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We are running back to Celebrity after trying NCL


Beach Nut
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Too much disappointment to delineate.

The differences between the lines can be summed up, actually and also symbolically, in the differences between the French Onion Soup they each serve,

Celebrity serves a beautifully crafted French Onion Soup, with rich broth, lots of soft onions and a crown of browned parmesan bubbling over the bowl, with good bread just underneath the cheese. NCL serves a thin slice of bagel in watery canned bouillon, with 1/4 teaspoon of onion pieces and 1/4 teaspoon of inferior parmesan stirred in. The only good thing is that it's in a tiny bowl.

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Too much disappointment to delineate.

The differences between the lines can be summed up, actually and also symbolically, in the differences between the French Onion Soup they each serve,

Celebrity serves a beautifully crafted French Onion Soup, with rich broth, lots of soft onions and a crown of browned parmesan bubbling over the bowl, with good bread just underneath the cheese. NCL serves a thin slice of bagel in watery canned bouillon, with 1/4 teaspoon of onion pieces and 1/4 teaspoon of inferior parmesan stirred in. The only good thing is that it's in a tiny bowl.

 

b - thank you for your review...

 

bon voyage

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We cruised NCL and had two cabins. One would be serviced (MAYBE) in the morning and neither that night and the other one once the next day. We complained and they said we had door deadbolted--not--we were off the ship.

Pool towel bins would be empty and we would call to have filled when we got to the pool and never filled. Since our cabins were never serviced we would go there to get towels for showers and often empty.

I remember the kids club going to play ping pong one afternoon. Cruisers had piled breakfast plates two and three high on the table and it had not been cleaned so the kids left. I figured the leaders would call to have it cleaned but never happened. There was so much food laying around when we were in port birds were all over the place feasting. On other lines the plates are removed very quickly. Never breakfast plates still out in the afternoon.

I remember my son going to kids club events and the leader not showing up. Alot of parents complained and the girl claimed to be there and no one showed up. So not true.

Some trivia and the like had no shows of crew also. I guess freestyle extends to crew in that they get to choose if they want to work an event or not.

And if you get to the theater early, there are guys who go through each row several times selling scratch off tickets. They do not at all care how many times they step on your feet.

The food at dinner seemed more like varieties of hamburger helper than the good stuff we are used to.

The buffet was often out of plates, silverware, and glasses and coffee cups. People would use whatever was there, like a coffee mug for juice and the crew would yell. It seemed more like a prison than a vacation.

Remember that song, "i wanna go home, this is the worst trip I've ever been on" We sang worst ship.

NCL stands for neveragain cruise line to us.

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The one time we sailed with NCL we entered our room on the first day, after it was announced rooms were ready, and it was as if the prior occupants had dropped everything and torn out of the room! Nothing had been touched by the room steward. Toothbrushes still in the bathroom, towels on the floor, and everything a total mess. We had to call three times throughout the day before we ever even saw our cabin steward.

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Off topic, but onion soup was mentioned.

 

On Eclipse this February, Onion soup in MDR was not edible. So much salt, herbed with rosemary, congealed cheese. In general food in MDR was terrible. Ate there only 3 times out of 14, the rest in Oceanview which was great. I am not alone in my sentiment, have noticed others here have said the same thing.

 

Having said all that, we would NEVER sail NCL for all kinds of reasons, food just being one of them.

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What ship? Any more details?

It was the Jade. The balcony cabin was clean and quiet and we paid for one with an unobstructed view, which turned out to be a brilliant move, as we spent virtually all our time onboard relaxing in the cabin. Our room steward was fabulous. Actually ever single staff person we interacted with rated an A+.

 

There was no dedicated out of cabin spot that we were able to find to relax and read in a quiet ambiance in the shade. It was pretty much bake in the sun with a lot of noise and "all you can drink" shipmates. We REALLY, REALLY missed the Solariums on the X ships.

 

I'd say that the food was 20% decent enough and 80% "off". I tried the spaghetti with meat sauce in the buffet and it tasted as if it was heavily seasoned with vinegar. My husband, and the man seated at the table next to us, both called the crab cakes "garbage", and they were mushy and tasteless. It's a shame that the crabs had to die to be made into a wasted dish.

 

The first day the Asian section of the buffet was so good that I thought that I was in Heaven, but then it went pretty much totally downhill and stayed there for the rest of the week! How can that happen?

