Norwegian Sky: An Interesting Journey, Dec 4-7

[OceanDreaming2]

OP - I hope you come back soon to finish your review. We were on the Sky last spring and had none of the problems you've mentioned thus far. (The threat of terrorism is on everyone's mind. Personally, I'd prefer the extra security over one that is more lax and has the potential for disaster.)

[margie1221]

Thank you for posting this. I'm surprised there haven't been more reviews of this debacle. $50 OBC per cabin in exchange for 7 hours of detention is a joke. I have also never heard if the true cause of the incident was determined.

 

 

SYK - My thread regarding this cruise and the security issue was removed because it down-spiraled into a discussion about what should and should not have happened (by folks who weren't even there) and a total disrespect for the first-hand reports that were posted as the events of the day unfolded.

 

I'm following this review with great interest - we enjoyed this cruise in spite of the horrible start and look forward to hearing more of the OP's observations and photos :)

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Definitely enjoying the review and your hint of sarcasm! It really makes for a good read. I also agree that NCL handled this situation poorly based on several first hand reports. Communication was lacking, and regardless if they had control over the terminal or not they did have control over the shipboard environment once people re boarded. This was their opportunity for service recovery and it seems they failed. At the very least a letter to every cabin from the Captain explaining what happened, apologizing, and letting you know about the OBC. Apparently they didn't even do that.

 

Looking forward to the rest!

 

Thanks, glad you are enjoying. I felt I had to include some sarcasm to keep it light because while everything was going on, dark humor was the only way to keep from losing it for a lot of people. I wanted to sort of convey that through the review. Like a good book, painting a picture of the whole scene in readers' imaginations can help a lot.

 

You are absolutely right in what you saw with the firsthand reports of the situation when we re-boarded. Yeah, the initial problem was not totally their fault it seems but our issues were with how they recovered from it. A good customer service company would turn around and make the rest of the cruise a great one, showing their passengers that they really wanted to make it up to them and give them the impression that they did everything they could to fix a bad situation. It would cost them a little short-term but the bad feelings they created will cost them a lot more in the long run. I know I have told everyone I know how awful the handling of our issue was and times that by however many people were on the ship, and you can see that NCL just screwed up big time. I am giving Norwegian one more chance as I booked the Star for later this month just because the itinerary was one I had never been on and the price was so much lower than anyone else at this time, and they had better come through for me.

 

But yeah, the general attitude from the crew was that it never happened and business as usual which was just wrong. Think we would get any acknowledgement from the captain of what went on and an apology? LOL. But I am coming back with part 2 here in just a minute, and the second day was the best day of the cruise for us. Hope you like it and thanks again for reading along.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

See, I'm HONESTLY confused about this. I don't get how you "KNOW" they didn't want to lose the excursion revenue? Did the captain tell you that? Somebody else in the Executive on NCL?

 

Nassau is a port where a LOT of people just do their own thing....grab a taxi to Atlantis, or wander around the port. I'd be surprised if the ship made much money on ShoreEx in this port. On the other hand, it's cheaper for them to simply say "sorry, we're not going to make it to Nassau this trip, and instead it'll be a 3 day cruise to nowhere".....then they wouldn't have to pay port fees to dock in Nassau, and they could cut the speed to just enough to get through the storm.

 

 

As for why they have a Muster Drill ASAP, it's a requirement. And can you imagine the discussion we'd be having if the ship had sailed into a storm and people were scared and had NOT had a muster drill?

 

 

As you said, it was a very late dinner when the summoned people to their Muster Stations - they probably needed to get it done so some group of people could then go to sleep. Imagine getting back on board, saying to yourself...well tonight's a wash, I'm going to bed & will wake bright & cheery tomorrow.....only to have the Ship Evacuation Alarm going off at 1 a.m.

 

I'm sure that wouldn't have made you any happier. So, they did the least worst thing, which was conduct the mandatory drill right away, then releasing passengers to their own agendas.

 

Lastly, if Nassau was your only port-of-call, then they were probably announcing the on-time arrival in order to assuage concerns from people who had made plans to spend the day at Atlantis, or wandering around, or....whatever..... to give them peace of mind, that they would still get to enjoy that Bahamian day.

 

 

But I'm looking forward to hearing about your source which clearly made all of my conjecture above moot.

 

 

Stephen

 

 

P.S. Don't misinterpret....I'm not saying things couldn't have been done smoother, or with a better customer focus, etc. I'm saying that I'm surprised to hear that you KNOW the reasoning behind it all.

 

 

 

.

 

I know how much money cruise lines make from excursions. An awful lot and especially on a short and cheap cruise like this, that makes the difference between a loss and a profit for them. The fact they continued to stress an on-time arrival to Nassau more than they focused on keeping their passengers comfortable in lock-up says a lot. Just my observations as they seemed to care nothing about making their passengers comfortable during or after the ordeal but they sure cared a lot about getting to Nassau on-time. And yeah, a lot of people do just hang out for the day there as we did. But you and I know that if you are a first-timer there, you will probably want to see the island and do an excursion for the novelty of it if nothing else.

 

Of course I know that the muster drill is a requirement but their tone-deafness featured them herding people to their stations while they were trying to get dinner that many waited all day to get. Obviously the ship management was very inexperienced or just didn't care about hospitality. At max speed, they could have left Miami another hour later than they did and still gotten to Nassau but that would include them burning more fuel I guess which again means more than taking care of their passengers to them. They could have done so much better in their recovery and made pax feel as if they were taken care of amid a short-term hit but instead they chose to not extend any sort of olive branch to their pax and will suffer long-term damage to their reputation through word-of-mouth from people who were on the cruise. A month after the cruise, my friend still has not heard back from corporate in response to the letter she sent about the debacle. Real good job there.

