Jason:

Gray Beard and Annie Bonny here with you for what's going to be an exciting hour of, well, all things Caribbean. This is Podcast of the Caribbean 2, podcast goes to hell, dot, dot, dot, literally. Yes, literally.

Two years ago, we brought you Podcast of the Caribbean and we traveled to the Dominican, St. Thomas, Tortola, and Virgin Gorda. We hiked waterfalls, we climbed giant boulders, here we are two years later. That trip was exciting.

This trip to the Caribbean was full of adventure as well.

Bri:

Mm-hmm.

Jason:

So welcome to the Podcast of the Caribbean 2, podcast goes to hell, dot, dot, dot, literally. You're so funny. Well, I mean, I guess we should probably start with embarkation day then, or do we start with what we're drinking?

I mean, I feel like we should start with what we're drinking. So we have two drinks on the table here. When you're on a cruise, you definitely have to dive into the drink packages.

Well, first, what we did was our favorite drink on our first Caribbean cruise, one, was the Rusty Nail. I had never had one in my life. So then this time we saw the same stuff at a bar and we said, hey, can you make us a Rusty Nail?

And he looked behind him and he said, I can. So we had a Rusty Nail. So cheers.

So cheers. To our Jameson made. Jameson.

Rusty Nail. You can make it with different things, we found out. Canadian whiskey is pretty popular.

Canadian mist, Canadian club. This is made with Jameson. We're told that they go very well with Scotch as well.

Well, that was the first one we had, right? Dwyer's and Dewar's, Dewar's, Dwyer's. I don't know, whatever.

I'm not a big Scotch person, so I don't really know. You've cut your teeth on Glen Love at 12 and that's about all your experience. So it was our favorite bar on our first cruise and then our favorite drink at the favorite bar.

So it was fun to do it again. And then now we've just made it at home with Jameson. Right.

So if you're going to make yourself, so what you need is Drambuie, which is a golden colored liquor and it's made from Scotch whiskey. So probably why Scotch is such a big deal with it. Herbs, spices, honey, notes in it as well.

So three quarters of an ounce of Drambuie and then you add an ounce and a quarter to an ounce and a half of whatever whiskey or Scotch that you want. And I think you put a dash of bitters. Yeah, we put a dash of orange bitters in here as well.

So that was good. Yeah, so this is really good. And then also what we have on the table, which we'll bring up a little bit later on, is we're talking about Royal Jamaican Rum.

Well, I thought we would bring that up when we talked about Jamaica. But we also have that on the table as well. So we'll bring that up later.

We'll keep the specifics out for right now. But let's talk about embarkation day. All right.

And let's talk about the 70 stops that we had to make just to get to the port. A little different this time. So the last time we got on early, we had to lunch.

We kind of explored the boat a little. It was pretty cool. We found an outdoor bar, blah, blah.

This time, we did the, as you heard on our last podcast, our, what is it, snooze fly and fly snooze cruise. So little did we know when they picked us up, we were not going directly to the cruise port. Instead, what we did was pick up from what he said was five turned into seven hotel stops.

You liar. Which we got there still at a decent hour to board the ship, but not as early as we thought we would be able to. So it was fine.

And I felt like it was very organized. We got off. We gave them our luggage.

They just made sure, you know, do you have your bag tag? And then they wouldn't let you walk away, which I thought was really smart of Norwegian. They will not let you walk away from your luggage if you do not have the special identification tag to tell them where they're delivering your bag.

So that was nice of them. And then we got on. And because we had already been to that port, I feel like we, I at least, felt a little more comfortable, right?

I knew the stairs we were going up. I knew what we were going to do. We were showing, you know, my passport here.

They were going to check my bag here. We're putting our other stuff through here. We're going to go over here.

We still got to go to the special line because we had whatever that special boarding thing was. Priority embarkation. Which I really liked because then I didn't have to go to the massive amount of people that were to the left, which somehow we just lucked out in the last time we were there.

And yeah, so they took out my picture, not yours, because yours apparently was clear. Mine was unclear. When I tried to upload your picture weeks before the cruise, it was giving me all sorts of fits.

Yeah. So they took my picture, which was fine. And then they were like, here's your card.

Have fun. And then we got on and we went straight to food. Because we were starving.

We were eating snacks on the bus that said, do not eat on bus. And use this episode. If you're going on a cruise, you know, we're not, what would you say?

We're not, what are those video people that do videos about? I mean, we're going to, we want to do some videos about cruises because we were pretty impassioned about it. But we're not one of those cruise enthusiasts that are telling you what you should do.

But I mean, you can use this as a guide.

Bri:

Yeah.

Jason:

So I think we're learning little things that I would like to remember for next time. And then the next time. And then the next time.

So this time was pack more snacks.

Bri:

Right.

Jason:

Yeah, for sure. And you can have bag snacks like anywhere. You can take them on an airplane.

So it doesn't matter, you know, whatever. So when I said, what kind of snacks do you have? And he's like, oh, we bought these candy bars at the convenience store.

Thank God. We have one more pack of Teddy Grahams. Thank God.

Anyway, so we're having snacks because by the time we got on to the ship, which we thought would be in time for lunch, was more like a super late lunch, almost dinner. Right, because what time do we get on? Would you say like 2.30?

Yeah, it was about 2.00 and then the ship was supposed to leave at 4.00. Yeah. So yeah, and I think last time we were more like 10. Yeah.

10.11. Like we got an early time. Yeah, which was cool because we kind of like wandered around. And then we had lunch, but to be fair.

To be fair. Oh, there it is. That's it.

Don't do it. Is that the one? Do you have the button?

I think I have the button on here. For all of you Letter Kenny fans.

Bri:

That's right.

Jason:

So I know I lost my whole train of thought. Food, snacks, bring snacks. Yeah.

Well, whatever. Anyways, the point was is that I was starving because I really didn't think we would have that much time away from food. We had a bagel for breakfast thinking we were getting lunch when we got in the ship and you know, I mean nobody likes Hangry Sabrina.

No buddy likes and the only thing worse than Hangry Sabrina is Canadian Hangry Sabrina. She almost killed a person in kilometers that day. Well, I mean, I don't know.

I just not that I need a ton of food, but I just feel like I'm I if I can't eat a big meal. I'm a snacker, right? So you only fed me a bagel in the morning with coffee.

I'm going to need a lot of snacks. She's a little more than bagel and schmear people. So I can't even have the schmear.

I have bagel and butter.

Bri:

Bagel and butter.

Jason:

But um, so anyways, so yeah, so I feel like we got on really easy. We I like to sit on our balcony to watch the ship go off. So that's for me.

I liked it the first time so we did it again and I think it's really cool and there was a lot of ships that were going at the same time. I'm like unlike the first time it was literally like it was so cool. So it was like the ship in front took off the ship the next took off.

And then we were like and you could see us going through like the little channel and you could see ship one ship to ship three. There was a royal ahead of us a carnival ahead of us then us and then there was the Disney Disney was behind us. Disney treasure was in was right next to us and import so that they were following and then we actually we got to pass the SpaceX rocket that had just landed a few days earlier.

Yeah, so those guys are kind of hooting and yeah, it's like look what we've got. So I like that and then after we were like in the water, then we were like, let's go find a drink. So to food food and drink it when once you get on the ship most a lot of people like to go to the pool.

Okay, that's not we're not stick. It might be your stick. Yeah, it's not our stick.

We're not pool people, but the pool is definitely super full. I I think a lot of people bring their swimsuits on their travel bag. We first time ever did the air tag situation and it was so funny because my air tag wasn't really showing and then suddenly you're sitting on the ship worrying about it.

Is my bag on this boat? I'm like so worried right and and I panic about the things that I think other people don't panic about and then I eat everything but then I feel like I don't panic about the things that like maybe you should panic about. Right?

Like I panic about the the small trivial things like is my luggage getting on because I have a lot of cool dresses and shoes and outfits and that that that that that I want to wear a lot of dress. I don't worry about crashing and dying. Do you know what I mean?

Like I don't worry about like the major things I worry about like, oh I had the cutest dress ever with like these matching shoes that I want to make sure is on board. Anyways, so my air tag all of a sudden works and popped up on my phone. I was like, oh my air tag come to find out suitcases are right outside the door.

