"It's not you, it's me"--Is it a break-up? My review of NCL Encore 2/12/23

[farmecologist]

We were on the Joy recently.  Pretty good overall...about what we expected. 

 

However, our poor cabin steward did not ever look happy and look extremely overworked.  We actually felt quite bad for him.  Other room stewards seemed in poor spirits as well.  This doesn't make a good impression at all...and since the room stewards are who passengers tend to see the most, it isn't a good look at all for Norwegian.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by farmecologist

[JIMESOPUS]

@rxlowryGreat review and thank you for the report. We have decided on a trial separation with NCL. Recently off the Getaway ( 1/8/23) and the Breakaway ( 1/22/23 ), both cruises were substandard to their past performance. We have canceled 4 bookings with them and will only sail on the smaller ships. Don't know what's going on down there in Miami but there seems to be a lack of leadership.

[justhappy]

I think with  NCL, as with Disney, and a lot of other big corporations, is the corporate greed that is rampant right now under the guise of covid losses and inflation.

[rxlowry]

1 hour ago, JIMESOPUS said:

@rxlowryGreat review and thank you for the report. We have decided on a trial separation with NCL. Recently off the Getaway ( 1/8/23) and the Breakaway ( 1/22/23 ), both cruises were substandard to their past performance. We have canceled 4 bookings with them and will only sail on the smaller ships. Don't know what's going on down there in Miami but there seems to be a lack of leadership.

Thanks!  We do still have a cruise reward though from November.  
I do prefer the Jewel class or Spirit. I might still use it.  I would like to see my favorite NCL friend who has been on the Sky since her return and it is coming to Baltimore.  

[rxlowry]

1 hour ago, justhappy said:

Same here with regards to unpacking before the muster drill. It’s like the last embarkation day “chore” before I can feel officially on vacation!

It’s one of the cruising rituals I have.   Felt weird to not do it but the excitement of the Super Bowl took over. 

[Liljo22]

1 hour ago, justhappy said:

I think with  NCL, as with Disney, and a lot of other big corporations, is the corporate greed that is rampant right now under the guise of covid losses and inflation.

I agree about Disney but I am not fully on board with NCL.  Disney was shut down for a short amount of time but they have other revenue streams to help with park losses.  Cruise lines were shut down for a year and had to take on additional debt to stay afloat.  All the mass market cruise lines are in cutback mode right now as the debt becomes due.  Royal just announced they too are going to once a day cleaning and when I was on my Oasis cruise in December, I had multiple waiters complain to us about the cut backs they are seeing in the dining room. 

 

The cruise lines are in survival mode right now until they can get the ship righted.  This is the new normal for cruising.  I know a lot of people don't like where it has gone but they will either need to adjust or spend their money elsewhere.  

[bkrickles1]

1 hour ago, rxlowry said:

It’s one of the cruising rituals I have.   Felt weird to not do it but the excitement of the Super Bowl took over. 

That's funny. We've never unpacked before muster.

We always board around 11am and we usually have spots we want to hit. We finalize our reservations, we eat, drink, explore, drink some more and go straight to muster. We drink some more and then we go back to our cabin to unpack and get ready for the evening.

I'm getting old, so the first night I usually crash by 10:30pm. Lmao

Thanks for the review!

[JIMESOPUS]

4 hours ago, rxlowry said:

Thanks!  We do still have a cruise reward though from November.  
I do prefer the Jewel class or Spirit. I might still use it.  I would like to see my favorite NCL friend who has been on the Sky since her return and it is coming to Baltimore.  

We went ahead and booked the Sun in May. Need to use up those credits in case we can't resolve our irreconcilable differences.

[MkeCruzn]

20 hours ago, styles27 said:

CC is a free site however when I do live reviews I too always have trouble loading my posts on CC. 

I can load and post to every other site I use on the ship’s WiFi but CC just does not work.

Anyone know why this happens? 

