Sunrise from the deck
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Sunrise from the deck
Someone asked about the Norwegian Majesty, and I have yet to do a review of the cruise I took three months ago. So since today is my birthday and I am not terribly busy, I thought I'd pull out my notes and share them with you.
While time may have dimmed my memories (or enhanced them, who knows) I keep a diary when traveling and will work from that.
We took Norwegian Majesty from San Juan, January 13, 2002. Our itinerary was a day at sea, Martinique, Antiqua, St. Maartin, Tortola, St. Thomas. I am a vegetarian, which colors my review somewhat.
We flew nonstop from Washington Dulles on American. The flight was not notable in any way, and smooth. My only beef was no food on it. I arranged my own air, and we flew the day before.
Hosteria del Mar from the beach
Once there we took a quick cab to Ocean Park and the Hosteria del Mar. $13 for the taxi, including a generous tip. Hosteria del Mar is a pretty hotel right ton the beach. Ocean Park is a gated community, and the driver had a little trouble finding an open gate to get us there. My sister used to live within walking distance of this lovely place. Once at the hotel we checked in and ate lunch, while they were getting the room ready. The hotel has a Vegetarian and Caribbean restaurant on the beach. The food at lunch, and later at dinner, was excellent. Our room was quite small (but inexpensive at only $75 a night) with a single king size bed and only about 4 feet to a wall in any direction. The bathroom was also small. Almost cruise ship sized. During the night there was an air conditioner that was quite loud. If you are bothered by noise, you might want it off. The Condado is about mile to the west.
A Cruise Ship in Old San Juan
After lunch we headed into San Juan. The A5 bus picks up about six or seven blocks from the hotel. You can take this bus for only 25 cents each way into San Juan, so it is great if you like public transport and are budget-minded. You pick it up on Luisa street. The end of the line for this bus is a bus station near the cruise ship docks. Note that outside the Ocean Park area, the neighborhood is very working-class, not as nice and clean as inside. I never felt I was in a "bad" neighborhood, but there was a definite difference.
We spent much of the afternoon walking around the various shops, especially on Forteleza street. Around 3:30 we headed off to Ft. San Cristobol, and very briefly toured the Fort, mostly admiring the views (it closed up around 4:30). San Cristobol is not nearly as impressive as El Morro, so if you have not seen the latter, choose it.
We saw a lot of places we have been before (my sister used to live in San Juan) and it was neat to see them all done up for Christmas and the Epiphany. The Epiphany is a big deal in Puerto Rico, a major celebration, and they had lots of lights and such for that celebration. We ate at a little German (?!) place called Café Berlin, which had a bunch of vegetarian entrees. The food here was very good, and the bread really outstanding (like German bread!). After dinner we walked out to enjoy the holiday lights in the park and over Forteleza street. Then we headed back to the bus. It was more difficult to figure out where to get off, but we managed. If you take A5, be sure to pay attention to a landmark before you leave, so you will know where to come back to! After worrying through the entire trip, though, we saw a landmark we recognized and got off at the right place.
In both cases the bus came within minutes of when we got to the bus stop. I think they run fairly frequently.
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Norwegian Majesty (in Tortolla)
We stared the day going to church, which was great because it was Sunday. Union Church of San Juan is an interdenominational English language Christian church in the San Juan suburb of Santurce. It is about an eight block walk from Hosteria del Mar, including a walk down the street where my sister lived (we took pictures of her house). We enjoyed the service, retuned to Hosteria del mar and caught a taxi to the dock (again about $12.) As we drove up to the dock we noticed that the boat we were approaching was the wrong one. Looking across the water, I saw the Norwegian Banner. Turns out that the docks must have been changed, and our ship was at Heritage Pier (which is just east of the main piers at Old San Juan).
We boarded at 12:30 with no lines whatever. Came up to our cabin and settled in a bit. The cabin is 745, a "superior Ocean Stateroom" It had a big window, but is only 145 square feet. (This is small, I know in relation to most cruise ship staterooms, but our only other experience had been the 108 foot cabins in Sovereign of the Seas, so it seemed luxurious and immense.
We walked around doing our tour of the ship. First, since we were on the promenade deck, a bit aft, we checked out the spa and fitness facilities. While I am not a big spa person generally (and especially not at ship prices) I did want to check out the fitness facility, which was very nice, with good solid equipment and a nice fitness room. The facilities are somewhat small, but the equipment was good and the exercise staff just great (more about them on Monday). Next the Frame 52 Disco, behind the fitness facilities. We popped in here and enjoyed the view, but we would not be back to this room, except for a couple of dance lessons, the rest of the week.
