A Detailed Review of Our New Years Eve Cruise

The embarkation was fairly quick and for the most part smooth. The most important thing to remember is to prepare all your information and documents online before you arrive. Also, print out your cruise docs so that you have them when you arrive for reference. We drove to the Miami Cruise Terminal and through trial and error figured out that Norwegian ships depart from Terminal C. This information was on our CruiseDocs, but we didn’t notice it. After dropping off our luggage and parking, we headed to the entrance to the terminal. There was a long line, but through some investigation, we found out there were actually two lines. The shorter one near the front was for cruisers who had booked their Covid test with CVS ahead of time and had a bar code either printed out or on their phone. Make sure you do this online within the 21-day preregistration period. This will save you over an hour of waiting in line. The Covid testing check-in and testing process were stressful. We did not have Covid symptoms and should not have worried, but we also knew that people with no symptoms do test positive. After checking in for our test, we quickly took our antigen nasal swab test and then sat in a waiting area for 20-minutes to wait for our results. Our cell phones did not work in the terminal and the Internet access was not great. We received messages on our phone, but could not read our results. We quickly figured out that those people who tested positive with the antigen test were called out individually to follow the medical staff for retesting with a PCR test. When we realized this, we relaxed a little. Our group was called to go up and receive a wristband so that we could proceed to check-in. After that, the process went very quickly since we had filled out all our documents online. It took less than 5-minutes to get our ship cards. After that, we walked on board. From our arrival around 11 AM, it took about an hour for us to do our Covid test, check-in, and walk on board. You may be wondering how many people tested positive for Covid and were not able to get on board. Later on board, we talked with a woman who had a positive antigen test. Her PCR test came back negative so she was allowed to get on board. Anecdotally, she told us that she asked how many people had false positives. She claimed that she tested early in the process and at that point was told that 28 people had a positive antigen test. Of those 28 people, 7 people (including herself) had a negative PCR test.

We ate breakfast and lunch in the Garden Cafe and enjoyed the food, My wife especially enjoyed the Indian food section. This was a nice addition. We felt that the food choices were better than our pre-pandemic sailings. We had no complaints and enjoyed all the meals we ate there. We ate all our dinner meals in the Manhattan Supper Club except for one night when we went to Garden Cafe for Asian night. Again, we enjoyed the meals and the choices. Pre-pandemic, we were seeing meals on NCL in the main dining rooms that we felt were low in quality and tasteless. The meals on this cruise were definitely better in quality My wife enjoyed the appetizers more than the main courses and often ordered multiple choices. The service was very good, except for a few minor incidences when we felt that our servers were less attentive than they were with larger tables. We made a point to contact our servers when we needed something rather than stewing and complaining. We did have some exceptional service and made a point to fill out comment cards. Overall, our dining experiences were enjoyable. We do miss the entertainment that was often featured on other NCL ships that have a Manhattan Supper Club. Music and dancing were nice atmospheric touches. We hope that NCL brings this back. For our Special Restaurant meals, we ate in Cagney’s and El Bistro. Our food was good in Cagney’s, but not memorable. Our favorite specialty restaurant has consistently been Le Bistro and it did not disappoint this time. Both our meals were exceptional and the service was perfect.

This is one area that we definitely found below par. Most of the activities were the normal selection of poolside, game show, and trivia activities. There was a fair selection, but some nights it seemed rather boring on the cruise ship. The other passengers on board seemed to enjoy the activities and they were very well attended, but that may have been because there did not seem to be an exceptional number of choices. There were the normal cruise ship things to do, but we did not find them as interesting as past cruise experiences. We enjoyed a dance class but thought there were too many gameshow-type activities. It would have been a great idea to have some learning experiences onboard that helped educate the travelers about the Caribbean. My wife enjoyed playing Texas Hold’em poker in the casino every night. She also played multiple tournaments during the sea days. Unfortunately, most nights the game did not have enough players until around 10:00/10:30 pm. My wife enjoyed playing but remarked that the house’s rake of 10 percent up $25 was excessively high compared to casinos throughout the United States as well as other cruise lines. One of our Free At Sea package choices was the 250 Internet minutes/cabin. The regular Internet speed on the Encore was painfully slow. It was barely good enough to check email but did not allow for any downloads. The ship’s onboard access seemed like Internet access found in old hotels ten years ago. We know that it is possible to have good access on a cruise ship because we had really good access on Royal Caribbean ships in previous years. We ended up using our T-Mobile and Verizon foreign data benefits to check emails and make simple phone downloads. We were not able to do this through NCL’s Internet access. If we had purchased an Internet package, we would have felt that it was not worth it. We used the Exercise Room every day of our cruise. It was not very crowded and masks were required. We attended a dull New Year’s Eve party in the Atrium area on Deck 6. The main party was on the 16th floor around the pool. We watched some of it on video and it looked like fun, but we preferred to stay inside. There was a video prepared for the countdown, but it would have been better to just do a live feed from Times Square. NCL should pay attention to what other cruise lines do on New Year's Eve.

