypassing it, they were only taking 2 seconds per person, very quick. So it was easier just to stand and smile (since it was free anyway) vs fighting with them about having that done. Then we were on! We walked up one ramp and there was ANOTHER photo stop halfway up the two-stage ramp - we ignored that one. At the actual entryway to the ship, we had our cards swiped to officially let us onto the ship, plus a hand wash station to clean our hands. The gooey substance made all of our hands sticky.
A luggage porter took our one carry-on bag and took off with it. I would have rather taken it myself but again it wasn't worth fighting with him over. Unfortuantely he took off to the elevator and didn't really check that we were keeping up, which did bug me a little. Down the elevator, and our room was right there. Actually it was the triplets' room :) All of our rooms were mis-matched initially because of issues with how the registration went, but we would deal with that later.
The room - a quad with a window - was quite nice! It was very roomy. There were two beds on ground level, with a 8-drawer dresser (4 high, 2 wide) between them and beneath the large square windows. There was a desk on one side and a table on the other. Two bunk beds above were folded back. Nearer to the entry door, there was a triple-door closet and a small bathroom. In the bathroom, there was a toilet, sink, and then a shower area. Actually the whole bathroom floor was tiled and the shower curtain wouldn't prevent water from going into the other "half" of the bathroom really. So all water moved down to the drain, like on a lot of little boats. They had a built in shampoo / shower gel dispenser in the shower.
After only a few minutes the others had arrived and we began putting things into each others room. We then all went up to "Crossroads" which is the center of Deck 5. Deck 5 is the main deck with the "real" restaurants, many of the lounges and Fireworks, a dance area. Note that a sign here indicated that our cruise was *completely* sold out! After a 2 minute wait we got to the receptionist. I had already made up a "change sheet" listing exactly who was to be in each room. She was pleased with this and started working card by card, taking the old one and handing out a new one. It was quick, free, and easy. A few minutes later we had all of the cards properly keyed, and the ones for the under agers were clipped on the edges to indicate that they should not get alcohol. I.e. they cut the corners off the bottom 2 edges with scizzors. We also got an extra "loose" key to each room, to have as a backup. We were now all set to go.
When we were originally settling in our rooms we had picked up the receipts from my purchase of the soda stickers for the 3 boys, plus 2 teen passports. The soda stickers give the kids unlimited fountain soda purchases, and the passports are 20 one-use coupons for any non-alcoholic drinks at all. This includes bottled root beer, strawberry margaritas (non-alcoholic), banana smoothies, etc. We had to go to the coffee bar on the same 5th floor to get those redeemed. The passports are really just yellow paper folded in half and stapled, with 20 coupons in them for the drinks. Nothing very formal. The stickers were little "coca cola" stickers that stuck onto each card. As these were so convenient, Jenn also got some for her kids.
The image above is looking down the 5th floor hallway towards the Seven Seas restaurant, with the coffee bar on the left. Dad spent much of his time reading in one of the chairs on the right here. Note that the ship maps all said this was a "coffe bar" with only one e :)
My 3 boys were now starving, and poor James had taken medicine in the room that made his stomach upset. We went right up to deck 10 - the top pool / grill deck. There was a line at the pizza / burger place so we went over to the buffet. There was enough offered that everybody found something they liked, from pork fried rice to carved beef to roast chicken, jello and pudding. We found a bunch of seats at the tables along the water, nicely in the shade. The boys used their soda stickers by going over to the bar and waving them - POOF they had free soda. I lent my cellphone to them and had everyone call their parents to let them know we were on the ship, all was fine, and we were good to go.
Bill, Billy and James
Katie, Dale and Lisa
Hurrah!! My main fear was over, we were all on the ship. The sun was shining. We all had food. It was barely noon, and the vast majority of people weren't even on the ship yet. Life was goooood. It was time to relax and know that from here on in, it would be clear sailing. People kept saying "congratulations!" to me and it became a running joke with us all :)
I let the boys know that the only real "thing" left to worry about was the mandatory life jacket drill before the ship left. We let them loose while I went down with Bob to the room. We decorated the door with magnetic sand-art fish that I'd made with friend Debi before we left. I stuck a "Sunday's Cruiser" sign on our door to start the week. I'd made up a separate blue legal sized sign for each day of the week saying things like "Monday's Cruiser is Fair of Face" and so on. I taped a pencil on a string to the sign, and we all wrote on the sign to tell each other what we were up to.
On Dad/triplets door I put a "Giant Squid!" sign since Dad had been asking me what to do if there was a giant squid in our ship's path. For our fish-covered door, we heard a lot of "look at the fish!!" comments as people passed our room. Our room was right at the first junction as you went left from our elevator, so we heard many people using it as a landmark - "turn left at the fishes" :) Some people even began writing messages on our sign, thanking us for the landmark.
Bob and I took a little nap until 3:00 when the announcements came on about the mandatory fire drill. Bob and Marc were sound asleep, so I got them awake and checked with the 3 boys - we were all in group C9 even though we were in 2 separate rooms. We got our life vests and trouped upstairs. There was a pack of 40 or so people gathered underneath lifeboat 9 as instructed. We all waited there for a while, and the safety officer checked each group's names off. She gave us brief information about how to use the lifevests and such. Then we waited, and waited. Jenn and I talked about Fraggle Rock (inspired by the Crystal Caves on Bermuda) and people talked about my wedding dress - he he he.
