Liljo22

I disagree. Before my Prima cruise last week, everything was booked up for all the restaurants except for a few that had 9 or 9:30 available. Once on board, reservations were wide open for all restaurants.

Oh one funny item. The first day we all mentioned that we loved the lighting fixtures in Hudson's and how they looked like butterflies. Hudson's being at the back and so low, they flutter like butterflies when the ship is moving. Its not distracting but we just found it funny.

You are right. Great is not the right word with the flaws that it has. Its a good ship. I went into it thinking that the complaints of the flaws were an overreaction. Then I saw the flaws but the service and fun we had overcame those flaws. I don't think I would jump on the Prima out of Galveston on this Western Caribbean itinerary again since I have done it but if it was a ship going elsewhere I would sail on her again. Oh, I was laughing on board thinking of you using Pr1ma on here. NCL flips from using Prima and Pr1ma onboard. I saw it most on the large TV by the pool that was behind the stage.

Tips -Go to Hudson's for lunch on Embarkation Day and avoid the chaos. -Make reservations ahead of time for the MDRs. You do not need to keep them but there were times where the family in front of us had to wait while our table was already ready. -If you select dining on the TVs by the elevator, it will show you the % full Hudson, Commodore Room, and the Local are currently -Also use the boards for the deck maps. I heard a bunch of people complaining about there not being a map but its just an option on the TV. -Upgrade to FAS+ if you can swing it. It was great not needing to worry about almost everything being extra. For the extra $350pp, you don't have to worry about what is included in the drink package including Starbucks which is vital given how bad the regular coffee is. You also get the extra dining credits which are great because there are so many great restaurants on board. Unlimited wifi was also great. -In terms of wifi, Starlink is onboard but it stinks. You can do your basic browsing but not much more. I did find that it was easier later in the cruise as people used up their minutes and there were less people logged in. -Be aware of the time changes. The ship changes to the local time so we changed just about every night. I heard a couple of angry people sitting in Starbucks that didn't know the time changed and they missed breakfast. -Don't sweat the small stuff and let it get to you. I saw many people upset over the smallest of things and couldn't get over it. I had people on our facebook group that were posting after day two that this was the worst cruise and they won't sail NCL again. How are you going to say its your worst cruise two days into a seven day cruise?

Ship Review Our first reaction was the ship was gorgeous but we started to see its flaws after the first couple of days. The ship grew on me over the week and I wouldn't hesitate on sailing on a Prima class ship again. Especially the Aqua as they hopefully are making some changes to fix the flaws. I think the three main issues with the ship are the small venues, the wasted space and lack of areas for large events. These all kind of interact with each other in some way. Many people have mentioned the small venues but Syd's, the Atrium, Indulge, the Improve and the buffet are the main issues. They all need to be a bit bigger to handle the crowds. I think the Metropolitan Bar is a big wasted space. There is all this extra seating there which is used sparingly. That area needs a bar but it really only needs to be a bar area with a few tables. I think they can flip the Improve and Syd's and extend Syd's over into this area. They can leave the bar part like they have on the Breakaway ships. I also said earlier that the Galaxy Pavilion is a waste. Get rid of that space and open up the Observation Lounge up. The OL is a great space and was well utilized with people playing card/board games or just relaxing(yes there were bare feet people sleeping). I know some people like it but I also thought the Vibe was a wasted space. There was never more than 20 people that I saw there. Its a revenue generator that sells out but just add the extra $2-$3 to everyone's base fare and turn it back into Spice H20. NCL's objective was to spread the crowds out and they accomplished this but at the same time cut the large communal fees on a cruise ship. I think the biggest issue is that the pool deck doesn't have a balcony around it where everyone hangs out and listens to the band playing or the contest that is going on. Also the atrium is too closed in causing the same issues. Now I mentioned all these negatives but I still feel it was a great ship. Its just quirky at times. There is a lot to love about Prima. The décor is great. The outdoor areas on 8 are a nice touch. My family loved the speedway although its not everyone's cup of tea. The rooms are some of the best I have seen on a cruise ship. You just need to know that Prima is different than what you might be used to.

