Loyal Royals Try Norwegian

[karena1]

Never heard that anywhere before. Are you absolute certain he just didn't see "40% alcohol by volume" and mistook that as the proof?

 

In the US, Vodka cannot be sold below 80 proof (40% alcohol). And frankly, I've never once ever anywhere seen any Vodka below 80 proof.

 

positive, it was low. you could drink it all day and not even get a buzz

[mjkacmom]

positive, it was low. you could drink it all day and not even get a buzz

Probably from all of the eating. The price of alcohol isn’t based on what proof it is, 50% would be specialty vodka. When bars make weak drinks, they do it by restricting the amount of alcohol used. I believe a lot of premixed drinks are watered down, but I don’t drink those. I can assure you, the cocktails I drank were full strength.

[pcur]

In 2017 my bff and I went on the NCL Spirit for an 11 night Mediterranean cruise. It was fabulous! Great food, great crew, and a lovely ship. We loved the equivalent of the Viking Crown Lounge at the top of the ship. Wonderful sail away place to be with a glass of Prosecco.

 

This year my husband and I went on the NCL Dawn out of Tampa. It was medium, but hubby did not like the experience. Too many negatives for him with food and the ship. The wonderful lounge at the top had been turned into suites, which disappointed me. My overall opinion of the Dawn was I'd go again if the itinerary was better, which is why we took the Spirit last year.

 

NCL also has a very good promo going during the summer months: up to 5 amenities included. Last year we had $200 in shore excursion discounts (good excursions, too), and 3 free specialty dining nights.

[boscobeans]

We sailed with NCL for the first time on the Breakaway a few months ago from NYC to the Caribbean. Itinerary was changed due to the hurricane damage and were pleasantly surprised to visit at Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao and Martinique. Although on the two week cruise we missed to of the regular ports we were happy for the change after 18 years cruising the Caribbean.

 

After reading the OP's review It brought back all the reasons we cancelled our next booked cruise with NCL.

 

We did specialty restaurants 4 nights and although the main courses were decent the side dishes and appetizers were barely edible.

 

Desserts at all venues were very disappointing and probably everyone on board had a drink package making most bars a mob scene.

 

The boarding / check in process at the NYC terminal was the worst we have ever experienced and took several hours after we arrived at 10:30 in the AM.

 

The ship left hours after it was scheduled to.

 

On our return we were issued baggage colors and as far as who got what color all you did was choose whatever you wanted.????? This caused such a mess at the terminal with our color luggage being located in THREE DIFFERENT locations to look through. After searching through the section we were first directed and not finding our bags one of the NCL rep. said well did you look over THERE, pointing to an entirely different location. We managed to fid our bags, none of which were anywhere near each other and as we left to head for customs we saw another location with the same color.

 

We passed through customs and to get to the above parking we had to leave the building and reenter it to get to the elevators????

 

All this makes us sure we would never again decide to Cruise like a Norwegian.

 

Still had a good time being an a ship for 2 weeks and seeing the islands once again but rebooked with a Royal Caribbean cruise the day we got back home.

 

This was our 25th (? or so) cruise and we have sailed on Celebrity and RCL enough to be Diamond as well as Elite having earned both without reciprocity and have a few HAL cruises under our belts as well.

 

bosco

[mjkacmom]

We sailed with NCL for the first time on the Breakaway a few months ago from NYC to the Caribbean. Itinerary was changed due to the hurricane damage and were pleasantly surprised to visit at Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao and Martinique. Although on the two week cruise we missed to of the regular ports we were happy for the change after 18 years cruising the Caribbean.

 

After reading the OP's review It brought back all the reasons we cancelled our next booked cruise with NCL.

 

We did specialty restaurants 4 nights and although the main courses were decent the side dishes and appetizers were barely edible.

 

Desserts at all venues were very disappointing and probably everyone on board had a drink package making most bars a mob scene.

 

The boarding / check in process at the NYC terminal was the worst we have ever experienced and took several hours after we arrived at 10:30 in the AM.

 

The ship left hours after it was scheduled to.

 

On our return we were issued baggage colors and as far as who got what color all you did was choose whatever you wanted.????? This caused such a mess at the terminal with our color luggage being located in THREE DIFFERENT locations to look through. After searching through the section we were first directed and not finding our bags one of the NCL rep. said well did you look over THERE, pointing to an entirely different location. We managed to fid our bags, none of which were anywhere near each other and as we left to head for customs we saw another location with the same color.

 

We passed through customs and to get to the above parking we had to leave the building and reenter it to get to the elevators????

 

All this makes us sure we would never again decide to Cruise like a Norwegian.