 

And doing an hour of free bar at the end of the first night was just a slap in the face, especially if you already had the UBP. Come on. Like you said, everyone was tired and many just wanted to unpack and go to bed. Could they not have done the open bar the next night or something? So many ways they could have done better than they did and hopefully they have learned something from this and this won't happen again and if it does they handle it better. But this is something that unless you were there and went through it, it may lose a lot in translation and you just can't totally grasp what it felt like. Not your fault but this wasn't the usual little hiccup that you get that can be overlooked and NCL made it worse by how they handled the aftermath.

 

And I know you are not trying to be insulting but being a frequent cruiser, I know what drives the cruise lines' motivations and they didn't even try to hide it on this voyage. Nassau did end up being our only port of call also, haha and again, although this was not totally their fault, that just added to the circus that the weekend ended up being. I don't have an official source but I really don't need one to be able to figure out what was going on there. And although I was angry at the situation, like I said earlier, some people were even more upset than I was. Imagine if this was a once-in-a-lifetime thing you have been saving up for a long time or it was your first cruise or if it was a wedding, etc. I cruise a lot, I can put one bad weekend behind me as I know I will be on another ship in the not too distant future. But for them, not so much.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

That's just it, my cruise was not sub par. It was a regular cruise with a couple of small problems they took care of. I would venture my cruise is more the norm than yours. I totally understand your frustrations though, I would of had a lousy cruise with your experience as well. I've found the first two hours of the cruise usually set the tone for the cruise. That may explain some of your feelings.

 

As far as spending money, I didn't discuss that, but more money in any vacation will usually (hopefully anyways) make it a better experience regardless of what travel company you use. That wouldn't of helped with your situation of course.

 

I do feel the way it was handled from reports is not something I would ever want to experience and understand fully that you felt robbed of a day of your vacation. The line should of reimbursed everyone for that day and added a little sweetner for the inconvinience.

 

I didn't mean to say yours was subpar, I meant mine was, sorry for the confusion. You are right that the beginning of the cruise can set the tone as much as a chaotic debarkation can ruin the entire thing, but out of all my cruises, this just was the worst in terms of all factors combined. If I was not with a few good friend of mine, say this was a solo for me (I have done a few solo sailings in recent years), it would have just been unbearable.

 

I am not a big spender on cruises either as I usually get a soda package, maybe one or two specialty restaurants, an alcoholic drink from time to time, and some excursions with a few dollars a day at the casino. I also tip wait staff and room stewards extra unless they do just a terrible job all cruise long. You would think spending more money would make the experience better but that also depends on what you spend on. You can have all kinds of fun without spending anything extra sometimes. But you are right, spending more money wouldn't have helped anything this time.

 

And yes, a three-day cruise ended up being about two and a third, and $17 obc and no apology or anything was the result. Like I stressed, money was not the core of my complaint. I don't need that, but using the figures that they gave us in credit was to just highlight that they did very little to rectify a bad situation. Even an airline that has a flight diverted or cancelled or delayed hours for a weather or security issue would probably do something for their customers. Even if legally, they didn't have to. Just common sense which NCL seems to have little of these days. And this being a month after sailing, my friend still hasn't heard back from NCL concerning the complaint letter she sent them through the medium they directed her to send it to them through.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

The font makes this unreadable.

 

Never heard that before, and have done a few cruise reviews using this font and text size. Maybe different browsers on different devices display it differently but sorry it is hard to see for you.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Thank you for posting this. I'm surprised there haven't been more reviews of this debacle. $50 OBC per cabin in exchange for 7 hours of detention is a joke. I have also never heard if the true cause of the incident was determined.

 

Thanks for reading about it. Probably not a lot of CC members onboard, as there were a lot of first timers on there, lol. But the obc offered was a joke as was the handling of the aftermath. I would rather get no obc than the garbage $50 per CABIN they gave us. I don't need a refund either as a few people we saw asked for. My friend sent a complaint letter to NCL as directed by their "customer service" department a month ago and she said no response yet. Unacceptable. All we want is for them to admit they screwed up that weekend and that they will work on recovery if something like that happens again. But nothing from them which says a lot. The official story is that a person didn't scan their boarding card at the gate properly before boarding and disappeared into the crowd but who knows. Some crazy rumors were swirling that day and who knows what really happened? I still wonder myself.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

OP - I hope you come back soon to finish your review. We were on the Sky last spring and had none of the problems you've mentioned thus far. (The threat of terrorism is on everyone's mind. Personally, I'd prefer the extra security over one that is more lax and has the potential for disaster.)

 

I am going to post Day 2 tonight and it was better than Day 1 although it would be hard for it not to be. The day didn't not have its problems though, I will talk a little about that. I am glad your experience on the Sky was better than ours, I went on the Jewel to Alaska last May and it was a generally pretty good time. I did a write-up on that cruise also, it's a good look at the inside passage and the Jewel itself. Our issues weren't with them taking security seriously. I appreciate that but everything else was handled poorly and it didn't have to be. And if it really was just a person who didn't scan a card properly at the gate, they were still checked in and through multiple layers of security before they even got to that point. So who knows what really happened. Lots of rumors were swirling among the pax during the dungeon debacle. A lot of us really were nervous as the situation developed just due to how it was all handled, and it only got worse. Sitting at lunch on the ship with cops walking all around you when you board and then being held in a customs hall with cops again marching through periodically does get disconcerting.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

SYK - My thread regarding this cruise and the security issue was removed because it down-spiraled into a discussion about what should and should not have happened (by folks who weren't even there) and a total disrespect for the first-hand reports that were posted as the events of the day unfolded.