Disembarkation Day As was mentioned earlier, this was a complete cluster. We already were starting a little late because the Jubilee was sitting in our terminal but everyone was pushed into floors 7 & 8 of the atrium while they waited. Alvin was calling colors pretty fast and it caused the line to snake almost completely through every section of the 6th floor. We went through the casino twice and through the theater. I was joking that they wanted us to see all 3,500 people one last time. They also stopped the process for a half hour because they said customs had to catch up but its rumored there was someone on board that the FBI was looking for. Hopefully they get this worked out but pack your patience if you are going soon.

Activities The Speedway was great. We did it three times over the course of the week and could have done it more. The karts were pretty fast and its a long three story course that you get 5-6 laps on. They track your fastest lap time and rank you based on that. Its' $15 per ride or $199 for the week pass. If you have the pass, you do not need a reservation. You just show up when its open and they let you in. FYI...the best place to make reservations is on your TV or on the TVs by the elevators that have the card readers. It shows you all the available slots for the week. I had no trouble booking same day except for the last sea day. Honestly, the Galaxy Pavilion seemed like a waste of space. We checked it out the first day before it opened and my kids didn't even mention it again. Every time we walked pass it on the way to the OL, it was closed. Why keep it closed? I know there is an hour slot for people who have passes that is usually around 4-5. We wanted to do the Escape Rooms but those booked up quick. Mini Golf seems like it would be fun and my son kept asking to play but we never got to it. Its $10 per person to play. We also did not do Darts but its $5 per person for up to six people for 50 minutes of play. In terms on random activities around the ship, we were a bit disappointed. I know a lot of people say they don't really care who the cruise director is but they as long with their staff are the ones that come up with the activities like trivia. I don't feel Alvin did a good job in this area. We are a big trivia family and use it to fill time and we only ended up at two that seemed fun. The themes were mostly not interest. Geography? Flags of the World? Not fun. Where are the name that tune trivia contests or movie contests? We went to 80s visual trivia which was fun and Arcade visual trivia which was just flashing a scene of the game on the screen and asking what game it was. They also had dance classes during the day but they held them in the 6th floor atrium and blocked the walk way. We did the Thriller dance class but we were bumping into people seated around us. This didn't make or break our cruise at all but it could have enhanced the cruise for some people that were not having a great time.

Entertainment Overall, we had a great time with the entertainment options onboard Prima. The Penrose Atrium was the place we ended up every night at some point. The late night music was great there but just wish it was bigger and more open. Our two favorite acts there were Familiar Strangers and Shane. Familiar Strangers were a high energy lead singer, a drummer, a bassist and a keyboardist that could play a lead guitar on his board. They pretty much played everything from pop to rock to country with hits and deep track. They loved to sprinkle in some audience interaction which is always great. Shane was an Irish guitarist that play pretty much everything. He said he was on his third cruise of his first contract and I loved his energy. He just wanted to please everyone and if he didn't know a song, he would spend the next day learning it so he could play it the next time he saw the person. After his sets, he would just sit down and talk with anyone that called him over. We saw Aristo Duo and Duo Rika also but they were ok. Rumours from the Syd's group was by far the best thing we saw all week. For those that haven't seen it yet, they play the Fleetwood Mac Rumours album from cover to cover and tell the story of the divorce and breakups of the band member that crafted the album. We ended up in line about an hour before the 10pm show but I would say that anyone that got there 45 minutes were able to get a seat. We also saw the Prom Night on the last night where the crew sang eighty songs and told "stories" of their prom night. Was a great show also. Ocean Music Fest was so fun and unexpected. We didn't even plan on attending but heard Queen's Radio Ga Ga playing and had to jump in there. This is a show in the Prima Theater where the singers from the bands all week took turns singing songs with the Syd Norman's house band playing live. I highly recommend going. Price is Right was fun and I got called to play. I was the first to bid so I got out bid but would have played Plinko if I won. They did end up cancelling the show in the middle because supposedly they could not get the wheel working so that was disappointing. We had reservations to Donna Summers but it was at the same time as the Rumours show so we choose to skip it. I honestly don't think we would have liked it. We would have preferred a musical like Beetlejuice on the Viva that is fun. I know they ended up cancelling the show on one night because a tech got sick/injured and they had Familiar Stranger play instead. Theme nights were hit or miss in terms of attendance. We had a 70s night, 80s night, 90s night and Sensoria which is EDM club night. They transform the Prima Theater into the Prima Club and add booths you would see at a nightclub. I thought the area was too big for the amount of people that showed up other than the 80s night which was packed. 70s night was pretty much dead and Sensoria was lightly attended also. 90s night was in Syd's and was fun because it was pretty backed and everyone was having fun. Just about every night they had an 18+ club night in the theater but we were really vibing with DJ Vipers music during the night we went so we didn't go back.

It really depends if you have a preference of airlines. Hobby is the closer airport but is pretty much run by Southwest. Probably close to 90% of the gates are designated for them. You can get a couple flights with Delta or JetBlue into Hobby but its not going to be convenient. Hobby is also the easier airport to flight out of. There is rarely a line at security and the gates are not far. IAH/Bush is going to be mostly United flights but has more of the other airlines available than Hobby does. IAH is harder to fly out of as some terminals are a walk and security can be backed up but the food options are really good if you get their early and have time before you leave.

Didn't think about turning Food Republic into a 24 hour pizzeria but I 100% agree. Sorrentos and Pizzeria Del Capitano are open 24 hours. On my last two RCCL cruises, Sorrentos was busy after all the music venues closed at 2am. Its nice having the Local open at that time but I would rather grab a couple slices of pizza than sit down and wait 15 minutes for pretzel bites and wings to come.

Palomar didn’t seem like one we would have liked just knowing my family. I missed that each credit also got two sides probably because we sadly didn’t touch them. Not because they weren’t good.

Food I know food quality is very subjective and something I thought was good the person at the table next to me may find it terrible. That said, I thought food quality across the ship was pretty good. There were a few misses and one item that was completely unacceptable but most items were good to excellent. Where NCL really falls behind is the availability of included food. There were times when the only option on the ship was light snacks in the Observation Lounge. We came back to the ship a little after 3 in Roatan and Indulge and the buffet were already closed. The Local also had a long wait to sit. The only options were hamburgers and hot dogs at the grill. This was the biggest complaint I have seen/heard from other passengers whether it was the breakfast times ending early or only option after 9:30 is to wait for a table at the Local. Both RCCL and Carnival lap NCL in this category especially with pizza available pretty much around the clock as well as Carnival having so my included options open most of the day. Onda has a good pizza open. Even if they used less quality ingredients, they could have a window open during the day and after dinner where people could get free slices. Everyone loves Sorrentos and that is just cheese on a premade crust. Its not that hard. MDR Food We ate in the MDR for dinner three times over our 7 days. Twice in Hudson's and once in the Commodore Room. Food quality in the MDR was mostly good. Just about everything came out on time and was cooked well. I did hear a few people say that stuff was coming out cold for them but I did not experience that. We did have a couple o misses here with soups. The Minestrone was pretty much all broth with a few items in it. Also the chicken noodle soup came out with the noodles undercooked. Nothing terrible but just off. The major miss that almost everyone had the same experience with was the beef medallions. The quality of the meat was bad. It was just a piece of leather that you could not chew through. Most people were sending it back. Besides those items, it was a good experience. Out of probably 40 items, 3 were misses in our opinion. Not all was high end restaurant quality but was good. Specialty Restaurant Food We had FAS+ so my wife and I had 4 credits which we used at Los Lobos, Le Bistro, Food Republic and Onda. Le Bistro was just me an my wife and the others were all 4 of us. These are how I would rank those restaurants: 1. Onda - Amazing. We all agreed that this easily was the best restaurant on the ship. The amount of food you get with the credit is almost too much. You get 2 choices out of the appetizers, pasta or pizza plus 1 entrée and 1 dessert. You can also choose a pizza or pasta as your entrée. The margherita pizza was about as good as you will find at sea and even rivals your local pizzeria. We also got the macellaio which is a twisted crust stuffed pizza but the sopressata was an odd choice. They also have a calzone option which also looked good. We also had the pappardelle bolognese, tuna, mezzelune and filet. Everything was excellent. For dessert, we got the Tiramisu and the Butterscotch Budino. The budino was the best dessert and maybe the best overall item we had all week. 2. Le Bistro - Everything from the food to the service was excellent. It might have helped that our waiter kept filling our glass with "yellow label". I had the escargot and my wife had the scallops. Both were very good. I wasn't at the MDR 4 of the nights but I don't remember seeing escargot on the menu so this might be there only place to get it now. For our main, my wife got the sea bass and I got the filet without foie gras. I was still charged the $10 supplement but I also didn't ask for it to be removed. Both were also very good but my wife likes the sea bass she gets on land better. For dessert we had the sponge cake and the vanilla creme which was picture worthy. 