Norwegian Sky?

[KU_Cruiser]

I just booked a 4-day cruise on the Sky for March due to expedia's deals. I have been reading some pretty negative reviews on the sky, only cruised once before on Carnival's Dream and had a great time. Will I be disapointed?

 

Thanks!

[CruiserGuyWPB]

It all depends on what expectations you have before your cruise........ I have been on many cruises before I went on the SKY...... I did a 4 night bahamas cruise on the SKY. Its a good ship and a great staff... the shorter cruises tend to be more of a party cruise than the longer cruises.... but if you go with an open mind you will have a grab time. Its a nice and clean ship with an excellent crew. I am sure you will have a good time as long as you expect to have fun and know that everyone one else omn there wis there ego have fun for a 3 or 4 day cruise. It wont be the same crowd as a 7 or a 14 or 30 day cruise..... just go with an open mind and you will have fun.

[Keith1010]

I would also post this question on the NCL board.

 

Keith

[Aquahound]

I just booked a 4-day cruise on the Sky for March due to expedia's deals. I have been reading some pretty negative reviews on the sky, only cruised once before on Carnival's Dream and had a great time. Will I be disapointed?

 

The ship has its good and bad points. The good are specialty restaurants and numerous lounges. Le Bistro is delicious and the Plantation lounge has 2 for 1 martinis every night starting at 6. Also, the buffet area was very rarely crowded and we could always find seats outside.

 

The bad are the rooms. They are ugly, old, and tiny. What's worse, the bleach scented spray they use to mask the smell from people smoking can be nauseating if they use too much. The beds are the worst of any cruise I have been on. You'll need to request an egg-crate cushion. The TVs are older than the ship and take about 30 seconds to a minute to turn on.

[Smokin J]

If your expectations are LOW then you will probably have a good time. We went on the 3 day cruise it was LOUSY and now my DW will not go on the Entire NCL line just because of the bad experience we had on the SKY.

[Peace2U]

The Sky is okay. The rooms are basic and the halls can smell like smoke for some reason. The cruise line charges $6/hour to watch kids on port days. Not awesome but not horrible.

[brettsmom2004]

Four of us were on the SKY in April...didn't have any problems at all...rooms were clean, food was good, service and staff was excellent....

gg

[lindseymarie]

TERRIBLE food, BAD service, NOTHING to do but walk around. NOT fun at all.:mad: severely disappointed

[gapeach1970]

I have been on 2 Carnival cruises prior to The Sky and was very disappointed. My oldest daughter had never been on a cruise so when I got a great deal on a 4 night at only $99 each I was excited to take her. She had heard all the great stories about things on our past cruises. We never saw our cabin steward,room was never cleaned and trying to get ice was a nightmare.The food selection was terrible and the entertainment was not any good.Sad to say even at that price we will not be taking that cruise again.

[beachpearl]

I was on the Sky in mid-November.

I was nervous too after reading some bad reviews, but I had a great time.

The staff was friendly, my room steward kept the room spotless wirh great towel animal every night and changed and filled the ice bucket twice a day.

The food was better than I anticipated.

There are different activities every day.

The only disappointment to me were the drinks (they were weak) but a rum runner can fix that ;) and I wish the nightclub had gotten more crowded.

Go with an open mind and a a glass half-full mentality and you should be fine.

[polySeraph]

My husband and I were on a 4-day cruise aboard the Sky in November. It was our first short cruise and we followed it with a weekend in the Keys.

 

We were surprised by how much we enjoyed the cruise. Granted, we stayed in the tiniest cabin we'd ever seen, but our room steward kept it spotless. We had towel animals nightly (not a big deal for us, but we were touched, all the same) and any special requests were filled promptly.

 

The ship is in an "okay" state of repair and on its way up. We had dinner with two of the ship's officers one night who told us that NCL had recently purchased the ship (it was previously leased) and was investing some money in improvements. During our cruise, for example, they were refurbishing the teak deck near the pool.

