After the land tour we had a little time to explore before the "sea" portion of the tour, so we wandered around and happened across a tiny shop called The Spice and Tea Exchange; the same shop we had originally discovered at Walt Disney World a few years ago and we had ordered from online many times; they have some spectacular stuff! What a bonus to find them here, we bought everything I was going to order anyway and saved on all the shipping fees. What a pleasant happenstance!
After a little wandering we hopped on our glass bottomed boat which took us out to a coral reef in the Atlantic Ocean; the third largest reef in the world, in fact, behind the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and one in one of our earlier destinations on the trip, Belize. It was a 45 minute boat ride to the reef and we loved every second of it, enjoying the sun and the breeze off the ocean. Oh, fun fact: in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, over 125 miles from Miami, I have perfect cell phone reception. Five bars. I can't get that sitting on my couch.
Once we got to the reef we all went down to the bottom level to view the fish, coral and other life forms that make up the reef. It was nice but not that spectacular as we didn't get to see too many different species of fish. Still, it was a beautiful day and we LOVED Key West; so much so that our next Florida trip is going to include a few days there. Time to make an addendum to the 2016 itinerary!!!!!
After the boat ride it was time to head back to the cruise ship for another buffet lunch and a little more RnR time on our last day. The level of customer service on this ship has been off the charts, from every waiter to the washy-washy people. I should probably explain that; every time we boarded the ship or went to a restaurant or most of the other areas of the ship, someone was there to spray our hands with antibacterial soap, always while saying "washy-washy, happy happy!". Some of the advanced staff members even threw "smiley smiley" on the end just to shake things up. As cheesy as that sounds, it's great that they take such care to cut down on the spread of germs.
Here is a good example of the great service we've received: Our waiter from the Summer Palace, where we had dinner a couple days ago, gave us terrific service while we were at the restaurant but it didn't stop there. The next day, in the buffet, he saw us and not only remembered my name, he remembered the wine we had at dinner the night before and commented on the fact that we were drinking a different wine for this meal. That's not all; he also was at the buffet today for our last lunch and still remembered our wine choices, and he also remembered that I had a Diet Coke at dinner a few days ago, and I had requested a cup with ice since my pop wasn't that cold; at lunch today I was drinking another one, and, without being asked, he went and brought me an empty glass filled with ice! That's some serious customer service; with thousands of guests on the ship, it's almost inconceivable that he could remember so much about me after just one dinner.
EVERYONE on the ship was incredibly friendly; it was impossible to walk 40 feet without a staff member saying "hello" or wishing us a good day. I can count the number of grumpy staff members on one hand and have a few fingers left over; and considering that one of their co-workers was murdered on an excursion less than a week earlier, I would have happily given them a pass on a bit of grumpiness.
After lunch we went back to the pool to relax a bit and get a bit more sun; most of our sunburns had healed to the point that it was OK spending a bit more time outdoors. When we got back to our room, we were delighted to see another plate of chocolate covered strawberries, sent to us by the "sous chef" according to the card. Don't know who that was, but don't care; they were a perfect way to end a pretty great vacation. We picked up another bottle of the Isabel Mondavi 2010 Pinot Noir to enjoy in our room while we packed and prepared to leave the ship the following morning.
Not too shabby.
Friday, April 18th
Up early to finish packing and hit the buffet for our final meal of the trip before disembarkation. Tracey told me that by the end of the cruise, she would definitely know where everything on the ship was. Well, she was only able to find ONE thing on a regular basis; the buffet. No judgement.
We have a reservation for a rental car around 9:30 so we have a bit of time before we have to get off the ship. We were told it could take some time to pass through final customs. Turns out it took about 2 minutes and we were off to the taxi stand to go to the rental car place.
Only problem was the address of the rental car place was actually a Marriott hotel that happened to have a Hertz kiosk in it; and the kiosk wasn't working. So back into another cab to go to the nearest Hertz outlet with actual human beings in it to get our car. After a short wait, we get our car and due to our inconvenience, they discounted our price by the amount of the second cab ride, and also gave us a courtesy upgrade.... to a Kia. An upgrade, to a KIA?? I wonder what they were originally going to give us; a 1978 Mercury Bobcat??
