I feel the need to write about my family’s experience aboard the Norwegian Joy sailing from Seattle in June . My wife and I took a Norwegian cruise for our honeymoon in 1998 and really enjoyed it. We thought it would be great to take Norwegian again, this time with the kids, for our 21st wedding anniversary as well as my wife’s 50th birthday.
I specifically choose the Joy because of the Concierge Family Room. I liked the idea of a two-bedroom two-bath cabin with a living room where we could play games and watch movies as a family. We have cruised before (on other lines) in multiple cabins, and I did not like the lack of a common area or the fact that we were sometimes in different areas of the ship.
The layout of the cabin (14-511) is perfect. It was all we hoped for. When planning I looked at the deck plan and saw that the cabin was under the Observation Lounge, so I figured that the noise would be limited to prime wildlife and glacier viewing times. Boy was I wrong.
What I did not discern from the deck plan is that cabin 14-511 is DIRECTLY beneath a kitchen located between the observation lounge public areas. The noise generated from rolling carts, banging and dropped items makes the master bedroom in the cabin uninhabitable until 12:30am and from 3:30am on. The noise is less in the living room and smaller bedroom, but still noticeable. The noise subsides around 12:30am and then restarts at 3:30am. I can only imagine it is the dinner team finishing and then the morning team prepping for the next day. When a loaded rolling cart goes overhead it sounds like a jet plane landing on your head.
The first night I thought the noise might be a departure fluke. When I was awaked the second night, I knew it was an issue. I spoke to someone at the front desk and they said they would investigate it and to call if I had an issue again. That night at around 11:30 the noise was unbearable, and I called the front desk. They sent our concierge, Reynaldo Villazor, to speak with us. He heard the noise and stated he would speak to the kitchen staff (again) to see about reducing the noise. At around 3:30am the noise woke my wife and me up, so I called again. This time the front desk moved the two of us to a small inside cabin, so we could sleep for the night.
The next morning, I spoke to Jalynne the Assistant Manager to express our dissatisfaction with the arrangements. She stated she would work on it and either Reynaldo or she would get back to us that afternoon. I checked again around 5pm and they said they would give us a larger room to sleep in. We were given room 5908 (category O1), a family stateroom.
We appreciate the responsiveness of Reynaldo and Jalynne to get us a room so my wife and I could sleep at night. The fact is though that I paid for a Concierge Family Suite (category CF), specifically so we could have the family together. My wife and I ended up having to traipse across the ship – about as far as one could go, in order to sleep at night. The kids said they could bear the noise, because they did not want the inconvenience of sleeping somewhere else on the ship.
I realize this is a newly refurbished ship and perhaps the layout before did not cause the potion of the kitchen to be directly above this stateroom. Regardless, Norwegian should not book this room in future as they will get complaints from every guest.
I ran into Martin, the General Manager, and mentioned the issue to him. He said he was aware of the issue and that the shipboard team had made corporate aware of the situation. The shipboard team was kind enough to give us a complementary dinner in a specialty restaurant and a small, $200 on board credit. While my we appreciate the gesture, it does not make up for the fact that I paid extra for a stateroom where, ultimately my wife and I could not sleep. I delayed sending this note as I had hoped the effort undertaken by the shipboard team would result in Norwegian reaching out to me proactively, but since this did not happen, I felt the need to escalate the issue.
I filled out the Guest Relations form online on July 3rd - I wanted to give them time to get back to me. the auto generated email stated that I would hear back in 15 days. Crickets. I sent another request on August 6th the the same lack of response.
My wife and I have cruised close to 20 times and I will not cruise with NCL again, nor ever recommend them to anyone based on this experience.
