Carnival Cruise Watch

Cruise Terminal Adventures – Norwegian Star Review

We have scheduled a repositioning cruise on the Vision of the Seas from Los Angeles to Vancouver, BC and I had checked the website and found that NCL was offering a one night Dinner Dance Cruise from Vancouver, BC Seattle, WA for an unbelievable rate in a cabin balcony. Score!

This trip proved to be an adventure for a one-nighter. I will try to maintain a light tone for this review, but it was unpleasant, as several Thousands of cruisers can attest.

Landed Vision of the Seas Cruise Ship Terminal in Balentine and waited 40 minutes for a taxi with several new friends we made Vision and then took 45 minutes for what should have been a 5 minute taxi ride to Canada Place Cruise Terminal. Traffic through the city was terrible. As we were going through Gastown was a gentleman pulling a roller suitcase that had broken down the street, initially happened, however, while we were sitting in the street watching traffic go anywhere basically happened to us and disappeared finally, if we had all the baggage that we did was quite obvious that walking was much faster than driving. We should have realized at this time we were deep in homework.

We arrived at the Canada Place Cruise Terminal, checking our luggage, and found a line of about 1,000 people. We were trying to find out if this is our line or a line of other ships when we find an employee of the port and said all the ships passed through the same line, then informed us that it could not be in a row and had to wait an hour or two, because our boat had arrived late. We should have realized that this was the second sign of hell at the Cruise Terminal land.

We set out from Canada Place to find food and coffee and found a food court on the street where he fought a black man get a table and have set ourselves some Canada's natural Mexican food to wait out our hours late.

An hour later we walked back to the madness. You think I'm kidding? Am no. We take the underground tunnel at Canada Place and found the route through the elevator to the cruise terminal. The elevator doors opened and we are in the middle an even longer line. I do not like cutter myself, so we followed the line over the river, through forest, up the hill along Valley, near the corner in front of the hotel, up the stairs, down the hall, in front of a ship. If you've never been to Canada Place to imagine a huge building, larger than most sports arenas, long enough for two large cruise ships can park right next to him, one before the other and you may have an idea of how long the line was. I imagine that there was a good 4,000 people ahead of us agree on this point.

Needless to say, people were getting irritated and annoying, literally standing in a field of nearly an hour. I could have been imagining this, but in a moment think that the line began to make the "can can" and a conga line formed well, at least I think they do, until you click my red heels together and wanted to go home and I found myself standing in line again. Finally, the line started moving again and about 3 hours later were led by a staircase on the second basement level. Comments on dungeons rife and several people in the line of thinking may be possible that we were led to the bottom of the boats to row or coal shovel.

At this point began to move as quickly as possible, were taken for safety, the line moved quickly through customs, just feel a breeze, and finally we the counter of the cruise line, has our keys to the door and went to the ship.

NCL is well aware of health problems on the ship as were needed to clean hands with hand sanitizer before they could board the ship.

We arrived at our cabin and our bags were already there, had been partying for some time, the garment bag he asked us where we had been and we have no vodka with us. The carpet bag was swinging on a rail walker trying to be a tight line, fortunately had a good balance.

We found our bathing suits and limped to the elevator for a quick trip to the deck 12 and the relaxation of the happy jacuzzis. When we reached the pool deck were amazed at how big the ship was really a nice pool 2 large slides and four jacuzzis. The dinner was active and out of the food smelled great.

After soaking in the hot tub and returned to our cabin reservations placed after dinner, toured the ship for a bit, it was really a nice boat. Then went to the main exhibition hall for the show production "Cirque Pacific."

"Cirque Pacific" is listed as most Cirque, best enjoyed when you are under the influence of something. Fortunately I had some pharmaceuticals with me, pity that they were in my cabin. The show began with an announcement that was not allowed smoking in the auditorium, then filled with smoke, I know, show smoke, but still. I suspect the smoke was a status symbol the director and choreographer where in when they put the show, I seriously suspect who had smoked some grass happy beforehand. I've never seen girls doing the river dance hula, women blenders, and a character that seemed to belong in "Tron" to represent things from the Pacific region, but there they were. In fact, the show was interesting and had some great highs and some of the performers were terrific, but Tarzan was just a little more the top. * winks *

We dined in the summer "endless" restaurant, which was the TexMex cuisine was as good as any restaurant TexMex I had eaten previously, with good flavor and generous portions.

Then we went to the Casino, where we did what most people, which is donating. However, was run professionally and although was only open for a short time was a good place to play.

Finally, we decided to hit the shelf. A little disappointed in how difficult it was to get ice since no one was in the cabin steward and not returned calls.

The next morning breakfast in the main buffet was a buffet fare. All the guests on board were accelerated start, which meant we had to carry a weeks worth luggage off the ship ourselves, but we managed quickly and were out of Seattle, in minutes.

While this was only a day NCL for the exhibition was a positive exposure with the exception of madness in Canada Place. So hopefully we will be in one of their ships in the future.

About the Author

Tom Truxton lives in Portland, Oregon, is the father of 4, poker player and with his wife operates a home-based travel agency and website. Planning a vacation or cruise and don’t have an agent? Use Tom and his wife as your personal escape planners, visit them at http://www.timeenoughtravel.com.

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