Cruise Vacation 101-Part 2

Second in a series of videos explaining the first steps someone should take when planning a cruise vacation. Are you a newbie to cruise vacations? if so...leave a question and I will be sure to answer it during this series.

Cruise Vacation 101

Here is a short video discussing the first step in the cruise planning process. This will be the first video in a series. I also give a small plug to the Bricktown Hampton Inn and Suites in Oklahoma City which is where I recorded this short video. Thanks for watching.

NCL's Great Stirrup Cay

A short while back I had a chance to cruise for the first time with Norwegian Cruise Line. As with most major cruise lines in this day and age, the itinerary included a stop at NCL's private "island" called Great Stirrup Cay. NCL refers to it as an island, but it is really a private stretch of beach that they lease. The island itself is inhabited by locals who live and work on the island.

I was particularly interested in this stop on my cruise so I could compare it to Disney's Cruise Line's private island called Castaway Cay. Castaway Cay is an actual island owned by Disney and is the only private island/beach where your cruise ship actually docks at the island versus having to take a tender (small boat) into the island from your cruise ship which is anchored a short distance offshore.

In comparison, Great Stirrup Cay is much smaller than Disney's. Disney's Castaway Cay had a large natural area where you could bike or hike and get away from the crowds hunkered down on the beach. I took a short walk on Great Stirrup Cay on a trail that I was hoping would take me on a scenic walk through this little stretch of Bahamian paradise, but was disappointed to see most of the trail roped off with "do not enter" signs posted everywhere.

So my time was mainly spent in a beach chair which was planted on a very sloped part of the beach, but was closer to the food venues which is why I staked out this particular area. If you went further down the beach, not only did it get much more crowded, but you were a long way from the area where they serve the food and drink.

As far as scenery...Great Stirrup Cay has a pretty stretch of beach and and shoreline, and a nice grove of palm trees giving you that sense of paradise that we all hope to see when we cruise to the Bahamas or anywhere in the Caribbean. The food on the island was your typical private island cruise menu consisting of BBQ hamburgers, hotdogs, salads and fresh fruit.

The music was what I truly enjoyed. The reggae band was exceptional and made for a fun afternoon. They can be seen on this short video showing more of the highlights of the island along with view of one of the tenders that NCL uses to get you from ship to shore.

I am looking forward to my next cruise in May with Princess where again we are scheduled to make a stop at their private "island"...Princess Cay.

Overcoming Seasickness

So many would-be cruise vacationers decide that they never want to try a cruise because of their fear of getting seasick. They read or hear stories about people who went on a cruise, got seasick and had the worst vacation ever and then think that they too will be one of those who will have such a horrible experience.

That is a shame to me to know some will just never ever give cruising a try based on other’s experiences or just based on a fear that may be completely unfounded.

So let me try to alleviate some of those fears by explaining some of the ways that a traveler can overcome the sensation of seasickness and have the most enjoyable time on a cruise vacation.

Let’s define seasickness first of all. Seasickness happens when the body, inner ear, and eyes all send different signals to the brain, resulting in confusion and queasiness. It is a problem generally attributed to disturbance in the balance system of the inner ear (vestibular) system. Your sensory perception gets out of synch as these nerve fibers attempt to compensate for the unfamiliar motion of the ship moving through water. The movement of a boat on a fluid sea creates stress in the portions of the brain responsible for balance. Perhaps that stress causes the brain to start malfunctioning as the land based environment it understands is suddenly not behaving as it should (http://seasickness.co.uk/).

So you see that it is not a “sickness” such as something we experience when we catch a cold or a flu bug, but it is a sensory sensation that your body and brain gets when you start to feel the motion of the ship. So to prevent or overcome seasickness, then one needs to do something to tell the brain that everything is going be ok...so to speak.

So here is the first thing NOT TO DO; do not sit in a confined space once you start to feel the motion of the ship if you have never sailed before. Too many will sit in their cabin and start to feel some movement and then begin to feel a bit queasy. Once that happens, their brain has no other choice but to keep sending the mixed signals and it all starts to go downhill from there.