 

I'm following this review with great interest - we enjoyed this cruise in spite of the horrible start and look forward to hearing more of the OP's observations and photos :)

 

I saw that thread while it was being discussed and never got to participate in it sadly. But that was what made me angry about what was being talked about by those who were not there. They were not there and did not go through what we did. So while they can think what they want, we were there and they weren't, so to tell us we were wrong in what we actually saw for ourselves, was just wrong. Yes, security is a serious matter, but everything else could have been handled differently and it just wasn't. Bad on NCL's part there when they had a chance to really show their pax they were interested in making a journey that started badly a great one. Imagine if they had done that, how much goodwill that would have gotten them with pax. Instead, they messed it up.

 

We did have a good time the rest and I will get to part two of the cruise in just a little while. Thanks for checking this review out and good to hear from someone else who was on this cruise and can understand what we all went through.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

I am back with the continuation of my NCL Sky review from December. My apologies that it has taken so long to do but I just have not had the time to put into it lately. I thank you for reading and appreciate the discussions that are being had about it as well. We left off at the end of embarkation (and evacuation and re-embarkation) day with us sort of unpacking and getting a good night’s rest sometime after midnight. So, here we go with the next part of the review, which featured a visit to the port of Nassau, Bahamas. Enjoy.

DAY 2: NASSAU, BAHAMAS

So, it is Saturday morning and we have all gotten a decent night’s rest after the complete cluster that the day before was. P got up early to hit the onboard gym for a while and M and I slept in until a little after 1000. P said the gym was decent but not too crowded. I did not go to the gym this time, although I do like a good elliptical and weight training back home. Just not when I am on vacation, lol.

M and I got up around the same time and we all got cleaned up and headed up to the aft breakfast buffet on deck 11. They had the usual breakfast stuff and two different lines but the omelet service was very slow for some reason. They had flavored water instead of real juice in the dispensers (seriously) and I got a Pepsi in my tumbler at the aft bar. The seating area is covered by a nice awning which allows people to experience the outdoors but to not get too much sun if it is actually sunny out. One thing that was not good was the sausage gravy and biscuits. If you are used to really good sausage gravy and biscuits, just skip this. But you can get as much bacon as you want (yeah Carnival, some lines allow you to do that haha) and some of the other stuff was pretty good. The scrambled eggs were lousy though but I am still looking for a cruise line that has good scrambled eggs at breakfast. We figured out what we were going to do that day and since it was warm and sunny there was plenty for us to do. We did watch a Royal Caribbean ship come into the harbor and dock, which made something like 4 ships in port this day. Us, the Disney Dream, the Carnival Ecstasy (?) and that RCCL ship. Honestly not a lot for a weekend in Nassau as I have seen days when there were even more ships than that in port.

We got off the ship around noon, and walked along the dock, towards the welcome area. They do have a van for those who do not want to walk also, but you might have to wait a few minutes to get one. I like walking, myself. We didn’t see the Bahamas Navy ship there that day, wonder where it is now. That was kind of a mainstay at that port I think. Maybe it was there after all and I just missed it, who knows.

The port of Nassau really isn’t the best the Caribbean has to offer, just being frank. It is OK but not the most dazzling place. Lots of people offering van and cab rides everywhere before you even get out of the port building. We walked along the front street, past the sightseeing boats and people selling bottles of water for a dollar. We also passed the straw market which has been rebuilt in recent years after IIRC, a fire destroyed the old one. It is nice, local vendors everywhere selling everything but sometimes they are too in your face. You have to know how to ignore them and walk along confidently and they usually will leave you alone. If I want to buy something from you, I will seek you and your shop out, but don’t get in my face about it as I will be sure to not give you my business at that point. We did not go a few blocks further off the main drag, although that is where some of the higher-end shops and other stuff are.

I had been to the Senor Frogs a few years ago when we got free margarita coupons in Freeport the day before and had an OK time, so we went there today. We did have to pass a few other bars along the way and we had to make sure M didn’t stop in them or else we wouldn’t have even made it to Frog’s, haha. I think Sands and Kalik are two big local brews in the Bahamas. A few Kalik trucks were making deliveries to the bars we had passed along the way as well. Guess Saturday is a big drinking day in Nassau, as if the other days aren’t. Anyway, we passed a public park that had a local band and dancers performing Christmas carols along the way and listened for a while before we headed to Frog’s. Very cool to see a Christmas concert going on in a place where the temperatures were in the 80s in December. Got to see a dude dressed up as Santa as well, pretty sure he sweated out a few pounds on that day.

We stopped in front of the Senor Frogs and took pictures with the frog himself. Had a little fun with that. P brought a selfie stick with her although she didn’t use it as much as she had planned to. She wasn’t the only one either, selfie sticks are becoming quite the rage these days….. We went in and sat at the bar and found out they had buckets of 5 beers for $25 all day so we got a few. P got some sort of iced mixed drink and M and I tore those Sands beers up. Light beer of course for a hot day LOL. It was crowded that day but the views of the water and of our ships in port are really nice. We hung out there for a little while and headed out to hit our next stop, which was Junkanoo Beach. It has decent ratings among vacationers and is a free, city beach I think. It is within walking distance, maybe a mile from the ships, but cabs are plentiful there if you do not want to walk. Plenty of shopping and eateries along the way if you decide to walk. Just lots of construction going on so some sidewalks were blocked at the time.

Before we got to Junkanoo, we decided to stop at the Fat Tuesday located just adjacent. Nice place. We got a few more beers, P got another drink, and I dared to try the 190 Octane drink on the menu. It is pricey but it is good. Grain alcohol and some other stuff mixed in, something like 20 ounces frozen concoction. Great views of the water and of Junkanoo Beach from here. A few bachelorette party revelers were here, and I just had to go up and get my picture taken with them. In a happy place, everybody is friends, right? Haha. They were cool and we hung out for a minute with both groups. M disappeared to go down to the beach for a little while and P and I hung out in the bar for a little while more before heading down to meet him.