About 3:40 an officer came past telling us that it would only be 20 minutes or so total that we'd have to be here for this, which some of us found odd since we'd already been down there over 1/2 hr already. Many people were getting very sore feet from standing in a packed heap for this long time, and there was nowhere to sit. Finally an overhead announcement came on with some quick, pretty generic information about emergencies and they let us go. I heard from others later that that was the longest drill they'd ever been in so I wonder what was up. As a note for those wanting to skip the drill, the crew explicitly read out the room numbers of those who had not shown up (to make sure they weren't there) for this mandatory drill and indicated that those people would be told to attend a make-up one within 24 hours.
While waiting in the drill we got to see the coast guard harassing a few ships for getting too close to our ship. I also heard from someone later that during the drill they saw a group of people racing to get on the boat before it actually left. I'm glad I wasn't in that situation!
We now let the boys loose and Bob and I headed up to the top deck. I got a lot more "congratulations" as I went. We went to the front of the ship, and pretty soon it began to move! Everyone cheered, and the ship started blowing its horn. The coast guard boats zipped around to and fro clearing out the channel, warding off any nearby boats. It was amazing to watch them zipping in front of the cruise ship, with lights flashing and the machine gun at the front of the boat, keeping us safe.
Jeremy, Katie and I hung out on the front, Bob took photos, and we were off!!
very windy on deck!
We slowly moved out away from land, the horn blowing occasionally, the coast guard helping out. Yes, many people were drinking, but I don't think I was ever approached by a waiter. I was surprised, because some people on cruise forums had claimed that they were swarmed by overenthusiastic waiters. I suppose it all depended on where you stood - if you stood by a bar and didn't have a drink, they might naturally think you were waiting on one.
Speaking of alcohol, I had a two buy-2-get-1-free drinks that were marked for embarkation only. I had meant these for Mom & Len, but I couldn't find either one and also hadn't brought the coupons up with me. So to start, I went down to the room to fetch them and came back up to the poolside bar. I tried to buy just one glass of Champagne at the bar by the pool and was told that wasn't how the coupon worked. The bartender said I had to buy 2 drinks on one receipt, and then if I handed that receipt with the coupon to any bartender before midnight tonight I would get the third drink for free. I still couldn't find Mom, Len or any of the other adults so I got 2 Champagnes figuring I'd track someone down to sip it with elegantly by the railing. Bob appeared and now the skyline looked really cool, so he took some photos of it while we drank the apple juicy (suspicously not Champagne flavored) drink. James and the 2 boys showed up for some pizza and burgers at the back "restaurant" on the top floor, enjoying the all-you-can-eat-or-drink atmosphere. They seemed to have settled in quite nicely!
Bob and I went downstairs a floor to the Observatory lounge on the front of level 9 - this gorgeous restaurant is a lounge during the day, a nice Italian restaurant in the evening. There are two levels, an inner cloth level and an outer marble-table level against a bank of windows. The inner tables have a geometric beige-purple-pink design while the other chairs have more of a tiger-stripe-on-black design. We found Jenn and Marc. Using my other coupon, I asked for 2 drinks - a Grand Marnier for Bob and a Bailey's for me. At first they said the coupon was only for frozen drinks, and I showed her that the coupon said for any drinks (not even alcoholic necessarily). So now she said I had to have all 3 at once, and gave me a double Bailey's with the Grand Marnier. This was not quite what I was hoping for - but on we went.
As the boys were already eating, Jenn, Marc and her 3 kids decided to eat with us at the Italian restaurant which is what the Observatory becomes in the evening. Katie wanted shrimp, which the Pasta Cafe (as it was named) had on the menu for that evening. Mom & Len said they wanted to eat much later. The Pasta Cafe said they were already booked solid unless we could eat right now (at 6pm). We agreed and said we'd do that.
The Pasta Cafe is right in the nose of the ship and as mentioned is a classy mix of wood and brass. There are gorgeous windows overlooking the water. We got 2 tables side by side right up against that front window area. The ship was a little "jittery" here - not a swaying motion but more of a gentle vibration. While this didn't bother me or Bob at all, it did bother Katie, so that might be something for diners to keep in mind. Bob and I ate with Jeremy while Jenn, Marc, Katie and Dale ate together.
The cafe starts with long bread sticks, fresh salsa and olives. The Beef Carpaccio appetizer was quite nice, with a fresh, clean flavor. Jeremy liked his Caesar salad. Bob had a cool melon soup, while I had a lovely warm sour cream broccoli soup. The main dish he had was shrimp with ziti, while I had fettuccini alfredo. Apparently everyone else who had the shrimp felt it was only reasonably OK, nothing special. I had the same mixed feelings about the fettucini alfredo - a bit tough, a bit plain.
For dessert I had chocolate cake, which came with a gorgeous butterfly stained glass style plate decoration. The cake was lovely if a bit simple. I used my one remaining "free drink" to get an Irish coffee. Again I had a bit of discussion before they would bring it to me, they didn't quite believe what the top bartender had told me but then agreed to honor it. I had my coffee (decaf) with the cake, and was now completely sleepy.
Bob and I headed down to sleep, at about 8pm. The ship was fully underway now, and we could see long, slow waves out the windows. The bed was VERY soft and cozy, and the quilt top was nice and soft. I was completely in bliss and there was plenty of room on the twin to snuggle up with Bob and fall asleep.
Monday Notes - Bermuda Majesty Cruise
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