It's the most wonderful time of the year...Embarkation Day!

Anyone else picture Kermit waving his arms and throwing his head back screaming in excitement when embarkation day finally arrives?

Even though we didn't have to meet back with Adam and Amy and head over to the meeting point at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Bus Terminal until 11:45AM, we decided it wasn't worth seeking out breakfast. We packed up the last few things after getting ready this morning and moved our checked bags over by the door. While we didn't really get up early, it still was a lot of nervous energy trying to kill time. We ended up finding the original Harry Potter movie on TV and got so engrossed watching it that a little part of me didn't want to leave before it was over. Even though we'd seen the movies multiple times by now. I don't recall exactly what time the bellman made it to our room but it was still well before we planned to go meet Adam and Amy around 11:20AM not sure how long it would take us to walk to the bus terminal. All we had to do was point out which of our bags we wanted taken and they handled everything. 

One note I forgot to include about last night is that we had stopped by the concierge desk the night before on our way back to the room and inquired as to where this box was that the check in literature said we were supposed to drop our room keys and towel cards into in the vicinity of the front desk lobby. The woman working the desk offered to process our check out right then and there informing us that we simply had to leave our cards in the room for their staff to pick up after we've left. We've stayed in hotels where you drop your key at the front desk as you leave and ones where you can check out on your room's TV and then leave the card in the room so this seemed a bit backwards to have to return them to a designated drop off box. 

So once we were finally ready to leave, I put back together our little check in packet of room keys and towel cards and left it front and center on the dresser so they'd notice it. A quick triple check to make sure we didn't forget anything and down the elevator we went to the lobby to meet Adam and Amy. One thing I found interesting about the elevators in our tower's lobby is that often times we'd walk up from being elsewhere on the grounds and one of the elevators would already be called and sitting open at the lobby. Way to spoil us before heading to cruise ship elevator life!

Adam and Amy were already down in the lobby waiting on us. Amy was a little concerned that the bellman hadn't been by their room before they headed down here to collect their luggage. It didn't help when she asked us and we had to tell her our luggage was picked up fairly quickly. After a bit of who is following who random wandering around the resort, we finally came across the bus terminal. There was a lot of people hanging out in this area and the staff had to repeatedly double check the people who were lining up because they only wanted those on the current shuttle bus to line up. We sought out a group of benches off to the side as it had been raining off and on this morning and we wanted to stay under cover. We were one of the last buses to be called and once we got in line, the staff came down the line double checking our cruise cabin numbers, hotel room numbers and confirmed how many pieces of luggage we had left for the bellman to make sure it matched the number they logged as being picked up and sent to the ship. Amy felt a lot better when they told her the right number of bags they'd picked up from their room. 

The bus ride was short and sweet and we only needed to show the letter NCL gave us at the hotel and our passports once entering the terminal. Once through security we asked about the suite check in area and were led to a small room off to the side. In the main space where there were multiple rows of chairs, they also had the embarkation photo backdrop set up and a couple Hawaiian dancers with loud music performing for the crowd. We were stopped at the door to the suite check in as at that moment the concierge, Thomas Meier, was leading the latest suite passengers onto the ship. We were kept outside of the room until he returned a few minutes later to greet us. When he heard that one of our suites was an owner's suite, he asked Dad and I to choose our included 3 bottles of wine for the cabin. All previous suite stays and all I read from other NCL suite cruisers have had the concierge contact them a week or two prior to the cruise to ask about choosing wines etc. It was a little off putting to not be contacted beforehand but since our main decision was wine choices, we didn't care as much. In fact when Thomas asked us, we simply deferred to Adam and Amy to pick their favorite kinds. No issue from the fact that technically they were in the penthouse suite and didn't get wine bottles included. 

We also got yet another lei bestowed upon us, flower ones for the ladies, and small conch shell ones for the guys instead of the kukui nut ones we'd gotten before now. We were then let into the suite check in room and each cabin's worth of people sat in front of one of the 2 check in ladies' desks and took all of 5 minutes to show our passports and be given our cruise cards. We then were invited to enjoy the small selection of drink dispensers and snacks. We'd only really sat for a couple minutes with drinks before Thomas decided that enough of a group had filled the small space and we were ready to be led on board. As many other cruisers reported, you are led right past the embarkation photo backdrop when the concierge escorts you on so if you really want that photo, make sure you have them stop as they pass by. Once at the first true entrance to the ship where you get your card scanned for the first time as "onboard" Thomas left us to return to the check in. 