They claim that CC is one of the sites they allow for "free" but I've found that they limit free access to only the Reviews page. Message boards, roll calls, etc. seem to be off limits unless you log in and use Wi-Fi minutes. I've never had the unlimited package so I don't know about that. We've been able to stretch our included Wi-Fi by using our good data access on shore. We might have to reconsider our plans on our upcoming TA. Four sea days might be a little long if we're limited to 300 minutes...

[WexIrl]

This is an interesting thread and good insight from the OP perspective, which is very welcome and should be encouraged to give "new" cruisers a bit of color to past and present cruising in terms of offerings/value for money (with inflation considered).

I had a recent conversation with a work colleague in relation to holidays/vacation in 2023. Both of us wanted to go on a cruise again, my work colleague once cruised with Royal Caribbean and I twice with NCL.

The conversation turned to price point and value and not a company verses company comparison but a "What we want out of a cruise" type of discussion from a personal perspective.

To cut a long story short, my colleague got a fantastic black Friday deal with Royal Caribbean in the Mediterranean in May for 2.5K for a family of 3 for a 7 night cruise, balcony state.

I got what I thought was a "black Friday deal" a 9 night cruise with NCL in the Mediterranean in June for my family of 4 for more than double that of my colleague. with a balcony state.

 

Taking ships into consideration.. I was previously on the Epic (Honeymoon) and the Escape, the forthcoming June cruise is on the Getaway, I don't think I will see anything new on it, which is OK, I just love to cruise 🍻 and give my kids a good holiday experience (both teenagers).

My colleague was on the Oasis of the seas (Honeymoon) previously and is now going on the Symphony of the seas in May. 
 

**Both of our cruise price excludes flights etc. 

I still think I done well with NCL considering I had a similar cruise with NCL in June in 2022 that was almost 3k more expensive for a very similar itinerary/days and same sate balcony.
 

So we laughed, and discussed who was the real winner here ( FYI we are Irish and we take the piss out of each other just to entertain ourselves.... so this post is very much a tongue in cheek because we really don't care at the end of the day.. you pay your money and take your chance 😁 🍻)? 

 

I went with NCL due to loyalty, my collogue went with Royal Caribbean due to loyalty.

But we also discovered during our chats, that MSC and Costa had some very inviting pricing on cruises at the same time at a much lower price point, alas reading forums on these did put me off a bit so I stuck with NCL for now.

Apologies for the long winded post, but I do think we can learn a lot from others, especially those that have frequented this travel/holiday/vacation space before us.
 

Maybe it is time for me to look beyond NCL for our next cruise...... 

Hope you all have a great 2023 cruising.





 

Edited February 23, 2023 by WexIrl

[styles27]

1 hour ago, MkeCruzn said:

They claim that CC is one of the sites they allow for "free" but I've found that they limit free access to only the Reviews page. Message boards, roll calls, etc. seem to be off limits unless you log in and use Wi-Fi minutes. I've never had the unlimited package so I don't know about that. We've been able to stretch our included Wi-Fi by using our good data access on shore. We might have to reconsider our plans on our upcoming TA. Four sea days might be a little long if we're limited to 300 minutes...

I have a problem with CC no matter what cruise line I’m on.
 

I had unlimited WiFi on MSC last month and had trouble doing my live review on here. 
I could post on any other social media board without a problem but my posts on CC sometimes took 30 min to upload. 
 

It’s crazy. 

[styles27]

26 minutes ago, WexIrl said:

This is an interesting thread and good insight from the OP perspective, which is very welcome and should be encouraged to give "new" cruisers a bit of color to past and present cruising in terms of offerings/value for money (with inflation considered).

I had a recent conversation with a work colleague in relation to holidays/vacation in 2023. Both of us wanted to go on a cruise again, my work colleague once cruised with Royal Caribbean and I twice with NCL.

The conversation turned to price point and value and not a company verses company comparison but a "What we want out of a cruise" type of discussion from a personal perspective.

To cut a long story short, my colleague got a fantastic black Friday deal with Royal Caribbean in the Mediterranean in May for 2.5K for a family of 3 for a 7 night cruise, balcony state.