We stopped to get pictures on the beach with the water behind us and headed over to the tiki bar to meet with M. He was well into a few drink specials, think like 5 beers or shots for like 10 bucks. I just couldn’t keep up with him here and only got one round for myself, lol. He is a big Eagles fan (LOL Eagles by the way) and we all got to talking about the ship debacle with some of our fellow Sky cruisers for a while who also happened to be New England Patriots fans (who the Eagles were playing that week). P an I left a short while later and began to make our way back to the ship sometime between 1500 and 1600, and he stayed back to hang at the bar for a little while more. We wanted to get a few gifts for another friend of ours who couldn’t make it on the cruise due to last minute stuff, so we stopped at the straw market to get a few souvenirs. P found a 2 handbags that said "Bahamas" for $6 deal and we split the cost as we both wanted to get one to give to people back home as souvenir gifts. Not a bad deal.

So, we headed back to the ship after 1600 as I think sail away was something like 1800 or thereabouts. The line at security (just need a drivers license and sign and sail card but having your passport with you cannot hurt) to get back to the port was not long as it sometimes can get, and we walked back to the ship. It was a long walk as we were in the last parking spot at the end of the pier but it was fine. Had to walk off some of the beer, lol. We got back on around 1600-something and dropped our souvenirs off at the cabin. I got a towel animal on my bed from our steward but accidentally destroyed it as I laid down before looking to see it there, hehe. We both figured it would be a good idea to take a nap as we were both tired from the warmer-than-we-are-used-to-at-this-time-of-year temperatures and drinking and right as I was dozing off, M barged into the room wondering why we were sleeping as there was too much other stuff to do LOL. I guess he went upstairs and walked around some as we napped.

Around 1800, we both got back up and headed up to get some early dinner. They had the usual burgers and fries, hot dogs, etc but they also had a nice grill set-up with seafood pasta right by the pool. I got some of everything and sat down with a Pepsi and watched us sail away from Nassau just after sunset. I changed into my swim trunks and found M in the hot tub and we just hung out for a while and I relaxed my sore muscles. I like going in hot tubs on cruises as it is really relaxing, and you get to meet new people in there as well. After a while, we got out and M headed back to the room to nap as he had enough from the day’s activities. Well, P and I were ready for late dinner….. Why was he sleeping when there was so much more stuff to do right then?

P and I went to guest services to see if they had officially fixed the reservation to include the UBP and UDP for two and they said they did. Good, finally. However, we later found out they still didn’t fix the UDP which was supposed to include two free specialty restaurant visits. We wanted to try Cagney’s Steakhouse for late dinner, but when we called guest services from the front desk of the restaurant to confirm it would be free, they said it would not be. Fail. We left, and the guy chased us down the steps asking what was wrong. We explained the situation and that he didn’t do anything wrong, but we were going elsewhere for dinner. We chose to go to the main dining room instead, and it was a good choice. I forget what it was called, but it was the aft MDR I think. It was pretty empty as it was late, after 2100 and we sat down to a nice dinner with pretty good service. I got a steak which was probably better than the one I got at the Cagney’s on the Jewel months before and some pasta dish with a type of molten lava cake and ice cream as dessert. Really nice meal and good atmosphere but being in an empty dining room was kind of weird. But I guess most people like to get dinner earlier.

So, after dinner we walked around some and passed by a white hot party they were having on the pool deck but we didn’t participate as we were not wearing the appropriate white clothing, lol. It looked like fun though. Around midnight P went back to the cabin to go to sleep and I hung out at the casino and lost a few dollars but I did manage to play for an hour or so on the slots for just $10 or so. Fun but the casinos on any ship are very smoky so if you are allergic to smoke it is a place to avoid.

I went back to the room a little after midnight and everyone was asleep and there was nothing on TV so I went to sleep myself shortly after. Tomorrow was to feature a visit to Great Stirrup Cay, their private island, or so we thought. So, as you can see, this was a better day in general than the first and was honestly the best day we had overall on the cruise I believe. Pictures upcoming. I will continue with Day 3 when I get the chance, hope you are enjoying and staying warm as the nation seems to be in the grips of some January winter cold. Happy cruising!

　

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

 

RCCL Enchantment of the Seas (?) entering the port, taken from the aft breakfast buffet seating area. Pretty nice day today.

 

 

Disney Dream, parked right next to us. Out of my price range, lol. Biggest ship by far out of the four here today.

 

 

Local band and dancers doing Christmas concert in the public park across the street from Senor Frogs, all the way at the end of the main street near the port. Neat, saw a guy dressed up as Santa also. Temps in the mid 80s and sunny normal for Bahamas in December, not for us up north.

 

The ships, taken from out in front of Senor Frogs. Can't even see us behind the Disney Dream.

 

 

The infamous house rules sign, right at the entrance to Senor Frogs.

 

A bucket of Sands Light beer, one of a few we got here. Nice place, atmosphere.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

 

 

The bar and the view of the water, taken from Senor Frogs. Decently crowded here. Good food also, but we didn't get any. Save room for drinks, lol. They had the conga line where they give you shots each time you get from one end of the room to the other, and whoever is last standing, wins also. Fun to watch but I know I would never hang in long enough to win.

 

That 190 octane drink at Fat Tuesday I talked about. Good but pretty strong.

 

A view from Tuesday's of our ships, parked further down the dock.

 

Junkanoo Beach, taken from the outside deck at Fat Tuesday's, we did go down there for a while.

