Day 7: Sea Day.
RQS and I awoke to bright sunshine, setting our clocks back an hour as we entered American waters. It feels strange, as we will be setting our clocks back again tonight due to the switch to Eastern Standard Time. As a result, we ended up rising sooner than usual, and reached the buffet while breakfast was being served on both sides of the ship.
After breakfast, it was off to the onboard store to see what “junk” was included in their $10 sale. (This is a good way to burn off any cruise credits one may have received for booking the cruise.) There wasn’t much of value here. There was the usual t-shirts, the usual cheap costume jewelry, and other things that one could get for $5 on Amazon.
I’ve sailed on at least 4 NCL ships so far: the Gem, the Joy, the Escape and the Breakaway. The Gem is a mid size ship for this fleet, and the ship I have cruised on most. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles found on the larger ships, but it has an intimate feel that is lacking on the larger ships. The Escape and the Joy are among the larger ships in NCL’s fleet, Breakaway plus ships. The Joy has all the bells and whistles one could want, including an on board go-cart ride and a pair of multi-story water slides. Its size is impressive, and I am amazed at how many people the ship can handle on a single cruise. Last is the NCL Breakaway itself. It is smaller than the Joy, but is still a large ship. Although it doesn’t have the go-carts, it has almost all of the bells and whistles of the Joy, while retaining a semblance to NCL’s past ships.
When I last sailed on the Gen in December, the photography store was still selling some small cameras in addition to the usual collection of on-ship photographs taken by the ship’s photographers. On the Breakaway and Joy, one could find a few SD memory cards, but no cameras. People now use their cell phones to capture images, and no longer buy small, special purpose cameras when cell phones can easily perform the same function. The newer ships are geared to sell more profitable products such as jewelry, high end watches and both duty free liquor and cigarettes. Even then, I found it impossible to buy a liter of amaretto, and had to settle for the last bottle of Grand Marnier.
Each iteration of ship classes has their pluses and minuses. I am a fan of NCL’s “Jewel” class of ships. Others are fans of the Breakaway and Breakaway Plus classes of ships. However, NCL has decided to go with a smaller, more intimate ship with their Prima class. This is not a ship I plan to take any time soon, as cruises on newer ships tend to be more expensive than those on older ships. Yet, if I see a great bargain, I’ll take a cruise on the Prima and see if the criticisms of Vloggers I watch are true. Until then, I’ll keep my mind open about this ship.
