Great ship with some ups and downs. A little more on the down site for us
Norwegian Bliss Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern
Contributor Level:
Second Mate
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 16
Helpful Votes: 383
7 Night Eastern Caribbean (Miami Roundtrip)
Sail date: December 22, 2018
Ship: Norwegian Bliss
Cabin type: Suite
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 5 years ago
Review summary
The greatness: 1. A lot of bars with a lot of drink options. Not a big drinking but had the unlimited pass so drank a bit more then usual and will prob not drink like that ever again. 1 Drink a month is plenty usually. 2. Loved the staff. Spoke to most we ran in to when time permitted. 3. A lot of activities.. with a good mix. 4. .Most of the casino is non-smoking 5. Jersey boys show was great as well as we enjoyed some other shows. 6. Loved the piano bar - forgot the bar name. Enjoyed the entertainment.. 7. Nice ship in great shape. Only damage i saw was just outside our balcany. Some edging missing but found another piece missing at end of our trip. ah well. :) 8. Found it pretty easy to board and debark the ship at the start/ending and at ports. We did take out suitcases with us on the last day. 9. Enjoyed the Local Bar and Grill. (open 24 hrs) - 1 floor above the atrium. Eat breakfast there a few times - small menu but had what we wanted and late night we stopped twice to enjoy their in bone wings. Recommend going to the handicap single bathrooms to get latex gloves to save you time trying to get your hands clean and not have the smell as well on your hands. The bummers: 1. Food just ok. Nothing to write home about. Had more downs that ups. 2. Wifi issues (probably spend an extra 6 hours the entire week with wifi issues), getting in line to ask for help. - I know.. we are to take a break from wifi but we are the odd-balls that need it a lot for work that we have to do sometimes and watch videos when we exercise. 3. There is no court for basketball/soccer/dodgeball which is a bummer for the kiddos.. instead you have the racing go carts.. Loved that they tried something new like the racing go carts but believe a needed in sports court would of been better. 4. Noise levels in room pretty high and mostly randomly but constant until most on the ship went to bed. Perhaps just our room placement. 5. I had to play $50 a hand to get the blackjack i like to play. 3 to 2 blackjack odds (not 6 to 5) and not a card shuffler machine that makes the cards shuffled back in. $100 table that dealer stays on soft 17s which is nice. 6. Some shows definitily not worth seeing. Havana and the Prohibition show you can skip. 7. Mixed drinks did not effect me. For something that does not drink much i would normally feel something after 1 mixed drink. Found that odd. Perhaps watered down. Not an expert. I did a get a martini on board and that did bring on the effects. Signing up/scheduling for shows / restaurants... if you did not get them done before hand, taking care of them on the ship was a breeze. Deck 6. Fill out a form of want you want to book and get in a short line. Seems they only allow around 20% of the seats booked online before the sale date but the rest of the seats can be booked up once onboard. - can always try to get in with no reservation . Did this a few times. Go Carts and Laser tag sign up was a bit hectic . Line never moved and finally a guest came down the line to let us know they are out of unlimited passes for sale and for quicker sign up to go to the touch screen monitors by the elevators and you can sign up for time slots on the touch screens. She was right. Was a breeze .We left the line and headed over to the stairs area on any floor ... really liked being able to do this. Just have your room key on you to insert to confirm purchase. Runs $9.95 each person each activities (race cars/laser tag) I believe that was the fee. If you really want the unlimited passes .. recommend you get on this line early / first thing. You can not sign up for the unlimited at the touchscreen systems and they have a limited amount. Runs $99 each / laser or race cars. But one time was enough for us. Go Cart Race Track - was fun to do it once ... not sure if ever would need to get a pass to do it unlimited. Some found hat and full helmet to be a bit much and hated it for that reason. Hard to pass the slow drivers so would recommend they keep the drivers experience in mind when they make the group. Believe up to 10 can go at once. We were a group of 8. If you want to speed and have fun that way and you are placed with 1 or a few that will not be driving fast you will come out feeling like this sucked. Only 1 place if you can find it to pass someone. Also.. if you feel that you will not like it, let me know know you might want to exit after a lap or two, My wife wanted to but they waved her to keep going around and not pull in to the pit. She was not happy about that. Recommend singing up to do this at after sundown. Laser Tag. Was down at our time slot. Found others there waiting over 90 mins when we arrive. So we never went back to give it a try. It is on the top level of the ship near the pool slides. Wifi Not so great. On Royal they have Voom that is amazing. You can use Netflix etc with never an