So we grabbed our luggage and then and then we went so I don't know. Do you have notes more of like, well, I feel like we went down to the buffet and got some lunch. One of the things I wanted to bring up is because I've been a member of the military program for for a few years now and and the military will pack the military.

The Veterans Task Force is what they call it in Norwegian. They're really big on what they do as far as making the military and veteran community really welcoming. So I come in and there's this envelope that's sitting on our, you know, whatever the mantle or like the shelf and it says top secret on it.

So I'm opening this thing. It's got my name on it. And it looks like and it looks like military orders as I remember when I was like, you know, Griffis Air Force Base or Air Force Base, you know, when I was TDY, Fort Meade, Tyndall, I'm name dropping like crazy.

But, you know, it's like just any time I had to go someplace, there was always the folder of things that you had to do, out processing, getting ready to TDY, right. So it was just very cool the way it was laid out. So inside of the folder, there's not only, you know, the the military orders of welcome to the Veterans Task Force.

And and we're glad to have you aboard. Go to find out that the chief of security is a Navy veteran. There's so many people that are on the ship that are military veterans as well that are contributing to this program with not just within the ship, but within Norwegian as a whole.

Then you open it up and there's a patch in there and it's a unit patch for the ship. And there's a pin for being a participant in the military program and a challenge coin, like really cool challenge coin was accessories to to the program. And then an invitation to what would you know, it's going to be a later on would be a kind of a military like appreciation.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you have that or if you want to talk about it now.

Yeah, I mean, it was on I think it was on day. I think it was on day six that we were there one of the at sea days that we had. It was 11 o'clock in the morning.

We go down to the Manhattan room. Yeah, and they just had this very nice military reception. And in this room, you've got, I mean, literally Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, no Space Force.

Sorry, guys. No, they called out Space Force, but there's no one there. They said the last cruise, they two of them.

Yeah. So but it was really cool. Like the number of people that got together for these big pictures and group.

Well, that was what I thought was cool. Not being a military personnel. I thought it was neat that they were calling out each branch and having you guys stand up and then calling everyone to come up in each branch and taking your picture.

Yeah, how fun. I thought that was awesome. And I think it's a I think it's really cool that they do because like, is it the Marines?

That says URA. URA. Yeah, like all the Marine guys go up and they're like URA.

You can hear them all over the room. But I think, you know, as a third generation military myself, my son being fourth, I mean, you know, Kieran being third generation himself is just really cool for them to do something like that and acknowledge people who are on the ship. So, you know, some unique drinks that they had for the occasion.

A few hors d'oeuvres. You get to talk to a couple of people. They were like passing out food and asking like, hey, we have these four drinks.

What would you like? And I was like, I'll have this. And the one thing I thought was really cool.

I remember the woman that was sitting across from us and she was sitting by herself. And then the guy and his wife was like, hey, come on over and join us at our table. Are you here by yourself?

Yeah. Found out they were both Army. Yeah.

So that was cool. So then you didn't even know what branch you were inviting over to your table, but then they find out they were in the same one. So, so if you're a military veteran, here's what I can tell you about Norwegian.

Any cruise that you want to get on board, automatic 10% off. And then as you go through the tiers of the membership right now, I'm one of my bronze and then I'll be a silver after my next cruise. By the way, that's being planned as we speak.

So that's what we were doing today on our day off of work. Don't tell nobody. But yeah, so it's a really wonderful program that they do.

It's great for people to be able to get together in one spot and it was an hour and you know, like the entertainment director. I mean, even the captain came down for a hot minute and it was really neat and everybody was like thanking everybody for their service and just, you know, it's something cool because really when you look at the people who were there, it was young all the way to like really old. Yeah, and that was what I thought was cool too.

Yeah. We did, we did go to afterwards that evening. We did do the all aboard show in the epic theater, realized that we had a serious issue with our drink package.

Oh, yeah, that's an all-stop situation, by the way. So I go up so Jay gets us a drink. No problem.

We sit down. I said, hey, the show doesn't start for five more minutes. We can get one more drink.

Let me just go up and we were just drinking wine. I feel like yeah, so I just went up. Rosea's.

Yeah. So I was like, oh, I'll just get another glass of wine because then we were going to go to dinner. So we didn't want to get crazy.