 

Told ya' everybody's friends in paradise. Nice group of bachelorettes, talked to them for a little while and they were nice enough to let me get a picture with them, lol.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

 

Me, on Junkanoo Beach. Beats working on a Saturday, huh?

 

 

Taking the long walk back to the ship, RCCL Enchantment of the Seas and Carnival Ecstasy in background here.

 

 

The Disney Dream, taken out of our dirty porthole window. Can't complain though, it was a free upgrade to a porthole window cabin I think.

 

The towel animal I laid down on top of accidentally, lol. Cute extra touch from the steward team.

 

 

Dinner on pool deck, taken right before sail away, hot dogs, a burger and some seafood pasta from the open pit bbq they had next to the pool.

 

 

Steak and pasta dinner in the main dining room. I forget what P got but she said it was good. Didn't go to Cagney's as planned because NCL screwed up our free ultimate dining package but whatever, it worked out for us.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

 

Nice atmosphere in the main dining room, forget which one it was. Not too crowded but it was pretty late when we went. You can see how crowded each restaurant onboard is on tv screens throughout the ship so you can plan on which one you want to go to and how long the wait might be to get in.

 

 

Dessert, molten lava cake with ice cream. Not as good as Carnival's warm chocolate melting cake (sorry NCL) but good nonetheless.

 

The white hot party near the pool that I talked about. Nice, dancing and music but we did not partake.

[Oakman58]

I’m really enjoying your review. I had to laugh about destroying the towel animal on your bed, it looks like you decapitated it. :)

 

Great photos, I love it when people include pictures with their reviews. Being the dirty old man that I am, I enjoyed the photo with the bachelorette party. :D Thanks for taking the time to include the pics.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Oakman58

[sjbdtz]

Could they not have done the open bar the next night or something? So many ways they could have done better than they did and hopefully they have learned something from this and this won't happen again and if it does they handle it better.

 

Agreed.

 

 

Stephen

 

 

.

[clean1owner]

I am giving Norwegian one more chance as I booked the Star for later this month just because the itinerary was one I had never been on and the price was so much lower than anyone else at this time, and they had better come through for me.

.

 

 

 

If you go into the Star cruise with an open mind, you should enjoy the trip quite well. We took the exact same itinerary on the Dawn, which is the sister ship to the Star.

The ship itself is much nicer than the Sky, and the itinerary is fun.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

I’m really enjoying your review. I had to laugh about destroying the towel animal on your bed, it looks like you decapitated it. :)

 

Great photos, I love it when people include pictures with their reviews. Being the dirty old man that I am, I enjoyed the photo with the bachelorette party. :D Thanks for taking the time to include the pics.

 

Thanks, I am glad you are enjoying. Yeah, I destroyed the towel animal. I was just in a kind of bed flopping mood at the time as partying off the ship did take its toll on me. I tried the best I could to put it back together but I just gave up and put it on the windowsill I think. I am known to make towel animal families on cruises, as long as the steward is cool and leaves them lined up each day and doesn't take them away, lol.

 

Thanks for the compliments with the photos. I don't consider myself a photographer or anything but I like to capture the general idea of what I am experiencing when I go to an event or visit a port of whatever. And believe me, those bachelorettes were very nice, and very cute as well. Fat Tuesday was a good time. There were actually a few bachelorette parties going on there when we were there. Enjoy part 3 of the review, it is upcoming.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

If you go into the Star cruise with an open mind, you should enjoy the trip quite well. We took the exact same itinerary on the Dawn, which is the sister ship to the Star.

The ship itself is much nicer than the Sky, and the itinerary is fun.

 

I absolutely will go into this Star cruise with an open mind. My first NCL experience was pretty good, and although the Sky one was bad, I expect the Star will be better. It is an itinerary that features three stops to ports I have never visited before. I am looking forward to it and of course I will be back with a review when I return, so be sure to check that out whenever I get around to writing it. I am glad to hear you enjoyed your voyage, as generally speaking, an average cruise beats being at work almost all the time.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

A wonderful good evening to all of you who have been following along with the review of the Norwegian Sky cruise from early December, here I am with the third part of the recap. Like I said numerous times, Day 2 featured a visit to Nassau, in the Bahamas and it was the best day of the entire trip for us. Day 3 was to feature a visit to Great Stirrup Cay, which is Norwegian’s private island. However, like with most of this cruise, this did not go according to plan either. So, here we go with the continuation of the review. Thanks everyone for reading and for your comments.

DAY 3: GREAT STIRRUP CAY…….ER SEA DAY

Well, I ended up sleeping in today as the day was not unfolding according to plan. We were scheduled to visit Great Stirrup Cay, with something resembling a 0800-0900 ETA. However, when we got near the island, the seas were supposedly too high and the winds were too strong to set up. GSC is a tender port, which means there is no dock and passengers have to board a shuttle boat to ride to shore, and NCL said it was unsafe to conduct such an operation under the current conditions. I did sort of wake up around scheduled arrival time and sort of heard the cruise director (can’t even remember who he or the captain were, that is how great an impression they left on me, lol) make the announcements that we were in the area of GSC and then the subsequent announcement that we would not be able to visit before going back to sleep again.

