Paul_TO

The combinations of capacity, ship design, service cuts and other events made for a challenging cruise - anyone here as their first one may well be wondering what the fuss is. It was the loudest and most partying group I've ever sailed with, and that includes a spring breaker crowd on a Carnival sailing. They did have the "Behind the Scenes" Tour where they told us there were 4,850 passengers. That made the service cuts blatantly obvious - long lines everywhere, slow service, and lots of uncleared tables and litter all over the ship. The server in one restaurant would be pushing a vacuum and bussing in another the next day. It's as if they were not only short, but also training many new employees at the same time. There's always some inexperience but I've never seen so much of it in so many areas. Blame the staffing, not the staff. Guest services was consistently busy all week. One of our group was down there almost every day dealing with one issue that never really got settled, and another that the manager eventually had to step in as the desk agents seemed to have no comprehension of what she was trying to explain. I've mentioned the beer elsewhere, but they ran low enough on yogurt that the staff started doling it out. The strain of the sailing size was exacerbated by the closure of 40% of the Garden Cafe due to the flooding, along with the closures of Entourage, the Arcade, and the American Diner. Losing a day in Orlando and replacing Bermuda with Nassau, (it's always Nassau) due to weather was disappointing, especially for people who had purchased their own park passes - I heard of a few people leaving in Orlando, I expect some of them may be here or on Reddit in the future asking why NCL is charging them extra. Ultimately these are First World Problems. It's still vacation and someone else (eventually) doing the cooking and cleaning. The Specialty dining restaurants were good (our friends complained about late starting service at Teppanyaki). We didn't experience any problems ourselves at any of our choices, and had our nicest dinner at Le Bistro. It took us a few tries to make it into the noodle bar as one "Bro" in line would suddenly become 12 just in time for the opening. Still the best lunch on board. The patrons at the bar in Headliners formed a line to order, which was a highly preferred change from the free for alls elsewhere. Casino was busy. Ropes course was fun, but could get quickly overrun.

They ran out of beer and several other drinks by the end of the first sea day. Any live posting would have violated many people's sense of decency and decorum, if not many of this site's standards.

A bartender told us there are 4800 passengers onboard this sailing.

That was it. Found it under dining packages, we were looking under upgrades. Thanks all!

I'm sure we're not the only people with this issue, but it's been difficult to find recent information. Our 17 year old daughter is the third in the cabin under the Free at Sea. None of the benefits, but also not listed when we want to pre-purchase an extra dining package for her so we aren't paying a la carte every time. Norwegian's official T&C only says specialty dining isn't transferable, and is limited to one per person per night, implying that we can't buy extra under our names and use them for both ourselves and her. Nothing about families, and the only suggestion for children is the kids menu for the under 11 set. While we can probably do something on board, it would be nice to know for certain.

The itinerary on the app showed Charlottetown, Canada as one of the stops this week. Not sure how we were supposed to get to Tortola for the next day.