And this guy said, you've reached your drink limit. Excuse me. And I said, I don't understand that.

I have unlimited and he's like, you don't, you might want to talk to somebody, but let me pour you a couple glasses of wine, right? Like he was super nice. Thank God.

He spoke up and told us something, right? And so I came back and told Jay and then we had to go to customer service. But they were really cool at fixing it and go to find out.

So I'm part of a military vacation program and you know, they've kind of rubbed me the wrong way with this because the one thing they didn't tell me was I needed to pay my gratuities up front in order to lock myself into the drink package, right? Something I didn't know about, right? So I think what happened was the last cruise, I think it was just kind of automatic.

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just charge, charge, you know, whatever you need to charge to get this thing going. And then when it didn't happen, they were like, oh, yeah, all you have to do is pay your gratuities and then they can fix the whole situation.

They go back, you know, tell somebody it's like spectrum with their cable. You flip the switch and you know, then you're. And they took care of all of our drinks because, you know, I have wondered to when we were having our first drinks.

I was like, why are we signing something? We had never signed before. That was weird.

You know, usually just swipe the card and you move on. Yeah. So I was like, huh?

So then I asked her, I was like, what's going to happen for our last one? So she took care of all that. And then we went to Cagney's, our very first specialty restaurant.

We did our first night there. It's our first experience with Cagney's, which is a, it's a steakhouse, but I mean. With like a 20s theme.

Oh, yeah. Very, yeah, very prohibition. Yeah.

Yeah. Prohibition themed. People dressed up.

Yeah. I feel like I need to dress up. I missed out on some stuff.

I really forget the guy's name, but he came, he was like really, he had talked to us earlier. And then he brought one of their family lanyards. Oh, he talked to you earlier.

Yeah, he had talked to me earlier. And then he'd come up to us at dinner and recognized us. And he, I don't know, made us an honorary ooze, you know, for their family and gave us these like lanyards that you can keep your ID card.

Which now we're going to have to do Buffalo Brews podcast lanyards. Because I loved that. Yeah, I do have, we do have, and it's, you know, it's one of the cool gifts that we got from the folks at the Hopped Up Network.

Which we did our first one. Yeah, we had those. But again, the little thing tore, which is why I don't think we brought them this time.

Yeah, right. That you keep putting it into. And the same thing with the one the guy gave us.

It like, it rips down the scene. Yeah, I think we definitely have heavy duty ones. Yeah, they're definitely not something that you can use like over, over, over, over.

Right. And I remember the, the Malbec wine we had there from Aki, Aki Malbec wine from, from Venezuela? Maybe, I had a White's.

I had a Pinot Grigio because I had seafood. Okay. Yeah, that was, yeah, you had that amazing seafood platter though.

So I'm not a steak eater really, if anybody knows. I just, it's not my choice, my first choice. I'll eat it.

I like it. But it's not ever going to be my first choice. So we go to a steakhouse and of course I'm like, ooh, what kind of seafood?

So it was like a fish, scallops, crab, what else was there? Squid. Squid, yeah.

And shrimp. Scallops, shrimp. Yeah, it was like around the plate.

So it was like a piece, some scallops, so like it had something of everything around this. You had a lot of stuff there. And then it had like these really cool sauces that kind of went with everything.

They like gave you lemon to squeeze obviously and the fish and there was like some remoulade, so it was really good. Yeah, that's, you know, I think I had the pork belly appetizer with prime rib, truffle risotto. And that's where I had a Caesar salad with real anchovies.

Oh, yeah. Is that where I had it? Yeah.

You were very excited about that. You know why? Because nobody really serves you a Caesar salad with anchovies.

With anchovies. So anchovies are in the Caesar dressing, if no one knows that. It's like a thing, right?

That's what gives you like the salty taste of it, right? Fun fact. But when they served it and they had actual ones on there, I'm like, yes, this is awesome.

So that was my first experience with that. Yeah? Yeah.

Yeah, that was, you were very excited about that for sure. I remember we had the raspberry creme brulee for dessert. Because creme brulee is amazing.

Yeah. And then when most packages on Norwegian, it's a good thing to note here, is that you get two specialty dining experiences when you buy into their, what they call More at Sea package. And this was one of the two that we did during this cruise.