We look forward to the entertainment portion of our cruises and try to do one or two things each evening. On this cruise, we saw the Magic Illusionists: Chase and Kaileigh, 18+ Levity Comedy show in the Social Comedy Club (Travis Nelson, Rodney Laney), the Beatles Invasion theater show and Cavern Club performances, the Choir of Man stage show, and the vocalist Shaun Brown. By far, the best show was Choir of Man. If you have not seen it before, make reservations and view one of the performances. We also attended almost every performance of the Beatles Invasion. The show is not Beatlemania, but the four performers did a terrific job and it was really enjoyable hearing them perform the different phases of the Beatle’s music. Overall, we attended four performances of the Beatles Invasion. We only saw the stage show of Shaun Brown. He was very talented, but we did not get to see any of his smaller venue shows. The Magic illusionists were entertaining, but not memorable. We went to two of the shows presented by the comedians, but we did not connect with their style of comedy. This was definitely a disappointment. Overall, we felt that the entertainment options were not up to par with what we encountered on previous NCL cruises. We missed performances such as Burn the Floor and longer Broadway shows. We suspected that the ongoing Covid situation was limiting the booking choices for NCL. As an example, one of the music groups we enjoyed early on, Gold River, seemed to disappear the last three days of the cruise. They were listed on the Daily Newsletter, but a DJ replaced them at each venue. My wife enjoyed playing Texas Hold’em poker in the casino every night. She also played multiple tournaments during the sea days. Unfortunately, most nights the game did not have enough players until around 10:00/10:30 pm. She continually complained that the house took a large cut of each pot. We have complained about this before, so we’re not expecting it to change.

We did not have any children under 18 with us.

Our room steward, Mary Jo Reforado, was exceptional. She continually greeted us each day and made us feel valued. We used the Do Not Disturb and Make Up My Room lights when we went in and out of our to communicate with her when it was okay to clean our rooms. Everything went smoothly. the service was simply outstanding. The wait staff in the Garden Cafe was attentive, polite, and helpful. We were continually greeted and made to feel welcome. When we asked for help, we were given it immediately. They were definitely the friendliest and most helpful wait service staff on the ship. We found some exceptional servers in the dining rooms. Our server on the first day, Orlando, was so upbeat and provided us with such great service, that it started our cruise on a really high note. We saw Orlando in the Garden Cafe almost every day and he remembered our names and asked about our days each time we saw him. Other servers were less memorable, but the service was overall good. We can’t say enough about how great the staff and managers were throughout our cruise.

Since the Encore is a newer ship that was launched in 2019, it was in great shape and well maintained. Even though it holds many passengers, it did not seem like some of the mega-ships found on other cruise lines. The crew seemed to work hard to keep the ship looking in top shape. It was constantly being cleaned to help prevent the spreading of Covid, flu, and colds. Most of the nightlife happens on floors 6, 7, and 8. It was lively there each night, but the venues were not overcrowded. We were easily able to get a seat in every entertainment venue. We usually arrived early, but rarely did we see a venue reach capacity.

We booked a spa balcony room on the 15th floor that included access to the Thermal Spa. This is one of our favorite features on NCL ships, so we always try to book a ship that has a Thermal Spa. The Thermal Spa on the Encore is on the 16th floor in the Mandara Spa right above the spa rooms on the 15th floor. Our room was no larger than regular balcony rooms. The king-sized bed left little room to move around and there was one corner near the TV that was difficult for even one person to pass through. If you book a room, check the layout to make sure you will be able to move around. Everything else about the room was standard but also new and comfortable. We had plenty of space for our clothing for the week, but we did use all the closet and cabinet space near the desk. One item that was a problem on a few occasions is that we did hear noise from the 16th-floor pool area. Even though our room was near the back of the ship, there was definitely party noise on a few late nights. If you want to avoid this noise, I would suggest that you go no higher than the 12 or 13th floor. I’m sure it was worse toward the center of the ship.

Since we live in Florida and have about a 3 - 4 hour ride home, we opted to walk off with our luggage. We usually use this option. The boat docked before 7 AM. We got up around 6 AM, ate breakfast, grabbed our luggage, and were at our car by 8 AM. It was incredibly quick and easy. The Customs check was done on board using face recognition technology. After checking out in the Manhattan Dining Room, all we had to do was walk off. There was no wait at all. Sadly, some people we met on the cruise found out that their flights home were canceled and they spent the last day scrambling to find a way to get back up to the Northeastern US.