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Jack Hayes

Age: 51
Occupation: Police Officer
Number of Cruises: 0
Cruise Line: NCL
Name of Ship: SS Norway
Sailing Date: April 13th, 2003
Itinerary: Eastern Caribbean

My brother asked my wife and I and our family to join them on this cruise, so I guess we didn’t have a choice of cruise ships or locations. My brother took our mother. My sister age 46 took her two sons 13 and 16 also and we met my Uncle and his girl friend. So we had a mixture of ages, me 51, wife 48, daughters 17 and 15, he had his son, 16, daughters, 6 and 19. My uncle is about 80 and his girlfriend is 78. As luck would have it my wife doesn’t fly so on Friday the 11th of April we left NY driving to Florida, everyone else flew in and stayed at Lake Worth, Fla..

Arrival in Miami: After a few trips around downtown Miami we finally found our way to the NCL area. Parking at $10.00 a day was OK and we unloaded our luggage right at the pier and parked within 30 feet of where we dropped off our luggage. I thought that was great. Tipped the porters a few bucks to take the luggage to wherever they drop them off for the cruise and we were directed to Embarkation #2. My Uncle took a bus from West Palm Beach that takes them directly to the ship, my brother on the other hand didn’t fair so well. He had rented a car on his own, big mistake, he had to drop all of his family at the pier and then drive back to the airport to get rid of the rental car, he waited 1 ½ hours there until a NCL bus brought him back to the pier, he was very nervous thinking he was going to miss the boat A big thing he forgot was to take his passport and all of his NCL tickets. They were with his wife, now he had no passport and no ticket when he tried to get on the ship, fortunately he had his cell phone and had to call her to come all the way back down to where they let you board the ship, it was a wonder with all the commotion that she had her cell phone on (he should have captured everyone and made them all ride to the airport to drop off the car, then they all would have been together, but I don’t know if NCL will bring you to the ship if you haven’t “pre-registered” or whatever to get a ride to the ship) .

Embarkation: We arrived at the port about noon. It was fairly fast probably about 1 hour from the time we hit the first door up the escalator in the “Disney style” roped off lines to get our tickets checked then maybe 20 minutes to go through customs and have the luggage scanned. Then shuffled along the concrete gangway up to the ship. There we were handed out NCL card with our names and dinning table embossed on it and eventually made it inside and finally located our rooms.

Food: I am a hamburger and fry type guy, the wife is not. I was very pleased with the Great Outdoor Rest. From 7-10:30AM you have cafeteria style b’fast, anything you want, eggs, toast, bacon, sausage milk, tomato juice etc. Then on to lunch, I really didn’t eat a lunch- too full from b’fast, but they had steaks cooked on a grill, hamburgers, fries, sub sandwiches etc. We did go to the Leeward for b’fast and that was exactly like eating in a fine restaurant, but you had to wait and order. We had an early seating 6pm, in the Leeward, due to our party of 15 we had 2 tables.1 for adults, 1 for Kids (19 down to 6) the service was excellent and the food was great, my brother ordered 2 entrees sometimes and they came just as soon as he ordered. Kids order from the main menu and the little ones got theirs from the kids menu. Every night was something different, I always went for the steak type meal and everything order was delicious, not one of the 15 in our party had a complaint about anything, this is the place to try things you may never have tried before, you already paid for it so try something from the menu, the waiter doesn’t care he will take it away if you don’t like it but order it when he comes to you, don’t wait, I ordered 2 appetizers, soup, salad and everything came with a smile, He was a great guy named Darmus from Indonesia. We did keep an eye on the kids table to make sure they didn’t order anything that we knew they wouldn’t like so he wasn’t carrying untouched food from that table to the trash. There was always something on the menu that all 15 found to eat. They did have a midnight buffet from 11:30PM to 1AM
 

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