A Carnival junkie sails NCL for the first time

[ShelleyQT]

I copied this from a document I wrote on my iPad. I don't know where all the asterisks came from!

 

We had an awesome cruise experience on the NCL Star from New York City to Bermuda, July 29-Aug. 5. *We have been on 13 cruises before, all of them 7-day cruises on Carnival. *We decided to try NCL because after 10 years of cruising Carnival, we were really noticing cutbacks and it was making it less fun to cruise. *We particularly had noticed cutbacks in Carnival’s entertainment, dining room service (very slow service in the MDR), and reduced menu choices. *We were pleasantly surprised to find that these three areas were much better on NCL.

*

So, we started looking at other lines and when I found this cruise to Bermuda, I was anxious to try it. *Another cruise line and a new (to us) port! *By the way, Bermuda was FANTASTIC! *I can’t wait to go back, and hopefully with NCL! *We just really loved the NCL experience (some of the food wasn’t perfect, but it certainly never is perfect on Carnival, either).

*

I had been really curious about how the two cruiselines would compare, so I thought it would be helpful to others to hear our take on the comparison.

*

The ship itself (NCL Star) is an older ship, so there are some rust spots, peeling paint on the decks, and some other signs of age. *This was to be expected in an older ship, and I could say the same about some of Carnival’s older ships, such as the Triumph. *The layout, however took some getting used to. *There’s no main indoor promenade like on Carnival ships, where we like to sit and people-watch. *Eventually, we found a bar (Gatsby’s) that had a fairly good setup for people-watching in the evening, and we loved to sit at the Bier Garten on the pool deck to watch the daytime festivities. *

*

The pool deck itself is kind of a strange setup, with ugly orange fake palm trees (that are actually cool-looking lit up at night) and the two water slides right in the middle of everything. *The water slides are small and not interesting for adults (Carnival has great water slides on all its newer ships). *To get to the upper levels of the pool area, there are two staircases on one end. *It was inconvenient to not have two staircases on EACH end of the pool area.

*

The show lounge was different from Carnival in that it had movie theater style seating. *Carnival has nice bench seating with tables, so that you can put your drink down, and people can get in an out of the row without others having to step out of the row. *Many of the seats in the show lounge were broken. *

*

The shows themselves, however, were awesome! *We were really blown away by the entertainment. *The singers were excellent (they had lots of singers, too… Carnival always has one male singer and one female singer while the dancers lip-sync to a backtrack). There was a comedy-juggling duo one night that was hilarious, and another night they had an extremely talented couple who did a little bit of modern dance/ballet combined with some death-defying acrobatics while hanging from sashes. *And their shows were really original. *Only one of them was the same-old collections of clips of songs from a bygone era while the cast dances along. *Finally, the last show of the cruise was a real show-stopper with performers coming from everywhere: *above, below, and behind the audience—with wind machines and flying snowflakes. *Amazing.

*

The NCL Star had a terrific show EVERY night. *On Carnival lately, we’ve had two nights with no entertainment at all other than karaoke (not my taste), the duo in the atrium (hit or miss), and Punchliners comedy. *(We’ve found the Punchliners club to be very mediocre. *Not enough seating for everyone, and the comedians we’ve seen were not funny.) And, the production shows that Carnival does have are all very similar in nature (except for the one on the Dream, I think it’s called Taking it to the Streets or something like that, which is different because it has some really cool break dancing and acrobatics).

*

On two of our Carnival cruises, we’ve enjoyed the Piano Bar (once with Ron Pass and once with Marty Gast). *Every other time we’ve found the piano bar to be a dud. *When we boarded the Star, we thought we’d be disappointed without at least the chance that there’d be the Piano Bar (no piano bar on the Star), but instead we found Gatsby’s, where we listened to the terrific Star jazz band one night, and an amazing singer/player every other night who specialized in mo-town but played lots of other fun stuff as well. *(I wish I’d written these performers’ names down!) *

*

Even on the pool deck, the entertainment was better than Carnival. *They had a 3-piece reggae band, and they played a wide variety of music. *Carnival has cut this down to one guy with a machine, and he plays what seems to be the same 3 songs over and over. *On the Star, the singer interacted with the audience and really got people in the mood for fun.