And if you didn't buy into that, it's a $60 per person charge.

Bri:

Yeah.

Jason:

So you can still eat at any of them. Yep. So if you wanted to.

It's just $60 per person. Right.

Bri:

Yeah.

Jason:

And then, but the cool thing about that is, you know, you can really, I mean, you can really eat just about anything you want on the menu. They don't say no. Right.

You can have multiple appetizers, multiple desserts.

Bri:

Anything you want.

Jason:

That came up plenty of times during the cruise. But you know, and night one was the, and we'll say this before we close out night one, because that's like the elusive Pinot Noir.

Bri:

Yes.

Jason:

We tried to get Pinot Noir on our first night. We were denied. It wasn't happening.

It wasn't happening. I like Pinot Noir. I like them dry.

I like them woody. And I, I mean, I like a Pinot Noir period. I don't care.

There's many, many, many different flavor profiles and I like them all. Right. So.

The cool thing, another cool thing about cruising, especially with Norwegian, because the food is just top notch. I would beg you to find another cruise line that kind of does it, that would even do it close to the level that Norwegian does. And what I just learned today, which I mean, I guess I should have known from cruise number two is, you don't book a time to eat.

No. They called it like freestyle eating. Right.

Bri:

You eat whenever you want to eat.

Jason:

Unless you do your specialty dining. Then you have to book a time, a reservation. That's a reservation.

But otherwise, you eat whenever you want to eat. You just go whenever. Yeah.

And you don't have to eat with people sitting at the same table or anything like that. Sometimes you have to wait in line, but not very long. They gave us little buzzers.

Like if you were around town and you just like said, oh, table for two. And they were like, that's going to be 20 minutes. Here's your buzzer.

Find a bar. Right. It's not hard.

Right. But when you go on the ship, there's the opportunity to get the, the garden cafe breakfast buffet is just whatever you want. Whatever you want.

It's there. Except for eggs benedict on the ship. Well, yeah.

You go that, you know, go to taste or go to the Manhattan room for something like that. But you go to the garden cafe and you can load up on all the protein and carbs to your heart's delight to get your day going. And fun fact, if you go to the omelet station and you want over easy eggs, they'll make them.

They will. Because I was shocking people who were walking by and I was like, can I get two over easy eggs? They were like, wait, what?

Well, I also want two eggs. Sorry. I just made you do a whole lot more work.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I mean, we hit the breakfast buffet almost every single morning. I said, I think except one, we went to taste. Yeah.

Yeah. Because it was our accidental at sea day, which I feel like this is like the end of the conversation.

Bri:

Yeah.

Jason:

But yeah, I mean, we had a day at sea before we, before we pulled into Cozumel. So what was, what else do we have going on?

Bri:

I mean, you have our itinerary.

Jason:

So I, what I loved about every morning going in is we always had our favorite girl who has always had to put hand sanitizer on her hands, but she always had the phrase that pays as I called it. And I always, and the one that always tickled me pink was squirty, squirty, no more dirty. She was adorable.

So she was like this four 11 cute as could be braces had to be in her like, I don't know, 20, 20, between 20 and 22, like super, super young girl. And I was like, how do you have so much pep in your stuff? Every morning.

Every morning. She had a new phrase every, but the one that always stuck out to me was squirty, squirty, no more dirty. It was adorable.

So she made you smile like every day. She was, she was always so much fun. Yeah.

Cause you're required to get a shot of hand sanitizer before you walk into the buffet, right? You cannot walk past them. They will literally, Hey, Hey, you gotta do this, right?

Like it's a thing. And when you're on a cruise ship, it's very important. Norovirus is a rampant thing that runs through the cruise lines.

So it's very important to over obsess about wash your hands at every opportunity. There's hand sanitizers and there's stations. Keep personal hand sanitizer.

It's okay. Yeah. We did that.

They're everywhere on the ship. Guess what? Came back.

Just fine. We're good. We're good.

Uh, that day we also did the margarita tasting. Mm. Yeah, that was super fun.

We learned so much. Like I thought, Oh, we'll just sit down and drink some margaritas, like different flavors that you're not going to be able to get any like any other time. Right.

Nope. Nope. We had a lesson.

