Luma001

Food Grade A

By far the best food we ever had on NCL. We sailed with first time cruiser friends and they were also very impressed with the food. La Cucina was our only specialty restaurant, all other dinners were at either the Tropicana Room, Savor or Taste. We loved them all.

Condition of the Ship A

Everything was very clean and in good repair. This was the first cruise where I experienced public restroom doors being propped open. I think it is a good idea! Reduced spread of germs!

Entertainment B

We loved Burn the Floor, Million Dollar Quartet and the Comedian Scott Henry. Sabor Latino was great, as was Alis & Pedja. Howl at the Moon was good, but it was more about the money and less about the music. It got old pretty quickly. We really enjoyed Island Notes and Aliah Sheffield but they both need to improve their connection with the audience, however they are very talented and we were frequently at their shows.

Check In C

We went through the platinum line, and were on board within 30 minutes of arrival. It took our friends about 1 hour.

Service D

It was difficult to get a drink and generally I would spend way too long standing at a bar hoping to get waited on. Extra hard to get a drink at Spice H2O. Wait staff was somewhat slow at every meal. Our tables were often out of creamer, water, butter, etc.

The safe in our room was broken when we came aboard. It took 3 days to even get someone to look at it. Our friends never got their disembarkation flyer and as rookies, they needed it! Our room steward was pretty forgetful and if you tried to call him, it was frustrating as you couldn’t leave a voice mail.

At two ports, there was no washy-washy as you came aboard which I thought was odd.

It seems that the staff is overworked and spread too thin. Probably the least friendly staff we encountered.

The ship D

This is probably our least favorite NCL ship. The pool area is way too small and as a result, very overcrowded.

Spice H2O didn’t have the small pool like on the Epic and we were disappointed. Instead they have a silly water feature which nobody used.

The entire ship seemed narrow to me. It was difficult to walk through the buffet area and O’Sheehan’s.

Our balcony was about 4’ deep, way too small. In Cozumel, we were docked right across from the Dawn and you could see their balconies were considerably deeper and more inviting.

 

Disembarkation F

A complete zoo. We did easy walk off and headed for the gangway by 7:45 and it was after 9:00 before we got off the ship. While waiting in these long lines, the cruise director continued to make disembarkation announcements releasing additional passengers to leave the ship. Our friends, who had a forward cabin had a harder time and stood in a mass of angry passengers from 7:45 until 10:00 AM, much of the time stuck inside an open elevator as they could not move off the elevator due to the mass of passengers trying to get off the ship. It was total chaos. With only a few crew members on hand to try and manage this process, no signage, and announcements which were not broadcasted into the cabins, it was too difficult to know where to get off the ship.

It was very disappointing way to end a great week.

 

Overall C

My wife and I had a great time and we would sail an “Away” class again, but it would be our last choice. I would never recommend this ship to a first-time cruiser.

Couldn't agree more with your review. We had an awful time when disembarking, barely made our flight home, and our flight was after 12 noon.

The food was very good but the bars overcrowded. One thing I noticed was that the crew was very chatty among themselves, and would make you wait until they were finished talking. No fun at all.:(

I have hard copies that I can scan. Is uploading a PDF to this site possible? Any limitations?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

I don´t really know for sure, but uploading them as a picture is worth a shot, I imagine.

Thanks for sharing, did you by any chance get pics of the dailies. If so, would appreciate if you could post them.

Back from Independence 11/30-12/6, escargot were available every night.

Hey Al, good for you and Teresa!! I hope you enjoyed the cruise, even with the small inconveniences. Ana and I will be on the Independence at the end of the month. Looking forward to it and maybe catch the Oasis again one of these days.

One more thing about ordering the bottle at the bar, at least the Champagne bar, is that if you don´t drink it all, they will save it for you. My wife and I have done this before.

Grab a beer, clear my head and sit down to enjoy!!

Sorry Luis....I do not have those. You will love the Indy! Have a great cruise in November!

Thanks, Jane, thoroughly enjoying the review!!

Jane, thank you for the review, my DW and I will be on the Independence in November. Just wanted to ask if you had pictures of the wine/bar menus?

Thanks again,

Luis

What category stateroom was it?

Thanks

Laura

I was in a D3, Balcony

On the Vanity/Desk area, there's a cool iPod/iPhone docking system - for not one, but TWO devices. I could charge my iPhone while charging my iPod at the same time...and I could play music in my cabin through the speakers. I LOVED this.