I finally got out of bed around 1030 and looked out the porthole to see that the seas did not seem particularly high and I don’t think it was that windy but then again, I am not in charge of things. I have tendered in places with far worse weather. I was really looking forward to a visit to this place as well. I went to Cococay, Royal Caribbean’s private island, years ago and really enjoyed it. I figured this place would be a lot like that. M also likes drinking out on the beach and there would have been ample opportunity to do so today if conditions were better. It was cloudy all day as well which kind of sucked, so it might not have been a great beach day after all. So, instead, this turned into a sea day, which while good and relaxing, was yet another disappointment in a disappointing cruise. And all they did was hand out a few trays of rum punch on the pool deck around lunchtime. Puhleez. I later read that this ship has missed GSC numerous times during the winter weather season and if you have a good chance of missing the stop at certain times of the year, maybe you should rethink visiting it at those times. I know NCL doesn’t have to do anything as no stops are guaranteed during a cruise but after what we went through earlier in the trip, this was just another blow to everyone. But some people will book just for that stop and won’t know about the unreliability of stopping there, but again, they won’t tell people who may not be that experienced that they probably won’t be able to go there after all.

So, anyway, M and I went up to breakfast around 1100 before they began switching everything over to lunch, and again, breakfast was OK but not great. I got a warm Pepsi from the bartender at the aft bar because I forgot my tumbler, and they didn’t bother to even give me the can with a cup of ice. Oh well. The bar service was actually decent on this cruise, all things considered. M got a few Mojitos and I was explaining to him over breakfast the shenanigans from the night before that he claimed to not remember at all. LOL! What was his solution for getting over a hangover? Drink more of course, lol. I didn’t dare as I tried to keep up with him at first in Nassau and I was having a hard time after just a little while. Funny to him was that he had the UBP, but that did not include bottled water and he had to pay for the bottle of water from our cabin that he drank. That really is dumb and I know the majority of lines do it but it really is backwards. I guess P was off doing her own thing all morning, when we met up with her later on she said she had hit the gym early and it again wasn’t crowded and she just hung around and walked around the ship some to kill time.

M went to drink some at the upper deck bar up on the forward deck and I spent some time discussing everything with P. I think she went to hang out on her own and take a nap at some point and I explored the ship some as I never got a real chance to do so earlier in the cruise. It is a small ship with not a whole ton of amenities but for a short voyage it would be just fine, minus all the trouble we had all trip long. They had a nice open pit charcoal barbecue going on next to the pool once again around 1300, so I got a steak, some ribs, a few dogs, a burger and some rice and beans and sat down to listen to music and watch the ice carving that is a tradition regardless of cruise line. I do like that Norwegian still has live music on their open decks as certain lines have recently done away with theirs. It does make a difference and it is noticeable. They do have a DJ as well but the live music is appreciated. The BBQ food was good, and around 1500 I went back to the cabin to meet up with M and P and figure out what we would do with the rest of the day, seeing that we never made it to GSC.

Oh, if you are looking to watch your favorite football team on this ship, forget it. They had one channel in their “sports bar” and all the other ones were blacked out or inaccessible. Well, they did seem to have soccer on a few televisions as well, so maybe not just one channel. We saw the CBS early game, and then the CBS late game, but we were unable to watch the Fox games. Guess which network the Eagles game was on. Hint, it was not CBS. Therefore, we were not able to watch the Eagles game and had to rely on the ticker on the bottom of the screen of the CBS game for updates. Lot of fans of both teams there who were disappointed as well.

Anyway, we all sat down and ordered a bunch of drinks (Long Islands were my choice of mind numbing beverage this afternoon) and got some pub grub from the buffet at the back of the ship. The sports bar is in a nice location at least, between the main buffet dining room and the back deck. The game started out great for New England, but injuries finally began to take their toll and the Eagles came back to pretty much blow them out. Very disappointing for us Eagles haters. But, guess who is in the playoffs now and who is not, lol. Side note, I know many will disagree but I don’t see the defending champs doing much in the playoffs, despite the first round bye. Just too much backwards momentum for them now. Maybe I am wrong and I would not mind seeing Brady win another one but I see someone else dethroning them this time around. The Patriots fans sitting across from us bolted out of there once the Eagles got up by a few touchdowns in the second half, lol. All in good fun though.

Anyway, after about four Long Islands, I watched the sunset out the windows of the bar and unfortunately was not able to get a good picture of it as I like to do on cruises and by this time it was well after 1700. I was fighting the urge to sleep big time but the bartenders did take really good care of us on this day, lol. M and I headed up to the hot tub to hang out and just talk about stuff for a little while until about 1900, and then M headed back to the bar to drink some and I went to get a shower and meet P for dinner somewhere. Sadly, I lost track of time and it was almost 2100 by the time I got out of the cabin and dinner wasn’t an option as P wanted to see the Las Vegas stage show in the theater. So, we watched that (and it was a pretty good show, by cruise ship standards) and headed out to just hang around some more. Come 2200, P went again to the guest services desk to see if they had completely fixed our reservation and they finally had by this point. Finally. No need to worry about being charged more than we should have for the UBP. But we still never did get the UDP. I went to play in the casino for a while and lost a few more dollars on the penny slots. But it was fun once again. Funny that I only hit casinos while on cruises and have gotten used to the condensed floor space that the casinos take up on ships so much that when I visited a real land casino to see another event a few weeks ago, that place seemed totally huge compared to a cruise ship one.

M was still upstairs at the bar when we saw him as we were walking back to get a late night bit of grub at the aft buffet, so we left him alone and got some grill food and drinks and sat out at the aft café one last time. P asked the bartender if she could get a tumbler as part of the UBP and they said no, only soda package purchasers could get one. However, the UBP on NCL is unlimited non-top shelf stuff, whereas on Carnival at least, there is a 15-drink limit per day. All they had to pay was gratuity I think, which was like $25 or something like that. Cash tips for good service from the bartenders extra of course, hehe. So, it was after midnight by this point and it was time to call it a night. Sadly, this cruise was just over much too quickly. Almost seemed like it never really got going. But we made the best of it that we could. I headed back to the cabin around 0100, after getting a paper printout of my onboard spending account from guest services (they will put another one under your door in the middle of the night as well) and packed as much as I could that I wouldn’t need in the morning. M still was not back at the cabin (he must have been having a blast, lol) and sometime late in the night, I guess he came back and got some rest for the morning. I will talk more about the circus that was debarkation day when I get to the final part of this review in the near future. I never seem to sleep well on the last night of cruises for whatever reason.

