This is our final day at sea, and Barcelona can’t come too soon! It has been a really enjoyable cruise overall, but at this point we can hardly wait to get off this ship. I think we are both suffering from cruise fatigue - we are tired of the constant movement, cramped stateroom and the same food, yet again. When we traveled on a Carnival cruise several years ago, I overheard a remark that the food on Norwegian Cruise Lines was much better than that of Carnival. I don’t think that statement is true today. Norwegian has gone to a dining system they call Freestyle dining, whereby there are no assigned seats, no assigned dining times or dining rooms, and cruisers are free to eat wherever and whenever they wish. There is a self-serve dining room at the top of the ship which is open most of the day. There is a full-service dining room available for breakfast and lunch, and a second one available in the evening. They are on a first-come, first-served basis - if a party arrives at a busy time, they may be given a beeper and a waiting time of 15-20 minutes; otherwise, it is a matter of walking in and being seated almost immediately. The food at all these venues has been good, or perhaps slightly better than good. No, just good. There are other self-serve dining venues such as an outdoor grill and a small café. In addition to these, there are eight premium dining venues, at which we could dine for an additional $10-25 each. I am sure the cruise line saves their best cooking for these venues. Frugal muggles that we are, we did not indulge.
We played bridge again in the afternoon with Nora and Dimmy - I partnered Nora this time - guys against gals. We made her keep score, telling her that all good bridge players need to know how to keep score. It was much the same as the last time - they sniped and bickered at each other, she was a lousy player and he a quite good one. The guys won.
In the evening was the final entertainment - a Christmas program given by the ship’s professional singers and dancers backed up by the Jade orchestra. This was followed by a talent show from among the Jade staff, some of them hotel or restaurant workers, with one presentation by the executive chef, who had better not quit his “day” job! Some were funny, some poignant, and all heartfelt. The program closed with all of the top Jade employees and as much of the lesser crew as could get on stage singing a final farewell and wishing us all a Merry Christmas.
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| Our home away from home for twelve days |
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| Our cruise director, Gary, in his angel costume |
Food not as good as I expected - may have been in the premium restaurants, but we didn’t try them.
American coffee!
Iced tea.
Hand sanitizer - in active use at every entry to every restaurant; that is, young women were waiting with bottles of hand sanitizer to squirt a stream into everyone’s hand as they entered the restaurant. This also applied to our entry onto the ship after every outing. There were passive dispensers at the entrances to the casino, the fitness center, the spa and probably other places as well - I don’t specifically recall. Clearly NCL was doing what it could to reduce the spread of germs.
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