Earlier in the week, the Hotel Director, Jovo Sekulovic, invited me and SP to have dinner at The Haven Restaurant which is part of the ship-within-a-ship concept Norwegian has developed. Because we had reservations at Teppanyaki the evening of Day 6 and Cagney’s on Day 7, I asked the Hotel Director’s Secretary, Pamela, if we could dine at The Haven Restaurant for lunch instead...

We love travel tech, and have talked about how we pack for cruises.  If you’re looking to invest in luggage for your next trip you may have seen bags with built in batteries – but we think you should avoid them.  In addition to some conceptual flaws we’ve noticed, you may soon have trouble flying with these bags...

On day 3 I woke up this morning not feeling so great. Not sure if it’s something specific that I ate or just a consequence of so much indulgence, but I really did not want to do much. I went up to the Garden Cafe buffet, picked out some of SP’s favorites plus some chocolate milk and peach yogurt for myself, and brought SP some breakfast in bed...

With such a busy week, I hadn’t packed a thing yet. I had set aside some items in a Rubbermaid tote that I knew I wanted to take with me, then last night, I went to see Lady Gaga in concert at the Amelie Arena. Pretty fantastic show. Once I was back home, I started packing. Once I was done packing at around 12:45am, I went to print out my documents for the cruise. Surprisingly, because it was now December 2nd, the day of the cruise, my documents were no longer available to print. I knew this wouldn’t cause much of a problem at the port, but I would have liked to have something in hand just in case.  I got about four hours of sleep before waking up to drive down to Miami to start the Escape...

The last day of any cruise is a sad one, but to us, it’s a bit easier when the last day is a port day as the distraction of going ashore keeps us from dwelling on the inevitable.  On the final day of our Nieuw Amsterdam sailing we found ourselves visiting Half Moon Cay, Holland America Line’s private island in the Bahamas.  We enjoyed the tropical paradise, thought about how it compared to other private islands, and then went back onboard to absorb the last hours of what Nieuw Amsterdam had to offer us this cruise, including dining in the Pinnacle Grill...