NORDIC EMPRESS REVIEW

MAY 25, 1998

SAN JUAN, ST. THOMAS, ST. MARTIN, COCO CAY, PORT CANAVERAL

6 DAY REPOSITIONING CRUISE

Rick and Emily Schaffer

Ages 44 and 43

Occupation: Technical Systems Analyst and Clerical Worker

3^rd Cruise

Star Princess - Feb/95

Splendour of the Seas - April/97

Nordic Empress - May/98

Pre-Cruise:

Since the price was so good on this sailing we decided to do 3 night pre cruise in San Juan at the Condado Plaza. We went with Royal Caribbean’s pre cruise package and air. The hotel was nice enough although I have stayed in better for a lot less price. Overall San Juan is expensive but I was expecting this. The public areas of the hotel were very nice as was the pool area. It consisted of two pools a busier fresh water pool with water slide and a quieter salt water where we spent most of our time. The hotel rooms were nice but nothing to rave about. The restaurants in the hotel were very expensive and paid over $20.00 for continental breakfast at the poolside restaurant. Drinks were $6.00 and up although beer was cheaper.

I did not find the hotel staff overly friendly and they could take a few lessons from cruise ship staff and smile and say hello alot more often. This was my biggest complaint about San Juan and it was the indifference of the service industry staff like hotel and restaurant waitresses towards its paying customers.

I could count on one hand the number of times I had good service while I was there. It was as simple as the cleaning ladies not even saying hello. Must say I had so-so meals at Tony Romas and Chili’s but excellent service at the Marriot’s Tuscany Restaurant which I highly recommend mind you the bill also relected this.

Be prepared to see armed policemen walking up and down the streets in the Condado area as well we saw them on the grounds of the Condado Plaza by the pool area. If you are interested in doing a pre-cruise before a cruise out of San Juan 1 night is plenty enough to get to the ship rested and do take time out to visit Old San Juan which we enjoyed as well as our visit to El Morro. We took the walking tour on our own after paying a visit to the tourism office which is located close by the pier. They provided us with a map and written commentary about all the sites.

In my opinion if I cruise out of San Juan again I would spend 1 night pre cruise and stay in the Old San Juan area. The Wyndham Hotel looked very good.

Embarkation:

We were instructed to be in the lobby of the Condado Plaza by 1 p.m. to be picked up by United Tours. They arrived about 1:20 p.m. and we arrived at the pier about 1:45 p.m. Our luggage had gone ahead before us and we were told it would be delivered to our stateroom.

There was no lineup at this time and we virtually walked onto the ship stopping to have our photo taken. Later on we learned that many people had long waits and when we left the ship about 3 p.m. to head to Old San Juan the line up was very long and I estimate about 1 hour wait.

Upon entering the ship we were greeted on the by Royal Caribbean staff with a pianist playing on the white baby grand piano and were escorted to our cabin by Kerry who we later saw many times working as a bar staff person.

Walking into the ship and seeing the centrum is truly an awe inspiring site. You forget cruise to cruise how wonderful it truly is and when you see this sight it brings all those good feelings and experiences back again.

Cabin:

The first look at the cabin is what I expected. We had an inside room on “B” deck and the room was small but once we got settled into it it actually was larger than our inside room on Splendour since they did not have that mini couch squeezed into the room. The room on Nordic Empress was alot easier to move around in. The only thing is I found storage a little better on the Splendour.

We met our cabin steward later in the evening and I instructed him to remove the cans of soda and bottled water that Royal Caribbean places there for a fee. We were also greeted by a chilled bottle of champagne and a plate of chocolate covered strawberries courtesy of Anita our travel agent

SHIP:

The ship was spotless and very well kept considering this ship was about 9 years old and has been doing 3 and 4 day cruises so it has seen many passengers. My favourite lounge was the Carousel Pub where they had Karioke every evening. The Carmen Dining Room was very nice and was two leveled. We sat at a table for 8 on the lower level. The centrum area was quite impressive with its waterfalls and white baby grand piano. The sun deck could of used more shady areas as our two days at sea were very hot with not much of a breeze although the second day we found a great spot which was quiet.

I liked the wrap around promenade deck which was missing on the Splendour and the bay windows from the shops of the Centrum jutting out onto the promenade deck made you feel like you were walking down a street.

The elevator service was slow on this ship with one being out of service . There always seemed to be a long wait for elevator service to the top deck.

