2026 PRIMA SHIP TIME!

IT'S CRUISE DAY!!! After completing my check in with NCL it gave me an arrival time of 12:30pm. We had multiple issues with it accepting both the hubby and Sakari's pictures online. I tried multiple times over the weeks and it just wasn't accepting anything I submitted. So, once it finally gave up on us and allowed me to finish, their check in time wasn't until 3pm. Since I'm Sapphire and the hubby is Platinum, we be showing up unannounced whenever we decide to get there was my thought. Plus we have a handicapped person. That should get us in whenever right?

I was so happy to see this:

The hubby and I were up at the crack of dawn like always (6am) and he immediately headed out for some caffeine for the both of us at Starbucks while I took a shower and started somewhat getting ready for the day. I would discover that the outlet beside my bed didn't work and instead of charging my phone, it drained it completely. Eeek. So that means all you lovely people won't get any breakfast photos. I know you're heartbroken right?

We split up once again for breakfast and the hubby and I opted for McDonald's and "Karl" had his heart set on Cinnabon since the night before. Although he can't feel when he's hungry and lost so much weight after his accident because of that, I do believe his eating habits are starting to increase. He will say "I'm hungry". My reply "How do you know if you can't feel it?" He states he wants to taste it and maybe he's just brain hungry. Either way, I'm glad to see him eating again on this cruise.

Everyone went back up to the room to finish showers and getting ready. I was busy snooping on the Port Canaveral webcam to see if I could see our ship in port.

Yep she was there waiting on us.

We left the room around 10:45 and Sakari decided to leave them a picture on the notepad in the room:

Since I threw caution to the wind and didn't book us any transportation, I decided to use one of my Lyft credits I get with my credit card and Lyft also had a promotion as well. I figured we'd need to biggest vehicle we could get and that was an XXL. Our wait was only 8 minutes before arrival. Osman showed up and I was puzzled how we would all get into this "XXL" vehicle (which was a Kia hybrid suv). Then came the issue that he did not speak ANY English. We were trying to explain not to pull so close to the curb because we had to get the wheelchair right beside the vehicle for "Karl" to pull himself up into the vehicle. He just did not understand. A bunch of hand signals went on for awhile so instead of moving over, he just pulled up more. #faceplant 🤷‍♀️ Eventually the hubby just grabbed "Karl" and put him in the seat. Then the guy decides to put in his airpods (the newfangled ones that translate for you) and then didn't say anything the entire ride there. However, I was in a position to see his phone translating anything we were saying to each other. So, we started whispering and jumbling our words. Yea, his translator was making no sense trust me.

Then the fun started...well, not really. OUR DRIVER STARTED FALLING ASLEEP ON THE WAY THERE!! Sakari noticed it because she was sitting in the middle seat and could see him. I watched his rear view mirror and yep, he would randomly close his eyes then open them real wide (as his eyes were rolled in the back of his head) and focus again. We were still 20 minutes from the port. We started talking loud about anything that we could to break up the silence and hoping it might keep him awake. A random outburst of laughter. Some yelling up to "Karl" in the front seat, who had also noticed it about the same time. A few fake loud coughs. Anything we could think of. Like it was literally scary at times. The eyelids would stay closed longer and longer as the time went on. The scariest part...when we were going up and over this very long bridge with water under it. This is not the way I want to go out!

I was counting down the minutes, which seemed like eternity because he would start driving slow and then notice once he woke up, until we finally made it to the port.

That was a hellish $95.14 ride. Needless to say he did not get a tip from me and I wouldn't discover until I got home and got the receipt that HE charged US $1.14 for a 3 minute "wait time" fee. Say what?!? He didn't wait on us for anything. We waited on him. If he was charging because the loading took longer then that was also HIS fault for not speaking English and understanding where to put his vehicle so that we could get a handicapped person into the car! Then when we got there he kept pointing at a MSC ship and trying to take us there. I kept telling him that's not NCL and pointing. Eventually he had to circle back around to get us to the right ship. Terrible way to start our cruise day. 😡

The porter took our luggage and pointed us in the direction to walk (along some construction) and we arrived at the priority line but they took one look at our VIP guest in a wheelchair and motioned us to go in the Haven line (which didn't have a line at all). We walked right up, security, instant check in and we stopped for family memory pictures and were on our way up the gangway within probably less than 15 minutes.