I got what I thought was a "black Friday deal" a 9 night cruise with NCL in the Mediterranean in June for my family of 4 for more than double that of my colleague. with a balcony state.

 

Taking ships into consideration.. I was previously on the Epic (Honeymoon) and the Escape, the forthcoming June cruise is on the Getaway, I don't think I will see anything new on it, which is OK, I just love to cruise 🍻 and give my kids a good holiday experience (both teenagers).

My colleague was on the Oasis of the seas (Honeymoon) previously and is now going on the Symphony of the seas in May. 
 

**Both of our cruise price excludes flights etc. 

I still think I done well with NCL considering I had a similar cruise with NCL in June in 2022 that was almost 3k more expensive for a very similar itinerary/days and same sate balcony.
 

So we laughed, and discussed who was the real winner here ( FYI we are Irish and we take the piss out of each other just to entertain ourselves.... so this post is very much a tongue in cheek because we really don't care at the end of the day.. you pay your money and take your chance 😁 🍻)? 

 

I went with NCL due to loyalty, my collogue went with Royal Caribbean due to loyalty.

But we also discovered during our chats, that MSC and Costa had some very inviting pricing on cruises at the same time at a much lower price point, alas reading forums on these did put me off a bit so I stuck with NCL for now.

Apologies for the long winded post, but I do think we can learn a lot from others, especially those that have frequented this travel/holiday/vacation space before us.
 

Maybe it is time for me to look beyond NCL for our next cruise...... 

Hope you all have a great 2023 cruising.





 

We’re guilty of looking elsewhere…of our last 4 cruises 3 were on MSC and 1 on NCL. 
 

Reason? Pricing. That’s the honest truthful answer. That’s why we tried MSC. 
 

We (hubby and me) paid under $3k for 14 days on MSC (12/30/2022-01/13/2023) for a huge aft balcony room with unlimited drinks and WiFi. Flights were free, we had points. 
 

Now we’re going back to NCL and paying more for 7 days on Pearl WITHOUT drinks than we paid for 14 days on MSC. 
 

I hope that double the price will get us a better experience. 
 

 

 

 

[rxlowry]

We tried MSC YC for our 25th Anniversary in October in the Med.  MSC is very different especially in Europe.  There were hits and misses especially with food but the YC we really liked.  It was interesting to compare with the Haven cruise we had on Joy last February.  (Both cruises were supposed to have been on Crystal but we had to pívot as best we could). 
I have updated my blog to have it first three days and will get more posted this weekend.  
Cruises are selling so hopefully they get back on track financially.  But if they can keep these changes to make more money…I don’t think they’ll go back.  Unless keeping good workers becomes the issue…

It’s hard to cruise when you feel guilty at how hard the staff are working with low satisfaction at their jobs.   

[JGmf]

11 minutes ago, rxlowry said:

It’s hard to cruise when you feel guilty at how hard the staff are working with low satisfaction at their jobs.   

 

Totally agree.  Also, that's a primary reason for "one-and-done" for me on the behind the scenes tour: gawking at hard-working people crammed inside a laundry factory just seemed wrong.  (Yeah, I know it's their job, but still...)

[truckswain]

A great post from the OP!  

We have been cruising for many years starting with a Honeymoon cruise and we will be on the Celebrity Beyond this September to celebrate our 30th Anniversary.  We are Diamond with Royal but really enjoyed our two cruises on the Escape and we are on the Encore at the end of March.

 

I enjoy NCL for their unique lounges, bars and specialty dining.   They have freestyle dining down to an art (take note RCCL) and I believe their food is better than Royal.

 

However the recent changes to Cabin cleaning, service charge increases and most importantly the severe cuts to entertainment, for us, makes NCL a difficult option to consider going forward.  And returning to in person Muster instead of E-Muster and claim it is because of the Coast Guard? Really?

 

I understand all about the pandemic and shut down and the need to reduce debt, but clearly all these changes are making people look elsewhere.

 

I am very much looking forward to our Encore cruise and hoping that maybe we would consider another NCL cruise.