Sky Review 3 day Bahamas cruise 1/28-1/30

[monkeybutter]

I'll start off by saying this was our 4th cruise. I've cruised a 5 day on Carnival, 5 day on RCL and 3 day on RCL. I'm not sure if it was a combination of the 3 day cruise or just NCL and the freestyle cruising but I was very disappointed in this cruise. I knew going into it that from what I was told you either love the freestyle cruising or hate it...I guess I'm part of the latter. If it wasn't for the fact that my husband and I desperately needed the time alone together (without our children) and truly enjoyed taking the break...we would have had a worse time.

 

The Ship itself: I felt like the ships decor was nice actually, I didn't feel at all like it was tacky (well compared to the other ships we we've been on). Although they really should consider changing some things since this ship no longer sails to Hawaii and is now in the Bahamas. Looking around seeing Hawaiian reference and hula girls made me really want to go there LOL. The ship was very clean and I actually really loved all the hand sanitizing that was encouraged as you walked into any dining room and the casino :p

 

Dining: we ate at the buffet, Palace dining room, Le Bistro and did the murder mystery dinner.

 

The buffet was pretty good, we ate there a few times and I really like the BBQing they had going on, on the pool deck.

 

Palace (main dining room) the food was actually good from what I remember,(we only ate there the first night) the service however........HORRIBLE! At one point our server told my husband that he could not have coffee, he had to wait to have it until he got his dessert. This was after we sat after we finished our main courses waiting for a good 15 minutes.

 

Le Bistro was FANTASTIC! I wish we could have had all our meals there. The food was amazing! the service was amazing!

 

Murder mystery dinner was terrible! We were very unhappy with it. For the $20/pp we had to pay we expected much more than a "board game" especially one that it was quite obvious was written based in Hawaii, back in the 90's and they keep copying the same papers. The food was not good. I actually didn't eat half of it. We wound up complaining and talking the the Maitre d and got complimentary drinks and dessert in Le Bistro for our displeasure.

 

The activities on the ship were not bad, we enjoyed the white hot party...although I expected more people to be dressed in white. The magic/comedy show was good and we watched the "friendly feud" which was quite entertaining. Also I can't remember her name but a musician lady that sang and played guitar was very good.

 

The crowd: I felt like this cruise was not very much a family cruise, I didn't see many kids (which didn't at all bother me) However, there was a rather large group of college kids on this cruise, we didn't really notice them much until we got to the private island on the last day of the cruise, where they were getting drunk and screaming obscene chants very loudly. the people sitting next to us on the beach told us that as she walked by there were two people in the group actually having sex on the beach!:eek::eek: I was appalled that NCL didn't do much of anything about it, I mean there WERE KIDS PRESENT! Some of which were playing in the sand by us so we know they could hear them chanting "drink mother-f'er, drink!" over and over. Then it continued into the dining room we heard as we were leaving Le Bistro...same chant loudly but in the dining room :eek:. THEN as my husband and I were tired from a day in the sun and were turning in early (11pm :rolleyes:) their partying continued with LOUD music in the interior stateroom across the hall from us. We called to complain and then friends of ours who spent big $$ on a suite who could also hear this complained. She said that the reaction she got was very lax so she too was upset about the fact that NCL did very little to control this group.

 

overall the fact that we were having some very much needed time away, made our vacation enjoyable. We've decided that NCL and freestyle cruisng is not for us as we enjoy the traditional cruises much more...even Carnival (which I didn't have too many great things to say about that cruise either but I would have rather been on that one than the NCL Sky last weekend)

[marvin79]

Sorry about your bad experience. I was actually on that same cruise at had a great time. I did noticed the college kids, but they did not bother me. I did not spend much time on the private island though and I am sure I was not there when they got in.

 

I guess a situation like that could happen on any other cruise line, but dont know if they would have handled it differently.

 

Really sorry about it, but glad you got your alone time with your husband and made the best of it.

[NYcruzzer]

Thank you for writing a fair review. I think there is a more "party atmosphere" on the shorter cruises. As everyone (old and young alike) seem to let loose and cram as much fun in a short amount of time.

[Mary Ellen]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

[sparks1093]

Sorry you didn't like it. Longer cruises tend not to have the problems you identify so don't rule them out just because of this experience.