PORTS OF CALL:

St. Thomas - As usual we did the shopping thing in the morning. This was our third time in St. Thomas and we walked into town from the pier which took about 20 minutes. We purchased some jewelry and ran into our table mates doing the same thing. We also checked out the Crown & Anchor Society Lounge in downtown Charlotte Amalie. This place is worth seeing and it is beautifully decorated. We took a taxi back to the pier at about 11:30 am which we shared with five guys who already had had quite enough to drink. The smell of alcohol was unreal when they came into the taxi. They were in a hurry to get back to the ship in case they might miss there snorkeling shore excursion.

We had a quick lunch in the Windjammer and headed out to grab a taxi to Magen’s Bay. We spent about 2 hours there and it is a beautiful beach but not as nice as Trunk Bay in St. Johns which we visited on our last cruise. I feel that Magen’s Bay is overrated and I prefer the serenity and beauty and cleanliness of Trunk Bay.

The taxi ride back to the pier from Magen’s Bay was an experience. The vehicle being used as a taxi looked like it was ready for a junk pile. There were six passengers in the station wagon taxi including us and the hilly ride back from the beach ended not a moment too soon. I guess it is all part of the island experienceJ

St. Martin - Aah........St. Martin this is my very favourite place. The water is so blue and crystal clear and the beaches are to die for. We grabbed a taxi right off the tender. We were there early about 9:30 a.m. and there were a long line of potential cab drivers all vying for the cruise passengers business. They line up in a straight line which is marked with yellow paint on the pavement and they are not to go beyond the line trying to get you to take their taxi to Orient Beach. We picked out our cabbie Cowboy was his name and he got us to wait for him while he rounded up more passengers to fill his air conditioned van. There were nine of us and he delivered us to Orient Beach on the French side of the island about a 15 minute ride. He arranged a time to pick us back up about 1 p.m.

We found lounge chairs which they charge $5.00 each for plus $5.00 for the umbrella. We sat next to a very nice couple from Pittsburgh who had traveled there in the taxi with us and we agreed to watch each other’s stuff when we were in the water or out walking.

If you like long wide beaches with beautiful white sand and lots to see and do Orient Beach is for you. It is a clothing optional beach with lots of water sports, & beach bars . We actually sat on the part of the beach called Bikini Beach. There was a great breeze so it made our stay quite enjoyable.

We headed back to Philpsburg about 1:30 p.m. and shopped around and stopped in a great little bar/eatery called Rics Place where we had a beer for 99 cents and a snack. This was a great spot and a nice rest from all the shopping. It is located on Front street in Philipsburg and is right on the beach. We then headed back to the ship on the tender.

COCO CAY:

This is Royal Caribbean’s own private island. Here they have beaches, water sports, great snorkeling and they arrange a barbecue on the island for the ships passengers. You have to be tendered to this island in the Bahamas. It started raining in the morning after the crew had already tendered all the provisions for a barbecue.

We went over about 11:30 a.m. thinking it would be clearing up any time but ended up eating our lunch in the rain as many others did but our patience paid off when the sun began to shine about 1:30 p.m. The snorkeling was very good and beach was beautiful. Wish we could have spent more time in the sun here but I guess that is what other cruises are for.

FOOD:

We had breakfast in the dining room every day except for one. The breakfast menu is the same every day but the food is at least hot and cooked to order unlike the Windjammer Cafe breakfast buffet where you take your chances. The coffee was actually better than the last cruise but still not up to gourmet standards.

We had lunches in the Windjammer and it was fine. The nice thing I liked was that there was a deli bar where they would make you a sandwich on home made bread deli style in the Windjammer which seemed a little more healthful than the hamburgers and other stuff they were offering in the buffet.

I did catch a glance at a ’swan thingee’ and did have a taste. I thought it was great!

Drinks served poolside or in any of the lounges are fantastic. My favorite is the ‘Love Connection” a drink that consists of a layer of strawberry daiquiri, pina colada and a mango slush on top. I really feel the drink prices are reasonable especially after we experienced the prices in San Juan.

Dinners were very good although I thought the service was a bit better on the Splendour. The menus were very similar although they did not come around offering extra side dishes like vegetables. Appetizers, soups and main meals were identical to Splendour. Desserts were excellent my favourites being baked Alaska, tiramisu and key lime pie. I really missed the soufflés that they had on Splendour.

