First & last NCL cruise

[deliver42]

Unfortunately, the food, service, and entertainment vary from ship to ship, with the newer ships haviing the best of all three.

[ChiefMateJRK]

38 minutes ago, Obobru said:

Nope but it indicates a problem.

My sources tell me that NCLH stock price dropped because they are wasting too much money giving guests an outstanding experience.  They should be nickel and diming the guests more in order to maximize revenue for the shareholders.

[Obobru]

2 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

My sources tell me that NCLH stock price dropped because they are wasting too much money giving guests an outstanding experience.  They should be nickel and diming the guests more in order to maximize revenue for the shareholders.

Strange that they cruise lines that don't do that seems to be doing better but you do you and I hope you have a wonderful next cruise with NCL. 

[Obobru]

3 hours ago, deliver42 said:

Unfortunately, the food, service, and entertainment vary from ship to ship, with the newer ships haviing the best of all three.

Interesting as you would think food would be something that's fairly standard if it's coming from the same suppliers and I imagine the recipes are the same no matter the ship. I can see on larger ships or newer ones they would have the ability to offer more or different entertainment, didn't NCL used to offer Broadway shows? 

[DMH15]

On 1/6/2024 at 1:12 PM, david_sobe said:

The Star never got great reviews.  An Antartica cruise is not a fair judgment of a cruise line.  The ships are smaller and its expensive.  I am still jealous because I can only dream about sailing to Antartica. 

My SA cruise on the Sun in an aft PH suite remains my favorite cruise to date.  Flew to Antarctica from Punta Arenas.  Once in a lifetime experience. 

[hen302]

I have recently been on the Jewel and will also never again cruise with Norwegian.  Agree with all comments re boring day time entertainment, tendering debacles, rude guest services staff, absent officers who don't seem to be responsible for anything.  

I thought the food was good at the price point and food and beverage staff service was very good. 

But it was hell trying to get on and off the ship and the crew were snapping at passengers and looking miserable as disorganization reigned supreme 

There is something seriously wrong with the organisational culture 

 

[IrieBajan54]

There is LESS for MORE money post pandemic. Some people are willing to pay at just about any price so can't fault NCL for taking it. I did a TA on the Star once and would never get on that rust bucket again even if it was free.

[Thor1111]

To cruiser's on ncl's star:

With regard to steaks: I've been told that unless you've left from a US port, you're never going to be served a American steak. They're going to be a different cut, different portions and different degrees of tenderness. I suppose the last one has something to do with different feeding. It's best to skip them and order more local dishes. Think steak at a fish house or fish at a steakhouse.

[Panhandle Couple]

4 hours ago, hen302 said:

I have recently been on the Jewel and will also never again cruise with Norwegian.  Agree with all comments re boring day time entertainment, tendering debacles, rude guest services staff, absent officers who don't seem to be responsible for anything.  

I thought the food was good at the price point and food and beverage staff service was very good. 

But it was hell trying to get on and off the ship and the crew were snapping at passengers and looking miserable as disorganization reigned supreme 

There is something seriously wrong with the organisational culture 

 

Well, I tend to disagree.

 

We spent 15 days on the Bliss in December, and saw none of that. Followed by 7 days on the Breakaway on a Christmas cruise.

For the Bliss, the senior officers were introduced twice early (main theater and Meet and Greet) so we knew them by face, and saw them throughout the cruise, making sure their workers were doing their job. 

 

It was rare that a restaurant or MDR manager didn't stop by and ask how our dinner was.

 

We entertain ourselves during at sea days.  Trivia and other activities are there for some fun, don't take them too seriously.    What were you expecting?  Most spend sea days at the pool, or lounging somewhere reading, or playing cards or hanging out at bars.

 

We have sailed the Jewel twice and Pearl once.  They simply don't have the space for attractions that a BA/BA+ ship has.  Some like that, some don't.    We only had problems in 1 port on those cruises, and that was due to the port hardware (only 1 skinny gangway) vs the NCL staff.  

 

When we have tendered, the NCL staff has been effective in helping a large range of people (no problems to wheelchairs) getting on and off.  

 

We have met many NCL employees with 7 to 15 years working for the company. (Most will refer to when they worked for "the other cruise company", but won't say which one)  People don't stay that long in dysfunctional companies.

 

Sorry your experience didn't meet your expectations.

 

[mugtech]

19 hours ago, Obobru said:

That's for the detailed post. 

 

I do agree they have some good itineraries, I wish other cruise lines would step up on that front. 

 

I would estimate 70% of guests were English speakers so comedy, visual magic, etc could have been offered. We have been on cruises all around the world and it's a basic of entertainment so I don't agree on that point. 