*

When we sail Carnival, we always have a standard balcony room. *I like knowing what to expect here… and I knew that the NCL cabins are smaller. *Well, the cabin was definitely smaller, but the balcony seemed a little bigger. *The bathroom had an unusual layout, with a small sink (not much storage), a nice shower with a glass door (gets nice and steamy in there!) and a toilet that has a glass door also. *

*

Overall, we found the cabin adequate for two, but storage was really at a premium, and I had to stack clothes on shelves in plain view instead of using drawers. *I’m really glad we didn’t have our DS with us this time. *There just wouldn’t have been enough storage, and the sofa bed on the Star is a fold-out that sits right next to the bed so we’d all three be right next to each other, and it would block the balcony door. *At least on the newer Carnival ships, the sofa bed is full-size (no fold-out, so it can be set up 24/7 without being in the way), and it is perpendicular to the double bed so there’s at least a little separation.

*

I had been really concerned about dining on the Star, because I’d heard the food was not as good as Carnival’s and that the service was just as slow. I’d worried that we’d have to spend a fortune at a specialty restaurant every night because the food in the MDR wouldn’t be good. I’d also heard that nobody dresses up on NCL and we like to dress up, especially on Formal Night.

*

On our first night, we went to eat at Versailles, which is the fancier of the two MDRs. *At 8:00 line was huge! *We were given a beeper and told to wait 20 minutes, but it was more than 40. *I had worn my jeans shorts because I’d heard we didn’t have to dress up. *I heard a woman comment to her husband, “Oh, so much for not wearing shorts to the dining room.” *I later realized that there is a sign up at Versailles that forbids shorts after 5:00 pm. *Oops. *After that, we always dressed up a bit for dinner, and on two nights we even wore our formal wear on two occasions (like when we went to LeBistro) and didn’t feel out of place because we weren’t the only ones. *I was really pleasantly surprised to see so many people dressing up a bit every night for dinner.

*

That first night in Versailles turned out to be a bit of an adventure. *Our food was pretty good. However, we happened to be seated up a few steps, next to a railing that looked onto a short pathway to a kitchen door. *On the other side of the pathway was a similar railing and a table that contained a group of about 10 kids, ages 7-12, with no adult. *I have no idea why there was no adult there. *At one time, a couple of adults came by and talked to them and then left. *They appeared to maybe be relatives. *The kids kept making loud noises and yelling. *Then one of the older ones would say, “Remember. *Manners. Manners,” and the others would resume making noise.

*

Suddenly the littlest one jumped out of his chair, ran down the pathway past us, into the small kitchen area, throwing up as he ran. *He made it to the kitchen door, leaving a mess all down the carpet and all over the push-door. *Apparently there were no employees in there, because he was in there for several minutes and nobody came out. His sister (or cousin or whatever) tried to explain to a waiter what had happened, but he didn’t seem to understand. *Finally, I said, “A boy is in there, throwing up, in your kitchen, all alone.” *The waiter looked distressed and ran into the kitchen, holding the door open and not realizing what he’d just put his hand into!

*

We decided we were finished with dinner and not hungry for dessert! *The wait staff was so accommodating to us, offering us food to go, or maybe to pack up dessert for us. *They were really amazing. *I just wondered why the kids had been allowed to sit without an adult!

*

After the long wait time at Versailles the first night, we learned not to try to eat so late. *Instead, we always went at 6:00 and were shown a table immediately. *We did continue to see long lines every night outside both main dining rooms from 7:00-9:00, however. *For dinner we tried Aqua (the other MDR) twice, the buffet once, Versailles twice, and LeBistro once. *Le Bistro was a real disappointment. *DH’s steak was overcooked and my dish was just yucky. *My swordfish was pretty flavorless and I guess I just don’t like lentils in gravy. *Our desserts were bland. *(I had crème brulee, which wasn’t as good as the stuff in the Carnival MDR.) *The buffet dinner we had one night was not good at all… very flavorless. *However, all the other dinners we had were fantastic, and those were all in the MDRs. *I especially loved the blue crab cakes and the Penne with Alfredo in Versailles. *And everywhere we went for dinner had really fast, friendly service!

