January 2022: Norwegian Dawn

 January 2, 2022 Embarkation

The transfer arrived right on time at 10:30 am. We headed to the port. They had set up testing in a parking lot. It was run by CVS. It was the best setup we've seen. They had stations with two people - one registering and one who watched you swab yourself. Then, you got a card with a time your results would be ready. We tested at 11:18 am and had 11:38 am written on our card. If you got your text with the results, you could raise your hand and they would give you a bracelet. Then, every 10 minutes, he'd go into the testing area and make sure they had notified everyone who tested positive in that 10-minute group. He'd say "Anyone with result times 11:40 am or earlier." And walk around and give everyone their bracelets. We got our bracelets 

Check-in was really easy and we were on board by noon -  a total check-in of 1 hour. We headed to the buffet for lunch. It is a nice buffet. Several custom order stations: Italian pasta, Asian noodle, and deli. After lunch, we wandered around the ship, watched the sail away party, and then headed to our 5:30 pm Teppanyaki dinner. 

The dinner exceeded both our expectations. The chef was fun and the food was very good. I had the steak and chicken. Glenn had the shrimp and scallops. We headed back to the cabin to call it a night and unpack. 

January 3, 2022 Sea Day

I worked in the morning. Then, we headed to the Spa Thermal Suite. We bought a pass for the week. 

We had lunch at O'Sheenan's: chicken wings, sausage sliders, Cobb Salad, and a burger. All decent pub food. For the afternoon, we hung out by the pool people watching. We went to hear the guitar player before dinner. We had dinner in one of the main dining rooms: Aqua with our friends John, Connie, Paul and Kathy. It was good. Glenn liked the spring rolls. I liked the french onion soup. Our fish was a little overcooked - as usual. Glenn ordered the strawberry ice cream for dessert. He said it tasted like Strawberry Quik so he hated it and I loved it. ha! After dinner, we went to listen to Upgrade - the party band. 

They are really good. We watched a game show and then headed to bed.

January 4, 2022 Sea Day 

I worked until noon and met Glenn up at the buffet. We headed to the thermal suite for an hour and a half. So relaxing. We met Paul and John for lunch at the buffet. The buffet has some of the best variety we've seen on our cruises,  but the quality is hit or miss. 

The whole group went to play Movie trivia. We had a respectable showing. Then, we played cards for an hour. We've been disappointed in the program. Norwegian usually has a full Sea Day lineup in the Atrium and on Deck. It's been sparse. 

We had dinner at OSheenans. Everyone was excited about the meatloaf special, but it was disappointing.  I think Paul had the best comment: The best thing about the meatloaf is that it leaves plenty of room for dessert. The dessert was carrot cake and it was good. 

We went to the evening show: Carl Strong. He's a singer and comedian. He was very funny. He had a really good section on getting out of bed that had everyone laughing. After the show, we headed to Gatsby's to hear the guitar player. He's really good. We got seats at the bar and had fun with the bartenders Craig and Alejandro. 

The comedian joined us. We had fun with him. He has to put on a third show because of some scheduling difficulties. I was helping him with his act. He had something in the show about how people must not look in a mirror before they leave their cabin. I told him that's not it. You are seeing pre-pandemic cruise outfits. We have them and we are going to wear them. Darn it. It was fun. 

January 5, 2022 Puerto Plata 

Our stop in Puerto Plata was great. This port area opened on December 15th and it's really nice. The shops are really cute. It has several bars and a pool area where you can have a chair as long as you order a drink. 

The taxi stand was really well organized with posted rates. It was easy to our taxi to Sunscape Puerto Plata. The resort was nice. It's an older moderate resort, but it was clean and the staff was friendly. I think it'll make a good resort tour. We were there from 11 am - 2 pm. We headed back. 