One thing that they did not do on Nordic Empress that the waiters did on Splendour was to go around with the side orders of extra vegetables and offer these to the passengers. On Nordic Empress if you didn’t ask for them you only received the vegetables that came with your entree. You had to request them when you placed your order.

One note about our dining experience was on the evening they had the Captain’s Gala which the chef’s special entree was filet mignon almost our whole table ordered it and something must have happened either in the kitchen or something the chef did but our meal was abit delayed and because of this our head waiter Robert brought us a bottle of champagne courtesy of the chef. When the meal arrived it was delicious.

The next day in our cabin we received courtesy of the chef a plate of sweets with his apologies because of the mixup with our meals the evening before. Our waiter Jorge was from Portugal and spoke English very well. Service was very good although this cruise I felt the Assistant waiter was not as visible as on our cruise on Splendour where the assistant was as visable as the waiter and every bit as competent.

We enjoyed our tablemates at our table which sat eight. They were all great company and we had some fun conversations. We have always asked for a large table and this is one of the nicest things on a cruise to meet different people . We have always been lucky and had very pleasant dinner companions. I feel it is worth the risk and ask to be seated at a large table.

We did not partake in any of the midnight buffets and I must admit this was the first cruise that we did not sample anything. We did however stay up to do the picture taking at the Gala Buffet and everything was presented beautifully.

ENTERTAINMENT:

Really enjoyed the entertainment in the Strike up the Band Lounge. We had great comedians like Greg Otto, and especially Mario and Daniel two Argentinean/Italian comedians who received a standing ovation. They were great. One evening they featured Greg Otto in an adult comedy show. They also feature their own Wave review Dancers.

One of the highlites of the cruise was Christian Shimer the cruise director. He was very good and the best we have experienced on our 3 cruises.

DEBARKATION:

This did not go smoothly at all. First because we are Canadians we were instructed to arrive in the High Society Lounge at 7 a.m. to pass through customs. We were near the beginning of the line and it took no time at all for us. We then proceed to have a last breakfast with our table mates in the dining room.

We grabbed our bags after breakfast and positioned ourselves out on the sun deck waiting for them to call our luggage tag colour. We did not actually leave the ship till around 11:15am. and proceeded to the buses which would take us the 50 minute ride to Orlando airport.

Once at he airport we collected our luggage and went to the express line outside the airport terminal for Delta only to get near the front of the line when the conveyer belt broke. We were then told to go into the terminal and wait in line to check our bags. Well there were many people who had 12:50 p.m. flights and this was now 12:30 p.m. Many of those people missed their flights. They were supposed to be off the ship much earlier but I understand from other passengers that more than a few passengers had not settled their accounts before disembarking which meant that no one could leave the ship. The cruise line kept paging a list of names over and over to report to one of the lounges. We figured something was wrong. Our flight was at 2:30 p.m. so it was no problem for us except that it took us much longer to actually be able to leave the ship. Royal Caribbean apologized many times over the PA system for this delay.

It would be interesting to find out the actual reason for the delay.

The flight back we ran into alot of turbulence with a bad weather system that had hit the western part of New York and we were flying into Buffalo. Other wise the flights were on time and with no other delays. Even with the bad weather we arrived only 10 minutes late and our flight into San Juan was actually 25 minutes early.

CONCLUSION:

For the price we paid on this cruise it was excellent value. I love cruising and will be doing it again but would really like to try a different cruise line. I found the menus alot alike, entertainment and some things were a little predictable like the not so newlywed game, Novel quest, poolgames etc. It is hard to know if a repositioning cruise has any bearing on the service and meals. Many staff were finishing up contracts.

The value and convenience of cruising was emphazied in our land stay in San Juan. Here every evening we had to try and decide where to eat, how do you dress for the restaurant, is it expensive , how far away and all those things are taken care of on a cruise. No taxi fares to worry about which can add up if you plan to visit one restaurant and go somewhere else for entertainment.

I am anxious to try a western caribbean cruise since this was actually our third cruise to the eastern/southern caribbean. One of the new ships coming into service would be nice. One area that Princess really stands out over RCI is in handling the luggage. On Princess line once you leave your luggage outside your cabin the night before debarkation you don’t handle it again until you arrive at your home airport.

On and all it was a very enjoyable vacation and the experience of being pampered like you are on a cruise ship is definitely worth the money.

If there are any questions please do not hesitate to e-mail me.

Emily Schaffer

rschaff@soonet.ca