So then the first thing TO DO is to get up to the top deck and look out at the horizon and let your brain get acclimated to its new environment. Take some deep breaths, take a walk about the top deck of the ship and get used to the feel of things moving around you. To add to that, grab a soft drink or carbonated water with you and sip it slowly while you stroll around outside. Do not stay inside staring at the walls of the ship.

I am giving you the natural remedies first because they are the ones with zero side-effects and will make for a much more enjoyable cruise.

The next thing NOT TO DO is to go eat a heavy meal thinking that food will make things better. If you are in that stage of feeling queasy...the last thing you want to do is eat a big meal before you give your brain a chance to settle down. Again...what you SHOULD DO is get out of your cabin and head to a food and drink venue onboard where you can grab something to drink (non-alcoholic) and maybe some fruit like an orange or some soda crackers. Let your body ease into the cruise along with your brain.

I think I have fully covered the main thing that you should NOT DO which is to stay inside your cabin while you start to feel some motion sickness. We happened to sail on a cruise a while back that encountered some rough seas (which is inevitable if you cruise often). This particular ship was one of the mega ships that has what I refer to as a mall down the center of the ship. You could not see the outside from this promenade (mall) area. As we got further out to sea, you could see the ship shifting and rolling along with the waves and I knew some were going to get sick on this cruise. Well it was not long before I saw some folks scurrying to find the closest restroom and most had been sitting in this area where they could not see what was going on outside. Someone needed to tell them to get up top so they could feel the wind and see the horizon and I am almost sure they would not have had as rough of a time as they did that night.

But if you are someone who would prefer some extra peace of mind, here are some other tips to help you overcome your fear of seasickness or the sensation itself:

1) Make yourself busy. Go and find something to occupy your brain like one of the shows onboard or some music act in one of the nightclubs. Your brain has a hard time telling you how bad things are when it is engaged in other activity.

2) Book a cabin near the very center of the ship and also on a lower level. Simple physics tells you that you will feel the motion of a ship more in the front and also higher up if the ship seems to be rolling a bit side to side. If you are in a cabin that is feeling the motion, go out of your cabin again and find somewhere near the center of the ship to sit for awhile. Most ships have huge atriums near the center and can be a great place to go "occupy your brain" for a while.

3) Wear a pressure point wristband. I have one and wear one on every cruise. I have yet to ever get seasick even during rough seas and my brain tells me it is partly due to my "BioBand" as it is called ( http://www.biobands.com ). These pressure point wristbands apply pressure to an area that is believed to be associated with your body's equilibrium. I am a firm believer in them. They are not that expensive and can be found in stores and on the web.

4) Wear one of the many seasickness preventing patches or take a seasickness preventing pill which can also be found at your local drugstore. These work for most people, but they also come with some side-effects such as dry mouth and drowsiness which is why I prefer to try some of the methods mentioned before.

5) Get a shot/injection onboard if the feeling does not subside and you are afraid the nausea will last the entire cruise. Ships have Dr's onboard which can give you an injection that will make you feel a whole lot better, but again it comes with some of those same side-effects. But you don't have to suffer if you are one that can not shake the queasy feeling.

Seasickness can be prevented all together if you just try some of the things I have suggested and you can have the best vacation ever if you just give cruising a try and don't let the fear of getting seasick stop you from even trying. Do you have some methods/remedies that I did not mention? Have you been seasick before and found a way to overcome the feeling once it started? I would love to get your comments or feedback on this subject.

NCL Cruise 2010 Review

I hope everyone has had a chance to check out the videos and pictures from my most recent cruise aboard NCL’s Norwegian Sky. It is a pleasant ship to look at. While some of the common areas are showing its original age, overall it has nice visual appeal, which I will explain more in a moment. My intent with this post is to give my final review of the ship. I want to be completely honest with my assessment and also open minded to the fact that this is just one cruise with Norwegian Cruise Line and should not be taken as a representative of the entire cruise lines ship’s and itineraries…good or bad.

