Norwegian Encore Sailed February 9 2020- OK

[Darwal70]

Overall we really enjoyed our cruise. The room was great (Balcony), the ports were great (we had only been to PR previously) especially our day trip to the Baths on Virgin Gorda, the slides were great fun and the weather was fantastic. Not to be nihilistic, but i'm just going to hit on my concerns. If you've cruised NCL before all the things you liked you will still like, so that's why I'm paring this down.

• While the racetrack was fun, even with the upcharge, the loss of Spice/H2O and lack of deck space was worse.
• Never tried the VR stuff so can't comment
• Not a fan of Onda (Cagneys and Q were really good)
• The staff was very pleasant, but it seemed a bit stiff. I previously cruised on the Epic (2019 Epic Fail) and the Escape and the staff on those two seemed more engaged.
• My wife is a smoker so that was a pain in the ass. The room of death on the Waterfront and the glassed in section of the casino were the only areas for the first 3 days, they then sectioned off an area by the Waves bar.
• Got to San Juan at 5:30 pm. Wished this one had of skipped that and went to Great Stirrup Cay, would have broke up the port days better. I know there are cruises that do that, but this was the time of the year we wanted to go.
• If you wanted a deck lounger you had to have yours picked out by 8am. I normally get up at 6 so it wasn't an issue. Again they never removed any towels used to save loungers. I would see them with towels and no people for hours.
• Won't use a Norwegian transfer again, you would swear it was their first time getting people on a bus at the end of a cruise.

 

Overall we enjoyed it but I won't go on a ship with the racetrack at the back again. In fact we are thinking of trying Royal Caribbean next time.

[cmarsh31]

We're on the Encore right now - same thing with the chairs/towels. Hours and hours of chairs held by towels without a person in sight.

 

We have the amended itinerary - Tortola cut short and GSC added. Of course, as is normal, GSC canceled because of wind. Soooo, we missed the Baths because our 11:30 excursion was rescheduled for 8am (not an option for us) and now have a 2nd sea day in a row added to the 1:30 all-aboard on Thursday. We also won't do another NCL Caribbean itinerary. We'll stick with RCCL or Disney so we can enjoy our island day.