*

Our lunches were sometimes a little disappointing, and a couple of times good. *On embarkation day, we went right to Versailles and I had the fish and chips—DE-lish! *On the last sea day, we did this again and were very disappointed. *The fish was way overcooked. *Twice we went to Blue Lagoon for lunch, which I’d been greatly anticipating…The scenery there is fantastic, but the food wasn’t good there at all and the service was slow. Still, I love the idea of having a casual place for lunch with table service, and as I said, what a view!

*

We had breakfast every day in the buffet. *Now, here NCL really stood out as better than Carnival. *We never had to wait in a long line. *It was just really well organized. *I loved having the omelet stations all in one spot. *On Carnival, if one omelet line is long, you have to wander all over the place to try to find another line just to see if that line is long, too. *The food selections at breakfast were really good and I heard people raving about the French toast. *I loved having link sausage every day. *(Lately, Carnival rarely has link sausage, with some sort of yucky mixture of sausage, onions, and sauce instead.)

*

And, every night the buffet features a dessert crepe station. *We loved this and went there every night. *YUM! *Another fun food thing about the Star was that you could get popcorn all the time in the pub, and they served little rice cracker/snack cracker mix dispensers when you were sitting in Gatsby’s. *

*

Chair hogs were abundant on the Star, just as they are on every Carnival ship I’ve been on except the Splendor. *Prior to the cruise I had read that they were going to use “blue dots” to mark the time I chair was noted to be empty, but they weren’t doing that during our cruise. *We got up at 8:00 the first day and could barely find an empty chair because most of them were occupied with towels and/or flip-flops. *

*

When we did find a chair, I sat there alone for an hour or so, and then a man came and claimed one of his saved chairs. *He sat in the middle of about 8 chairs, by himself for maybe 30 minutes. *Then his wife came and he said, “The early bird gets the worm!” *She left immediately without sitting down. *I was there for maybe 30 more minutes, during which a couple more of his group members came to talk to him and left, without sitting down. *Oh, well—we got enough sun on this trip, with 3 fabulous days in beautiful Bermuda, that I didn’t need to sun myself anymore anyway. *So the next sea days, we slept in.

*

The crew on the Star was above-and-beyond friendly. *They were all so nice, and acted happy to see us. * At the end of every show, the performers would wait outside the show lounge to greet you and take photos and thank you for coming. *As you walked into the casino, there were always a few crewmembers standing there welcoming you. *It was really amazing. *The cruise director was in some of the comedy shows and he was pretty funny. *And, the assistant cruise director staff was very friendly and fun, too, always encouraging guests to get in on the fun.

*

Overall, this was definitely our best cruise ever. *Bermuda itself has now become our very favorite port, and our experience on NCL was awesome. *I don’t expect a cruise to be perfect, and except for a few dishes that I didn’t enjoy, I would say it was just about as close as you can get. *We had a wonderful time!

[xenagurl]

I enjoyed your review. Thanks for sharing! :)

 

The like the Star as well (enough to head back on her in 4 weeks) and you can't beat 3 days in Bermuda.

[Hikini]

I enjoyed reading this. We are biased towards the Star, having sailed on her 4 times she is our favorite ship. Glad you had a good time - well except for the kid throwing up in the dining room. Eeew!

[halos]

*

Overall, this was definitely our best cruise ever. !

 

I know exactly what you mean. NCL is just special. I hope you get to enjoy more 'best cruises ever' in the near future. Welcome to the Lovers of NCL club!!! :)

[OnTheGoMom921]

Thank you for your wonderful, honest review. Glad you had a good time. If you really love Bermuda, try going back next summer on the brand new NCL Breakaway! :D The Star was our first NCL cruise as well, then the Gem, next is the Jewel and next summer on the Breakaway. We have become NCL fans, I bet you will too!

 

~Michele:)

[palmyrafan]

I copied this from a document I wrote on my iPad. I don't know where all the asterisks came from!

 

We had an awesome cruise experience on the NCL Star from New York City to Bermuda, July 29-Aug. 5. *We have been on 13 cruises before, all of them 7-day cruises on Carnival. *We decided to try NCL because after 10 years of cruising Carnival, we were really noticing cutbacks and it was making it less fun to cruise. *We particularly had noticed cutbacks in Carnival’s entertainment, dining room service (very slow service in the MDR), and reduced menu choices. *We were pleasantly surprised to find that these three areas were much better on NCL.

