It’s Sunday, June 18, 2023, and today was an “at sea” day, which means no port call—and extra BearCruise-organized activities! We were en route from Iceland to Norway.
Noon: If you are looking for someone to join for lunch, meet at The Indulge Food Hall (Deck 8 Aft) or the Surfside Café and Grill (buffet, Deck 17 Aft). Form a small group and find a spot to enjoy lunch together.
Bob and I had lunch in The Indulge Food Hall, comprising various “stands” named: Tapas, The Garden, Nudls, The Latin Quarter, Q Texas Smokehouse, Seaside Rotisserie, Tamara, Coco’s, & Starbucks (Ugh!) Here’s what a couple of them looked like:
& Tapas (right) stands
A quirky little thing about this dining area was that if you sat at the seats at one of the stands, you could only order food made at that stand. But if you sat in the general seating area throughout the place, you could order from any (or all) of the stands. All of the food in this dining area was complimentary, so you could also order as many items as you wanted. Here are some of the various seating areas where you could order anything:
tablets to place your order
And this is what Bob and I ordered for lunch today. (We both had the tomato soup.)
(crème fraîche)
iceberg lettuce, cucumber, tomato, blue cheese, red wine vinaigrette)
garlic croutons, Caesar dressing)
1:00 pm: Games at The Stadium, Deck 18. Games like miniature golf, dart rooms, beer pong, foosball, tabletop shuffleboard, ping pong tables, and a pickleball court! Here’s what they looked like:
There’s another game area near The Stadium called the Galaxy Pavilion. Here’s its description and a 12-second video giving you a feel for what it’s like:
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You can see all of the virtual reality games in this area in this 5-minute full walkthrough tour.
2:00 pm: The Rush Slide Bear Races! Deck 18, Starboard, pick a partner, and race on these dry slides 10 decks down to the finish line!
I didn’t join the group today to do The Rush, but later in the week, I did do The Drop. There are three slides aboard the ship—a wet one, called The WaterSlide, by the pool and hot tubs, and 2 dry ones (The Drop and The Rush), which extend down the side of the ship for 10 stories
3:00 pm: Hot Tub Take-Over, Infinity Pool, Starboard Side, Deck 8, Oceanwalk
Bob and I didn’t join the group for the hot tub & pool takeover today.
5:00 pm: Cocktail Hour, Whiskey Bar, Deck 8
Our daily cocktail hour / happy hour is always fun. People were raving about the Old Fashioneds they make here, so we had one today. Normally we drink either Buffalo Trace & Soda or 1792 & Soda.
6:00 pm: Dinner. Specialty Restaurant of the Day—Palomar Mediterranean and Seafood, Deck 17
As part of our package, we got to choose 3 specialty restaurants to eat in, but the one designated for the group tonight, Palomar Mediterranean and Seafood, wasn’t one of the ones Bob and I chose, so we had dinner at The Indulge Food Hall, choosing items from several different “stands.”
10:00 pm – 11:30: Summer: The Donna Summer Musical This is the ship’s current theater offering, playing twice during the cruise, on each of our days at sea (i.e., today and Thursday). It’s a touring production of the closed Broadway show.
We were only marginally interested in seeing this show, and definitely wouldn’t have if we had had to pay for it.
It was only about 15 or 20 minutes in, which included some sound effects that made me think of a laugh track, and we were not at all impressed, when all of a sudden a loud explosion-like sound happened, and for the next several seconds we could only see the lips moving of the 3 characters who were saying their lines at the time.
The lights came up, and an announcement was made to the effect of, “Ladies and gentleman, your safety is our highest priority and we want to bring you the highest quality entertainment experience on the NCL Prima. We have experienced a catastrophic technical event that is causing us to have to halt the show while we address it.”
Since the wording was such that you couldn’t tell how long they thought it would take, or if they were sure it could be fixed at all, and we weren’t enjoying it, we took advantage of the moment to leave.