Cathy's Cornucopia: Our Mexican Riviera cruise: Impressions of the ship

October 1-12, 2009

Okay, I promised myself I would do a blog about our Mexican Riviera on the Norwegian Sun, so I better get with it if I want to get it done before our cruise month is over.

This cruise was our 4th one on Norwegian Cruise Lines (the other three were to Alaska). And this was our 3rd Mexican Riviera cruise, and at 12 days/11 nights, it was our longest.

Getting on the ship: We started our cruise is San Francisco (SF and Seattle are our favorite ports since we live in the Seattle area and can drive to SF – no need to deal with airports and too much luggage) on October 1, 2009. The forecast was for low 60s. Too bad that wasn’t the real temp – it was more like low 70s when Corey dropped us off at the pier. And, although we arrived just shortly after noon, the line was already quite long and getting longer without moving inside the terminal. It seems that the computer system for the security checkpoint was down, which meant we couldn’t even get inside the terminal, let alone get on the ship. The porters took our check-in luggage and we decided to eat at Butterfly, a little restaurant at Pier 33. We had a leisurely lunch (probably for about an hour) and then headed back out to the line, which was now moving slowly. Once we got into the terminal, the process for getting through security, checking in, and then boarding the ship took probably only 20-30 minutes total. Once past the obligatory boarding photo (and having to wait for the gal in front of us who didn’t know how to manipulate her electric wheelchair), we were finally on the ship and heading to our cabin.

Our cabin: Last November when we decided we were going to go on this cruise, Craig did a lot of research to decide which cabin/location would be good. As it turned out, we chose cabin 0067, which is located on deck 10 all the way aft. In fact it is on the very back of the ship. This one was described as a mini-suite, which meant we had a clearly defined couch area, a great bed area, a vanity besides the sink, a full-sized bathtub, the toilet in its own little room in the bathroom, a decent sized walk-in closet, and a very large balcony. We were impressed enough with this cabin that thought the design/setup would make a more than adequate master bedroom for us.

Here are some of the things we liked (or didn’t like) about our cabin:

Our cabin had lots of outlets in it, which made plugging in all our various gadgets easy.
There was no clock in the cabin. We always travel with a small alarm clock so it didn’t pose too much of a “what time is it now” dilemma.
The cabin had very good lighting and it was easy to control the level of light.
Our deck was nice, but it would have been better if the chairs were lounge chairs instead of the straight-back chairs we had. If nothing else, a footstool would have been nice.
The aft cabin with a deck is very nice if you have lots of days at sea (fun to watch where you have been), but you do feel the swells a lot more when you are all the way to the back of the ship.
The towel animals were great, with the towel monkey the best. We had never seen the monkey before.

The rest of the ship: We enjoyed our time wandering around the ship. The Sun is not one of the mega-ships, so it was easy to get to know your way around the ship. Except for the casino (midship, deck 7), there is no smoking in any of the indoor public locations – we really enjoyed not having to put up with someone smoking in the lounges when we wanted to listen to the piano music. We only ate in the Le Bistro specialty restaurant once, and that was for the special Jazz Brunch that they had one morning. At $10-$25 per person, the specialty restaurants were too expensive for us to want to go to them. We usually ate breakfast and lunch in the buffet, but we did eat in the Seven Seas (one of the two main dining rooms) on two occasions. For dinner, except for the first night when we ate in the Seven Seas, we ate in the other main dining room, the Four Seasons. All food was really good, and some evenings it was hard to choose only two items from the appetizer/soup/salad list and one item from the entre list. The cold fruit soups were are favorites!

We didn’t go to any of the evening shows other than the Jean Ann Ryan Company shows. But these shows were superb. We have season tickets to the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, and we find the JAR shows to be every bit as well done. It was fun seeing all the preschool/kindergarten age kids on the ship. The Kids Crew took really good care of these kids and kept them very busy, which gave their parents plenty of time to enjoy their activities. In the evening, the kids would parade through the common areas and show off the various craft items they had made during the day. Lots of fun!

We did have some excitement on the ship: the last night, while we were packing so we could put our bags outside the door for debarkation the next morning, the captain came on and requested (in very frantic terms) that the bravo team report immediately to the incinerator room. It seemed that there was a fire (hmm, isn’t an incinerator room where one would expect a fire) and lots of smoke. The captain came on several more times, telling us not to worry. But I decided to get everything out of the safe, just in case….. Pretty soon, the captain was back and said the fire was out and had been confined to the incinerator room and its smokestack, and was really nothing more than lots of smoke (which those of us in the aft cabins might notice).
Then, after we had finally gone to bed, we were awakened around 12:45 AM to a strange noise. When we investigated, we discovered a Coast Guard helicopter hovering off the end of the ship, just above our deck. We watched for a while, and assumed that someone must have been injured in the fire. Around 4:30, we again heard noise, and were surprised to find that the helicopter was back. We later found out that that the first time the helicopter came, it was to airlift an elderly man who had suffered a stroke in all the excitement over the fire. The second time the helicopter came was to take another elderly gentleman to the hospital because of possible internal bleeding from the Coumadin he was taking. He had fallen out of his wheelchair on several occasions and his bruises were getting bigger and darker instead of going away.

Here are some of the things we liked (or didn’t like) about the ship, and other final observations:

The juice dispenser in the outdoor portion of the buffet worked much better than the dispenser in the inside portion of the buffet.
If you plan to do any Internet surfing or e-mail reading, buy the largest package minutes for the best price. I bought the 250 minutes for the 12 day cruise and used all of them. The Internet connection is not particularly fast, and you use 2-3 minutes just logging on and off.
The Freestyle Daily (the bulletin left every evening in the cabin) could really use a good proofreader.
Latitudes members got an extra 10% discount in the photo salon and the shops.
Instead of buying your photos as soon as you see them, ask that they start an envelope and let you put your pictures in, saving them for the last day. That way, you can get the ones you really want and get the best combinations and packages.
Have “business” cards (actually, more like the old fashioned calling cards) made before you go on your cruise. These should have your picture and e-mail address on them. Great for sharing with others that you meet on the cruise. Try http://www.vistaprint.com for a good source for cards.

Inside our cabin: