It's the holiday season! Many associate the Christmas holiday with cozying up by the fire, but for me, there's no better way to spend Christmas Day than in a tropical location (as the late Jimmy Buffet sang, hang your stocking on a coconut tree). My family, a.k.a. the Shinglebells, set sail on our first Christmas Cruise in 2009 (when I was 18, and my sister, Rachel, was 16 years old), and we had such a wonderful experience that we have cruised over Christmas every year since (with the exception of 2020 for obvious reasons).

Over the past (almost) fifteen years of Christmas Cruising, we've spent the holiday on five different cruise lines (Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian, Princess, and Celebrity), on small and large ships (ranging in size from the 670-passenger Pacific Princess to the mega-ship Harmony of the Seas) to a variety of warm-weather ports of call. There's nowhere I'd rather spend the Christmas holiday than out at sea. I hope that I can share my experiences so that you can determine if cruising over the holiday would be a good fit for your family!

Shinglebells Christmas on Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas, 2011

I've cruised over Christmas for nearly half of my life, so cruising definitely feels like Christmas to me. However, whether or not it would feel like Christmas on a cruise ship was a question that we had before our first Christmas Cruise. Each cruise lines celebrate the holiday differently, but all cruise lines that I've sailed on over Christmas have decorated the ship and include special holiday programming.

Our sailing on the Norwegian Encore marked the 12th Shinglebells Christmas Cruise (and our first Christmas Cruise following the 2020 pandemic cruising hiatus). It's been years since I've rated our cruises, but I think it may be interesting to bring back the rating system.

The rating system is based on ten components of a cruise vacation which I find important - itinerary, ship novelties, pools, activities, dining, bars and lounges, service, design and aesthetics, and stateroom.

I've found that Glad I Did/Wish I Did posts are fun because it's a great way to quickly share with others what worked, and what didn't. It's also been really helpful for us to refer back to over the years when preparing for our next cruise.

Glad we bid $15 per person for a Stateroom Upgrade (Balcony to Club Balcony)

Rachel and I originally bid only on the Haven suites because we were worried that bidding on a lower category stateroom would negatively impact our odds of getting a suite. As the cruise got closer, we kept a close eye on our cruise group on Facebook and realized that bids were being awarded, and we weren't going to get the Haven (from what we could tell, most Haven upgrades were awarded to parties of three or four guests in one stateroom). The minimum bid for the Club Balcony stateroom was discounted to $15 (originally $25) per person, and I'm glad we decided to put in last-minute minimum bids. With the Club Balcony, we were moved to a higher floor and our staterooms were actually closer together than the balcony cabins that we had originally booked. Also, the large bathroom in the Club Balcony was nice to have.

Glad I decorated Judy's stateroom for her birthday!

My original plan had been to decorate the door of my parents' stateroom. However, unlike other cruise lines, Norwegian actually has a rule against decorating stateroom doors (not sure if they'll actually hold you to it - I saw a few decorated doors on our cruise). I did not find any rules against decorating the stateroom interior. Originally I planned to create my own banners, but then I ran out of time and purchased garland and banners from Party City. I used heavy-duty magnet hooks to string the garland across the room. It was fun and festive. Since the ship wasn't that decorated for the holidays, it was fun to have this cheery little space that felt like a celebration.

On December 26th, we were back in Miami.

We decided to roll off our luggage, rather than setting our luggage out in the hallway the night before, so we were free to leave at anytime. We headed up to the Garden Cafe to grab breakfast before going downstairs to disembark.

 It was the seventh and final day of our cruise, and also Christmas morning!!

Judy requested that we have Christmas Brunch in the dining room. There are two dining rooms open for breakfast - Savor and Taste. They're located directly across from one another - Savor is port side, and Taste is starboard. They're basically the same. We had planned to dine at Savor, but we got a late start, and they were only seating at Taste, so we dined at Taste.

It was Christmas Eve. We were scheduled for a 10 AM arrival in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic and docking in Taino Bay Port, a new cruise port in Puerto Plata (Carnival has nearby Amber Cove cruise port in Puerto Plata which opened in 2015). 

Construction on the new Taino Bay cruise port began in 2018 and was expected to be ready by Summer 2020. A million passengers were projected to visit Taino Bay during the 2020/21 season... but as you can probably guess, things did not go according to projections.

Taino Bay received its first cruise ship, the MSC Seashore, on December 15, 2021 - just a few weeks before our cruise. The second ship to arrive in Puerto Plata was actually the NCL Encore a week prior on December 17. 

On Day 5, we arrived in Tortola bright and early, docking at 6 AM! 6AM was also the time that we needed to disembark and meet up for our excursion.

This is the one excursion that we booked through NCL (to use our "free" excursion credit), Escape to Jost Van Dyke. Rachel picked it out. She has a good track record for choosing excursions.

Jost Van Dyke is actually the smallest of the four main British Virgin Islands. You can also travel to Jost Van Dyke from St. Thomas - maybe something to look into the next time we have a long day at St. Thomas.

It wasn't fun to wake up before dawn, but at least we got to watch the sunrise -

On Day 4, we would be docking in St. Thomas. We weren't scheduled to arrive in port until 11 AM, so I had plenty of time that morning to wander the ship and take photos.


It was early, so the pool deck was empty.... but also it was a port day. If you're not interested in getting off at a port, port days are a great opportunity to stay on the ship and enjoy the pool with less guests onboard.

Day 3 was a Sea Day, and we planned to spend our morning relaxing by the pool!

Rachel, Judy, and Stove were able to snag some chairs on the second row of the pool deck, and it just so happened that when Aaron and I came to join, two chairs beside them were open.

The pool deck was very entertaining. And as the morning progressed, DJ Fly beats started hitting hard.