Anyway, that is it for Day 3 of the cruise, while it had its good points, it had a lot of disappointment as well but as with everything, the cruise was winding down and it would be back to the real world again in the morning. With a scheduled 0800 debarkation and a 1000 flight home from FLL, the next morning would feature a lot of running around and scrambling to try to get off the ship and eventually, back to home. I have a few pics from this day to post as well, and I hope you have enjoyed this summary of quite the unusual cruise. I will talk all about the debarkation experience and will give an honest evaluation of the ship and its amenities as well. I know it was big news at the time it was happening and seeing firsthand experience from someone who was onboard and went through the craziness could help make people understand just what it was like

that entire weekend. Have a good evening, and happy cruising!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

 

Breakfast. The potatoes and bacon and boiled eggs were good. They have good sausage and pancakes/waffles at breakfast as well. Just avoid the biscuits and gravy and the scrambled eggs. Also my warm Pepsi from the bar.

 

 

Hmm, seas didn't seem that rough did they??? It was a cloudy day though.

 

 

 

Poolside BBQ. Good hot dogs, burgers, ribs, steak, maybe chicken. Nice thing that NCL does on sea days. Probably was going to be done at GSC if we had actually gone there....Grilled corn on the cob and a Mojito as well.

 

Pool, hot tub, bar were all crowded today. Honestly not much else to do was there?

 

Another picture taken of the not so great weather today and of the somewhat choppy seas. View from a high-up deck at the front of the ship.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

 

The casino. Nice time, good atmosphere, just smoky and don't expect to make any money here as the odds are very in favor of the house, especially because US gaming rules do not apply at sea.

 

Our cabin. It was sufficient. The bathroom was tiny but the beds were OK. The third bed was a pullout sofabed that stretched across the room. Porthole window, we didn't need anything fancy.

 

 

 

The sports bar experience. OK, but not what you would think of when you think of sports bar. Drinks were good and it was close to the buffet but the TV selection was horrible and we could not even see the game that we wanted to see. The Long Islands were good though, lol.

 

The buffet line, it was decent but very poorly designed and the lines did get long and snaked all through the dining area. The food was OK, but I think it was much better on the Jewel. Hopefully it is better on the Star next week. This was obviously taken after it closed on the last night.

 

Ship directory, posted near every elevator onboard. Easy to see where you are at any given point and easy to find out where you want to go.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

So, here I am with the final part of the Sky recap from December 4-7 from Miami. As you have seen, there was probably more bad than good with this cruise, unfortunately. Norwegian really messed up bad with their handling of a bad situation that may or may not have been completely their fault all weekend long. So, without further delay, here comes the summary of debarkation day, my travel adventures going home, and a recap of the ship, crew, port, etc at the end.

DAY 4: DEBARKATION AND TRAVEL DAY AND OVERALL THOUGHTS

I had mentioned that I don’t sleep well on the last night of cruises and it is partly because I don’t want to oversleep on debark day, and partially because I am sad that the cruise is over. Either way, debarkation day is when everyone has to be up and moving by no later than 0800. For me, that is very early. P was up first, and was out of the cabin and at guest services to work out some final stuff with our account before I even got up. Having packed everything the night before, I just got a quick shower, changed, and threw everything else in my carryon bag and got ready to leave the cabin one last time. I had mentioned that M got in very late the night before, lol. I made sure he was up before leaving the cabin, and P and I hung out at the atrium, while we waited for him to show up there and meet us.

Of course, we docked very early and were cleared by customs early, so debarkation began around 0800. This being a very short cruise, most people did self-assist debarkation, which means taking all your stuff with you so you don’t have to wait until your zone is called to go claim your checked bags in the customs dungeon again. We spent far too much time in that chamber at the beginning of the cruise, lol. Talking with some other people who were trying to work out issues with their accounts, many said they were intending to complain and get some sort of compensation for the mess the weekend was, and were brushed aside and directed to call some other number once they got back on land. I actually think they ended up refunding my auto tips from Friday’s debacle because we were barely on the ship that day, but that is all they did. Our entire cabin’s obc ($50) was on P’s sign and sail account. We were trying to get off the ship quickly, because our flight home from FLL was scheduled for 1000. I have made flights home at that time, leaving Miami, so we were hopeful that we would still be able to make it in time.

Well, it turns out M just took too long to get ready, so P and I called him to tell him we were going to leave and for him to meet us at the airport. We finally did self assist around 0845, and were quickly off the ship and through customs by 0900, time to go find a shuttle and get a ride to the airport. We got a hold of a fairly empty SAS Transportation van across the street at the private transportation and shuttle area and were on our way back to the airport, where we arrived at 0935. Security was slightly backed up, or else we would have made our flight at 1000 but we missed them closing the door by just a few minutes. Bummer. Thanks for causing us to miss our flight home M, good buddy. Whatever. He showed up later and said he ended up sitting in the airport all afternoon until he could get another flight home. Turns out he still got home before I did, haha. We were able to modify our itineraries to go through other cities to go home, and thus we split up and went on our own separate voyages to get home. P told me she arrived home sometime after dinner hour, M got home a little before I did, and I ended up taking a trip literally halfway around the country that didn’t get me home until after midnight, what a day. At least I got home. And with that, the cruise was over. Not the best cruise for sure but we managed to enjoy ourselves as much as possible. It sure beat being at work that weekend.