 

The ship could have been restocked in Ushuaia, 3 other ships were taking on stock and we were informed by one of the very good Antarctica speakers that 50 cruise ships of various sizes are in Antarctica this season! They just didn't want to pay as apparently it does cost more to load food there. 

 

The drill was a dill, not sure if I didn't make that clear but it was repeated 20 or so times over 2 hours. The crew were saying to us that they also found it stupid doing it when the ship was full and at sea, some crew said openly that the captain is a bit of a idiot. 

 

Again maybe you are not reading what I wrote I went to the room when crew were opening the doors to the corridors and telling people "the rooms are now ready" the clue is in what they said. You are making excuses for rudeness, not sure why you think being rude is acceptable when I just asked simply if someone could come and vacuum the room when they had time as it hadn't been cleaned the simple response is "sorry it must have been missed I will have someone come this afternoon" easy peasy. 

 

And yet again you have selective reading, a letter for a missed port is standard as people with missed port insurance need a letter stating the port missed, date, reason. It's really not that hard to understand or to supply. 

 

I am glad NCL works for you, you seems to defensive of them it's almost like work for them. 

Lotta stockholders on here

[mugtech]

       We are sapphires,  will never sail Star, did 29 days on Sun, that was enough.  We prefer the Jewel class ships, Sky was well managed and entertaining to Quebec and back.  Not sure why anyone would be surprised that they had a bad cruise with Star, it is famous for them.

[kirtihk]

On 1/6/2024 at 3:32 PM, UKstages said:

nearly everything the OP talks about here has happened to me at sometime or another on an NCL ship... but not all of these things on the same cruise. on balance, i think NCL offers a pretty good and  reliable mainstream product.

 

with regard to awful food and inedible meat... if you're talking about the steak in the main dining room, you're spot on. it is awful and inedible. most here would agree. but most here don't order it any longer. NCL generally gets pretty high marks for food. and as you yourself pointed out, the specialty restaurants are pretty darn good.

 

respectfully, some of your concerns here could have been addressed by better researching NCL's ships, restaurants, policies and procedures before sailing with them.

 

the generalization of the staff as "rude" and "awful" is just that... a generalization. any time you get 1000 or more people together on a team in the hospitality industry, there are bound to be some who could benefit from coaching. sounds like you had some bad experiences in the buffet and at the internet cafe. i have, as well.

 

as for smoking in the casino... i spend an inordinate amount of time in the casino and i agree... it's 2024. nobody smokes anymore. get with the program, NCL! (and they have. all of NCL's casinos on its new ships in the past seven or eight years or so are nonsmoking, with purpose built smaller smoking areas contained within a glass enclosure.) to be fair, it's probably more like 14 or 15% of their guests that smoke (not 5%), but the trend is definitely toward nonsmoking gaming. and NCL has addressed that on their newest ships.

 

 

THIS.

 

a thousand times this.

 

invariably, whenever i see staff behavior that's way out of line, it's in direct response to a particularly challenging customer. that doesn't make it right, but it does make it understandable. 

 

 

 

Why to offer a food choice that no one (according to claims) can eat?

[kitkat343]

On 1/6/2024 at 12:55 PM, Obobru said:

We are just about to end our first NCL cruise which was 16 day Antarctica and South America. We have traveled with a few cruise lines and are not loyal to any but wouldn't ever travel NCL again, I am wondering what people think is good about them? 

 

Here are a few of the issues which are both ship and head office issues. 

 

Awful food quality akin to prison food some days with horrific meat that was like shoe leather or full of fat. Sausages at breakfast with barely any meat in them they are all filler. Tasteless dry foods.

 

No stocking of the ship over 16 days so ran out of basics like coke zero/diet/Fanta/apple juice and foods such as bananas but we did have banana bread every day as they had a lot of black bananas after a week. 

 

Lack of daytime entertainment that isn't a sales pitch or paid event such as bingo/spa services/foot analysis/shopping event/deal or no deal/art events

 

Absent senior management. All ships I have been on the senior crew would be in the atrium in the evening and the Cruise Director would be ever present but not on this shop as she's only seen when she gets to play a part in the Xmas show the rest of the time she's nowhere to be seen. 

 

Lack of variety in the evening entertainment as it's is all dancing and singing and not a single magician/comedian/ventriloquist

 

Painfully slow main dining room service often taking over 2 hours to have dinner due to 20 min waits for menus, 40 mins to get starters, etc

 

Drills done during lunch instead of between 3-5pm when no food is served and they did it on a sea day. The lunch staff all walked off to their posts which they have to do but no explanation, never known this to happen it's usually done on port days at quiet times. 