I kid, I kid, I know Kia has improved, and it was a half decent car. It had a reasonable amount of kick and certainly got us from A to B with no problems. Certainly didn't enjoy going around corners much but no huge deal. We originally pre-paid for the fuel as well, which was a dumbass thing to do for a one-day rental, but they ended up only charging us for what we actually used which was nice of them as they were not required to do that. That's what some companies don't get about customer service; with a couple little gestures, Hertz turned a negative experience into a positive one, to the point where I will specifically try to rent from Hertz in the future. They have bought a customer.
We had hours to kill before our flight so we headed to an Outlet Mall not too far from the Fort Lauderdale airport and did a little shopping before having lunch at PF Chang's. I ordered a glass of Tempranillo:
I wasn't familiar with this bottle but it was terrific; it also was a perfect bottle to further indicate the importance of food and wine pairing. Before I ate, this wine was fabulous. My lunch same with hot and sour soup, and after having a bit of soup, the wine was awful. The natural spiciness of the wine was dwarfed by the spiciness of the soup; it made the wine bitter. So I just waited to drink the rest of the wine after I was done the soup. Fabulous again.
On the opposite end of the customer service spectrum, Alaska Airlines......this is the first negative thing I have ever said about them, as we always love flying with them. One major fail this time though, we got to FLL quite early, and there wasn't even anyone there to take our bags. They didn't open their desk until 4 PM, only 2 hours before the flight took off; if you've ever been to FLL, there is NOTHING to do but sit and wait in rather uncomfortable chairs before going through security, so we had no choice but to wait a couple hours until they would take our bags. Unreal.
That was the last issue we had though, as the flight left early, was uneventful and pleasant, and arrived a half hour early too. They get a pass on this one thing, but I will be mentioning this to them. I realize that Florida is about as far away from Alaska as possible and our flight was the only one leaving FLL on Alaska all day, but they should still have someone there to take bags earlier than that. There were a TON of upset people.
After landing we stopped at Safeway to get some gas and pick up a few cases of pop that I like that we can't get in Canada. If you shop there, you know that Canada Safeway has discontinued their Club Card program, but US Safeway has not, so I needed my card (which I had already thrown away). After mentioning this to the cashier, he just used a phone number to get me the price discount on the pop. Why am I mentioning this seemingly unimportant detail? He was a fan of 80's music. The phone number he used was 867-5309.
He said he didn't know who's phone number that was, but it was the number he always used in similar circumstances, so if someone really has that number, they have an awful lot of gas loyalty points!!!
We found a very friendly guard at Canada Customs who got us through in just a few seconds and that was it; we arrive home around 2 AM this morning. So, what was my impression of my first cruise?
Mostly positive. Just about everything was positive in fact, except for a few details:
1. The ship moved more than I would have liked; I was told from some regular cruisers that our ship barely moved at all, and I would get used to it. I'll buy that.
2. Pop was not included in our cruise price; very odd. Milk, juices, coffee, tea, even iced tea were included, but not pop. Not that it would have mattered anyway, as Norwegian only serves Pepsi. To me, that is nearly unforgivable. It is almost enough to make me look for another cruise line next time.
3. The pools were not that impressive; they were OK, but I was expecting more. This is a bigger thing to Tracey than to me, but if *I* am noticing that the pools aren't spectacular, they clearly aren't that spectacular. Here is a pic:
The pool behind the veranda is the adults only pool; the closer pool is open to all ages and was, of course, full of kids all the time. There were four hot tubs, those were quite nice. There was also not nearly enough non-smoking area around the pool. It still stuns me that some people insist on killing themselves and are so inconsiderate that they will smoke in public so they can kill everyone else as well. It's disgusting.
4. No hottie waitresses at the pool! Ok this is a minor thing, just thought it was odd that every single pool employee was male. No females at all. Having said that, they were just as friendly and competent as all the other employees, but it did make me long for the pool at (insert any Vegas pool here).
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the read and had a laugh or two!
Next vacation blog will be our driving trip to Napa Valley/Disneyland/Escondido in September!
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