We love this form of travel with family. It’s a great way to travel and visit without being on top of each other. Family dinners make it easy to connect throughout your trip. The app makes it easy to text during the cruise to family members (as long as the
seniors in the group download the app!! 👍🏽)
Embarkation
4 out of 5
It was sunny and hot in San Pedro, CA. We checked in early in the day (10:30am) and they had canopies to provide extra shade while you waited in the queue.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
4 out of 5
Many of it hit or miss. The main theme was temperature issues. 50% of the time our food was barely warm or cold when they should have been hot. I guessed the food has to travel a long way from the kitchen, and then sits on a tray to be delivered to the table. I understand they have thousands of people to feed but food temperature is important.
Q was the standout restaurant in our experience. The brisket and everything. Else was 10 times better than we could get at home in Seattle. We ate there twice.
Food Republic was disappointing. Some of it was good and some pretty bad. My sushi roll rice was mushy and gummy. We asked it it was prerolled and sitting, that’s how mushy it was. I picked out the crab filling and the fish on top of the roll and left the rice. My friend ordered the spicy Korean Chicken. It had good flavor and was hot (temperature) but the bed of rice it was served on was room temperature. Weird rice issues.
Le Bistro was fabulous. I had escargot and rack of lamb for dinner. I can’t remember the dessert but out of all the dining experiences, that one was the beat for food, service and atmosphere. Plus it felt small and intimate.
Cagney’s was good. No complaints. The wedge salad was phenomenal for some reason. Our table was a 2 top in the middle of a high traffic area, so the atmosphere was a little lacking. Other than that, yummy.
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
There were lots of activities to choose from morning to night, with good variety. We enjoyed the trivia offered at all hours of the day. The lectures in the atrium seems to be very popular (and crowded!). The game show/ interactive contests were fun to watch. Jackie and Silas did a fantastic job getting people involved and laughing!
Entertainment
4 out of 5
The live music (4 Blue from Colombia) was our favorite. The live music pool side was always a good vibe. The piano/keyboardists was terrific. Havana, the musical was not very good... We left after 5 songs. Our Jersey Boys Show got rescheduled to the last night and we opted not to attend to have a final family meal. The two comedy shows we saw we entertaining and had good crowd appeal.
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
Our housekeeper (Alex) was fantastic, as were most of the wait staff (Aida and Joy). Surprisingly, the grouchy ones the tended to be the bartenders. Perhaps they get tired of serving drinks all day? I suggest their shifts be shorter.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
The Bliss is only 6 months old so everything still had “new ship feel”. This was my first mega-ship and I appreciated that they layout never made us feel packed in.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Our balcony stateroom was designed very well. Once we had everything unpacked there was plenty of functional room as long as we kept everything in is place. I loved how much the bathroom held with those shelves on the mirror. I even bought one of those bathroom hanger compartments for more space and found I didn’t need it.
The side tables are great with USB ports and two different types of light (overhead and adjustable reading spotlights).
The AC and water flow/temp rocked
Ship tip
Bring or buy a lanyard for your card key. You use it all day long and if it’s on your next you can’t lose it. Bring a back up/faux room key to keep the power on in your room while you are away or in the room and don’t want your key card in it. I brought a casino rewards card to keep power on. When we left for housekeeping to come in we could take it out and set it aside. You don’t need a power strip for al your electronics. Plenty of plugs and ports in the stateroom (5).
Lots of shops/ restaurants to visit while you wait to embark on your cruise. We stayed at the hotel by the marina that had a shuttle to take us to shops and stores. If you are using shuttle to get to cruise ship, schedule in advance!
We took a cab to the Golden Zone shopping district. It was right on the beach but it was all the regular touristy trinkets at every port. My parents and senior relatives hit up the farmacia to stock up on their meds for low prices. We literally hit the farmacia, walked around for an hour and cabbed back to the ship. The beach was pretty. If we had more time perhaps we would have gone swimming.
U less you take an all day excursion, there isn’t anything around this port except going to the “cruise ship terminal” which is generous. It’s an outdoor trinket shop that sells beer for $5 US and cokes for $1. It was very humid that day so we came ashore just to buy postcards then back to the ship for some pool time.
The only excursion we did on the trip was here and it was ziplining. The bus ride was about 30 minutes but they stopped at two spots so stretch it out. Our excursion was an hour late so they were stalling us because they said the group before us was still on the zip line. We stopped at a stretch of local fruit stands, then they took us to the bus depot/trinket mall. The trinket mall had bathrooms, coffee samples and a good selection of trinkets. From wood carvings to shirts, bowls, jewelry, apparel, it was the best one on the cruise. Again I just got postcards.
The new Panamax lock is very impressive and surrounded by lush hills and trees. Going through Gatun Lake was beautiful and serene. It takes half the day so I spent part of it in the thermal spa, looking out the picture windows and reading a book. Much less crowded than the Observatory Deck!
My favorite port of the trip because we were in a port in beautiful busting city. The downside was that our shore time was very short. It was from 10am - 2pm. We paid for the catamaran to take us across the harbor bc we heard traffic was atrocious in Cartegena. Unfortunately, one of the catamarans broke down so they were short a boat. We waited in line for about an hour after our start time. NCL said they would wait an extra hour for us to return but it still made for a stressful situation.
Once across we headed toward the historical part of town. We walked past the Naval Musuem and walked around the walled part of the city before heading into the historical
Square. We stopped for lunch and a drink which proved to be a mistake, only because of time. The food was fantastic but it was *very leisurely* (aka slow!) sonit ate up most of our shore time. We basically had to bee line it back to the boat to make sure we got back in
time.
This port would have been terrific to have had all day into evening at. There was plenty to see and do at a more relaxed pace.
We stayed one night after disembarking. It was fun for a night. We rented bikes and rode the boardwalk and past the old Art Deco hotels. We walked to another hotel and had a fantastic dinner.
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