All four of us stepped up to scan our card at the first available podium only to find that none of our cards worked. We had to get each of our cards run through a device by the security officer standing at the other podium that negated them and spend our first few moments on board at Guest Services having new cards printed. There was no special line at Guest Services for suite guests like Princess has so we had a bit of a wait. Adam and Amy got their cards replaced first and the man working the counter was super apologetic that he had to go fetch the new cards from a printer across the way because the one nearby wasn't working. A very accommodating and patient female crew member who was assigned to escorting suite guests up to Cagney's Steakhouse for lunch took Adam and Amy up with a promise to return right away for us. Dad and I decided to split up and conquer and he headed 10 feet over to make specialty dinner reservations for the four of us (our booking included 3 specialty dining dinners) while I got both our cruise cards reprinted. Now that I look back on it, I was never questioned as to why I was asking for a new cruise card for someone who wasn't technically present. You would think for security purposes someone would question why I as one person was handing over two cards? I suppose since I wasn't asking for a new photo to be linked and it was the same cabin number, they didn't care. They did have a crew member checking on the people in line to see if they could provide a quick answer to any questions and thin out the line. That's how I found out that people who had come up behind me in line also needed to have their cards reprinted. Guess it wasn't only just the suite check in that messed up.

Once we both accomplished our first tasks, it took only a minute of searching the crowd before we spotted our escort returning to bring us up to Cagney's Steakhouse. Once there we found Adam and Amy amongst a handful of people being kept in the lounge just outside the restaurant as they were staggering the crowd and we had to wait for our party to be called. As soon as we sat down with Adam and Amy, we were given a sales pitch from the spa reps offering a $100 thermal spa pass that gave access to the loungers, steam rooms, and spa showers and was good for unlimited use the whole week. Adam and Amy opted to go for that deal and signed up on the spot. Dad and I are not normally spa people so we declined. Dad was hoping I'd want to join them especially as Amy was so into checking out the various spa treatments for sale that he insisted we stop by the spa later that day to listen to the whole rundown of their offerings. Pretty much same as every other cruise ship spa offers. I tried to make light of having to listen to the spiel by asking if the bamboo massage included being beaten with the sticks. Without missing a beat, the woman from the spa replied "Only if you're bad."

This Cagney's lunch menu was only available for suite guests and the highest level of Latitudes members. One such cruiser got very upset when the front podium tried to turn him away because they didn't have his name on the list of suite guests. It was straightened out and he was profusely apologized to when Thomas got involved. This lunch menu never changed so if you couldn't decide between two things and didn't want to eat both then, you could always go back and have the other thing next time. Or on the other hand, if you really liked something you could have it again. Unlike most other cruise lines with suite only restaurants, Cagney's was open for lunch on port days from 12PM-2PM. They'd have to be in this case since every day was a port day.

We didn't have to wait too long for our party to be called into Cagney's and got seated at a table for four. Is it wrong that I secretly delighted in how this trip we wouldn't be stuck in little two top tables jammed in next to everyone else or along a rail? The restaurant was pretty busy but we kept ourselves entertained by trying to get the NCL app to work on our respective phones. One of us would get part of it to work but then the same steps wouldn't work for the other people who had a different style phone. Eventually we stumbled upon how to have wi-fi access set to get the app to show you the daily schedule. It took some getting used to when it came to using our phones because this is one of the first cruises we could just go on cellular whenever we wanted internet and never paid for any internet package. I did have more problems on this ship than any other getting Facebook messenger to work as that is how I usually keep in touch back home. Facebook itself and email worked just fine.

We ended up sailing the week before NCL announced new options for beverage packages as usually Hawaiian law prevents them from offering anything other than a soda package. I'm a little surprised that Adam and Amy didn't bother getting the package as they drank soda frequently all week. Dad and I found that except for the soda we had included in our suite, we drank a lot of water even though it wasn't super hot out. At lunch Dad went with the Santa Fe Flatbread and enjoyed it while I went for the Caesar Salad (this was during that brief respite where Romaine lettuce wasn't the devil on the recall list) with shrimp added. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the shrimp was not little baby shrimp like you'd see on a salad bar but the real full size grilled shrimp. I'm a little surprised that for a steak house lunch, none of the options under the entrées list was an actual steak. Several seafood choices, 1 vegetarian option, 1 veal dish, 1 pork chop, and 1 chicken choice. 