3. Los Lobos - I would say Los Lobos is good but we also are surrounded by great Tex-Mex restaurants here in Houston so our opinion might be tainted. Tableside guac was amazing and so was the queso. We were expecting a liquid queso and it came out thicker. I guess we missed the fondue in the description. Still good but unexpected. For mains, we got the beef tacos, burrito, enchilada and the camaron. The burrito is huge and very good. I was underwhelmed by the shrimp. I was expecting more than just 5 small shrimp on a dish with avocado. They give you tortillas but I would have ordered shrimp fajitas if I wanted those. The churros were excellent though. It was like a churros ring tower that they pour caramel over. That was worth the price of admission. 4. Food Republic - We used 2 credits and split 8 items between the 4 of us. I know a lot of people say this is their favorite restaurant but I personally did not see it. Everything was good but very few standouts. All the rolls except one are made with crab which is just the cheap way to fill the roll. The one highlight was the miso chicken. The miso sauce came out with the perfect amount of sweet and saltiness to add to the chicken. We didn't eat dessert here as we didn't like the options and just went down to Indulge to finish. Indulge Like many have said, this is a great new concept. The food options were great and most items tasted better than what you would get in the buffet. My wife was shocked how good the shrimp pad thai was. I also really like the turkey breast from the Q smokehouse although I would like them to allow you to customize the items to take the sauce off. Just a very sweat BBQ sauce. My kids also loved just stopping by and ordering guacamole and french onion soap and a couple of deserts. At times it was hard to find a seat but you could usually find one within 5 minutes. Its been mentioned before but when you sit at the counters, you can only order items from that venue. We sat down for salad and soup at the garden and several people left upset that they only had options from the Garden. NCL just need to open it up for everywhere. Buffet We only stopped at the buffet a couple of time so I don't have much to say about this. When we did go, we found a table even if it was one outside between the buffet and the pool. As a note, the Surfside Grill is located beyond the buffet through a sliding glass door and its open later than the buffet. Its your standard hot dogs and hamburgers, fries and a few other sides. They also have a rotating alternative selection which included bratwurst and chicken breast. Observation Lounge We were there a couple of times when they were serving grab and go breakfast or light snacks. It wasn't much. The breakfast was premade egg bites, Danishes and croissants which light snacks later in the day was cookies and other desserts. Not much and really isn't there as a meal.

The Broadway show was 2:30 and I was already wondering what 50 minutes they took out since the musical goes by fast.

I agree. It was a major mess. I did find it weird that they announce led they are closing the process to let the port catch up and then didn’t start again for a half hour. That would explain it if the FBI was involved. The holdup was getting off the ship because it was straight to the customs if check once you got off. Alvin was calling the colors way too fast and also everyone was taking the forward elevators to 6 and trying to push into the line that everyone was already in for 15 minutes. Since this was the first regular cruise out of Galveston, hopefully they figure it out soon.

So much more than pasta though. Its more of a high end Italian restaurant than casual Italian. I think they only have 4 pasta dishes. We had the tuna and the filet.

Just to note on this. We sailed through a bad storm in the Gulf that caused the Captain to switch Costa Maya and Cozumel. Your cruise will probably be different on day 3 and day 5. The Costa Maya day was from 6am to 12:30pm instead 12pm to 8pm so they probably changed up the timing of activities to make up for it. They also added an hour to Harvest Caye so we left at 6pm instead of 5pm.

Do Onda instead of Palomar if you don't have it booked. It was our best meal all week. You get so much food with the dining credit and it all came out perfect.