 

Awful rude staff. The internet didn't work well and the internet manager was rude to people who were being polite to him. I saw him rolling his eyes at people and throwing his head around in a dramatic fashion. We arrived to our room at 14.30 as a crew manager was opening the doors as we passed down the stairs but the room wasn't vacuumed when we arrived and all the attendants had gone, rang guest services but didn't get "sorry we will send someone to clean it" nope I got "why are you in the room, who let you in, you shouldn't be in the there, it's your own fault" I couldn't believe how rude she was. 

 

Managers on the ship especially in the buffet are rude to staff in front of guests, the work culture here stinks. 

 

Talking of stinks the bathroom smells like a sewer often due to the fact the toilet doesn't always fill with water leaving the pipe open for gas to come it and the drain in the floor under the sink smelling foul, they know this as they took the bin out of its holder and keep it on the floor over the drain. 

 

On the stinky front we can smell rotten waste smells some days on the aft stairs, my partner says it had the smell of a rotting rat (if you keep you know apparently). 

 

NCL still things it's the 90's and allows smoking in the casino which is fine as it stopped me spending a single dollar in there as it seems NCL favour a few smokers using the casino over 95% of the other guests who stayed away. The problem is the smoke floats everywhere as the casino has no doors and to avoid it we had to go up and down stairs. The smoking area outside is next to a main door to thr pool area, it should be miles from kids playing around the pool. 

 

When we had a missed port all other cruise lines give us a letter for our missed port insurance or put a stack of them on the guest services desk but not NCL, this is because NCL don't want to put in writing the missed port as they are keeping the taxes and fees for the port due to a "change in the maritime laws" according to the staff. 

 

NCL can't organise a tender system they give out tickets from 6am with people waiting since 4am! Why not hand them out the night before? Why not run all 6 tenders to the Falkland Islands instead of 3 then later 4 when it became apparent that it would take from 7am to 1pm to get everyone off when the final return tender was to be 4pm which ended up being 6.45pm. Why only arrange to use one dock that holds one boat and not the second dock as the local port agent was saying NCL should have done but didn't (most likely because they didn't give the tickets out the night before so had no clue of how many would go ashore so made no sufficient plans)

 

Some positives about NCL

 

Drinks package offers a good selection of in stock

Paid restaurants are good

The live music was generally good the B12 band are excellent 

 

So why do you sail NCL? Am I missing something? 

 

 

 

I've found most of the mainstream cruise lines to be more similar than different.  We sailed on the NCL star 10 years ago, and back then the free included food was weaker than the other lines, but the reviews I'd read had indicated this might be the case and so we knew we should buy a specialty dining package ahead of time, which back then was an additional charge and not included in any of the rooms.  The specialty dining 10 years ago was excellent.

 

On our cruise last year, the free included food was still weaker than the other lines, but because the specialty dining was mostly included with the fare (the tax/fees addition wasn't that high) the quality in the specialty restaurants had slipped to the point in which we were very disappointed with our food.  4 of the 5 specialty dining restaurants we went to had weaker food than the free included food on the cruise we took last month on Cunard.  

 

They did run out of things on our NCL cruise also (including the three sides at Cagney's I wanted to order the night we visited), and I'd recommend that families bring anything they really need (they ran out of kids cereals and skim milk in containers)

 

A month prior to sailing, NCL announced that they were cutting the stop in the DR and the morning of Antigua to help the environment.  They continued to advertise the original itinerary, not letting anyone switch, even people who booked through NCL directly after the cancellation who were never notified of the change.  My daughter is obsessed with monkeys, and we had chosen this cruise partly to get to a monkey reserve near Puerto Plata.  We'd also hoped to get to a giant tortoise island in Antigua, but the boats there only ran in the morning.  There are posts that appear periodically on NCL about their cutting ports after final payment, and one commenter noted that he only purchases NCL cruises at the last minute so if there are changes the cruises were so cheap he won't be upset by losing some ports.  The last post about this was started by someone in December on the NCL forums:  

 

NCL had an amazing itinerary last summer on the Prima to Norway and Iceland, but given the issues we'd experienced with them on our last cruise we decided not to book that sailing .  Those sailings also had issues so it was probably for the best.  This year we chose to sail with Cunard, which is obviously not an ideal choice for a family, but their food was excellent, their kids clubs were very good and as far as I know they only cancel ports if there is a weather or safety issue.    

 

Edited January 10 by kitkat343

[agrimm01]

Thank goodness there will be a few less on my next NCL cruise.  I don't want it to be too crowded.

[UKstages]

8 hours ago, kirtihk said:

Why to offer a food choice that no one (according to claims) can eat?

 

so they can loudly proclaim that they offer "steak" in the main dining room for "free."

 

it's a marketing technique.