Debbie, the head mixologist for the ship. She gave us a lesson on, uh, you know, basically the history and some of the uniqueness that is margaritas. And we learned so much, uh, so much in that opportunity with her was like, uh, you know, that margaritas weren't always margaritas.

They were first called marjories.

Bri:

Mm.

Jason:

And they, the name changed just because of the language barriers over time. Uh, we also found out that, uh, things like, why do they put lime in Corona? Because flies were attracted to the sugars in the drinks.

I told so many people this and they had no idea. Right. The lime is not meant to enhance your beer, You know, so if you want a Corona without a lime, you don't have to have it.

Bri:

Right.

Jason:

It does nothing to the drink. Right. Nothing.

Right. I mean, unless you want your Corona limey because you're drinking. Right.

Corona. That's the first problem. And the age of tequila is everything.

From your Blancos, you know, right up through. Like we, we had a whole thing.

Bri:

We learned everything.

Jason:

Now, this was an extra cost. We paid $20 per person to do this. we decided we didn't want to share.

So we did it for each of us. Joey doesn't share food. But, um, but I feel like when they, when the ship does some of these things, I think like it's a, it's a time to take advantage of some fun, you know, even if you do have to pay a little something, you know, right.

Uh, she, yeah, she was a, she was a great educational opportunity. And the cool thing about it was there were four unique margaritas that were served nowhere on the ship. And except that time.

Yep. And that day. Yeah.

And he said, they will have the large batches left for the rest of the day. Only for you people. And all you have to do is say, I was in the tasting and I want this.

Bri:

Yeah.

Jason:

And they'll tell you if they still have more. And we didn't go back to get them, but I did really thoroughly enjoy. I think only because I forgot.

Cause honestly the, that to the Trapa, that Traparita, I would have gone back for in a second. We were busy. Yeah.

We were very busy that day, but yeah. Um, cause that day the AFC divisional, uh, title game between Buffalo and Baltimore was going on. Oh, was that that day?

Yeah. So of course the Philadelphia game gets played on the, on the gigantic screen television on the back of the fricking ship. And then we get that wee little TVs inside of the Irish bar.

Which are we, are we going to talk about this now? Are we going to talk about the food? Yeah.

Oceans. Oh my gosh. So we went to Oceans on our first time going, I guess it's on all the Norwegian ships.

Correct. And it's like their 24 hour Irish pub. Now the food was, was decent.

I don't, I mean, I wouldn't say it was like excellent, but it was good. I remember we didn't, we didn't particularly care for the breakfast. It wasn't.

Yeah. But like, I can get that anywhere. So I had this like chicken salad sandwich there on the first time we went.

And I absolutely loved it. It was like on this multi-grain bun. The explanation was the same on the menu.

I'm like, you know what? I'm going to get that again because I really, really liked it. And it was like a huge amount of fries and perfect.

I'll take it. It comes, it's like half the size and it's grilled. Like why would you grill it?

And so the bread was like overly crunchy. Like, I don't know. I was very disappointed.

You said the wings were chewy. Yeah, the wings, the wings were soggy. There was, they were.

What did you even eat? There was a lot of like, whatever was in the sauce was just oily. Yeah.

It was, you know, it was supposed to be a, it was supposed to be a buffalo wing. I was so disappointed. Yeah.

The burger. Then I had a burger. The burger was overcooked.

And you were having burgers on the all you can eat buffet that were better. I remember. Yeah.

That's what you had because you were like, uh, I could have went to the buffet for a better burger. This piece of bacon that I could have like sprinkled on from my bit o' bacon bag in my refrigerator. If I wanted to throw it on a potato.

And if you wanted to go to the buffet, you could have put like nine pieces of delicious bacon on there. And they put relish on the burger. Yeah.

Weird. Which said nothing to that effect on the, on the menu. Uh, the pretzel bites.

Okay. It was fine, but the cheese was very watery. Yeah.

It didn't even taste like cheese. So, and I'm not going to say that. oh, she hands a, a Ron or, you know, right.

Um, D nice. Um, I'm not going to say it's a bad place to go, but it's, I mean, it's just, I'm going to say, I don't want to try to do it the next time. I think they pooped the bed on that.

Yeah. I'll drink. I'll drink.

Right.