Loved the Bliss and the Haven, really enjoyed the cruise.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
We were booked in The Haven on this cruise so were able to use the special embarkation area specific to Haven Guests. We were able to get right on the ship as soon as we arrived at the terminal and our room was ready immediately and our luggage was there as soon as we got back from lunch.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
We ate in The Local, Q, Le Bistro, Cagney's, Los Lobos, La Cucina, Manhattan, Savor, Taste and the Haven Restaurant. We enjoyed all of them and thought the new choices were a great addition to the old standbys. Our favorite restaurant was the Haven Restaurant. The basic menu was excellent and when we mentioned that we would like a little more variety, the chef started adding a daily special to lunch and dinner. We felt all the food was of excellent quality and the service was very good.
Onboard Activities
5 out of 5
We didn't participate in a lot of the more strenuous activities but enjoyed walking on the walking/jogging track.
Entertainment
5 out of 5
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Most of our experiences were with the staff in The Haven which were very good. We also felt that the waiters in the other restaurants we visited were excellent and had no issues with the service.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
The ship was brand new so no issues with cleanliness. The new observation lounges were amazing and a great addition to the ship. The only thing with the layout that we would have appreciated was to have moved the walking/jogging track to Deck 8 which would have allowed for a longer track. As it is, it requires 8 laps to do 1 mile. This got a little tedious if you were trying to do several miles a day.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Ship tip
If your budget will allow, it is definitely worth it to book a stateroom in The Haven.
We took the Old Cartagena Walking Tour and enjoyed it a lot. The guide was native born and very knowledgeable about the city and presented the material in a very amusing way. The street vendors are very pushy and you have to be really firm with saying "no thank you" to get them to leave you alone.
This was really another "sea day" except for being able to watch the locks on both ends of the canal. We had a wonderful balcony and got a really good view of how the locks functioned.
This was our favorite shore excursion. We did "A Real Coffee Experience" where we visited a coffee plantation and saw how coffee beans are grown, harvested and roasted. We also got to sample some of the coffee and had the best cup of coffee we have ever had.
We did the Macadamia Nut Farm shore excursion here. It was very interesting and the guide was very knowledgeable but not quite as interesting in her manner of presentation as some of the other excursions we did.
We took the Tequila, Tiles & Shopping excursion. The Mexican tile factory was very interesting and watching the artists painting the tiles was amazing. The tequila distillery was our favorite and we got to sample 6 different types of tequila. We especially liked the peach and the almond tequilas. The shopping was at several shops in the town and our only issue was that the sales clerks were really high pressure. One lady in particular was very insistent that I was going to purchase a particular ring that I had admired in the display case. I did not purchase the ring but it was very uncomfortable to have to keep telling her "no".
We took the LA Overview/Farmers Market shore excursion that then dropped you off at the airport later in the afternoon. We had a 9:30 PM flight so it worked well for us. We saw a lot of Los Angeles and enjoyed our lunch at the Farmers Market. Taking the shore excursion made leaving the ship really easy. We had special "tour" luggage tags for when we set our bags out the night before. We were some of the first off the ship and our luggage was also some of the first off the ship and was really easy to find our bags. This was much easier then other times when we got off on our own and tried to find our luggage in the terminal. The tour section of the luggage storage was much smaller than the other groups so had fewer bags to look through to find ours.
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