Norwegian Pearl Review
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After some research and discussion on the what's, where's and when's we decided on taking the Norwegian Pearl Eastern Caribbean cruise in October 2009. We had cruised before but chose NCL because of the freestyle cruising that we heard about. Neither of us likes to have to get dressed up for formal nights or having set mealtimes where you have to watch your time to avoid missing the meal so we gave it a try. Our financial target was to keep the cruise plus the airfare under $1000 each so we booked an outside room without a balcony for $579. Travelocity had a $50 onboard credit if you booked thru them and American Express had another $50 credit for using their card. We also booked the airfare from Burbank, California to Fort Lauderdale for $263. Flying into Miami was almost $100 more each and FLL really isn't that much further from the port than MIA. Because of the time change (PST to EST) we chose to fly on Friday rather than taking a red-eye which can mess up your first day on the ship. Even with a hotel room in FLL Friday night, the taxes (cruise, airfare and hotel) we managed to stay under our $1000 budget. We also booked a shuttle from the FLL airport to the MIA port. It was an NCL shuttle (highly recommended) that we booked through Travelocity and was only $35 per person.
Preparation and packing. I packed two pair of shorts, two bathing suits, two pair of Dockers, four short sleeve collared shirts, seven T-shirts, one dress shirt, as well as underwear and socks. I had dress shoes, water shoes and wore jeans and tennis shoes on the plane so I had those when I got there and wore them too. I also packed a collapsible ice chest. I decided not pack a jacket or bring an umbrella, which had been suggested to me but wasn't really needed. We brought a backpack as a carry-on that was also a must have since we could use it to carry things on shore excursions and such.
Many years ago you used to be able to bring your own alcohol on a ship. I was known for bringing my own bar for not only saving on the cost of drinks but also the convenience. Several years ago when they no longer allowed you to bring alcohol I went on a weekend cruise and packed some wine and champagne in my luggage, which was delivered to my room as I hoped for. About a year ago a friend of mine put wine and champagne in his luggage but when it arrived they had been taken with a note saying he could pick them up on the last day of the cruise. My Mom and Dad cruise all the time (upwards of 50 cruises) and they always put wine and some adult beverages in plastic water bottles, never having a problem. I know you can spend a ton of money on drinks and when my neighbor reminded me that he had a $1200 bar bill his last cruise I decided to sneak some adult beverages in. Shame on me... but that's what I did.
Cabin Review
Obstructed Oceanview
When we had booked the room we were deciding between a 4th floor and 8th floor outside rooms. The 4th floor rooms had port holes about 16 inches across. There was a cover you could close and latch to make it pitch black inside which would have been nice but the 8th floor had larger windows with an obstructed view. Our room had two windows about three feet tall and maybe 10 inches wide with both shades and curtains. We picked a room that was between two lifeboats which had a pretty good view actually. From my observations later, the windows behind rooms 8070 to 8084 and 8570 to 8584 were the smaller dual windows that looked into the taller lifeboats very close to them. I'd avoid those unless you have one between lifeboats. The other obstructed rooms on 8 had large rectangular windows that looked either over the top of shorter lifeboats or between them. It also turned out that we spent a lot of time on decks 6, 7 and 8 so by staying on 8 we rarely needed to use the elevator.
The room was largest non-suite room I have ever had on a cruise ship. It had a small flat screen TV, a coffee maker (first time I've seen that on a cruise), a blow dryer, shampoo and soap dispensers in the shower (very convenient), 10 shelves and six drawers for storage and even a safe that was large enough for my 14' x 12' laptop. We discovered after a few days that you don't need to enter the safe code each time you want to lock it. After you set the code and open it for the first time, you can close the door and just press Lock to lock it using the same code as before. The shower was huge for a ship and the only complaint I had was that the toilet area was pretty small. There was a wheel outside the room that had an indicator for the cabin steward to make up the room, do not disturb, etc. That was cool. There was a small fridge in the room with drinks, chips, nuts, etc. that you got charged for if you used them. I was told that you could ask the room steward to empty it so you could use it for your own drinks but I didn't bother since I had my collapse-able ice chest.