We played Tribond trivia which had a rocky start. The example clue was Bra, Belt, Bank Robber and you have to name what they have in common. Several people were yelling at the host that she spelled robber wrong  -  it should be rubber since they had no idea what a bank robber was. Glenn and I thought we were being punked. We kept looking around saying none of you know what a bank robber is? It was wild. The answer was "They hold things up." Needless to say, we won the game. Norwegian isn't giving out prizes. You can get signatures on a card - one for participating and two for winning - to turn in at the end of the cruise. We aren't doing that. 

We had dinner at Modern - the Brazilian steakhouse. I was a little worried since the group had had issues getting meat cooked enough and the skewers they bring to the table usually only have medium and medium-rare. The crew did a terrific job bringing special well-done steaks. The food was very good. The salad bar had great vegetables. The sirloin steak and sausages were my favorite. In a shocker, the bacon-wrapped filet was Glenn's favorite with sirloin steak as a second. 

After dinner, we went to visit our bartenders at Gatsby's. 

Then everyone met back up at karaoke. Glenn and Paul sang. It was a fun karaoke.  People picked fun songs. 

January 6, 2022 Sea Day

We had a nice Sea Day. I worked in the morning. We went to the spa. We had it almost all to ourselves for an hour. Lunch was a salad from the buffet. Glenn tried 70s trivia, but it was questions about 70s artists. Things like What was the original band name for KISS?  We were hoping for the one where they play the song. We went to The Cellars Wine Bar and had a nice chat with the sommelier and wine steward from Zimbabwe.

 

For dinner, we had our free dinner at Cagney’s from being Platinum. They were really sweet and seated us early since we wanted to go to the comedy show. Dinner exceeded expectations. Glenn had very good Oysters Rockefeller. I had a good ahi tuna tartare. Our ribeyes were great. We asked for the chimichurri sauce from the Brazilian restaurant. They share a kitchen That put it over the top. For dessert, Glenn had cheesecake and I had the 7 layer chocolate cake. We also got a free bottle of wine. The server recommended a cab sauvignon from France. Also very good.

The show was speed trivia. They had a screen with a question with 4 answers color coded – red, yellow, blue and green on tables spread out. You had 45 seconds to see how many you could get through. If you got one wrong, you were done. The top four would go onto the next round. People lined up and took turns. Glenn got a 629. I went up and told her I was Glenn’s wife and I wanted to beat him. I got a 712. That pushed Glenn out of the top 4. Glenn went back up and got a 711. The crowd loved it. This meant we were both in the final four. For the final four, you watched the screen. It was something like a roulette wheel with the four colors for the four people left. You hit your buzzer when your ball was by a different color than yours. It was really funny because Glenn kept knocking me out. You had five “lives”. The red lady got knocked out. Then Glenn. So it was me and younger guy Chris. He had a big cheering squad so this large family from Wisconsin decided to cheer for me. We had five round and I WON. It was so fun.

 

The comedian was Carl Strong again. He was very funny. 

 

Kathy and Paul joined us for the 70s Disco Party with Upgrade the Party band. The band is so good.

January 7, 2022 St Martin

Yesterday we docked in St Martin from 6:00 am – 12:30 pm. I had to work so we didn’t get a chance to get off the ship. We did have a great view from the balcony. 

We had a lazy afternoon. We went to the main dining room for dinner. Glenn liked the Indian lamb dish and I liked the risotto. They had a really good chocolate dessert – chocolate roulade.

 After dinner, we headed to Bliss and hear Upgrade play and watch the game. We didn’t play this time. We spent some time in the wine bar trying new wines.

January 8, 2022 Barbados 

This morning, we arrived in Bridgetown, Barbados. The Cruise Director announced that the ship had only been cleared for guests on Norwegian shore excursions. It was quite busy trying to get off the ship. We were the last two to arrive to our tour bus and I think they had been waiting a while. It was called Let’s Take a Selfie. It was basically an island tour. It was about 4 ½ hours. We spent about an hour off the bus over 4 different stops. We saw so much of the island. The tour guide was great. The bus was comfortable, but it was still a lot of time on the bus. The weather cooperated beautifully. It rained on and off, but only when we were on the bus. We got back to the ship and it started raining again. We even got a rainbow.