 

The main dining room had a nice ambiance and good servers, but the dishes were hit or miss, mostly miss. It's almost as if the chefs didn't really know how to cook and were innovating, which is something that you should only attempt if you are already a great cook. (I've cooked since I was 14 and I've cooked professionally twice, so I know this to be true.) There were some things that were tasty, like the Atlantic Chowder and the Lamb on Tagliatelle with cream sauce.

 

The casino allowed smoking and smelled like a giant ashtray.

 

The first several days there were lots of drunks visible, as the line was pushing the "all you can drink" package.

In summary, it just felt as if there was no place for us onboard except, thankfully, our cabin.

 

I understand that NCL bought Oceania, so I wonder if it's just a matter of time that they bring O down to their level?

 

The plus side is that we are no longer wondering if there is an even better cruise line out there for us, and my longstanding desire to one day take another Oceania cruise has now been completely obliterated.

 

It's not as if we haven't had our issues with facets of some of our X cruises, but it's sort of like being in a long term relationship, where you come to realize that what you have is better than anything else out there. And Celebrity has always been willing to try to rectify problems, once very generously and totally unexpected.

.

We tried one of the shows, but left shortly into it. But we hardly ever go to cruise line shows anyway, as most of them seem pretty mediocre. We're not interested in bingo, games that involve embarrassing yourself or your mate, or pervasive loud music.

 

Also, as Celebrity elites, we missed the free laundry, free internet and free happy hour drinks. Also the usual $250+ OBC and free gratuities we tend to get when we book.

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Different folks, different strokes.

 

25+ cruises on =X=, 15+ on NCL. Both sailed extensively in the last year.

 

Funny that you brought up French Onion Soup. The worst actual French Onion Soup ever experienced, anywhere in the world, was on Celebrity. Tried it 3 times on 2 different ships (after having it previously many times). Total onion presence in those 3 bowls? Maybe 1/5th of an onion. Maybe. A small onion. Loads of salty broth, dried out bread, sad cheese. Kept hoping it would get better. Simply awful.

 

Although we find the food on Celebrity overall pretty good, we prefer the extensive menus available in the MDR on NCL. More choices. And the Specialty Restaurants on NCL are every bit as good as Celebrity, at only a nick above half the price.

 

Will continue to sail both, and have a number of days booked on each, but really have never seen, in pretty extensive experience, the vast differences that people claim. Again. Different folks, different strokes.

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Different folks, different strokes.

 

25+ cruises on =X=, 15+ on NCL. Both sailed extensively in the last year.

 

Funny that you brought up French Onion Soup. The worst actual French Onion Soup ever experienced, anywhere in the world, was on Celebrity. Tried it 3 times on 2 different ships (after having it previously many times). Total onion presence in those 3 bowls? Maybe 1/5th of an onion. Maybe. A small onion. Loads of salty broth, dried out bread, sad cheese. Kept hoping it would get better. Simply awful.

 

Although we find the food on Celebrity overall pretty good, we prefer the extensive menus available in the MDR on NCL. More choices. And the Specialty Restaurants on NCL are every bit as good as Celebrity, at only a nick above half the price.

 

Will continue to sail both, and have a number of days booked on each, but really have never seen, in pretty extensive experience, the vast differences that people claim. Again. Different folks, different strokes.

 

Wow...you have experienced French onion soup all over the world and Celebrity is the worst...in your opinion, I believe. Hahaha...that must be some pretty bad onion soup indeed...

 

Thanks for the heads up on the soup! I will remain at least a table's width away!

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Off topic, but onion soup was mentioned.

 

On Eclipse this February, Onion soup in MDR was not edible. So much salt, herbed with rosemary, congealed cheese. In general food in MDR was terrible. Ate there only 3 times out of 14, the rest in Oceanview which was great. I am not alone in my sentiment, have noticed others here have said the same thing.

 

Having said all that, we would NEVER sail NCL for all kinds of reasons, food just being one of them.

 

Yikes! This onion soup/MDR issue is disconcerting. Hope they have this fixed by the time we sail on the Reflection in October. I think I'll write corporate a snail mail letter asking them to look into it and correct it. My experience with corporate is that they really don't want to slip and want to keep their customers happy.

 

We found out once when we went to initially complain about some late loud music and wound up spending 2 hours the next day talking to the second in command of guest services about other perceived slippages in the product and service, and giving suggestions, that they were not only extremely receptive, but actually wound up giving us a generous future cruise credit that we didn't even ask for. I told them that I just wanted the cruise line I loved to stay as good as it was and not become another Carnival.