issue. FaceTime with your friends etc. On NCL. We had a lot of issues. A lot of dead spots. Used wifi calling on our phone and had delays of people hearing us and dropped calls. Others complained as well and the line to the wifi support was long the first 2 days with only 1 guy at the desk and 1 gal helping as well people on the line when she could. Not sure why they did not spend some of the 1 billion $ on making the best wifi for the guests. I do like to work some when on vacation. Also the wifi packages are around twice the $ then royal Caribeans packages for less quality service. Bars/Drinks Plenty of bars on board. Plenty of choices. A lot more options over Royal C when it come to types of beer and drinks offered. You can not go 30 feet on non-stateroom floors without seeing a bar. So if you love to drink, this is a great cruise to do so. We had the unlimited package and water was not included. But the drinking water from the facet felt clean enough and the lead engineer told us about the purification system. With the drink package they charge you the automatic grutity per drink around .88 cents. Pool Not very big.. had 2 that we saw. .. one was more for the kids,, and the adults one found most just sitting on the edges around the pool. The hot tubs were small. We never reserved seats but found seats when needed. You see guests like to reserve seats. Once we moved things to lounge out and just figured if they come back we will get up.. they never came back while we were there. They do show on the big outdoor screen that they can remove things left over an 1 and you can pick them up at guest services. But doubt they did that. The pool water slide was great. Enjoyed it . Recommend you do this on in-port days when they open as the first day or two the lines are long. They do have one slide that you have to be over 90lbs and the floor drops and you hope you make it to the end. They have exits that open if you didn't .. Thought for sure i was going to make it. LOL Probably will not be on NCL again. We do have case number to see about getting a partial refund on the room we will see if anything happens with that .. if good news, i will update.Embarkation
Getting on the ship; arrived around 12:30pm .. no issues.. took around 35-45 mins to get onboard. No water bottles allowed. Felt really strange as you get on the ship as they have you enter in to the casino level 7 and asking any questions to the staff just inside made you feel you were holding up the line.... But all worked out. Nice staff at entry to direct.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
-Main restaurant 2 stars.. the main restaurant has three entrances all with different names but always the same food. Main dining room was Manhattan, but also Taste and Savor restaurants are also same menus/food and included at no extra cost.
- found the food to be repetitive for the most part - as it had its 6 standard dishes that are the same all week and some others that changed but nothing that WOW'd and they are afraid to give the food some taste.
Lack of seasoning and found others saying the same.
Wish they had a list of side items you can pick from at each meal.
- Found most of the fee based restaurants to be better to eat at for dinner. Recommend getting the 3 dinner package as your freebee if an option.
Some of the breakfast places to go eat at closed at 9:30am thought that was pretty early but found the Bar and grill to serve till 11am from a small menu and the buffet open till 10:30am.
Observation Lounge is nice but do not plan to eat there as it is pretty weak. Go to the buffet then go down 1 level to bring the the Observation lounge. It is nice, big area and quite with windows all around to see outside.
Steak restaurant was our favorite- Cagney's Steakhouse
Enjoys Margaritaville for lunch once. Big portions.
Ocean Blue - seafood.. not so great. They try to use some strange sauces to give the food a little flavor.
- liked the shrink cocktail.
Found a Sushi restaurant so got some sushi to go. Wife did not like it so i tossed it. She ate it right away so it was not we left it out long.
Hibachi place for dinner Tappanyaki -- found the shrimp salty and the fried rice was missing chopped veggies i am used to and blah. Rice was just rice and egg and found to be not as good as other places. Show started off great and nothing much happened after the food started going. It was busy but i would not go back. Perhaps it was just our server. They do have a lot of habachi tables. Way more then Royal C. and the Hibachi on the Royal Caribbean Harmony/Allure/Symphony is way better and also the chef show was better on royal.
Q country restaurant - Liked it. The tortia chips with the meat salsa was great and really like the country/Nashville band they had playing in the restaurant.
Some other restaurants but we did not try.
From Royal to NCL and MSC cruises. Found MSC to have the best food. Not afraid to give it a taste.
Onboard Activities
Activities - better then most. Had a blast and felt they kept a great schedule. Recommend eating early as some of the cool things also happened around 7pm. First time going to a art auction and dance instruction. Learned to Salsa dance, well sorta.
Played Bingo,.. as always, they take a lot of money in and pay out a little of it.