*

So, we started looking at other lines and when I found this cruise to Bermuda, I was anxious to try it. *Another cruise line and a new (to us) port! *By the way, Bermuda was FANTASTIC! *I can’t wait to go back, and hopefully with NCL! *We just really loved the NCL experience (some of the food wasn’t perfect, but it certainly never is perfect on Carnival, either).

*

I had been really curious about how the two cruiselines would compare, so I thought it would be helpful to others to hear our take on the comparison.

*

The ship itself (NCL Star) is an older ship, so there are some rust spots, peeling paint on the decks, and some other signs of age. *This was to be expected in an older ship, and I could say the same about some of Carnival’s older ships, such as the Triumph. *The layout, however took some getting used to. *There’s no main indoor promenade like on Carnival ships, where we like to sit and people-watch. *Eventually, we found a bar (Gatsby’s) that had a fairly good setup for people-watching in the evening, and we loved to sit at the Bier Garten on the pool deck to watch the daytime festivities. *

*

The pool deck itself is kind of a strange setup, with ugly orange fake palm trees (that are actually cool-looking lit up at night) and the two water slides right in the middle of everything. *The water slides are small and not interesting for adults (Carnival has great water slides on all its newer ships). *To get to the upper levels of the pool area, there are two staircases on one end. *It was inconvenient to not have two staircases on EACH end of the pool area.

*

The show lounge was different from Carnival in that it had movie theater style seating. *Carnival has nice bench seating with tables, so that you can put your drink down, and people can get in an out of the row without others having to step out of the row. *Many of the seats in the show lounge were broken. *

*

The shows themselves, however, were awesome! *We were really blown away by the entertainment. *The singers were excellent (they had lots of singers, too… Carnival always has one male singer and one female singer while the dancers lip-sync to a backtrack). There was a comedy-juggling duo one night that was hilarious, and another night they had an extremely talented couple who did a little bit of modern dance/ballet combined with some death-defying acrobatics while hanging from sashes. *And their shows were really original. *Only one of them was the same-old collections of clips of songs from a bygone era while the cast dances along. *Finally, the last show of the cruise was a real show-stopper with performers coming from everywhere: *above, below, and behind the audience—with wind machines and flying snowflakes. *Amazing.

*

The NCL Star had a terrific show EVERY night. *On Carnival lately, we’ve had two nights with no entertainment at all other than karaoke (not my taste), the duo in the atrium (hit or miss), and Punchliners comedy. *(We’ve found the Punchliners club to be very mediocre. *Not enough seating for everyone, and the comedians we’ve seen were not funny.) And, the production shows that Carnival does have are all very similar in nature (except for the one on the Dream, I think it’s called Taking it to the Streets or something like that, which is different because it has some really cool break dancing and acrobatics).

*

On two of our Carnival cruises, we’ve enjoyed the Piano Bar (once with Ron Pass and once with Marty Gast). *Every other time we’ve found the piano bar to be a dud. *When we boarded the Star, we thought we’d be disappointed without at least the chance that there’d be the Piano Bar (no piano bar on the Star), but instead we found Gatsby’s, where we listened to the terrific Star jazz band one night, and an amazing singer/player every other night who specialized in mo-town but played lots of other fun stuff as well. *(I wish I’d written these performers’ names down!) *

*

Even on the pool deck, the entertainment was better than Carnival. *They had a 3-piece reggae band, and they played a wide variety of music. *Carnival has cut this down to one guy with a machine, and he plays what seems to be the same 3 songs over and over. *On the Star, the singer interacted with the audience and really got people in the mood for fun.

*

When we sail Carnival, we always have a standard balcony room. *I like knowing what to expect here… and I knew that the NCL cabins are smaller. *Well, the cabin was definitely smaller, but the balcony seemed a little bigger. *The bathroom had an unusual layout, with a small sink (not much storage), a nice shower with a glass door (gets nice and steamy in there!) and a toilet that has a glass door also. *

*

Overall, we found the cabin adequate for two, but storage was really at a premium, and I had to stack clothes on shelves in plain view instead of using drawers. *I’m really glad we didn’t have our DS with us this time. *There just wouldn’t have been enough storage, and the sofa bed on the Star is a fold-out that sits right next to the bed so we’d all three be right next to each other, and it would block the balcony door. *At least on the newer Carnival ships, the sofa bed is full-size (no fold-out, so it can be set up 24/7 without being in the way), and it is perpendicular to the double bed so there’s at least a little separation.

*

I had been really concerned about dining on the Star, because I’d heard the food was not as good as Carnival’s and that the service was just as slow. I’d worried that we’d have to spend a fortune at a specialty restaurant every night because the food in the MDR wouldn’t be good. I’d also heard that nobody dresses up on NCL and we like to dress up, especially on Formal Night.

*

On our first night, we went to eat at Versailles, which is the fancier of the two MDRs. *At 8:00 line was huge! *We were given a beeper and told to wait 20 minutes, but it was more than 40. *I had worn my jeans shorts because I’d heard we didn’t have to dress up. *I heard a woman comment to her husband, “Oh, so much for not wearing shorts to the dining room.” *I later realized that there is a sign up at Versailles that forbids shorts after 5:00 pm. *Oops. *After that, we always dressed up a bit for dinner, and on two nights we even wore our formal wear on two occasions (like when we went to LeBistro) and didn’t feel out of place because we weren’t the only ones. *I was really pleasantly surprised to see so many people dressing up a bit every night for dinner.

*

That first night in Versailles turned out to be a bit of an adventure. *Our food was pretty good. However, we happened to be seated up a few steps, next to a railing that looked onto a short pathway to a kitchen door. *On the other side of the pathway was a similar railing and a table that contained a group of about 10 kids, ages 7-12, with no adult. *I have no idea why there was no adult there. *At one time, a couple of adults came by and talked to them and then left. *They appeared to maybe be relatives. *The kids kept making loud noises and yelling. *Then one of the older ones would say, “Remember. *Manners. Manners,” and the others would resume making noise.

*

Suddenly the littlest one jumped out of his chair, ran down the pathway past us, into the small kitchen area, throwing up as he ran. *He made it to the kitchen door, leaving a mess all down the carpet and all over the push-door. *Apparently there were no employees in there, because he was in there for several minutes and nobody came out. His sister (or cousin or whatever) tried to explain to a waiter what had happened, but he didn’t seem to understand. *Finally, I said, “A boy is in there, throwing up, in your kitchen, all alone.” *The waiter looked distressed and ran into the kitchen, holding the door open and not realizing what he’d just put his hand into!

*

We decided we were finished with dinner and not hungry for dessert! *The wait staff was so accommodating to us, offering us food to go, or maybe to pack up dessert for us. *They were really amazing. *I just wondered why the kids had been allowed to sit without an adult!

*

After the long wait time at Versailles the first night, we learned not to try to eat so late. *Instead, we always went at 6:00 and were shown a table immediately. *We did continue to see long lines every night outside both main dining rooms from 7:00-9:00, however. *For dinner we tried Aqua (the other MDR) twice, the buffet once, Versailles twice, and LeBistro once. *Le Bistro was a real disappointment. *DH’s steak was overcooked and my dish was just yucky. *My swordfish was pretty flavorless and I guess I just don’t like lentils in gravy. *Our desserts were bland. *(I had crème brulee, which wasn’t as good as the stuff in the Carnival MDR.) *The buffet dinner we had one night was not good at all… very flavorless. *However, all the other dinners we had were fantastic, and those were all in the MDRs. *I especially loved the blue crab cakes and the Penne with Alfredo in Versailles. *And everywhere we went for dinner had really fast, friendly service!

*

Our lunches were sometimes a little disappointing, and a couple of times good. *On embarkation day, we went right to Versailles and I had the fish and chips—DE-lish! *On the last sea day, we did this again and were very disappointed. *The fish was way overcooked. *Twice we went to Blue Lagoon for lunch, which I’d been greatly anticipating…The scenery there is fantastic, but the food wasn’t good there at all and the service was slow. Still, I love the idea of having a casual place for lunch with table service, and as I said, what a view!

*

We had breakfast every day in the buffet. *Now, here NCL really stood out as better than Carnival. *We never had to wait in a long line. *It was just really well organized. *I loved having the omelet stations all in one spot. *On Carnival, if one omelet line is long, you have to wander all over the place to try to find another line just to see if that line is long, too. *The food selections at breakfast were really good and I heard people raving about the French toast. *I loved having link sausage every day. *(Lately, Carnival rarely has link sausage, with some sort of yucky mixture of sausage, onions, and sauce instead.)

*

And, every night the buffet features a dessert crepe station. *We loved this and went there every night. *YUM! *Another fun food thing about the Star was that you could get popcorn all the time in the pub, and they served little rice cracker/snack cracker mix dispensers when you were sitting in Gatsby’s. *

*

Chair hogs were abundant on the Star, just as they are on every Carnival ship I’ve been on except the Splendor. *Prior to the cruise I had read that they were going to use “blue dots” to mark the time I chair was noted to be empty, but they weren’t doing that during our cruise. *We got up at 8:00 the first day and could barely find an empty chair because most of them were occupied with towels and/or flip-flops. *

*

When we did find a chair, I sat there alone for an hour or so, and then a man came and claimed one of his saved chairs. *He sat in the middle of about 8 chairs, by himself for maybe 30 minutes. *Then his wife came and he said, “The early bird gets the worm!” *She left immediately without sitting down. *I was there for maybe 30 more minutes, during which a couple more of his group members came to talk to him and left, without sitting down. *Oh, well—we got enough sun on this trip, with 3 fabulous days in beautiful Bermuda, that I didn’t need to sun myself anymore anyway. *So the next sea days, we slept in.

*

The crew on the Star was above-and-beyond friendly. *They were all so nice, and acted happy to see us. * At the end of every show, the performers would wait outside the show lounge to greet you and take photos and thank you for coming. *As you walked into the casino, there were always a few crewmembers standing there welcoming you. *It was really amazing. *The cruise director was in some of the comedy shows and he was pretty funny. *And, the assistant cruise director staff was very friendly and fun, too, always encouraging guests to get in on the fun.

*

Overall, this was definitely our best cruise ever. *Bermuda itself has now become our very favorite port, and our experience on NCL was awesome. *I don’t expect a cruise to be perfect, and except for a few dishes that I didn’t enjoy, I would say it was just about as close as you can get. *We had a wonderful time!

 

You should try one of the Jewel-class ships. I think they will surprise you!

[Sizzlechest]

The water slides are small and not interesting for adults (Carnival has great water slides on all its newer ships).

 

The water slides on the Star aren't very good. There's too little water flowing in them and adults tend to get stuck due to bottoming out.

 

The show lounge was different from Carnival in that it had movie theater style seating. Carnival has nice bench seating with tables, so that you can put your drink down, and people can get in an out of the row without others having to step out of the row. Many of the seats in the show lounge were broken.

 

FWIW, the balcony has bench seats. Yes, a lot of the regular seats look broken, but seem okay to sit in.

 

There was a comedy-juggling duo one night that was hilarious

 

. Yes, they are incredible. The Q&A with them was fascinating and the juggling lessons were really cool!

 

and another night they had an extremely talented couple who did a little bit of modern dance/ballet combined with some death-defying acrobatics while hanging from sashes.

 

Duo Acrobatique - Maria and Dmitri. I think the couple on America's Got Talent are better, but they were still really good.

 

And their shows were really original. Only one of them was the same-old collections of clips of songs from a bygone era while the cast dances along.

 

There were two kinds of shows: One was a 70's music show which was boring and sucky like the shows on Carnival. The 60's themed "Shout!" musical was incredible! I don't even like 60's music and I loved it.

 

Finally, the last show of the cruise was a real show-stopper with performers coming from everywhere: above, below, and behind the audience—with wind machines and flying snowflakes. Amazing.

 

Elements. It has all the acts except Sharkbait (there's no way those guys are getting into costumes). You forgot Jorgos the magician who has two shows plus he does some big tricks in the Elements show.

 

I've studied a little magic, so I have a certain opinion about his kinds of tricks, but everyone had a good time. I didn't see his closeup magic show. Did you see any of the Second City shows?

 

We had breakfast every day in the buffet. Now, here NCL really stood out as better than Carnival. We never had to wait in a long line. It was just really well organized.

 

Yes, I agree. If you go another time, try Versailles for breakfast. You don't have to dress up and the view is spectacular.

[vols_159]

great review

 

just a heads up.. shorts is allowed in the fancey dinning room on the 1st night because luggage doesnt arrive till late.. glad you enjoyed your cruise.

