Welcome to the Crossroads! I’m back from my Alaskan cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Lines ship, the Bliss. I will be doing a deep dive on my experiences aboard the ship and ports here and on the YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/@Brents_Crossroads). For all your ship and room tours, restaurant reviews, and port fun, be sure to sign up here for updates on when new content drops.

One aspect of my travels that I wanted to use this website for is to take deeper looks at things that won’t translate as well on the YouTube channel. I’ve also been settling into my chosen content creation path and figuring out how to best utilize the footage I take and pass on information you, wonderful readers, can use on your journeys. So, if you like travel, cruise, and theme park content, welcome!

Now for the show…

Cagney’s is an up-charge restaurant on the NCL Bliss. The price to eat at the establishment is $60 per person. You can eat there as part of your cruise package if you have purchased a More At Sea plan. For more about the plan, click over to the NCL website for details. We had one meal at a specialty restaurant with our package, and we’d heard Cagney’s was the place to experience. The steakhouse is so popular on the Bliss that they removed the specialty restaurant next to it to expand the steakhouse, doubling its size. Between the two sections of Cagney’s is the A-List Bar, and there is an outdoor seating area on the Waterfront spaces of the 8th floor.

How was the food, and what was on the menu? Let’s grab our forks and knives to dig into the details!

The service begins with bread, and it was nice, crusty bread with a soft, slightly warm center. The butter was rock hard, but this was an ongoing struggle on the entire cruise. I had to either wait until a warm dish was served to sit the butter pat under or hold my hand over it until it softened. Cold butter is hard as Hades to spread on bread if it isn’t piping hot.

Our appetizers were next. I ordered the lobster bisque and grilled thick-cut bacon while my wife ordered the jumbo shrimp trio.

The bisque was very flavorful and had plenty of lobster bits in it. My thick-cut bacon was one of the best things I ate on the entire cruise. The bacon was well-cooked with a crisp crust and tasted better on its own than with the steakhouse sauce included with the dish. The shrimp were jumbo, as advertised. There is not much one can do to mess up shrimp in a dish.

We both ordered the ribeye for our main dish. The steaks were seasoned better than on other cruise lines, but not as seasoned as I grill my steaks. I get that some people don’t like as much seasoning, but it was still better than the no-seasoning on the Royal Caribbean ships I’ve sailed on. The cut of meat was fine, but some of the strip steak I had in the main dining room was better. The side dishes we ordered were average at best. We chose the truffle mashed potatoes, parmesan-dusted truffle fries, sautéed mushrooms, and steamed broccoli. The standout of the sides was the mushrooms. They are a fantastic topping for the steaks and should be offered as such. The bearnaise sauce was bland, so we were thankful for the mushrooms to give the meat a pick-me-up.

And now we come to dessert. I was very excited about the desserts at Cagney’s. Once I read they had a raspberry crème brûlée, I couldn’t wait to dine there. The other dessert we tried was the “OMG” Caramel-Butterscotch Cheesecake. The raspberry creme brulee was fantastic; however, the cheesecake was only “OMG” okay.

Overall, the price is typical for a cruise ship steakhouse ($55-$60 range). The food was above average, with some hits and misses, but I felt I had a good meal. I would dine at Cagney’s again, but first, I must sail on more NCL ships and explore the other specialty restaurants. I recommend trying Cagney’s the next time you sail with NCL because it is on all the vessels in their fleet.

Thanks for meeting me here at the Crossroads! I hope to see you out and about in the world!

Safe travels,

Brent