Here we go onto the beautiful Norwegian Prima:

It has become tradition to get a picture of that first step onto the ship. This time it would convert to a first roll onto the ship. Making adjustments this time around.

I swore to myself that this time we were going to take full advantage of NOT going to the over crowded buffet as everyone does as soon as they get on the ship and instead go to the MDR or the Food Court on the back of the ship. What do you think we did? Some tasty food was staring at us as we passed by and we couldn't resist. We went for the buffet. "Karl" was "mind hungry" by now. I will say that it didn't seem as crowded as usual. Maybe everyone had already eaten or either not on the ship yet. We didn't have any problem finding a seat either.

I managed to get a hodgepodge of food piled on my plate. None of it ever makes sense nor does it go together but I'm a "taster" and like to try things out. I definitely splurged when it came to the dessert as well. My body is going to hate me and it's so early in the cruise for this habit to be forming already. 😲

Ok, it was time to work some of this food off and explore. We found the neat deck around the ship that was glass under it. I've been on the other ships with a small cut out like this on it but not one that wrapped around and you could really see down below. Time to push "Karl" on it and start jumping up and down asking "Do you think it will break?" 😁

We sure didn't get very far before they announced our rooms were ready. Great, I wanna see this handicapped room...so off we went. We passed our luggage sitting in the hallway about midship and decided once we checked out our rooms we would come back to get them.

Here's the kids handicapped room. Now that's a large honking room! I want one! And I loved the shower!

I almost booked the room next to them but was afraid I would be bumped to someone that needed it and decided against it. However, we came out of the room multiple times and seen their neighbors and they were not handicapped at all. Maybe in their 30's and bouncing around dancing and all when they'd go in and out. They were probably so happy they ended up with a room like this is my guess.

Well, at least I have a balcony. A small bathroom/shower but a balcony. I would also discover we had a lot more storage space including 3 cabinets to hang stuff up and drawers as well. They only had two. Haha winning. I never realized how much more space you have in a room with only 2 people instead of 3. We didn't even fill all the cabinets up (including the bathroom).

I have to say that my shower was a little bigger than other ships too. I think it was because of the bump out in the wall in the hall. I loved the neutral decor as well. Very classy looking.

The balcony was your normal size and had nice updated cushioned chairs.

It took me a few days to figure out how everyone was turning their "clean room" and "do not disturb" sign on. I would finally discover it was electronic and the same keypad used to control the air in your room. In my defense, the key pad doesn't stay lit up and you have to tap it to get it to come on. My wonderful TA gave us room key cards to use in the slot to keep the lights on. We never keep them on when we are not in the room however, if I'm trying to charge my camera's or phone this will keep them charging while we are out.

The tv was a little different as well. I kept scrolling the channels and could only find 1-2 channels that I ever watched. One was the National Geographic channel which had nothing but diving with sharks and behaviors and people being attacked (great thing to show while on a cruise I suppose 🙄) and every once in awhile something interesting would come up on another channel. Most of the channels are world news and sports. After about 3 days we would discover the section that said "movies" wasn't all paid movies. Ahhh, finally something different. I had been second guessing our day in Cozumel for awhile there with the repetitive shark shows.

Yes that picture was taken on the last day, July 12th. I've been a procrastinator for this entire cruise experience...on time for everything...but procrastinates otherwise. Don't fault me. I've had a rough few months.

Our room steward was Ging and he said he has been a room steward on cruise ships for 22 years now. WOW, just WOW is all I can say. I did ask if he could bring me an ice bucket and fill it daily and he said he would. I like the ice to melt to drink during the night (or day sometimes). I also had to ask about our specialty dining coupons we get for latitudes. He said he had left it in the other room. No, you left the hubby's platinum coupons there. Where's my sapphire coupon for my room? See, we are winning this cruise. We will get 4 people to go to specialty dining plus 2 bottles of wine. 😁Bottoms up!

We headed out to grab our luggage to bring back to the room and put things away. While I was unpacking I decided to try to lift the couch cushions to see if this was an extra bed and I found a pill in it, still in the bubble package. Hmmm, I guess they don't clean EVERYTHING. I threw it up on the nightstand and "Karl" said "Momma B, you might need that on this cruise". It was Loperamide, otherwise known as anti-diarrhea medicine. Remember my bout with diarrhea for days on end on our St Maarten vacation last time? Yea...

Then we were off to explore. These infinity elevators were neat.

We made our way up and found the PLAY ZONE! Oh my. It had everything...including beer pong. We played some ping pong for awhile and then beer pong minus the beer. As much as "Karl" begged me to fill out paperwork for him to drink this cruise I refused because 1) the package costs too much and 2) he doesn't like beer...why bother? Stop asking youngin. You're not going to like it even if it involves a game you can play with it. I do feel like he's played this before because we ended up winning the game against Sakari and daddy.

It was time for the sail away party and we headed toward the pool deck. Honestly there wasn't much going on. There just wasn't any room there for dancing and sailing away. Blah. Instead they had a "dance off" between the men and women volunteers (I think there were 3 or 4 of each) and that was your party.

Then this started rolling in...

The clouds were actually rolling as you can tell from one of the pictures above. I ran over to the side hoping and praying to see a water spout form. I've never seen one yet although there was one toward the back of the ship on one of our cruises but I didn't get to see it darnit. Well, one never formed for me this time either. So, still on my bucket list.

It was sprinkling a little so we headed back to the room until 7pm.

The day before leaving on the cruise Sakari came up with a plan to communicate with each other since we were in different rooms. She bought some magnetic dry erase boards and pens. We hung those up outside the room to communicate where we would be to each other. Instead, she immediately went to drawing on them...which turned into a daily event.

Her door...

My door:

They were having a Welcome Aboard Show at 7:30 we figured we'd attend.

With Sakari being older now she wants to go the MDR all the time. She says it feels like she's on a date. Plus, she loves to get dressed up. We headed to Hudsons and as soon as we were seated, we heard multiple people gasp. Wait, what's going on? Then I would see it:

I forgot to take pictures of the menu to know what we ended up ordering. I know I had the French Onion soup and I had never seen it come out like this?

I also had the shrimp fettuccini with mushrooms and all was very good!

The boys had some type of meat

And Sakari had...nothing...??

Just kidding. I believe all she had was a salad. Lunch must have filled her up. She comes for the experience of fine dining...not the food. 🤣

Crèam Brûlèe and Chocolate Melting Cake with ice cream.

After getting our bellies full we were off to see the Levity Live comedy show. We officially have adults now so they can go to all the 18+ activities on the ship.

We were extremely tired and way past our regular bedtime now so it was time to retire to our SEPARATE rooms. Wow, that feels weird to say. Where's my little girl????

I managed to find a small single bed blanket under our bed and I was happy to find that. I always sleep with an extra blanket...not for warmth but I have to have an extra blanket along the side of me and curled up under my face for some reason. Just a habit. Don't judge. (Normally I bring mine from home but there was just no room for it in the luggage this time).

Time for bed....or was it?

NOPE! Not tonight. You will not get ANY sleep tonight....so says my stomach. Oh em gee! Here we go already. I was up every hour on the hour with explosive diarrhea. Yep, my body was rejecting this foreign food I consumed and it just wasn't having it. Not at all. "Karl" jinxed me I tell ya. I'm blaming him. By the wee hours of the morning/middle of the night I'm 100% positive there was absolutely nothing left in me. How could there be? I had showered a good 3x already and resembled a prune at this point. I was dying inside...seriously. Then I remembered...that little pill I found in the couch. Yep, I'm taking it and hoping for the best. Well it worked...thank goodness. At least I'd get about 3 hours of sleep tonight. I will NEVER go on vacation again without bringing Loperamide with me. NEVER! This happens too often now. You would have thought I learned my lesson on our last vacation.

Ok, now it's time for sleep. 💤