20240302 NCL Escape Neighbors Cruise - Day 8 - Unpacked and laundry in the washer by 11:30am!

NCL Escape Neighbors Cruise Day 8 - We loved having you - get out!

The end of a cruise is an interesting dichotomy of messages. They emphatically state how happy they were to have you as a guest and sincerely want to see you again. Then, the next message is to get out of your room and get off the ship - now!

Don't get me wrong, I get it. They have to unload more than 4,000 passengers, turn and configure more than 2,100 guest rooms, and be ready for the next batch of 4,000+ passengers in a little over five hours. while all this is going on, they have to take on fuel, remove waste, and load provisions for the next voyage. It is a huge logistics dance.

We met up in the Skyline Bar, right around the corner from the gangway exit on deck 7. We secured the purple luggage tags, giving us the first position to disembark after the folks who carried their own bags or who had NCL airport transfers. We got called at 8:15 and got in line to exit the ship.

The process was a little slow and cumbersome with a lot of walking back and forth to get to the luggage hall. We all retrieved our luggage and headed to Customs. Customs is so much easier these days, it's great. We went through facial recognition, got the green light, and were done.

Steve, our bus driver, arrived about five minutes after we got outside. We loaded the bus and were on our way.

The landmarks flew by

The bus had WiFi so everyone spent time catching up on their phones as we cruised home.

Seeing the Turnpike sign means we're getting into the home freeway stretch.

Of course, a comfort stop at Turkey Lake rest stop was in the cards.

The last 20 miles or so

We arrived home, were unpacked, and had laundry in the washer before noon. It is good to live near the port.

Tackling the pile of mail

We're home so it is time to wrap up this trip with final thoughts.

NCL

If you've been reading the entries for this trip, it should be obvious - we're not fans. We do not plan to take another NCL cruise unless we have to because we want to go on a specific trip. Specific items:

• Embarkation - smooth - really smooth - no complaints as it was great
• Room - Good - the Club balcony was reasonably spacious with good storage and a great bathroom but a hard bed but that got mostly fixed
• Service - meh. Some great crew, but generally, just OK - our cabin steward was all but invisible
• Food - meh. Nothing terrible, but routinely not hot, nothing spectacular. The specialty restaurants that are supposed to be amazing, weren't.
• The ship - it was fine - lots of venues, lots of eateries - more paid than included. Decore was fine. One complaint was that the smoking areas were positioned so you could smell smoke in many places. The outdoor smoking area was on a low floor so we could smell smoke on our balcony all the time. The biggest complaint about the ship is that every place we went felt crowded all the time. Bars, eateries, performance venues, pools - everything was mobbed.
• Excursion procedures - Nuts - crowded, poorly organized - the excursion was fine, but the process around it was not.
• Internet - slow, slow, slow - plus, WiFi calling and SMS text messaging required upgrading to their most expensive package.
• NCL app - hit and miss - good schedule, no menus, and if you want to use the in-app messaging with other cruisers, you all have to pony up $9.95.
• Accounting - again, nuts. Requiring passengers to wait in line to get a credit balance refunded in cash rather than just returning it to their credit card was silly.
• Entertainment - Choir of Man - terrific. Comedians - good, but...they repeated the same shows all week. Carnival changes comedians mid-week so you get all new shows. Some nights had zero main entertainment except a movie. Wow.
• Main restaurants - while the food was good, not great, even with being crowded, we were able to secure tables for 12 with reservations each night. If we just walked up, I don't know how that would have gone.
• Shopping - there was plenty of shopping on the ship with typical cruise fare like jewelry, clothing, perfume, liquor, cigarettes, and such. 
• Great Stirrup Cay - we don't know because the weather prevented us from tendering in. If the island had a dock, we would have been fine.

Does this mean we had a bad week - absolutely not! We were with friends and spent a good deal of time laughing, drinking, eating, playing games, and just being friends. That made this entire week a great way to spend time. We may consider doing it again, but will likely consider a different cruise company for the trip.

Speaking of other cruises - we booked one while on this trip. In just over a month, we will sail on Sapphire Princess from Los Angeles (San Pedro) to Hawaii and then the South Pacific for a 32-day roundtrip sailing. Watch this space for the next adventure!