Love2Cruise Planning and pre-trip info Norwegian Joy 2024 New York...
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Today is Sunday, embarkation day for the cruise! We’ve had a great 7 days in New York City. We got to see and do so much the city has to offer, and we’ll be back next year to do more. But for now, it’s time to get on a cruise.
We had a 9:30am port arrival time with priority boarding. We got up and ate breakfast in the executive lounge of the hotel. The regular breakfast line was insanely long! After breakfast we went back to the room, packed up and headed out to Avenue of the Americas to grab an Uber to the port. There was some parade this day so the NYPD was about to close the road in front of the hotel but thankfully it was still open at this point. I got our UberXL and Efrain showed up and took us the 1.36mi to the port in 11 minutes for $24.15. We arrived at the port at 9:35am
We arrived at Pier 88 without any issues and Efrain dropped us off with the porters. We gave them our luggage to load onto the cart, and into the terminal we went. The line was fairly long for security but moved pretty quick. We got to the first security point, and my wife and son had to have their photos taken. For some reason it didn’t accept their photos when doing the online check-in. Not an issue though. From there, we went through the standard x-ray and metal detectors. After that, we got in line at the priority check-in. There was 1 couple before us, and the area next to us was empty. Actually it was closed.
There was a worker at the front of the line distributing passengers to the check-in counters. There were 2 priority check-in agents directly in front of us, and the rest were to our left. There was a worker named “Patreshia” who had no clue what she was doing. Other groups took down the barrier in the section beside of us and kept lining up. She was letting them all go and didn’t let anyone in our line go. By this point, everyone in our line was getting pissed telling her that area was closed, our line had been here, and all had priority boarding. She had some smart-ass comment but finally started letting us through. I did mention her by name in the post-cruise survey. She had no business being there since she didn’t know what she was doing.
We made it to the check-in agent and he got all of our information and asked if Patreshia had given us our boarding card. Surprise, she didn’t. He tried to give us #28 and then realized we should have #1. I told him that old woman didn’t know what she was doing. He went and got some boarding cards from her to give to people. We got our #1 boarding card and went to sit in the waiting area until boarding would begin.
Finally about 11 they started to board the ship. By 11:05am, we were on the ship. When we boarded the ship, we entered right at our muster station so we could have our card scanned and have that finished. We did, then went to find something to eat and explore the ship. We went to the Local Bar & Grill and grabbed a quick bite to eat, then began exploring the ship. Unlike other cruise lines, NCL doesn’t allow you to access your cabin until later in the day. Being platinum with Carnival, we go to our cabin as soon as we embark the ship. Even without priority status, cabins are ready no later than 1:30pm. We ended up going to the Observation Lounge and just sitting around until our cabins were ready, close to 4pm.
We finally got into our cabin and settled in. We would sit on the balcony and watch a guy try to back his small SUV into a parking spot no less than 20 times. I am not sure if it was a man with a learners permit practicing or if he legit had never backed his vehicle up before. I was ready to get off of the ship and go help this poor guy back his vehicle into a spot. Finally after at least 20 tries or 10 minutes, he pulled into another spot, crooked. It was fun to watch. We were all getting a good laugh. Once he finally was finished, we went to dinner in the Manhattan Room which is one of the MDRs on the Joy. The food was good but the service was horrible. It was super slow and inattentive. After dinner, we did activities around the ship including their “Beatlestory: Fabulous Tribute Show” where the band pretends to be the Beatles and performs a few of the Beatles songs. It was an okay show but seemed very amateurish. After the show, we went to the cabin and crashed for the day.
We got up fairly early today. We didn’t sleep well. The mattresses on NCL are very similar to Royal Caribbean, rock hard. It made me miss the mattresses on Carnival so much. These beds were rough! Also I am not sure if it was the neighbors or no insulation between cabins and decks but it was so loud. You heard people running down the hallway all night, slamming doors, and just noise in general. You hear door slams and people running on RCCL & CCL but it was nowhere near as bad as NCL. Between the loud noises and rock hard beds, we just didn’t sleep. Not just last night, but the entire cruise was like this.
We spent the day doing activities around the ship. It started off with the “Newlywed not so newlywed game show”, which is similar to “Love & Marriage” on Carnival. Except it’s very watered down on NCL. VERY watered down. I prefer the adult oriented version of this on CCL. Also NCL does this (along with many other shows) in their atrium instead of the theater. It was fun to watch, but just not as fun as CCL or even RCCLs version of this. They played this all week on the cabin TVs also in case you missed it.
After the Newlywed not to newlywed game show, we went to dinner. We went back to the Manhattan Room again hoping it would be better. It wasn’t, unfortunately. It just wasn’t good. Again the food was good but the service was horrible. We ate our dinner then went to the theater. We had reservations for “Elements” which is the main show on the Joy. This is one show you need reservations for which we had. We got to the theater and watched the show. This was a good show. The storyline was a little difficult to follow but the performance itself was very good. After Elements, we went to the cabin to get ready for bed.