 

(One last look at the atrium glass elevators, a type of setup unlike I have ever seen on any other cruise ship)

 

 

(Finally on the way home and arriving at PHL after a long day of travel. The blurriness of the photos captured how I was feeling right then, lol. Another cruise over with.)

Now, I will give you a few personal observations and critique specific parts of the vacation experience.

First, the ship itself, while older and dated, was not a bad ship. It was in decent shape, and the crew was not horrible. The layout was kind of confusing and not all that wonderful, but I believe it is going in for a dry dock very shortly, maybe they will change a few things up. I found the glass elevators in the atrium to be very cramped, as was the area around them. Getting to the main elevators from the cabins was a confusing task as well as that just was not laid out all that well either. Just odd setup, never seen anything like it on a cruise ship. The décor was fine, not over the top, but pleasant enough. Only one pool onboard but the hot tubs were warm enough at least. I liked the aft outdoor dining area, but the general buffet area was poorly laid out and seemed cramped as well. But I wasn’t expecting too much with this cruise, as we surely did not book it for the ship, rather just to spend a nice weekend in warm weather with some friends. The cabin was adequate as well as was the steward service, but the onboard TV selection in the cabin should be better. Just a few movie channels, network TV, and your choice of Fox or MSNBC for news. Which is still better than Carnival but Royal has the best selection of TV channels of any of the lines that I have ever experienced.

The crew was just blah. The captain and his officers, right down to cruise director made such an impression on me that I cannot remember what they looked like or who they even were. I almost always make note of that stuff and I just didn’t bother to on this cruise. The captain did the best he could with little leeway to do more during the crisis on embarkation day and was professional enough, but the cruise director was just awful, bordering on terrible. One of the worst cruise directors I can remember on any line. But the restaurant servers and bartenders, along with our cabin steward, were adequate.

The one port we went to was Nassau, and while Nassau is not the best port of call, we had going off on our own and just hanging out. Not much more else to say about that as we did not even get to experience Great Stirrup Cay.

The food was hit or miss. The breakfast was OK, decent variety, and the open pit barbeque they had was a nice touch. The regular dinner buffet was OK as well with decent selection, and the late night burgers and dogs was a hit as usual for us late night owls. We never got to try Cagney’s and the main dining room experience was very good. Unfortunately this ship does not have an O’Sheehan’s or Teppanyaki, like some of the other larger and newer ships have. But I knew that going in and had lower expectations.

Debarkation and embarkation staff and experience. Check-in was fine and fairly painless and quick but we did get there early. I still take issue with the fact that it appears that check-in and port passenger services are handled by contracted third parties. I don’t think Carnival does this and it does matter if you ask me. The boarding lounge and boarding method was organized enough and acceptable, but how they handled the emergency evacuation was horrendous and the recovery was even worse. On debark day, it was better organized and we were quickly off the ship and out of the terminal. Hopefully they learned something from this horrible performance so it won’t happen again in the future and nobody else will have to go through what we went through.

Overall service was OK, the bartenders were really busy but did a good job. The steward we had did a good job, especially considering we were in a cabin for three people and she had to separate the beds when we arrived in the cabin on embarkation day. The guest services people were probably overwhelmed through the craziness but they were generally pleasant enough and did appear to try to work things out. The way they handled our messed up reservation and the lack of an apology and a meager obc for everyone left a bad taste in a lot of peoples’ mouths though. But based on what I have read and heard from people, that is the way Norwegian seems to want to go these days. What could have been a really great cruise weekend ended up being not so great and that’s a shame. But like I said, a weekend away at sea is better than a weekend at home, working in the middle of winter.

So, that is it for my review, hope you enjoyed it and thanks for reading. I have the NCL Star booked for this upcoming weekend, leaving from Tampa, and going to the ports of Cozumel, Costa Maya, Roatan and Belize, and hopefully it goes much better than this one did. I am looking forward to it and hopefully they will come through with a great experience that will make me want to cruise again on NCL in the future. So, happy cruising and good night everyone!

　

[EllieinNJ]

I have been following your adventure with the utmost interest and what horror you and your group suffered. I would have been almost traumatized to be put in that holding area for most of the day without seats or food. It really would have ruined the vacation for me. I'm glad you were able to get over it and enjoy the rest of your trip.

 

As far as missing GSC, unfortunately NCL cannot control the weather and seas, so better be safe than sorry.

 

A 10am plane back to NJ? What were you thinking? I know you said you made it on time before, but that is cutting it too close. We just made our plane reservations for our trip in September with a 1:45 pm leaving from Venice and hope that is enough time to get from the pier to the airport and through customs.

 

Hope your next cruise is stress-free and all goes well. You sure deserve it.

[Oakman58]

Thanks again for the review and the photos you included FlyingCruiserNJ. I really enjoyed reading it. Hopefully you will never experience another debacle like you did on embarkation day.

 

I got jealous reading about your Eagles and the playoffs, I no longer have a football team to root for. The St. Louis Rams are returning to Los Angeles. We lost the Cardinals to Arizona and now the Rams back to L.A. I doubt St. Louis will ever have another NFL team. Apparently Stan Kroenke has no loyalty to his home state of Missouri.

 

My wife and I sailed on the Star for a Panama Canal cruise in Nov ’14 (pre-refurbishment) and absolutely loved the ship. I would imagine it’s even better now since the dry dock. I hope you have a great time on your cruise.

 

DW and I are flying to Houston tomorrow and sailing on the Jade Saturday. Recent reviews of this cruise have been all over the board so I’m heading into it with an open mind. If we encounter any issues with the ship I’m sure the UBP will help smooth things over.