[kylenyc]

You should try one of the Jewel-class ships. I think they will surprise you!

Agreed. Jewel-class ships are my favorite and the new Breakaway will be making the Bermuda run in 2013.

 

I may have booked a mysterious cruise and maybe will be write the opposite review of yours... :rolleyes:

 

Thanks for the review and congrats.

[AttilaTheFun]

Great review, thanks for sharing! Glad you enjoyed NCL and agree that the Jewel class ships are very nice for your next cruise.

 

Any Bermuda advice? We are sailing in a month.

[lexanna02]

Thank you so much for your review! After my husband & I were converted from Carnival cruisers to loyal NCL lovers last October on our cruise on the magnificent Norwegian Spirit, we organized a group of 15 sailing on the Star this November! None of them has ever sailed on NCL and many of them are first time cruisers, so we are hoping to gain some more members in our "NCL Enthusiast" club. I'm gathering information for my group, and your review will be on the first page of their notebooks! Again, many thanks for sharing your NCL experience....and may there be many more to come!

[WaldosPepper]

Thanks so much for your excellent comparisons. Very much enjoyed reading your observations, which validated several of my reasons for being so loyal to NCL! Welcome to the club!:D

[bphman]

I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed NCL. We just booked our first NCL cruise since the Norway which shows you how long we've been away. That cruise was so bad that we never returned. WE will be on the Norwegian Gem this January. In all, we have done 23 cruises in every category imaginable on 11 different lines so we love variety. We had hit-and-miss meals on QM2 in the Grills and on Oceania as well so that doesn't bother us. We love the convenience of leaving from NY and not having to fly especially in winter. As for the comment about rust and old ships, it even occurs on brand new ships. The Marina was a few months old and had some rust. It is just the nature of the harsh salty ocean mist. We are really looking forward the the Gem.

[chrisc71]

Thanks for the review. We were on the Star the week after you.

 

Looking at the Breakaway for next year or maybe go on the Dawn, Star's sister ship, out of Boston.

[wanderingjew]

Great review it got good vibes except for 1 cheerleader who said it didnt belong there LOL

[Havinsnest]

Thank you for the review. You answered many of the questions I've had and gave me lots of good information about a ship I'm learning about in anticipation of our Christmas cruise.

 

This will be our first non-Carnival cruise so I really enjoyed your review. You hit on several of the things we've been noticing on Carnival while being fair to both lines.

[ShelleyQT]

Did you see any of the Second City shows?

 

We caught the tail end of one of them and we watched Liars Club with two guys from Second City, the cruise director, and Sharkbait. We enjoyed them.

[ShelleyQT]

Great review, thanks for sharing! Glad you enjoyed NCL and agree that the Jewel class ships are very nice for your next cruise.

 

Any Bermuda advice? We are sailing in a month.

 

Thanks everyone for the nice comments!

 

Advice for Bermuda: If you're there on Wednesday, get out to the beach early enough to have time to go back to the ship and freshen up before heading back out to Harbour Nights. We got kind of a late start that morning and would have liked more time at Horseshoe before having to go back.

 

We were told that Harbour Nights started at 6:00. We didn't know what we would miss if we weren't there right at 6:00. It turns out that it's actually a street fair, not a formal show, so you have wiggle room for when you you want to go.

[hotcarib]

Thanks so much for your great review! This is our first NCL cruise and I'm uncertain what to expect. DH is a veteran cruiser but this is his 1st NCL too. We are booked into an aft penthouse on Dawn in January and happily researching/counting down the days:). I love not only the detail in your review. It the honesty~ thanks again

[ShelleyQT]

Thanks everyone for your kind words. :)

[Medtech2]

Thanks everyone for your kind words. :)

Quite a difference between the reaction on this board vs. the Carnival board...

 

I thought your review was very thoughtful and informative.

[mitsugirly]

Loved your review (especially coming from someone who was a Carnival cruiser). It's nice to get someone else's perspective on a different line.

 

We will be on the Star in a few months and can't wait to experience her for ourselves.

 

I'm not sure how you feel about the mega ships, but have you considered the Epic? Now that is an experience! A VERY different NCL experience. She is our favorite cruise ship so far.