CMDTA on Vacation – Final Thoughts

After taking some time to think over my experiences on my NCL vacation what made the grade and what didn’t?

Rotan – I’d go back. The port of call itself was nice and worth visiting again. I felt safe the whole time and the people were nice.

Belize – I’ve been here twice and I go back again. Both times were fun.

Costa Maya – If there were a lot of other stops on the cruise I wouldn’t mind stopping here again. It was a nice laid back day.

Great Stirrup Cay – Well considering I’d have to cruise NCL again to stop here my answer is simple. I will never, ever, go back here.

Jet Blue – Despite the incident with the ants and the fact their people arrived at the airport later than other airlines, I’d use them again.

NCL – I was trying to think of a good simple way to explain how much of a disappointment NCL is. I think the best way to put it is this: If the cruise was free, the airfare was free, and we had onboard credit, I would not cruise NCL again. It would not be worth taking the time off of work. I can use that time for something better, like staying home. That isn’t to say I’d never try them again. If they dropped the “Freestyle” thing, abandoned the premium dining locations, greatly improved their food, stopped allowing smoking in their staterooms, reviewed and adjusted how they tender people, made their ships more attractive on the inside, and repainted their ships to get rid of the awful artwork on the outside, I’d consider using them again.

CMDTA on Vacation – Belize

I’ve been to Belize before so I wasn’t sure what we were going to do at this port of call. We’d already gone to the Mayan ruins so we were not to keen on doing that again.

We did not buy an excursion through NCL for this port of call. We did however check out what they offered. They had for cave tubing that looked fun but they were charging over $90 a person to do it. That seemed really high to be driven somewhere so you can get in an inner tube and float down an underground stream.

Not knowing what we were going to do, we went through the misery of getting a tender ticket and waiting to be called. The good news was they were not using their life boats as tenders this time. They had actual boats. That was good because the ship was anchored so far from shore it would have taken a good hour for a life boat to make it to shore.

Once we made it to shore we looked around for some tour companies. We located one right on the secure port that was offering the cave tubing for $65 a person. That was about a third off what NCL was charging.

A bunch of us piled into a van, with multiple cracks in the windshield and of course, Latin music blaring. The driver got in, and floored it. We passed on the left, we passed on the right, and we passed with on coming traffic. We tailgated people. We drove on the wrong side of the road at times. We went around corners so fast we pulled higher Gs than Mission Space. We were about to go around the corner and the driver called out, “Let me know if you want to go left, center, or right up here. When we turned the corner we found ourselves heading towards a narrow part of the road with a tree in the middle. Someone yelled out right and we went right. I really wonder if we had yelled left if he would have gone left. I really hope he wouldn’t have gone center but he was an insane driver.

We arrived and all breathed a sigh of relief. I think a few people ran to the bathroom to change their underwear.

Next we all grabbed a tube and followed our guide down a jungle path. He stopped, stuck his hand into a mound on the side of the trail, and pulled it out with bugs crawling all over them. He said “It’s a termite mound. They are a great source of protein.” He then proceeded to eat the termites off of his hand.

A little further down the path he stopped by a hole in the ground and grabbed a long blade of grass and started poking down the hole. He told us he was trying to coax the tarantula out. I’m not afraid of spiders but my wife took got as far away from that hole as she could. He couldn’t get the spider our so we headed down the trail again. He stopped a few yards later and pointed. There was a big old tarantula off the side of a trail by its hole. My wife took off and a lot of people got nervous. Apparently they thought it was the rare South American flying tarantula. Yes I am kidding there is no such thing as a flying tarantula. Spiders to not like people. If you move towards them they run. When our guide got too close it ran down the hole.

We finally made it to the river. Most people slowly waded into the water. The rest of us followed the guide and jumped off the rocks into the water.

Everyone got in their tubes and linked up. You have to tuck your legs under the arms of the person in front of you. Once that’s done the guide said that there were some shallow sections and when we got there he’d say “butts up.” If you didn’t do this your butt would get pummeled by rocks.

Everyone put a head lamp on and we went into the cave. You wear the head lamps so you can see the inside of the cave and also so you can see all the bats hanging from the ceiling. It was a nice leisurely ride which included seeing an under ground waterfall.

We came out the other end, dried off, and got back on the van. The ride back didn’t seem as bad but I think we were just used to it.

We finished the day in Belize by getting a few drinks before we had to get back on the boat.

Cruising

My wife isn’t a Disney fan so for this year’s vacation I had to do something she’d like. I ended up booking a cruise through NCL. I’ll start by saying my first impression with NCL was not a good one.

We went on an Alaskan cruise aboard the Pearl. The weather was great, Alaska was amazing, but rest was just average.

I’ve been on Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and NCL. Carnival and Royal Caribbean are much better than NCL. NCL came out with “Freestyle Dining.” Another word for freestyle dining is gimmick. Freestyle Dining allows you to go to select restaurants for dinner whenever you want. I say select restaurants because only a few of them are free. Yes, NCL discovered a way to get people to pay for food on a cruise. If you don’t go to one of the pay restaurants you get average food. All of the expensive items have been removed from the menus.

Being the kind of guy I am, I asked why the other cruise lines offered items like filet, lobster, baked Alaska, and the other classics and NCL didn’t. The answer was so dumb my brain grinded to a halt and refused to work anymore. I was told that guests were tired of the usual fare and wanted something new. So in other words, you took that to mean that your guests were tired of good food and wanted cheap sub-par slop.

My other big complaint about NCL was the ship. It was ugly. What a tacky ship. It reminded me of a retirement home. It was completely unimpressive too. Both Carnival and RC had massive atriums and other impressive architecture. NCL had nothing impressive.

So why did I pick NCL? I’m willing to give second chances and they offered the best deal. However, if NCL doesn’t show dramatic improvement I’ll never cruise on them again unless someone else is paying for it.

The stops for this cruise include: Costa Maya – Mexico, Honduras, Belize, and some private island in the Bahamas. I’ve never been to Costa Maya. I’m not expecting much. I’ve been to other places in Mexico and was never overly impressed. I’ve never been to Honduras so that one is a total wild card. I’ve been to Belize. Belize is very nice. Great place to go see some ruins if you’ve never done that before. They also sell cashew wine there. That’s great stuff. I’ve been to about 25 different places in the Caribbean but have never been anywhere in the Bahamas. This won’t count either. It’s just a private island and those can be hit or miss.

I should be excited about going on vacation but after going to Disney last year, I’m not. It’s hard to get pumped up about an everyday cruise. If it was Alaska I’d be pumped up about it. I’m sure I’ll get a little excited as it draws closer.