 

Still had a good time being an a ship for 2 weeks and seeing the islands once again but rebooked with a Royal Caribbean cruise the day we got back home.

 

This was our 25th (? or so) cruise and we have sailed on Celebrity and RCL enough to be Diamond as well as Elite having earned both without reciprocity and have a few HAL cruises under our belts as well.

 

bosco

Anything having to do with the terminal is not the fault of the cruise lines that use them. This is our home port, there have been issues.

[boscobeans]

Anything having to do with the terminal is not the fault of the cruise lines that use them. This is our home port, there have been issues.

 

The three issues we experienced at the terminal were:

 

1. The ship was no where near ready to board new passengers at the recommended time due to total mess controlling what colors were announced..

NOT A PORT ISSUE.

 

2. The fact that the cruise line had no apparent control on the number of similar colored luggage tags, creating a total jumble with thousands of bags of the same color in three separate places.

ALSO NOT A PORT ISSUE.

 

3. On arrival, parking was excellent, then there was no order whatsoever as to signing in / checking in. Just a madhouse and the ship was not ready for new passengers due to the mess they had getting those returning off the ship

ONCE AGAIN NOT A PORT ISSUE

 

 

bosco

 

BTW we had cruised out of NYC terminal on HAL several times with NONE of theses issues.

Edited August 12, 2018 by boscobeans

[BNBR]

I would do NCL again, but it's easily at the bottom of the list. We sailed Escape this year and overall it was a great experience, but when you have better options available, I don't see the point of going with NCL. Basically, there were enough things that just "weren't as good" but weren't necessarily bad. And since so many ships sail similar itineraries on the same days from the same ports, I can't see ourselves selecting NCL over Royal or even Carnival. It would take a perfect deal and itinerary to get us back on NCL.

 

One thing is funny, reading this review, is all the "not as advertised" issues. That was BY FAR my biggest complaint about NCL. They simply don't deliver a product in line with their advertising/marketing.

[sparks1093]

 

We did specialty restaurants 4 nights and although the main courses were decent the side dishes and appetizers were barely edible.

 

 

The one time we did try a specialty restaurant it was on NCL Gem, in the Italian restaurant. The apps were good, the entrée was good but the spaghetti that accompanied the chicken parm was overcooked to lifelessness and coated with tomato soup. It was definitely a jarring note (and pre-Del Rio). The chicken parm that we had on CCL was much better (and included on the MDR menu).

[tortoisegirl]

We have tried 2 cruises each on Royal and NCL (plus a Princess cruise). My husband does not want to return to NCL again, despite them usually having a lower price, plus the not exactly free beverage package (you have to pay the gratuity). I would return for the right price and/or itinerary, but also prefer Royal. I like the idea of NCL's cruises, but in practice, just about everything wasn't as good as Royal - service, cabins, food quality, activities/entertainment, etc. Our first NCL cruise was the U.S. based Pride of America, so we even gave them another shot, but Pearl also didn't wow us like Royal did (and we haven't even gone on Royal's 2 newest classes of ships).

[LConstable]

Your experience on NCL almost mirrors ours - we were on the Breakaway last summer (so its not just the smaller Sky that has issues) and we had the same complaints! We were travelling with my large family for a multi generational trip so the price was right (you get what you pay for) I would do a 5 day out of NYC on RCCL and give up 2 days for the same price and be so much happier. It was crowded - somehow 2x the passengers on the Oasis felt less cramped, the clientele was questionable - I felt like I was on a Spring Break Carnival cruise in the 80's and the food was mediocre at best (and we had 5 night Specialty Dining) - I think because they give away everything for free nothing seems special. We had problem after problem with boarding, with dining reservations, with our photo appointment and no one cared. I wrote NCL a scathing letter when we got home and never heard anything back from them - whenever I get a solicitation in the mail from them I return it to sender with a sharpie marker saying we will never sail NCL again on it - I am probably only amusing my mail carrier but it makes me feel better.

[rncruiser]

LConstable, I know what you mean about returning the mail. I haven’t gotten any mailings from them yet, but I have gotten almost daily emails trying to get me to book again. I have definitely thought about replying to them, but I know that it will probably not be deliverable.

I’m waiting to see if I get any response from them regarding the horrible ratings and extensive comments I made on the post-cruise survey.

 

 

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[VillaHappy]

Thank you SO much for your well-timed review. We are Diamond on RC, and are trying Norwegian for the first time in less than a month. I will have to report back and let you know how our experience compares. We are on the Dawn out of Boston, 7 night Bermuda.

The one neat thing that Norwegian does is offering an optional bidding process if you want to try and upgrade your cabin. I wonder when Royal will catch on to it? They could really raise some revenues.