Down to Deck 6 (The Majesty Deck; though we came to know them more by numbers than name), and the Palace Theatre. As has been noted in every review, this theatre, while adequate, has a quite low ceiling, and a few columns that can block your view for rows. Nonetheless we would be in this theatre at some point almost every day for the next week, often several times a day. It is a very pretty room, and the way it is set up, almost in the round, really allows for some interesting use of space.
Also on Deck 6 is the photo gallery (they did not take a single attractive photograph of me all week, so we did not linger here much.) which is really nicely put together with photos on racks coming out from the windows. This was well engineered; if uninterested you could skip it entirely and get around the ship just fine. The corridor down the other side of the ship is the Polo Club lounge, which was where the art auctions were held and also the piano bar. I did not find this space overwhelmingly enticing, so we spent very little time there. Also on deck 6 was the casino, which I enjoyed a lot. Surrounded by a veritable sea of slot machines were a roulette table, a craps table, four backgammon tables and a couple of poker-based table games. I had budgeted $100 for blackjack for the week.
Exiting the Casino we decided it was time for lunch, and headed up for the Sun Deck and then to the Cafe Royale for lunch. The best thing about the Cafe Royale was the fact that it had wraparound windows and was all the way fore, so you could watch where you were going from this deck. The deck also had two pools (one adult only) and two hot tubs (one adult only). While they got busy, we seemed to be able to soak ourselves for a good long time every day we wanted to. The adult only pool was being painted when we were there, and was filled the next day. This was not a big deal as I am not a real pool person. We saw some maintenance being done every day, and the ship was in great shape. I guess that is why. There is food at each end of the Sun Deck, at one end burgers and Pizza (24 hours) and the Cafe Royale (Lido buffet restaurant) for meals. They always had a buffet for every meal, and usually food stations also, located just outside the door on the pool deck. For example, at breakfast they had waffles, or crepes (with caramel syrup, yummy!) and for dinner they'd have Indian or stir fry. Of course they had round the clock water, coffee, tea, iced tea.
Windjammer Restaurant on the Norwegian Majesty
Continuing on our tour, we looked out over San Juan from the deck of the ship, and across the water to the military airport. Then we descended to the fifth floor (Note the elevators are pretty busy and full. We like to use stairs, so it was not an issue for us, but the waits were long.)
First of all we checked out the Seven Seas Dining Room, all the way aft. This is the larger of the dining rooms, and the one with the reputation for a lot of noise. We never noticed a real noise problem, but our cruise had a lot of short hops, we were always moving pretty slow. Rarely would all the engines be on, and never that we knew at dinner time. Seven seas had tables for eight, which we enjoyed.
Moving fore from Seven seas on the left of the ship (Port side) we first passed the coffee bar, the Le Bistro, the alternative restaurant (with the $10 p/p cover charge) and amidships we checked out the other major dining room (larger tables here were for 6, and it was quieter). Then on to Crossroads, the "nerve center of the ship, with the purser's desk, shore excursion desk, and others. Set up to be a major meeting place, it is set up with a circular lobby type arrangement, with a grand piano (which I never saw being played) and chairs. Mark and I were essentially together all the time, and the few times we split up, we met at the hot tub, but I can understand crossroads being a great place to meet before dinner or in the evening or whatever.
Moving forward, still port side, we passed the video arcade, then crossed the ship to check out the Internet cafe. The cost was 75 cents a minute or $99 for unlimited use the entire week. Since I did not come to the Norwegian Majesty to surf the net, we decided to use the internet on a minute by minute basis. The setup in there was very state of the art and very good. When I used the net there, it was very fast, and I was able to get my mail efficiently, which was important since my daughter had auditioned for a part in a school play and we had been waiting to find out if she got it. (She did). I had only two beefs with the internet cafe. One was that they did not provide a telnet link, which would allow me to connect directly with my UNIX-based e-mail. The other was that the startup process, which required no less than 5 screen loads and 5 clicks took a minute to get through. This was unnecessary. I should not, if I have an account (which is the way they handled it) have to tell the computer every time I log on that my preferred language is English!
We passed some Art (it was NOT ubiquitous, as I had expected) for sale, then moved to the lounges at the fore of the ship. Through the shops, which of course were closed, pass the library/game room, we came to the House of Lords, a great little lounge, and the Royal Fireworks. Royal Fireworks had a nice dance floor, and seemed really nice, but we never got HERE either. The House of Lords/Rendezvous lounge was the great little bar. It is almost in the middle of the corridor, and is a great place to just sit down for a few minutes. There was a big projection TV there, and football games and such were shown here.