Dinner was La Cucina. I had a good arugula salad and Spaghetti Carbonara. We had a nice big table by the kitchen. Glenn also had the carbonara as an appetizer. He got the frutti de mare as he main course. It was not good so he sent it back for more carbonara. Cannolis we're good for dessert. We went to see the acrobatic show. It was a couple. It was great. Lots of great acrobatics. Then, we went to Gatsby's to hear the piano player. We couldn't get a seat at the bar but still enjoyed the music. 

January 9, 2022 Sea Day 

St Kitts denied entry so we had a Sea Day today. We had coffee on the balcony then headed to the Spa. We had our buffet lunch and enjoyed sitting out by the pool people watching. We headed to Los Lobos - the Mexican for dinner. The food was average. Roy, the bartender, makes some really good tequila cocktails.

After dinner, we were finally able to get seats at the Gatsby's bar again. We left early because we had a 7:20 am meet time for our excursion today. We watched the first quarter of the night game and then headed to bed. 

January 10, 2022 Tortola, BVI

 I woke up at 4 am this morning to check our navigational progress. The Cruise Director came on at 6:30 am to announce that only those with shore excursions would be allowed off
the ship. We had the Virgin Gorda Baths and snorkel. We headed off the ship at 7:15 am.

This was an adventurous! excursion. We took a 30-minute boat ride to Virgin Gorda from Tortola. 

We swam into shore. Then we hiked through the rock formations that make up the Baths. We had to climb over rocks, go down a ladder, up a small staircase, and a shimmy between tight rock formations. It was pretty cool to see the places a lot of pictures had been taken. We had an hour to relax at the beach before we had to swim back to the boat. The current was pretty strong so it was a good swim. Nigel, one of the crew, was awesome. 

He carried my fins and snorkel mask through the Baths so I could use both hands to balance. We swam with him back to the boat. It was a great excursion. 

We got back to the ship for a nice sailaway. I worked by the pool for a few hours. We enjoyed some balcony time and then headed to meet the group at Le Bistro for dinner. It was really good. I had the Dover Sole and Glenn has the veal chop. 

After dinner, we went to the Perfect Couple show. Three couples had to do various challenges like pop a balloon between them. It was pretty funny. We called it an early night.

January 11, 2022 Sea Day 

We had a great Sea Day. We got up. Coffee on the balcony. Headed to the spa thermal suite - Thanks again! We did the noon Black Glass wine tasting with Ernest.

 It was so much fun. He did a great job. Glenn and I both got the reds wrong.  I nailed the California chardonnay. We thought a European Pinot Noir was something heavier. We thought a young California Cab was a Merlot. 

Then, I worked by the pool during the afternoon. It rained a bit so we played cards for a couple of hours with the rest of the group. We went to Bamboo for dinner. It was average. They maitr'D Cherilyn got us a great window table with view of the sunset. 

After dinner, we headed to Cellars for a glass of wine. Then, onto to Bliss to hear Upgrade and then the Glow party. It was really fun. 

January 12, 2022 Sea Day 

Good last Sea Day. Coffee on balcony. Spa thermal suite. Lunch at buffet. I worked by the pool as we watched the pool games and listened to the Latin band. 

Balcony time. We just wanted a quick dinner so we ate at O'Sheenans. A last cocktail from Craig and Alejandro at Gatsby's. Off to the Bliss for the game show. It was a version of Wheel of Fortune. You guessed a letter. If you got it right, you had to spin the wheel. It could be points or a challenge. Glenn played. He had to make up a rap about someone you love. He was great! He also solved the puzzle. It was Sponge Bob Square Pants. So he was a winner.

 We stayed for karaoke. He got to sing three songs: The Gambler, It's Not Unusual, and Mr. Brightside. A fun end to the trip. 

We were sad to say goodbye to our favorite server Orvin. 

January 13, 2022 

We had an easy disembarkation. Everything went right on time. Paul, Connie and John got up early to see us go under the bridge. Pilot pick up was around 2:30 am / 3:00 am and we passed under the bridge around 4 am.