Service continued.. Bar Service Like I said before, we had FAS+ so we pretty much had the full bar available to us. It was never long to wait for a drink at almost any bar other than then Penrose Atrium bar during sporadic rushes. Several bartenders learned my name during the week and would call on me if they saw me standing at the bar. There is one superwomen that I wish I could remember her name. She is from Romania with dark hair that always is pulled back in a ponytail. She was easily the hardest working crew member onboard. She would show up at just about every bar through out the day. I found her at the pool bar during the day, the Luna Bar in Indulge during the afternoons and Syd Norman's at night. She would also show up randomly in places when Syd's was not open. She was working her butt off the whole cruise and doing it with a smile on her face. I ended up tipping her $50 at Syd's the last night and let her know how great she was. Steward Our steward was good. With moving to once a day cleaning, he was working hard all day on both sides of deck 10. He would usually have the room done while we were out and would come back at night to drop off the next days Freestyle and let us know if the clock was changing. This was the spot where we had the really only negative interaction though. We ran out of body wash in the middle of showers before dinner one night and just used the shampoo to finish. We let the Steward know that we were out and asked to have it refilled. We left the boat to go to Roatan the next day and reminded him before we left. Come back around 3 and the room is still not done. Not an issue, he was close by so we went to get food. We came back at 4:45 and the room was still not done and we needed to start to shower and get ready for dinner. We went to him to let him know we still needed body wash and he kind of snapped back at us that he has 23 cabins and he will get to it. We usually don't bother the Steward for much but we ran out of body wash the night before so he had not been checking the levels. He came by about 10 minutes later and apologized and said he was ready to clean the room. We let him know that he didn't need to clean at that point but asked for our body wash/Shampoo to be refilled and for new towels. He ended up cleaning the bathroom also. Like I said, he was good all week and it was only this small incident that needed to be mentioned. Overall, service was impeccable all week and really stood out.

Service Honestly, this cruise was one of the best we have had in terms of service. We had one small service issue that I will mention but other than that it was great all around. I am really bad with names but will mention names of those I can remember. Dining Rooms Great service all around. In Hudson's on the first day for lunch, we were served by a younger waiter, Andian. At the end, he struct up a conversation with us about how often we cruise, what ships we have been on and what we are looking forward to most. He has been on the Jewel and Getaway before and loved that ship which is also our favorite. He said he was a Le Bistro waiter but they move him where needed. We ran into him several times during the week and every time he made sure to come see us and see if everything was ok. Great crew member. For dinner, we ate at Hudson's twice and Commodore Room once. Service in both were top notch. The longest dinner was about an hour and fifteen minutes and we didn't have to wait long between dishes. On our two RCCL cruises in the last year, we never had a dinner under 2 hours. Twice on the Oasis we had waiters unprompted tell us how overworked they were and how RCCL added more tables and took away workstations. I think the biggest help to this is that NCL will pull waiters from the specialty restaurants if they are not busy. It was not uncommon to see someone wearing a Food Republic apron or a Los Lobos shirt in the MDR. I know aesthetically this is weird but I would rather get out in an hour being served by someone from Food Republic than two hours just to keep everyone looking the same. A couple of other great service situations. Our daughter loves cruise ship soup, especially French Onion. One night she couldn't choose between the three on the menu so she ordered all three and no entree. The waiter asked her which one she look forward to the most and brought her a large bowl of it as her main dish. Another time at Le Bistro, we had the FAS+ so I asked if we could get a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. He said the bottle was not included but don't worry and order it by the glass and he would take care of it. He never let the glass get below half full before he filled it back up again without us asking. Also, Raul in Food Republic was just a barrel of laughs. He was just so happy and joking with everyone.

Cabin We had cabin 10144 which was a balcony cabin for 4 midship. It was forward of the elevators so I would almost call it a forward cabin than a midship one. The cabin was aesthetically beautiful with three closets for storing clothes. The pull out drawers were a little shallow and awkward but were used. Small safe for keeping money, passports and jewelry but you couldn't get bigger items like an iPad in there. There was a small fridge with the three different bottles of water in there for purchase but had room for more cartons of water that we brought back from the bar at night. Bathroom was one of the biggest we have seen on a ship. Plenty of room on the shelves for toiletries. The shower was the best part. It was huge with a full sliding door. No more curtain and no more of the two sliding doors on RCCL that open up while you shower. Water pressure was great and you could get the temp as hot, cold or warm as you want. There are two nobs. The one on the left is to turn it on and adjust the pressure. The one on the right is the temp with down hot and up cold. There is a stopper button that won't let you get the water burning hot unless you push it. I found that leaving the water right at the stopper point was perfect. There was a nice big tv that was interactive. You could watch tv which was mostly your normal cruise related channels, news channels, a sports channel that played the NFL games, and movie channels that were labeled by genre. There was also a large selection of free and pay movies on demand. For the free movies, there was a pretty nice selection like Super Mario Bros, Guardian of the Galaxy 3, Creed III and similar movies. The pay movies were $9.95 and had newer movies like the Barbie movie. You could also book your dining reservations, speedway and shore excursions on the tv as well as check your on board account. The one complaint of this room was that its not really a room for 4. The pull out bed while comfortable, was tight for two teenagers. My kids went back early one night and fell asleep in our bed so my wife and I slept in the pull out and we were on top of each other. The room really needs a pull down bunk bed above the pull out bed. I would not suggest this room for more than 3 or 4 with two smaller children. Also, once the bed is pulled out, there is only a sliver of space to slide through by the desk. Overall, great cabin but I would get two rooms next time.

Just got back from an amazing cruise aboard the Prima out of Galveston and wanted to give a hopefully short review of our time onboard. We are a family of 4 with two teenagers(1 boy/1 girl). This is our third cruise in the past year; two with RCCL and one with NCL. I will not have any pictures since I didn't really think to take any other than family photos but I do have Freestyle Dailies to post. We had a bad storm going through the Gulf on the way out so they ended up flipping Costa Maya and Cozumel so your day 3 and day 5 might be different. My family all loved this cruise and had a great time but I will say that I heard a lot of complaints around me and from the facebook group I was on so this will not be the experience for everyone on my cruise. Will break this down to categories and then hits and misses from the ship at the end. Embarkation We live in the Houston area so we have gone out of Galveston several times. NCL is sailing out of Terminal 2 which is the terminal that RCCL used previously. We park at Patriot Cruise Parking which was previous Falstaff. Its covered parking and a short shuttle ride to the terminal. My kids had to take finals that morning so we didn't get there until about 1pm. At that time, the lines were almost non-existent. No line at security and one family in front of us for check-in. We went from parking to on board in about 30 minutes. People from the facebook group that went early were showing long lines at the start so if you don't need to get on early, you may want to make a later time around noon. After getting onboard, we went straight Hudson's for lunch at the suggestion of someone on here. It was the right call. From others onboard, the buffet and Indulge were a mad house. At Hudson's, there were plenty of open tables and we were served quickly. The food was pretty good. Standard lunch items like cheeseburgers and philly sandwiches. My son remarked that the fries tasted like McDonald's fries and it was true. We explored the ship after lunch while we waited for cabins to be ready. The ship really is beautiful. Not always functional but very beautiful. It seems like they are trying to target the premium line cruisers from Celebrity while keeping the family cruisers they have been targeting. Our room was ready about 2:45ish. They opened up the rooms by floor instead of all at once.

Yes. All those are considered entrees and you can only order 1.

On the Prima this week with Starlink, it was painfully slow at the start of the cruise. Was getting only 1mbps down and a fraction up. I had to do a few things for work and it wasn’t happening so I upgraded to premium for $50. Still only 3 down and 1 up. As the cruise went on and people used up their minutes, the connection got better. So much so that I was able to get into my outlook email server and get into my remote connection.

FYI…if you have iMessage and are texting someone else with iMessage, it will go through even on the free Wi-Fi. My kids were texting their friends while onboard. I thought they were using ATT cruise data and I was going to get a huge bill but they showed me they were on airplane mode and texts were going through.

For me, it forced me to watch the video when I did online check in. It would not go on until you clicked that you understood. Then onboard we went right to our station and scanned our card. On the Prima, there is also a 14 minute safety video on your stateroom tv that must be played before you can do anything on the tv.