Aaron had only been on Disney Cruises, so this was his first more traditional "pool deck" experience. They had a "Sexy Man Competition," and I think this was a great introduction to cruise game trashiness. There was a "no touching the judges," rule. A teenage boy started grinding on one of the judges and the activities director tries to stop it, then he clarifies, "It's okay, she's my mom."

We woke up bright and early on Day 2. It didn't help that we had to turn our clocks an hour forward the night before.

The Encore arrived at Great Stirrup Cay at 7AM, and we had planned to take advantage of our Cabana early tender, but I got a call from Judy that we'd be pushing our departure time to 8AM - fine by me!

Great Stirrup Cay is a tender port, meaning that rather than docking, the ship drops anchor in the bay and passengers go to shore via smaller tender boats. The last tender was scheduled for 1:30 PM - not much time on the island!

Ho, ho, ho! The Shinglebells are back!! Hello and welcome to my trip report for the Shinglebells' 12th Annual* Christmas Cruise aboard Norwegian Encore! (*annual excluding 2020, obviously)

In case you're new to my trip reports or just need a little refresher, meet the Shinglebells:

Me/Victoria - I'm 30 and live in Los Angeles. I'm an architect, and I love a good DIY (check out my new YouTube channel, designSHING, if home decor is your thing)! I've also been sticking a camera in everyone's face to document and meticulously share our family vacations for well over a decade.

Sister/Rachel - She's 28 and lives in Austin, Texas. She recently earned her Master of Finance from UT Austin and recently began a new job as an Associate at a global investment firm! Rachel is the planner for our cruise vacations. She reads cruise blogs, reviews, and Cruise Critic. She also wrote a trip report for her September cruise on Freedom of the Seas.

Mom/Sharon a.k.a. Judy is sexy and 60! Her birthday was in December, so this cruise doubled as a 60th birthday celebration. Judy is actually the most-cruised Shinglebell, so we charge our souvenirs to her card so we can get the best discounts.

Dad/Boyd a.k.a. Stove is 67 and living his best life with my mom in South Carolina. When he's not consulting, you can probably find him either on the golf course or on the lake. And if you ever see us out and about, he's most likely leading the pack.

Even more exciting - this year, we were joined by the Shingleboyfriends -

Aaron (my boyfriend) is also an architecture professional in Los Angeles. His first cruise was on the Disney Wonder in 2019, and his second cruise was on the Disney Wonder in 2021, so this was his first cruise on a line other than Disney and a ship other than the Wonder.

Landon (Rachel's boyfriend) spends his cruises working because he's a lawyer. His first cruise was also on the Disney Wonder. This was his first cruise other than Disney, his first 7-day cruise, as well as his first time getting off a cruise ship at a port of call - so many firsts!

Now let's move on to the story of how we chose this cruise...

Studio cabins which first launched on the Norwegian Epic and are now also on the Breakaway and Getaway are NCL's innovative solution to single travelers. Because cruise fares are based on a two-person occupancy, solo travelers are required to pay a "single supplement fee" when sailing in a room which would normally be occupied by two or more people. So a solo traveler could potentially be paying up to double the per person price in single supplements. With the Epic's studio cabins, there is no single supplement fee. The price of the cabin is a *little* more than the per person fee for a regular inside stateroom.

The studio cabins on the Epic are located on decks 11 and 12.  The hallways to the studio cabins require key card entry.  However, I found that the doors don't fall shut behind you, so the doors were often left ajar.

Inside staterooms are typically the smallest and least expensive staterooms available on a cruise ship.  They are located in the interior of the ship with no outside window, and are a great bargain if you don't mind not being able to see outside while in your room (and not knowing whether it's  morning or night without looking at a clock when you wake up).




The boys had an inside stateroom for our Mediterranean cruise on the Norwegian Epic, so I can’t review it on a completely first-hand basis on staying in it for a week, but I did spend some time there. The circulation is honestly much better in the inside cabin because the beds are against each wall, so there is much more usable floor space (it wouldn't have felt as large if they had the beds pushed together). Their split bathroom was the same as ours. As far as storage, they had much more closet space, and they each had nightstands with drawers. The downside to their room was that it was really dark – as soon as you entered the room, you had to put the key in the door or else you’d be stumbling around in the dark (whereas the balcony staterooms have light coming in from the outside, at least during the day). The television is smaller in the inside stateroom, but it wasn’t a huge difference.

Cabin layouts in cruise ships don't vary much from ship to ship or cruise line to cruise line.  This is likely because every cruise line is trying to maximize the number of staterooms on the ship, therefore increasing the occupancy, and there are only so many ways to configure a stateroom.  However, the Norwegian Epic challenged the basic rectangular cabin with its "wave" layout.



I sailed in a wave balcony stateroom with my sister in May on our Mediterranean cruise.  I had read on Cruise Critic that the aft balconies had bad engine vibrations, and while I did notice it when we were entering and leaving port, it didn’t bother me at all. I loved the view from the aft – it was great to be able to look to either side of the ship. The only downside was that we did have some smokers neighboring us, so it was annoying to be on the balcony and smell smoke. I realize that there are very limited smoking areas on the ship and that smokers get the balcony stateroom for the luxury of being able to smoke on it. I just wish it didn’t smell so bad to non-smokers. I think this is a problem that is going to eliminate itself over the next few decades.

Let's face it - ever since we have returned to school after Christmas break, the topic on everyone's minds has been spring break.  When you're looking at another semester of school beginning with a few months of cold and no football to help get you through, spring break is something to look forward to.  And for the under 21 crowd, a logical solution is to leave the country, and an easy (often airfare-free) way to do it is on a cruise.