Hello, happy Thursday folks!
Well, it’s almost weekend and as usual I can’t wait for the weekend already.
As you all know, I recently got married. And my husband and I went on a minimoon on a cruise to Bermuda. While my husband took care of every single thing wedding related, and I was stress free all throughout, this trip was a welcome respite following those busy days.
I am going to use this space to document our mini-moon trip and our future trips (!?), hopefully!!
We picked Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) Joy for our 7 day cruise with two overnights and three full days in port. Cruising was something I never knew I needed to have on my bucket list of things to do, until I did. Well, it had been on my husband’s.. always been it seems 😀
Day 1: May 5, 2024, Sunday – Ship departed New York City:
We reached the pier 90 at New York city at around 1.45pm which is where our check-in process was to take place. At that point, we had only gotten a glimpse of the ship yet. We wouldn’t get to witness the sheer beauty of it until the ship was docked in the Bermuda port.
We handed over our bags for check-in which would later be delivered to our stateroom (that’s what our rooms were called as!). Easy-peasy process – just tag your bags (tags provided) with your stateroom number and off we went for onboarding. There weren’t long queues for the process, which wasn’t what we had expected. We were to believe it would take hours before we could enter the cruise. It was probably because the cruise wasn’t fully booked!
We got a portrait taken by the photographers available on our way to check-in, which we had an option to buy at the end of the cruise by paying some amount (I will cover about this in a later post).
We got security checked, passport checked and allowed to onboard right away.
Deck 7 (floor 7 from the ground level) was where we entered the cruise. Gangway, it was called!
The decks were we the cruisers would be staying were in the process of getting ready. We were assigned deck 12. And it wasn’t ready by the time we onboarded so we went to the observation lounge in the deck 14. We had some snacks and drinks and started exploring the ship.
We then maundered to deck 7 that housed Joy Casino. The casino had an interesting game that only rewarded souvenirs. The money it dispensed had the first note with greater denomination and the rest in the bundle were all only one dollar bills 😀
There would have been a sail away party in the open space Deck 8, had the weather been nicer. Because of the bad weather it was moved to Atrium in Deck 6. We missed the party and the cake cutting!
Before the cruise started we dined at “American diner” – open from 2pm to 5pm every day – a complimentary meal.
Battered Cod, Tartar Sauce, Tangy Coleslaw, Sesame Seed Bun
Homemade Italian Meatballs, Pomodoro Sauce, Parmesan Cheese, Fresh Basil
We also happened to stumble upon (literally!!) Garden Cafe where we were surprised with Indian food! Well, how can we skip tasting it.. 😛
Once our deck was ready we headed to our stateroom. Ours was a balcony view room. The room was as expected – small, compact, clean and good enough for two. It also had a pull out couch, so that the room could have accommodated 3 guests.
The ship departed New York city at about 6pm. It was a rainy day! It was too cold to stay outside and the views were hampered by fog during embarkation. But we were not going to miss the view, come rain or shine! We started the started cruising between New York on the left and New Jersey on the right.
We then roamed about the ship, during which we saw Vincent, the cruise director. He was conducting some games in the Atrium, Deck 6 – the likes of which we participated in the later days of our trip. We finally went back to our room by 10.30 and called it a day!
Stay tuned for day 2..
Until then.. Godspeed 🙂