 

One of the things we learned during that meeting is that the staff on board has quite a bit of latitude to change activities, programs, volume of music and such if they think the clientele want it. So, "innovations" may be particular to certain ships at certain times, like the spontaneous late night loud music party on the pool deck above our balcony cabin that led to our original complaint. Maybe the chefs on the Eclipse are doing too much innovating and need to be reeled back by corporate?

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Several years ago the Celebrity onion soup was just as described on NCL.

 

We are very happy with the MDR offerings on Celebrity.

 

I limit my consumption of the onion soup to 1 helping per voyage. It's great but the cheese has a tendency to settle on my hips.

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Yikes! This onion soup/MDR issue is disconcerting. Hope they have this fixed by the time we sail on the Reflection in October. I think I'll write corporate a snail mail letter asking them to look into it and correct it. My experience with corporate is that they really don't want to slip and want to keep their customers happy.

 

 

 

We found out once when we went to initially complain about some late loud music and wound up spending 2 hours the next day talking to the second in command of guest services about other perceived slippages in the product and service, and giving suggestions, that they were not only extremely receptive, but actually wound up giving us a generous future cruise credit that we didn't even ask for. I told them that I just wanted the cruise line I loved to stay as good as it was and not become another Carnival.

 

 

 

One of the things we learned during that meeting is that the staff on board has quite a bit of latitude to change activities, programs, volume of music and such if they think the clientele want it. So, "innovations" may be particular to certain ships at certain times, like the spontaneous late night loud music party on the pool deck above our balcony cabin that led to our original complaint. Maybe the chefs on the Eclipse are doing too much innovating and need to be reeled back by corporate?

 

 

 

Last month on Reflection I was happy to have French onion soup in the MDR and Luminae and it was perfect and absolutely wonderful!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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DH and I are considering booking our next cruise on something other that X for a change of scene. Although I get that food is subjective I think your review just eliminated one choice for us. Thanks.

 

Eliminated because of an onion soup review? Just don't order the onion soup if it's too scary.

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Eliminated because of an onion soup review? Just don't order the onion soup if it's too scary.

 

The onion soup was offered as an example. I can vouch that none of the food on our NCL cruise (even the specialty restaurants) came anywhere near the level of Celebrity food.

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The onion soup was offered as an example. I can vouch that none of the food on our NCL cruise (even the specialty restaurants) came anywhere near the level of Celebrity food.

 

Food is subjective. I've been on both lines. I liked the food on both. I didn't feel the food on Celebrity was really that better overall. Both had items I liked and disliked.

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Food is subjective. I've been on both lines. I liked the food on both. I didn't feel the food on Celebrity was really that better overall. Both had items I liked and disliked.

Agree totally. Actually, we prefer the choices on NCL. We like the Indonesian offerings and the Indian choices etc. Much prefer that to the mundane choices on HAL etc.

 

BTW - the worst French onion soup we ever had was in France. Not a drop of cheese to be found. When we enquired where the cheese was when it first was delivered to us the waitress said it was in the bottom of the bowl. We never did find it.:(

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We have cruised 10 times on Celebrity and 6 times on NCL.

 

Dining - Celebrity wins for sure, however, NCL's specially restaurants are many and cost less than Celebrity's. We like Qsine on Celebrity, but just don't do it because of the cost and the generally excellent MDR.

 

Entertainment - NCL has the edge

 

Loyalty programs - Celebrity has the free happy hour for elites and you get a free bag of laundry, while NCL also gives you a free bag of laundry, there is no free happy hour, but you get one free meal in a specialty restaurant with a free bottle of wine. Celebrity wins

 

Excursions - We generally take private excursions, but occasionally we do the ship's. Celebrity's are less costly.

 

Cost of the cruise - NCL almost always has better prices, however, they bundle pricing with beverage packages that we don't want like X.

 

Service - Celebrity for sure, although we had perfect service on our NCL Sun Alaska cruise in the MDR. We found a great table and kept going back.

 

Itineraries - Celebrity wins for sure, but NCL has expanded to Australia, NZ, South America.

 

For example, we picked Alaska by NCL since Celebrity doesn't do Glacier Bay and NCL does. Also, we are doing a great New England and Canada cruise out of Boston, rather than the X cruise out of NYC.

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Carnival, Norwegian and Royal are the mega mass-market companies offering basic cruising at the cheapest prices.

 

Comparing one to Celebrity is a non-starter. Celebrity, Princess and HAL are more in the same "next level up" quality for large cruise lines/ships.

 

You get what you pay for...

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