My intent is to list the pros and cons so individuals can make up their own mind whether this is the ship and itinerary for them for their future cruise vacation. I believe every destination, cruise line, hotel chain etc has its share of pros and cons. I get weary of reading critiques where most of the critique is a huge slam and one heavily slanted toward the negative. I have found that those reviews are written most likely by two types of travelers; those who live in the dream world that everyone is at their beck and call so they complain if their caviar is not the brand that they had come to expect and they use a lot of words that require a constant running to a dictionary just to know that they said the weather is less than stellar OR by those travelers who adorn themselves in “wife-beater” T-shirts and who have a hard time keeping their ball caps on straight and their pants pulled up, but for some reason they get on vacation and believe that every hotel, ship, resort employee is an indentured servant to them. The next time you read a horrendous review, keep one of those visuals in your mind and take it with a grain of salt.

With that said…let me start with the cons of this particular ship and its itinerary so I can then end on a positive note. The largest con of all of the Norwegian Sky is the buffet areas of the ship. There were two buffets both in the aft part of the ship and both with basically the same food items for lunch and breakfast. They were VERY small and not laid out well and caused a lot of congestion in and around the food and beverage service areas. I would say that the seating was also limited in these areas, but that was mostly because the weather was not great on this cruise and most guests were trying to crowd themselves in the interior seating areas. I am not certain that this problem can be fixed due to the size of the ship and its fixed footprint, so to speak, but nevertheless it is a negative and made my breakfast and lunch less than satisfying. Food was ok, but again because it was such as small area, not a great selection of items on the buffet.

Second con…overall service in the free dining and food venues (with the exception of their specialty restaurants). I am used to receiving great service on other cruise lines no matter which food area you choose to eat in. I am used to the wait staff coming around to their designated seating area in the buffet restaurants asking you if you need a refill or if they can get you juice or coffee in the mornings while you eat. That was a rarity on this cruise. Since I was traveling by myself, I had to find a seat, make sure I put something in the seat to show it was for sure taken, get into the buffet line, return with my food and then go get in the beverage line. Again, because seating was a premium inside, I did not dare get up and get a refill because someone was hovering over your table like a vulture ready to snag it away and the “wait staff” were also hovering ready to clear a plate so they could keep tables empty and available. You had to keep a fork touching part of your plate or a cruise employee would whisk it away and you would wave bye-bye to your recently buttered pancakes if you dared to turn your head for a moment.

So that pretty much covers the buffet areas. But I also found the service sub-par in the main dining rooms. I ate dinners in each of the 2 free dining rooms and also 1 lunch in one of them as well. I was amazed how I would get basically ignored since I was eating alone. Someone would come and hurry and take my order, rush my food out (which is not normally something to complain about) and then make you feel as if you need to hurry and eat so again the table could be cleaned off and re-seated. If you have sailed at all on some of the major cruise lines, you know that the special attention you receive while dining is one of the things that makes cruises so wonderful and memorable along with the good food. Most of the time I was offered the option of buying bottled water and once I said no…they quickly filled my water glass with tap water and never asked if I wanted tea or soda or anything else. The wine and bar staff would just walk around me while never asking if I wanted anything from the bar at all (regardless of if I drank or not). I became so agitated at one point that I finally pulled out my little pad and pen and started documenting everything right there at the table hoping some would get the hint that “hey…this guy might be a critic or something.”

The other con is associated with the ports of call and not really related to the cruise line. I am not a fan of the Bahamian cruises. Nassau and Freeport are really not what they used to be. Freeport is recovering still from the hurricane that devastated the area 5 or 6 years ago and really is mainly a shopping venue and not that many shops at that. I feel NCL should really skip that port all together and just have a nice relaxing first day at sea like that of Disney and even some of Royal Caribbean’s 4 day Bahamian cruises. I did find a bright spot while in Freeport (see day 2 review), but that is not enough of a bright spot to make me want to take the same cruise again.

The last con I will mention is that of the ship’s layout. With the size of the ship, there is not a lot of room to make things flow any better, but NCL could improve upon the way it directs you in and around the ship. If you wanted to know where you were or where to find a certain place while on board, you had to find an elevator and squint to see where you were and where everything else was. It was not good for those who were in wheel chairs or who have any difficulty seeing at all. It also seemed like some of the specialty restaurants were made to be hard to find. I accidentally stumbled upon Le Bistro and never ran upon it again the rest of the cruise. Never seen anything like that on previous cruises. On deck 7, if you wanted to get from one end of the ship to the other, you had to walk directly through the smoke-filled casino. Just not a good layout.

Ok…now let’s end on a positive. I heard some of the best music that I have ever heard at sea on this cruise. Bruce Crichton and Ariel Jacobe were two of the best musicians/singers that you will ever hear while on board a ship. They happened to also perform in two of my favorite areas on the ship; The Plantation Club and the Outrigger Lounge. I loved the décor of both of these venues and also how they were designed and laid out. There were lots of areas in these lounges where friends could gather to cap off a night or you could visit them during the day and they were 2 of the most peaceful places to catch up on some reading or do some writing, as I did. High marks go out to the musicians and these 2 lounges.

Another pro of this ship is the specialty restaurant, Cagney’s. The service here did not disappoint. I was greeted warmly and was given special attention (as were all the guests). The food was incredible and some of the best so far even compared to previous cruises with other cruise lines.

Pro #3 would be the ship’s library. I have been in some on previous ships that were called a library, but had little in the way of books to read or check out. There were quite a few books at your disposal and frankly I was quite impressed. If you are thinking…“he liked the library??” You will understand once you cruise enough and encounter less than perfect weather during your cruise.

Pro #4 has to be the ship’s officer staff. I was greeted warmly several times by the officers of the ship and even helped once I came aboard with understanding how the specialty restaurants work by a very cordial officer (I wish I would have written her name down).

The last pro I will mention is NCL’s embarkation and debarkation process. This was the smoothest so far. I was on board quickly once it was my turn to check in. The staff was excited for you and did their best to get your cruise off to a great start. The disembarking process was also the same. The officers were there to say goodbye as you exited and the lines moved very quickly. I liked how they gave you the option of when YOU wanted to depart the ship versus other lines that TELL you when you will depart.

Overall…had the weather been better, the cruise overall would have been better. It was only in the 60°F range the entire time we were in the Bahamas which did not make for happy passengers who pick the Bahamas for warmth and sunshine. Is this a cruise that I would take again? Probably not. Does that mean it is not a cruise for you? Not necessarily. I would say that this cruise is ideal for the budget conscience vacationer and for mainly those classified as adults. I did see some young children onboard, but honestly they looked bored so I would not recommend this for families and their children.

If you have specific questions about this cruise or any comment related to my critique, please post it hear or contact me via e-mail. I hope this has been helpful and please again realize that this is based on my experience. I did hear others onboard say they were having the time of their lives so it is based on my perspective as are all reviews and critiques.

The NCL Sky...a visual tour

Before I sit down and post my final review of NCL's The Norwegian Sky, I want to give everyone a chance to view the ship via pictures and video. Once you see its layout, the public spaces, the stateroom, dining venues etc, you will better understand some of the comments, suggestions, praise and criticisms that I might express in my full review post. So with that said, here is a short video that will take you on a tour of the ship and you can view more of the photos by visiting my Flickr page.

The NCL Sky...a quick stateroom tour

This short video was filmed while on board NCL's Norwegian Sky. I had intended to post it while on the cruise, but the cruise's satellite internet connection was not up to the task. So here it is finally and I will be working on the full summary of the cruise in the coming week so stay tuned...