[rncruiser]

VillaHappy, I hope your experience is better than ours. At least you will be going to Bermuda, which is a great port with plenty to do.

 

 

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[dswallow]

The one neat thing that Norwegian does is offering an optional bidding process if you want to try and upgrade your cabin. I wonder when Royal will catch on to it? They could really raise some revenues.

Celebrity does that now with their MoveUp program.

 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/bid-on-cruise-room-upgrade

 

So it wouldn't really surprise me to find Royal Caribbean doing it eventually. Since they already do it informally through cold calls I can see this being a better approach and it could improve revenue.

[Luv my furbaby]

I’ve been on 5 NCL cruises and have loved them all. I go for the itinerary not the ship. I’ve also done about 10+ on RCCL, Princess about 5 and one celebrity. On each ship there were things I liked and things I didn’t. My last Princess cruise in January, I only ate twice in the MDR (14 night cruise) because I thought the food was horrible but enjoyed the buffet. Thought the food was much better on my two NCL cruises last year.

So too each their own , we all have different opinions. I’m just happy Cruising.

[mugtech]

I did not go into this cruise expecting the Sky to be anywhere close to Oasis, Quantum, or even Voyager class ships on Royal as far as entertainment or the “wow” factor that those ships have. I did expect edible food and good service, neither of which we had. Sour maple syrup, over cooked burgers, tough gnocchi, and a dessert that my daughter said she wanted to spit out, are not what we expected. If there was shrimp, scallops, calamari, salmon, swordfish or grouper offered as main courses at dinner I would have ordered them. I did have the shrimp arrabiata for lunch the first day. Shrimp did not appear on any of the dinner menus that we had, nor was shrimp cocktail offered, other than in the steakhouse. I had that and I received all of 3 shrimp.

I know that Royal has recently changed their menus and the choices are more limited, but I have seen those menus and can still find good choices. I have never had a bad meal on a RCCL cruise. As a diamond member I have obviously sailed many nights in RCCL. In the 4 nights I sailed on NCL I had several bad meals.

 

 

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You overuse the word inedible. A few billion people on this planet would have loved to eat that food.

[sparks1093]

You overuse the word inedible. A few billion people on this planet would have loved to eat that food.

 

Perhaps, but when one is paying a price for something one has different standards. The spaghetti side that I spoke about up thread was truly inedible in the context of a specialty restaurant, but if my survival depended upon it I would have certainly eaten it.

[KmomChicago]

I don’t dispute your experience or satisfaction, but the tone of your review begins and follows through with a sense that you didn’t want to sail NCL, ever, (began with how you felt obligated to book originally with your friends; obviously against your will). You seemed to be already very dissatisfied before you arrived on embarkation, and pre-decided that you weren’t going to enjoy yourself.

 

I have not sailed NCL. We have been happy with Carnival and RC, while understanding each has pros and cons for us. So no skin in this game.

 

But I cannot help but wonder if a more optimistic approach would have taken a bit of the sting out of your miserable voyage. You even note that your first meal at lunch in the dining room was very good, but since your daughter pointed out you normally don't eat pasta, the meal became somehow less enjoyable. Regardless, thank you for posting. It is a good reminder to the rest of us not to plan vacations that we don't want to take.

 

 

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Edited August 14, 2018 by KmomChicago

[rncruiser]

KmomChicago, I actually did go into this cruise with low expectations. However, NCL failed to meet even that level. I have been in small ships before, although many years ago. None have reached the level of overcrowding that we experienced. I also couldn’t understand the poor service in the MDR, given that it was half empty every time we were there.

 

 

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[BNBR]

Interesting take on NCL. From our one NCL cruise, there were too many things we didn't like, but service wasn't one of them. We had memorably good service. We have had more service issues on Royal than any other line, actually, but it's never so bad that it factors in to our decision making. Generally, service is great on all cruise lines.

 

I would chalk service issues up to a bad cruise more than considering it a norm with any line. As for the overcrowding, now THAT is one of the reasons we very much dislike NCL. Their ship design is just flat out awful.

[FitchburgWIFamily]

Thank you for your review. I am the flip side of your coin: I am a NCL loyalist sailing on RC for the first time. We are joining friends on Majesty of the Seas to Cuba.

 

I posted for comparisons and was advised by many not to judge all RC by Majesty of the Seas. The point was taken.

 

On NCL, the Sky and the Sun are run differently than the rest of the fleet, they are smaller, older ships doing short all-inclusive trips, catering to a different market. Judging all NCL based on the Sky would be like me judging all of RC based on Majesty of the Seas.

 

The OP has made up her own mind, but for the rest of the readers out there, keep in mind that if across the line the food was inedible, the entertainment awful, the ships ugly, and the service rude on all ships, there wouldn't be any NCL loyalists.