Watched the sexy man leg contest at the pol and other game shows. Was fun.
Loved that they had the captain and other head of the staff come for a Q&A for the guests to ask questions, in the Atrium- open area by guests services, and learn about the ship. Thought that was cool.
Cruise Director Alex... AMAZING! Best if have ever seen on a cruise line. He was awesome on running activities, Keeping guests informed on things over the intercom. He ran a bunch of the activities with such charm.
Entertainment
Shows.
Jersey boys thought was fantastic. We all enjoyed it and from the looks of the crowd at the end, they all enjoyed it as well. Has a standby line if you do not have a reservation.
Havana - stage set/effects was great. Show left you asking yourself why did you go/why wasn't i warned.
Had no story line. Seemed they had one when they first started having this show onboard but tossed that part out of the show and it just left you like why?
Probation show. Had the same lead from Havana as the main mc. She really does a great job but unless you just like to watch gals in sexy outfits and like the 5 different drinks they give you you just might want to pass on this one as well. When it ended people were still seated like there must be more. I am a guy i do enjoy looking at the ladies but felt it was not fulfilling and not worth the money/time spent. $35 a person. Did like the large screen visual effects.
Comedy club: Saw the under and over 18 show. Enjoy both. Under 18 had two Comedies and the over 18 just 1 of them performed. We laughed, Enjoyed it.
Beatle-mania- Very much enjoyed it. Worth going to see on the last night.
Karaoke
Was fun but wish they made it more like a contest and if you do a great job you are in the last days singing contest to get all the great singers together ... worked will on Royal. Also most of the time Karaoke was an hour session.. not long enough and always ended at midnight.. why not till 1am? ?
Many of the other bands/music groups playing around the ship did a great job. Felt there time slots were not long enough.
Service and Staff
Staff: Like just about everyone we met. Bartenders did a great job with the crowds. Especially loved the bartendards from India at the Steak Restaurant. We have no complaints about any of the Wait staff, to the casino staff, to room attendant liked them all. No issues. Well.. the casino host at the hi-rollers area wasn't the nicest :).
Nice, friendly people. Our room attendant did a great job. Did not speak much english but did not cause any issues for us.
A few wanted to be home for Christmas but the Cruise line extended them. They mentioned they felt if they did not they would not be called back for another job.
Ship Quality
Ship: Once you get a feel for things we got to liking it. Liked the Atrium with the large video screen. Was great for the game shows and movies they played there. A lot of hidden places as the week went on we found new places to go visit. H20 over 18 outside area to the piano bar to the card room and finally found a 2 lane bowling alley. (smaller balls) that we played and then we found the observation lounge it.. was a big ship so lots to see/find.
Cabin / Stateroom
We had booked a reg room with a reg size balancy. About 10 days before i found that the Mini-suite was just 100$ more and switched over to it. Thought i was Glad we did, loved the bathroom. Had a dual sink and a tub shower combo with a sliding door to close on the tub/shower with plenty of space to put your things.
Room issues... had sound/noise issues. Our room was above the 8th floor public bathrooms so we heard every flush (you know the sounds of each flush .. a suction, a slush sound that lasted a second and half, then a cap closing the valve sound till around 1:30am every night). Complained, they came and heard it for themselves but did not do much good. They had no solution. Gave us $200 off but would of rathered to switch rooms but nothing was available.
Had to download an app on the iPhone to play ocean sounds when sleeping but still heard/felt it a little still.
Cleaning gal was great as mentioned earlier. Asked her to leave extra large towels and she did at each cleaning.
We did not realize there was pull draws under the couch but found out that once we could not find something she said check the draws.. She nicely folded the items and placed them there.
Our room was on the 9th floor room closer to the front of the ship . Loved the placement. Felt we were on the right side of the ship to get to most of the things we wanted to do.
I do recommend being closer to the mid to front of ship and not towards the back. As mostly everything we wanted to do was closer to the front. But we felt it is not a far walk to anything on this ship. Grew to like the layout after a few days.
note:
They picked the room for us, i had no options on picking.
Ship tip
If you are picky about food, and have to have fast, working WIFI you might want to try another cruise line.
Thumbs up
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Disembarkation
Took our bags off - self assist. Exited at 8am and out to our Lyft driver by 8:35am. Had a flight out of the Fort Lauderdale airport and checked in and got to you get by 9:20am... was fast. - southwest. Flight left at 11:20am .. so we had plenty of time to waste.