Shrimp in this picture were as big as they appear

For my entrée I went with the Brie' Burger and asked for it to be cooked medium well. Bet you can guess how this turned out! When my burger arrived it was more on the medium side and it took a while to catch our waiter to report it. His response was to take the plate back to redo it and I leaned back to let him lift the plate from the table. He held up the plate in front of my face and told me to take off the little bowl of French fries from the plate so that I can have "something to keep me busy while I wait for the burger." Dad thought the comment was hilarious but both Amy and I found it to be rude. I'm not a child who needs a coloring mat or tablet to keep me from throwing a tantrum in a restaurant. By the time our waiter returned with my burger, everyone else had finished their food and been brought dessert. The one time we're not the ones sitting waiting after finishing our food because the wait staff wait until everyone at your table is ready to move on to the next course. Though not listed on the menu, Amy asked for and received a dish of vanilla ice cream. The burger this time was cooked properly. Everyone was ready to leave and go see our cabins so I turned down the waiter's offer to bring me dessert now.

Whereas on Princess they have rooms ready regardless of cabin category when you board and on RCL where our Star Class status let us into our rooms early, NCL follows Carnival and the rest of RCL in preventing you from going to cabins until they are announced as open in the early afternoon. By now we'd killed enough time that rooms were open. We bid goodbye to Adam and Amy with plans to meet again for our first specialty dinner tonight in Teppanyaki. I'm a super planner that does tons of research looking at reviews, pictures, and videos about the ship and the cabins we'd booked before the trip. One of the most unique things about NCL cabins is their feature of putting the toilet area of the bathroom in its own little cubby with a door blocking it off from the rest of the bathroom. Personally that then didn't make sense to me with the way the see through glass panel on the side of the shower was because the panel cutout was past where the door to the toilet cubby goes. Not so private toilet time when anyone can hop in the shower and peek in and vice versa. Of course if you've got people popping in to peek at you while you're in your cabin's bathroom in the first place, you may want to rethink your travel companions. Our cabin though had the extra unique feature of having no door on the toilet cubby space. We could pick out the frame and the stopper on the wall indicating that there should have been a door there. We found out later when we returned to the room post dinner to find our steward Bonifacio doing turn down service that a previous cruiser had broken the door and the new one hadn't arrived yet. When we remarked how surprising it was to have the cabin still in service without a bathroom door, Bonifacio (who instructed us to call him Boni) pointed out that we still had use of the small powder room which did have a working door. He did laugh heartily when I asked how much of a hurry you had to be in to end up breaking the door to the toilet.

The way the cabin is set up, the main bathroom takes up 1/3rd of the cabin's interior space. The bed and bench in front of it take up so much space in the bedroom, if someone is sitting on that bench, you can't squeeze by the bed and go out the door back into the living room. We spent a lot of time this week cutting through the bathroom. There is a full closeable and lockable door to the main bathroom from the entryway/living room but from the bedroom, it's only a curtain to be pulled across where the bedroom meets the small walk in closet/dressing area. Why there is not a curtain to cover the doorway between the dressing area and the bathroom I don't know. If you're not traveling with family you may want to work out a system of who gets bathroom and dressing room space when.

There is a connecting door between our suite, 10002 and Adam and Amy's penthouse suite 10008 which is why we chose these two cabins but we opted to keep that inner door locked for privacy. We were told when we asked before the cruise that no balcony partitions can be opened like most other ships when you know the people in the neighboring cabin. As with probably most connecting rooms anywhere though, noise travels and we often heard Adam and Amy talking in their cabin. We turned down a few offers to bid for an upgrade because it meant losing the connecting rooms. That and they wanted another $750 per person as the minimum bid. Hmm, split up our cabins or buy 2 excursions? We'd really been looking forward to having a cabin with a hot tub on the balcony. Some RCL Star Class suites have hot tubs (like the ones you'd see in someone's backyard) and our Celebrity suite cabin had one that looked more like a bathtub on the balcony so we never used it. Not only was this hot tub more like the size of a dunk tank in height with just a small step to get in and out but when we'd use it, it would either start to drain right after we got in after taking 25 minutes to fill or would constantly buzz trying to drain that last bit when we were done. We are not tiny people but while there's room for a few people on the bench inside the hot tub, there wasn't really much room for our two sets of legs and feet in the center well because of the design of the mechanics within the well. 

Still to come in today's report - Muster drill, Teppanyaki dinner, and meeting our butler! Also stay tuned for a photo walkthrough of our cabin. I didn't intrude in order to take pictures in Adam and Amy's cabin but you can find a great video tour of their cabin filmed by a previous cruiser on YouTube.