We missed, on that walkthrough, a couple of public rooms, most notably the Royal Observatory, which is a pasta restaurant at dinner, and where Karaoke was. We spent a couple of fun evenings there, though we never ate there; as they seemed to never have a meatless entree, which we needed.
After our tour, we headed back to the room, changed into suits, enjoyed a couple fruity rum drinks while soaking in the hot tub and just listened to the pool band. This band seemed good, though not as good as the one on Sovereign a year and a half earlier. After an hour of soaking in lukewarm water (it was hot the rest of the week) we headed back to our room, unpacked, and headed to dinner.
We had dinner one night in Le Bistro, which was wonderful. They use more expensive ingredients, prepare food to order rather than en masse, and have more staff per person. It is worth it. The Filet Mignon my husband had was wonderful, melt in your mouth tender and perfectly cooked at Rare. My four seasons vegetarian platter was yummy. I did not eat all of it only because I was so full.
One night we ate at the buffet restaurant. Mark has never met a buffet he did not like, but Julie found it (at least the vegetarian option) mediocre. The special stuff at the food stations outside the buffet (especially the Indian food one day) was wonderful, but the buffet itself OK. Your Mileage may vary, Mark loved it, and while Julie insisted on going to the dining room all the other nights, Mark might have happily done the buffet again. Vegetarian food at the dining room was definitely better, including for lunch.
We were fairly pleased with freestyle dining. It was fun to try different venues. However, we missed having the same waiter and assistant for the full cruise (although it was great to switch meal partners; if you did not click with the folks at your table, which only happened once, the folks on the cruise were great) you only had them for one meal. Even the meal with the non-communicative teenagers was redeemed by a lovely couple who conversed with us.
The Chocoholic Buffet was a lot of fun. It's my opinion that big elaborate buffets every night are a waste, and I like the one big buffet a week and snacks the rest of the week idea (though I wish there were more vegetarian options than cheese and crudités). This is what Norwegian does. Everything I ate off the chocoholic buffet was wonderful, though I admit to being modest in my consumption. I picked a half dozen really good looking things and took just a little of each. Goodness, you could see plate under my food (my husband was not so controlled)! Everything I ate was wonderful.
Poolside band on Norwegian Majesty.
Entertainment on board was good. The dancers were very professional, the shows were well choreographed and put together. The comedy was funny (though I missed one of the late night shows.) Entertainment is really important to me on a cruise. I really enjoy this kind of entertainment, and this was great. The first night the whole Cruise Director's staff was introduced to us and there was a bit of revue style singing and dancing in a short program that was mediocre It was followed by a "juggler-comedian" who was very funny.
Monday they presented "Swing!" supposedly a Broadway musical, but much in the same revue style (I'd have preferred more of a play style musical) It was well danced and sung and had great costumes.
Tuesday, they had a "Lounge Lizard" Cabaret style entertainer. He was very good, and did a great set of Frank Sinatra songs, including "That's Life" a favorite of mine. He did a real stars and stripes Patriotic tribute at the end which I thought was a bit out of place, given the highly international crowd (we had a lot of British and British Leeward Island people on the boat). While I am glad to be an American, I don't think that this kind of in your face flag-waving is always appropriate, and I was uncomfortable with it.
Wednesday we had another Musical Revue which was excellently done and included some pretty amazing partner lift dancing by a couple of the dancers.
Thursday we had the "Liar's Club", pretty standard ship fare, and the juggler magician doing an adult show in one of the lounges,
Friday a magician-comedian (James Farrantino) and Saturday a touch of all the performers, one last time. All the entertainment was well done and professional. I particularly liked the comedians and the dance troupe, but if I did not like something it was due to my taste, not their professionalism. It was a lot of fun.
I should note that several nights the show band played big band dance music before the show for an hour or so. Mark and I took dance lessons a few years back and love this kind of dancing, so we showed up for it every time. It was great fun.
Julie in her favorite relaxing pose on ship.
We love activity on a ship and we did a lot of it. A selection of what we did includes:
Silly Pool Games
Passing Nevis, or maybe Saba, at sea.
We don't generally do excursions, so our experience of the ports is very much the independent explorers.
Fort de France, Martinique
Martinique: Butterfly Garden
We were not impressed. We had prearranged rental cars in both Martininque and St. Maartin. In Martinique there was a Teamster's strike which messed stuff up. We got the car and battled traffic virtually all the way to St. Pierre. We live in Suburban Washington DC and we know aggressive drivers and traffic, this was really really bad. We stopped south of St. Pierre at the Butterfly Garden and spent a nice hour there, then headed into St. Pierre. Since we could not find any parking in St. Pierre anywhere, we headed on without stopping. Driving through the center of the island was much better; it was lovely. We stopped in the afternoon at Sacre Coeur de Balata, since we have been to Sacre Coeur in Paris and it is a replica. It is nice, but not nearly as interesting as the one in Paris. Then we headed back to the ship after a late lunch at a little Bistro. The most interesting thing about Martinique was the ability to use the brand new Euro.