This was another sea day so we spent the day doing activities around the ship. It was a very low key day of just enjoying a sea day. At dinner, we ate at Cagney’s, which is the steakhouse on the Joy. This was by far the best meal and service of the cruise. We had the ‘Free at Sea’ package which included 2 specialty dining for guests 1 & 2. So we only had to pay for our son. I do think he could have eaten from the kids menu for free but he’s 12 years old and hasn’t eaten from a kids menu anywhere in years. My wife ordered the thick cut bacon appetizer, an 8oz filet with truffle mashed potatoes and broccoli. I ordered the 8oz filet with truffle fries and the creme brulee for dessert. I also had the trio jumbo shrimp. She had the seven layer cake for dessert. My son had the 8oz filet with fries and seven layer cake also. The total was $69.20 for this since we had to pay for his. Again the food was fantastic and the best service of the cruise.
After dinner, we went to play Wheel of Fortune in the theater. This was setup like Wheel of Fortune on TV without the wheel. One of the contestants tonight was a lady who I don’t think had ever seen or heard of Wheel of Fortune. She didn’t know how to play and wasn’t sure what she was doing the entire time. The male contestant next to her was her husband. This is an interactive game where the audience can play along on their phones and potentially win prizes. For audience participation, it’s a minimum of $25 for 2 cards to play with higher packages available. I bought 2 cards and played along. I didn’t win anything. After Wheel of Fortune was finished, we went back to the cabin and chilled the rest of the night. Tomorrow we were set to arrive in Bermuda!
Today was our last day on the ship so we needed to make the most of it. We started off with breakfast at the Local Bar & Grill, then headed up to play putt-putt. This is a VERY basic putt-putt course. It didn’t have any exciting features or anything to make it really fun like RCCL & CCL do. It was still a good way to kill time. After I beat my family in putt-putt, my son and I went down to ride go-carts. We did the singles since we just missed the doubles cut off. It was $15 per person for I think 6 laps. We had a good time on them. It was my sons first time driving a go-cart so he was a little nervous but he did great.
After we finished with the go-carts, we went down to American Diner for lunch and milkshakes. We spent $19.80 on 2 milkshakes since the food was free. They were good but not sure they were worth almost $20. We downed them in a few seconds. From there, we went to the arcade to play some games. My son accumlated a little over 3,000 tickets from the machines and when we went to cash out, pretty much everything was out of stock. So he got to come home with a receipt for 3,000+ arcade tickets. After the arcade we went to the atrium and watched Super Mario Bros movie to kill some time until dinner. Tonight we had dinner at Savor and it was good with good service. Once we finished dinner, we went back to the cabin to pack up and put our luggage out. After we put our luggage out, my wife and I went to the casino to win some money. It did not disappoint. We came out ahead. I cashed out and got my winnings, then we went back to the cabin to wind down. Tomorrow was debarkation day!
Today was debarkation day. The last day we would be on a ship, the last day we’d be in New York, and the last day I’d be away from my house! Since we had priority, we had yellow luggage tags with an 8:15am debarkation time. Right on time, NCL made the announcement for our group to debark. NCL has a very smooth debarkation process, much better than Carnival but not as good as Royal Caribbean. We debarked the ship without incident, found our luggage in the terminal and made our way through Customs and out into New York City. We walked across the street where it was less chaotic and I requested an Uber to take us to the train station. At 9:01am, I was sitting in our Uber. Claude picked us up and took us the 1.76mi ride in 10 minutes for $34.67.
We got into Penn Station and went to the Amtrak lounge to wait on our train. Then about 11 we went to Sauce Pizzeria inside Moynihan Train Hall to grab lunch. We had 3 slices of pepperoni pizza for $17.96. Once we ate, it was about time for our train. We waited in the terminal until boarding for our train was called. We made our way down to the train platform, and went to our car. Since we were business class, our car was at the very end. We found our seats, placed our luggage and hunkered down for the all-day train ride home.
We spent a lot of time at a few stops and also had to stop for traffic ahead a few times, so our train was 36 minutes late getting back into Roanoke. I had my father in-law pick us up at the Amtrak station once we got home. I also had him stop at McDonald’s on the way home, we were STARVING. We finally made it home and loved on the dog some around 11:45pm. By this time, we were beat. It was almost midnight, so we all went to bed. The next morning, I unpacked everything while my wife slept in. If you’ve read all of this, thank you for taking the time!
We had a great 2 weeks vacation and really enjoyed everything that it had to offer. NCL was elegant and nice, but definitely would not be our preferred cruise line in the future. The food was definitely better than RCCL & CCL but the service and lack of many things that other lines offer, was really a turnoff for us. If the itinerary and price was right, we’d definitely sail them again but it would have to be a perfect fit. We would sail from New York City again, and we have one booked from NYC next year but prefer sailing from Miami. There are some things that NCL really needs to work on to win me over. But each person enjoys things differently. Here are some things I can compare NCL to CCL or RCCL
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