[emeraldcity]

I often sail these last few years with friends I met on the Brilliance transatlantic and we're all diamond or D+. Although most cruises are on Royal we have the Bliss booked for Panama Canal next spring ... and 2 of us did the Getaway and the Jade last summer, which was a striking contrast in ship size for a sampler. I came away with a few impressions that are nowhere near as bleak as the OP … and I'm so sorry that things turned out so bad for you, because a cruise should be awesome!

 

Food … NCL gives Royal a run for their money based on what we experienced last year. The Getaway, in particular, impressed us. The food in the buffet was particularly impressive when compared with what we were accustomed to in the Windjammer. (Special exception interjected here for the transpacific a few months ago on the Explorer where the Windjammer was a delightful surprise that would have even gotten our evening attention if we weren't enjoying our wait staff so much in the MDR.) On the Getaway, hard ice cream was a regular offering every day in the buffet … at least eight flavors. And all three NCL ships I have been on offer made-to-order crepes EVERY NIGHT in the buffet … guess where I went for dessert.

 

Service … Royal has the edge. I have rarely had a poor experience on Royal, but service was terribly spotty on NCL, with the Jade being so poor it was a frequent topic of conversation in chats with other passengers. There would be sterling exceptions, but it seemed to basically be because the individual server held himself/herself to a high standard. Dining room service was the worst, and that comment cuts across the board … specialty as well as complimentary.

 

Ship layout … I missed the open air feeling that Royal delivers with the Centrum and Royal Promenade spaces. And the pool design that I found so bizarre on the Pride of America was copied for the other ships … I left like I was climbing down into a pit. I love the RCI pools where you can sit on that wide shelf at the pool's edge and have the water gently washing back and forth across your legs. Finding the MDR on the Jade was challenging. The emphasis really is on the specialty restaurants, which were much easier to locate.

 

Entertainment … the bigger the ship, the better the entertainment … and that goes for both lines. The Million Dollar Quartet on the Getaway was so good we went again. And I'm looking forward to Mamma Mia on the Allure. Of course, NCL can't compete with ice shows, so that always gives Royal the edge, but the production dance teams on each line generally put on very well done shows. That said, Jade staged "Elements" on one of the last nights on board, which is without question the best production show I've ever seen on a ship.

 

Price … Are you kidding me? I have the Allure booked in a boardwalk balcony in two months for less than an inside in the Getaway for spring break 2020. Both cruises were booked over 18 months in advance. And one expects a bit of a mark-up when the cruise line brokers the shore excursions, but NCL's mark-up is sky high, which easily allows them to offer you a fat "discount" as one of their perks. That "all-inclusive" drink package that so many opt for is built into the cost of the cruise fare, and those of us who don't drink enough to be interested in it are paying the price for everyone else.

 

What did I miss the most on NCL? The same wait staff at dinner every night! I have always taken that for granted, but now I realize how much it is a valued part of the perfect cruise experience.

[leisuretraveler223]

Very thorough and honest review. However, I suspect your evidently fervent loyalty to Royal set you up to be hyper aware of anything different or unfavorable. Couple this with a short itinerary on an older ship and I am not surprised about your disappointment.

 

I predominantly cruise Royal, but I did NCL our of New York to Bermuda last summer and was very pleased. Ship was beautiful, staff was great. Food was on par or better than what I've had on Royal. But I was on a newer, larger ship.

 

Your review is similar to someone sailing NCLs largest best vessels for years, and deciding to go on Empress or Monarch and thinking that's a fair comparison.

 

Truth be told, I knew it wasn't going to go well for you when you thought the port agent not being friendly was indicative of a difference between the two lines. I sailed on Oasis out of Port Canaveral last week and the port agent had all the personality of a soggy rice cake!

[kalliekae]

Thank you for your review. I have not been on NCL, but I always appreciate someone sharing their experience. I think all cruise lines have an older ship that really shouldn't be in service. The ship is important to me so I always check the age and date of last drydock before booking a ship. Again, thanks for sharing your experience.

[CruisingNole]

I was on NCL Sun a few months ago. Extensive drydock earlier this year. Public areas were in great condition. I was actually quite impressed considering the ship was built in around 2000.

 

Food, drinks, service and entertainment were mediocre compared to Royal. But show me a Royal sailing in June for 2 adults with open bar for $700 out the door, including taxes, fees and gratuities. Not going to happen.

 

You get what you pay for. Those cruises, especially during the summer, are nothing more than booze cruises. They serve their purpose.

 

Would I sail NCL again? Probably not, but maybe, if it was dirt cheap. But I certainly felt that what I received for the price was fair.