 

We thought the food was pretty good. We always found the selections on the buffet line to be hot and fresh and there always seemed to be plenty of crew members around to keep the tables clean and inviting. Le Bistro (the French restaurant) was excellent as always, and while we found the service in the MDRs to be a little slow at times, the food arrived hot and tasted good.

 

The atmosphere on the ship was happy and upbeat. For our cruise there seemed to be a lot of groups - expecially extended family groups. It was a lot of fun seeing 4-year-olds line-dancing next to their grandmothers at the sail-away party. We arranged for shore excursions through the ship (which we enjoyed) but overall found the ports to be a little lackluster.

 

We liked the Sky and at the end of our 4 days aboard, we agreed that (tiny cabin and all) we'd be happy to sail on her again some day.

[Azure Moon]

Though I love NCL, I was somewhat apprehensive about the Sky and doing a 4 day cruise on her earlier this month. I was afraid the entertainment wouldn't be very good, after reading some posts, afraid there would be a lot of drunks since some posts say 3 and 4 day cruises tend to have more of that going on, and afraid the ship wasn't as well taken care of due to age and ownership.

 

Well, I didn't experience any of the things I was worried about.

 

There was always something going on when I wanted something to do. The ship did have some things that needed a little TLC, but they were working on things - as noted by a previous poster, resealing the spaces between the teak boards, working on cabins during debarkation day, sign or two up where they removed buffet seating area cushions while fixing them. I never saw any drunk behavior.

 

The only negative that did come true was a reinforcement of my belief that 5 day or shorter cruises are too short, for me anyway. We did a 5 day on Carnival back in 2006 and said I'd rather do longer cruises. But we wanted to go to Universal Studios and see some other things during our time in Florida, so the 4 day cruise fit in with that.

 

The crew, staff, and officers were awesome, the food was very good, entertainment wonderful and plentiful, the ship was in overall good shape and clean.

 

I'd sail on her again, but hopefully doing a B2B :D.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot an important thought. I'd been apprehensive when we had our first cruise with NCLA doing the Hawaii route back in 2007. Found out all of the things I'd been afraid of after reading posts didn't come true. We had a fabulous time on and off ship. After that I learned to take negative reviews with a grain of salt, but I back slid when it came to NCL's Sky. Well, I'm done with worrying about things that other people report. From now on I'll take things with a bigger grain of salt and I'll simply look forward to going and have a great time, just as has always turned out to be the case on all of my NCL/NCLA cruises :Cool:

[winsagent]

My wife and I sailed on the Sky back in February for a wedding anniversary and had a fabulous time. As mentioned in previous posts, not everyone is going to have the same opinion. We are both 60 and just enjoyed "lounging" around on deck and taking it easy. We found the staff to be most accomodating, from our cabin steward to the bartenders to the main dining room wait staff. We enjoy fine dining but try not to get too picky on a cruise, understanding the nature of the buffets and large crowds trying to eat at one time. Our meals in the main dining room were great with super service. This is more of a party cruise so we just found seats away from all the main activity going on around the pool. I would sail NCL agaihn but like others have said, would probably choose a little longer cruise next time. Have fun and enjoy your cruise.

[momofmeg]

As others said older ships are sued for shorter crusies so you cannot expect an older ship to be as nice as a newer ship.

 

My biggest gripe was the buffet/lido restaurant had a bad flow problem and would get very congested. My second biggest should not effect you as we cruised her in the height of summer and so the ship was overrun with unruly young teens and tweenies (10-14 age group)-there was no curfew for those under 18 as Royal Caribbean has. We had a group of thse kids running down hallways after 11 pm beating on stateroom doors-and also (my guess-same kids) kids were throwing food on the stairway that come sout of the buffet restaurant. At first the crew weer clenaing up their messes but by the last night-they had kind've given up. I am telling you this to warn you to never take a short summer Bahamas cruise- on ANY line-LOL! Ikinew it was a bad idea but hubby was convinced it would be great to do as we got a great last minute price-NOT a bargain!

 

Last thing I hated was the beds were like rocks-and the rooms were also small compared to NCL Pearl and Sun. (also NCL rooms are smaller than Carniva)l If the ship has been upgraded with freestyle 2-then the beds will be better. See if you can find out.