We had nothing like that on the Oasis, there are some amazing differences between the two ships. :confused::confused:

I am sorry that I did not get a chance to look at the menu of 150 Central Park. Most of our party would not have liked the set menu. I did google it and got quite a few hits. BTW, the menu and restaurant 150 Central Park on the Oasis is done by Michael Schwartz of Michael's Genuine in Miami. His Miami restaurant has been rated by the NY Times as one of the top 10 in the USA!!

Thanks for the info, will take a shot with google.

Great review, Caneguy, good job. I just have a quick question, did you get a peek at the 150 Central Park menu? Just wondering if it has changed in the last couple of months.

Thanks for the review!!

I also agree 100%. I have had the premium alcohol package on Celebrity 4 times. The beauty of the package is that it includes all non-alcohol drinks and they can really really add up.

 

When you add up the large bottles of Pellegrino and cappuchinos or lattes it is really a great program. It is nice because you do not have the drink alcohol to "get your moneys worth".

 

Truthfully there were days I never had an alcohol drink until dinner at late seating and I still did fine.

 

Since Royal has been so reluctant to roll out the alcohol packages and there has been at least one well publicized alcohol related incident that resulted in a fatality on their ships (which could have happened on any cruise ship on any cruise line)..... I am shocked that they don't throw in the premium coffes, bottled teas, bottled waters, red bull, vitamin water, bottled juices, etc.....

 

It would seem to me that you would want your drinkers to be indulging in some non-alcohol drinks and not just ordering another "rum and coke" because it is "paid for". Also from a bottom line perspective, a human bladder can only take so much liquid in one day. Corporate should want me drinking cheaper items like bottles of water or soda rather than a Grey Goose Martini....... They make way more money on coffee and water than greygoose......

 

For me there is not a chance that I would take this package without the option of coffees and teas, waters and juices, and smoothies..........

 

 

I would gladly pay over $400.00 for the all inclusive concept, but I am not paying $400.00 and then have a $200.00 bar tab for coffees, waters and sodas.......

It will be interesting to see what the package includes, as I have used Celebrity's before, and they include the waters, coffees and other non-alcoholic drinks. My wife and I have enjoyed very good glasses of wine at dinner and usually our waiter asks about our preferences and would have appropriate suggestions for our dinner wine.

I just looked at the Premium Alcohol package for the 12-night Southern Car. on Silhouette. It is listed at from $648 and when I clicked "purchase now" and choose the passenger, it shows the passenger line item amount as adding the 15% gratuity making it $745.20. And then the Total line shows $842.40. :eek: Is this the glitch you're referring to?

 

I was wondering what the added $97.20 was for; tax, "pouring fee"?:confused: Hope it is the "glitch" because suddenly it's not worth it if it isn't a glitch.

Sorry it took me a while to answer. I finally called Celebrity and ordered the premium package. It came out to exactly $434.70 per person (for a seven day cruise), or the $54.00 plus the 15% gratuity per day.

The system has two glitches that I am aware of, one being the extra they quote, but don't charge when you try to book it online, and the other is when you try to find out if they credited your account, you have to go to "My Reservations" and it only comes out on the "Payment Summary" page, not on your "Reservation Summary"

I hope this helps.

Does anyone know if the price went up in the past few days, I go to the Celebrity website and the price is $437.00 per person for a 7 day cruise. And that does not include the gratuity, in total, more than $900.00 for two.

Very interesting:confused:

I just spoke with Celebrity and they told me that the total for the Premium Beveraga Package per day is $62.10 (gratuities included) and that there is a

"glitch" in the system that adds a little extra. That is why it came out to over $900 when I tried to purchase it on the web. They also said that if I were to purchase the package online, at checkout I would see the correct price.

Haven't tried it yet, but it is good to know.

It was $368 or $378 (I can't remember) last night when I looked.

 

Edited to add, I just checked again and it is $378, are you sailing for more than 7 days?

Thanks for your response.

No, it is a seven day cruise. And the price was the one given by the web page, the $900 plus total that I quoted earlier.

I guess the UK site does not show prices for some reason.

 

Here is the current pricing from the Celebrity USA website, all prices are per person per night:

 

Non-alcoholic:

Classic $14.00 ($16.10 including 15% service charge)

Premium $18.00 ($20.7 including 15% service charge)

Alcohol:

Classic $ 44.00 ($50.60 including 15% service charge)

Premium $54.00 ($62.10 including 15% service charge)

Does anyone know if the price went up in the past few days, I go to the Celebrity website and the price is $437.00 per person for a 7 day cruise. And that does not include the gratuity, in total, more than $900.00 for two.

Very interesting:confused: