Norwegian Escape: Puerto Plata

It’s my birthday and the Norwegian Escape is taking us to Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic today.

Puerto Plata Morning

After waking early we have breakfast in the Savor dining room and I start breakfast off by ordering a mimosa. It took about 15 minutes to get that. My yogurt parfait arrived at the same time as the table next to us who came 10 minutes later.

The waiter had totally forgotten Steve’s juice and the pastries we ordered. He brought it out right away when I reminded him but it was disappointing and the first lapse in service since we got onboard. The chocolate croissant was very good though.

My entree was the eggs benedict and I asked for extra hollandaise.

I enjoyed it very much. Steve had his usual ham and cheese omelette.

The ship arrived at the new port, Taino Bay, in Puerto Plata, DR around 8 am.

Once we got closer to the pier, I can see the damage to it from Hurricane Ian last year.

Our plans today are just to go to the free resort-style swimming pool at the port but we’re hesitant due to rain clouds and it did rain right when we were docking.

We decided to make it another pool day as we don’t want a repeat of yesterday. We got ready and found two chairs in the shade and settled in.

There were loungers open all morning although we had a hundred or so people also there on both sides of the pool.

We had great bar service but one weird event. Steve got me a cucumber cool which was listed as the sustainable cocktail of the day in the freestyle daily.

For my second round of it, he was told we could only get it in the sustainable bar which wasn’t open yet. Okay. I kept myself happy with bloody Mary’s.

Puerto Plata Afternoon

We finally decided to get some lunch around noon. They had a taco bar today and we each had chicken soft tacos.

I also had a pork cutlet and vegetable fritter. Dessert was a strawberry napoleon.

Then we went back to the pool for an hour or so before deciding to head to our cabin to rest. We were up for sailaway at 4 pm but it got delayed due to late returning excursions. Apparently the rain caused traffic jams and 300 people were on the other side of the island.

Puerto Plata Evening

Around 4 pm, Steve got ready first and then went to the Atrium bar to wait for me. I got there at 4:30 and we decided to find the sustainable bar. We circled the waterfront until we found it and learned they just have one drink a day and the daily program was wrong. Okay. Back inside to find a drink somewhere!

We settled in at Tobacco Road and I decided on the Eastern Legacy, one of their specialty cocktails. Steve waited about 10-15 minutes to get it from the one bartender (no servers) in the entire bar.

It was very good! By this time we only had a few minutes until we had to leave for our dinner reservation.

For my birthday dinner we are going to Bayamo restaurant using our second included specialty dining and have a 5:30 pm reservation.

Bayamo Dinner

We had a delay checking in because a lady was disputing she used her dining package already at Moderno. She ate there but her reasoning was “they never scanned my card”. She also couldn’t understand that her MIL had only 1 specialty dinner in her package due to a smaller cabin. The hostess finally asked her to step aside so she could check us in.

We were seated at a nice table by the window. Here’s the menu.

First we had bread that was very soft and good although I would have liked it to be warm.

Then we both start with the shrimp cocktail.

Of course it was fantastic! My next dish was clam chowder.

It was very good. Steve had gumbo.

It wasn’t what he was expecting as he had jambalaya in his head when ordering. Looked good to me! Steve ordered surf and turf. His first filet was overcooked (ordered medium) so they happily fired another one which was perfect. His lobster tail was very good and he said so much better than the free lobster tails on other cruise lines.

I know, I had some LOL. My entree was the whole lobster.

While it was very good. I wished they would have helped get the meat out of the claws and knuckles. We struggled with that and I know I left meat on the plate because I was tired of trying and having slimy greasy hands. We did pay the upcharge (have that OBC to use or lose). Forgot to take pictures of the entrees but you can somewhat see the lobster in this picture.