Nelson's Dockyard from Shirley Heights, Antiqua
The Devil's Bridge
We decided to go off on our own snorkeling and picked Deep Bay because there was supposed to be a wreck in snorkel depth water. We saw the Jolly Roger arrive, which was interesting. Returned to the ship for lunch, since we wanted to change out of suits and stuff. I did learn that I need an inexpensive camera. When we went to Deep bay I was struck by the beauty of the the place we were, but I had left my SLR on the ship, not wanting to leave it on the beach. The water was nice, but there was little of interest as far as sea life. We did a lot of snorkeling, an hour and a half or so. After a nice lunch, we headed out (via cab) and toured the island. First we spent an hour and a half at Nelson's Dockyards, which was interesting and pretty. Then we went up to Shirley Heights, where we looked back over the marina and the harbor, which is lovely. I got some great pictures. Then our cab driver took us on a mini tour of Antiqua and we saw the Devil's Bridge, on the other side of the island. It was exciting and beautiful out on the wild side of the island. We retuned to the ship and had a dinner in Le Bistro, which was very romantic.
A denizen of the butterfly farm in St. Martin
Marigot
Here we had rented a car, and the difference between driving here and in Martinique was very significant. We got out of town easily, the rental car was near the docks (only a half mile or so walk). We headed to the Butterfly Farm which was great. A great enclosure where hundreds of beautiful and exotic butterflies live, it included a tour describing the lifestyle of the butterflies. I got many beautiful shots, indeed, it was hard to avoid doing so. After a couple of hours here, we headed around the island, stopping at an overlook where we could see the central mountains and the sea. Then we headed out to Orient beach and walked the beach. We headed to Grand Case for lunch, but my husband is a cheapskate and the prices of the menus were too high for him. After that we headed to Marigot, where we found a little restaurant in a courtyard and ate a wonderful lunch. We spent most of the rest of our Euros there, then wandered around this town, which feels a little like a cross between New Orleans and the left bank of Paris with a tropical twist. Eventually we headed back to Phillipsburg in the mid afternoon, and went emerald shopping. Mark had never gotten me an engagement ring and wanted to remedy that problem. After a couple of hours of searching, we found the great ring we both fell in love with. Topping this off by buying some Guavaberry liqueur, we spent more time exploring St. Maartin than any of the islands. This is high on the list to come back to, also.
Center of town in Roadtown, Tortolla
Julie Relaxing in the Botanic Garden
In Tortola's Botanic Garden
We planned a very light day, because we'd really been very active all week. We headed off to the central square early in the morning. After buying some postcards and stamps we walked through the town to the botanical gardens. These were lovely. I got many beautiful pictures of the plants. In the middle of our visit, the skies opened up. We retreated to the porch of the closed administrative building and watched the tropical torrent come down. It was beautiful Afterwards the garden was rich with humidity and color. After our visit we headed back to the ship, grabbed lunch and relaxed. I napped an hour or so, Mark did the same, but up on the deck. We spent time in the hot tub, just enjoyed ourselves.
Trunk Bay, St. John's.
We decided to go to St. John, Trunk Bay. The commute is terrible. A good half hour in heavy traffic most of the way to red hook, then waited almost a half hour for the next ferry. We weren't in St. John until after 10. I took a picture of a friend's elementary school in Cruz Bay then we stopped at the Park Service office and headed on to Trunk Bay. WE snorkeled trunk bay, which was great. We did not do the snorkel trail, but snorkeled on the other end of the bay, where there were some reefs. They were nice and we saw lots of fish. Mark remembers fewer fish, but I saw lots. I had lots of problems with my gear. I have long hair and it kept getting in the mask, not good. Next time I will wear a swim cap. Mark was concerned about getting back in time, so we took an early ferry back to Charlotte Amalie (I wanted to take the 3:45, but ended up on, I think, the 1:30 or 2:00.). We loved St. John, it looks like there is so much more to do and see there and we hope to return in a few years for an entire week.
Sunday back in San Juan and it was over. This was our second cruise, our first seven day one. We had an immensely good time. We liked Norwegian and had a wonderful time. May take the Norway next year. My husband started talking halfway through this cruise about going on another one next year!
Norwegian Majesty in St. Thomas, behind Explorer of the Seas and a Celebrity Ship.