Norwegian Pearl Cruise Review

July 2008 - Angela Lafferty - 3rd April 2008 - 9 night Southern Caribbean
Miami ~ at sea ~ Samana ~ Tortola ~ Antigua ~ Barbados ~ St Lucia ~ 2 days at sea ~ Miami

My husband, two daughters aged 13 and 8 and I went on the above cruise this year. As the cruise was for 9 nights and we wanted to be away for 2 weeks I decided to tailor-make our holiday to suit our time off work and school. We stayed one night in Miami pre-cruise, did the 9 night cruise and then stayed 4 nights in South Beach after the cruise then flew home.

We flew from Glasgow via Heathrow and Washington to Miami. Daunting as this may sound it was very straightforward. We flew with BMI to Heathrow and then United Airlines from Heathrow to Washington and then onto Miami. We didn’t see our bags from Glasgow until we got to Washington where we cleared US immigration. This was a very painless procedure, no queues at passport control and a very efficient system of identifying our bags and putting them on the conveyor belt for the onward flight. From landing we were at our gate for the next flight within ½ hour. It’s worth noting that our bags were checked right through to Glasgow on our way home so even easier on the return leg.

On arrival at Miami we took a taxi from the airport to the Hilton in Biscayne Bay. The taxi cost $24 and took around 15-20 minutes. The following day we took another taxi to the port to go on our cruise, this only cost $12 and took less than 10 minutes. There were quite a few ships in port that day – great to see! Our taxi fare after the cruise to South Beach was $24 and from our hotel in South Beach to the airport cost $32. Its very easy and cheap to do your own transfers if doing a separate hotel/cruise package like myself.

We were sailing on the Norwegian Pearl. She was built in Dec. 2006 with a gross tonnage of 93,558. She was the first ship to have a bowling alley at sea and is very family friendly which is why we chose this cruise. The Pearl also had a sports court, rock climbing wall, water slide at the pool (a very big hit with the kids), 2 swimming pools, spa, 6 hot tubs, video arcade, a fab kids club and metro centre for the teens, internet café, 13 dining options, 11 bars and lounges, ‘Bliss Ultra lounge’ nightclub which was voted best nightclub at sea, a casino and a huge theatre which put on some great shows. NCL prides itself on freestyle cruising which means no fixed times for dinner, no assigned restaurants or dining rooms and no dressing up if you don’t want to. It’s advisable to pre-book the speciality restaurants as they get filled up very quickly, however, there are plasma screens all over the ship advising you of the availability of each restaurant. If you have to wait for a table you will get issued with a bleeper and it will tell you when a table is ready. We mainly stuck to the restaurants which had no cover charge. My favourite was Indigo and we never had to wait or pre-book a table to eat there.

Once we had boarded the ship and on our way to our cabin we passed the Crystal Atrium. There is an enormous TV screen in the atrium and it was set up with the Nintendo Wii on. Needless to say my two girls made a beeline for this and ended up playing each other at tennis before we even got to our cabin! Sporting events are sometimes shown on this too along with the Wii during the day for the children at certain times. We were staying in a ‘BB’ grade balcony cabin on deck 9. The cabin was lovely and bright and had ample storage space, a flat screen TV, coffee maker, fridge/mini bar and hair-dryer. The bathroom was the best one I have seen for a non-suite cabin. There was a really big shower, very modern fittings and the toilet was separated by a pull over door. This was my first cruise in a balcony and it was great to have so much light and get fresh air in your room. My favourite memory was the arrival into St Lucia at about 6.30am standing in our balcony watching the fabulous scenery passing us by. It was breathtaking and worth getting up early for.

Our first day was at sea and gave us time to get acquainted with the ship. The girls spent time in their kids clubs whilst I got to spend a lot of time on my sun lounger!! Sophie, my youngest, made loads of new friends and did things like treasure hunts, pizza making, arts and crafts and watching movies. They even took the children to watch the shows in the theatre some nights. Rebecca was in the teen’s crew club and she had teen discos, movies, parties, playstation, Nintendo wii, bowling and rock wall climbing to name a few activities. We hardly saw the girls for the entire cruise and had to force them to have dinner with us for one of the nights. They usually ate in the garden café (buffet) early so they could get to their clubs at 7pm. The children’s clubs would also take your children for lunch and dinner on occasion if you wished. Sophie’s club was free until 10pm but you could pay $5 per hour to keep her in longer, which we did on quite a few nights – well worth the money!!

Our first port of call was Samana in the Dominican Republic. You could opt for a trip to Cayo Levantado, an island next to where we tendered for a beach day but we took the NCL organised excursion to do the Caves & Mangroves.

Our next day was in Tortola and this was my favourite island. The scenery was stunning and when we got off the ship we shared an open-air vehicle with a Canadian couple to do a tour of the island (great photo opportunities) and then had some time on the beach.

Antigua was the following day and as we had been there on holiday a few years ago we took a taxi to Dickenson Bay. There is a section of beach with sun loungers reserved for cruise passengers (just take your own beach towel) and is located just outside of Sandals hotel. This beach is just beautiful and was voted one of the top 10 best beaches in the world. The next day in Barbados we did some shopping in the cruise terminal and then asked a taxi driver to take us a tour of the island for a few hours. We travelled up the west coast past all the famous hotels and then up to the most northerly point of the island where the Caribbean meets the Atlantic. St Lucia was our last stop and again we got a very friendly taxi driver to take us a tour of the island. We stopped at places like Marigot Bay (Dr Doolittle was filmed there) and then to Soufriere where the dramatic towering twin pinnacles ‘The Pitons’ majestically rise more than 2,500 ft. We then visited the lush Botanical Gardens and Diamond Mineral Waterfall. On our way back our driver stopped off for photos and the girls and my husband got their picture with a boa constrictor around their necks. No chance of me doing this!!!

We all thoroughly enjoyed our time on the Norwegian Pearl and visiting the beautiful Caribbean. The food was fabulous with so much choice. Each restaurant has its own kitchen which I think is why the quality was so good. I loved the fact that we weren’t tied down to eating at the same time every night and being able to choose from a variety of restaurants which included French, Italian, Latin/Tapas and Japanese. Not having to dress formally was great - especially being in the Caribbean. The entertainment was very varied with comedy, Broadway shows, circus acts and magicians. My favourite was the Elton John tribute act, which was done by one of the entertainment staff that played the piano in one of the many bars. I’ve never been to a show on a ship before where there was a standing ovation at the end. During the day there was live music at the pool at certain times and at sailaway. My girls didn’t want to leave the ship after having such a great time and being so well looked after – there were never any cries of “I’m bored” from them, which is virtually unheard of in our house. In fact it was so good that we have booked two cruises in the Caribbean for April 2009 one of which is back on NCL on the Norwegian Jewel.

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