[complawyer]

while it's not an excuse for bad food, tough steaks etc, when you're in a kitchen serving multiple meals per day (as well as the endless choices in the buffet) 3 x's + per day to between 2000 to 4000 people

something is bound to go wrong. while eating to your heart's content (and sometimes into oblivion)

 

while i have said this many times previously i cruise for the shear joy of cruising, and can forgive a bad meal on occasion. ive had bad meals on land many times also, and those you had to pay for. when my daughter was about 7 (she's now 51) someone told her that if you send the food back, the chef will spit in it. to this day, regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) she will not send a meal back.

 

so, as an ncl cruiser (25 x's and counting) i forgive these little (imho) transgressions.

[UKstages]

the MDR steak is not a transgression.

 

it's not a defect; it's a feature of MDR fare.

 

we're not talking about one bad meal; we're talking about a consistently bad product, improperly sourced and poorly cooked. shoe leather and gristle.

 

those in the know don't order it... the uninitiated learn after ordering it once.

 

those who are excited about getting a "free steak" may order it every night. and some may actually enjoy it. but few who have ever been to a restaurant as ordinary as sizzler or applebee's or houlihan's  would ever consider the NCL MDR steak edible.

 

the opinions expressed here are my own and don't necessarily represent the views of the national cattleman's beef association. (or sizzler. or applebee's. or houlihan's.)

 

 

 

 

Edited January 11 by UKstages

[fshagan]

Sorry you had such a bad experience, and on what many would consider a true "bucket list" cruise!

 

On that type of cruise, where the ports are everything, the short port times and bungled tendering would be the most frustrating to me. NCL has some ridiculously short port times on some itineraries, and there's no excuse for the horrible time tendering.

 

[Obobru]

On 1/11/2024 at 1:38 AM, fshagan said:

Sorry you had such a bad experience, and on what many would consider a true "bucket list" cruise!

 

On that type of cruise, where the ports are everything, the short port times and bungled tendering would be the most frustrating to me. NCL has some ridiculously short port times on some itineraries, and there's no excuse for the horrible time tendering.

 

The 2 days around Antarctica were true bucketlist and amazing, I could have done without the the other 14 days on the ship 😂

[david_sobe]

1 hour ago, Obobru said:

The 2 days around Antarctica were true bucketlist and amazing, I could have done without the the other 14 days on the ship 😂

I can only imagine how wonderful those days were.  These cruises are expensive which puts it out of reach for many people which makes cruise lines send their older, smaller ships for these voyages.  Unlike the Caribbean, I book a cruise for the ship, not the itinerary.  Antartica you don't have a big selection and you surely dont get modern or newer ships.  Most passengers sail it for the itinerary only.

Edited January 12 by david_sobe

[dshefter]

On 1/6/2024 at 12:55 PM, Obobru said:

We are just about to end our first NCL cruise which was 16 day Antarctica and South America. We have traveled with a few cruise lines and are not loyal to any but wouldn't ever travel NCL again, I am wondering what people think is good about them? 

 

Here are a few of the issues which are both ship and head office issues. 

 

Awful food quality akin to prison food some days with horrific meat that was like shoe leather or full of fat. Sausages at breakfast with barely any meat in them they are all filler. Tasteless dry foods.

 

No stocking of the ship over 16 days so ran out of basics like coke zero/diet/Fanta/apple juice and foods such as bananas but we did have banana bread every day as they had a lot of black bananas after a week. 

 

Lack of daytime entertainment that isn't a sales pitch or paid event such as bingo/spa services/foot analysis/shopping event/deal or no deal/art events

 

Absent senior management. All ships I have been on the senior crew would be in the atrium in the evening and the Cruise Director would be ever present but not on this shop as she's only seen when she gets to play a part in the Xmas show the rest of the time she's nowhere to be seen. 

 

Lack of variety in the evening entertainment as it's is all dancing and singing and not a single magician/comedian/ventriloquist

 

Painfully slow main dining room service often taking over 2 hours to have dinner due to 20 min waits for menus, 40 mins to get starters, etc

 

Drills done during lunch instead of between 3-5pm when no food is served and they did it on a sea day. The lunch staff all walked off to their posts which they have to do but no explanation, never known this to happen it's usually done on port days at quiet times. 

 

Awful rude staff. The internet didn't work well and the internet manager was rude to people who were being polite to him. I saw him rolling his eyes at people and throwing his head around in a dramatic fashion. We arrived to our room at 14.30 as a crew manager was opening the doors as we passed down the stairs but the room wasn't vacuumed when we arrived and all the attendants had gone, rang guest services but didn't get "sorry we will send someone to clean it" nope I got "why are you in the room, who let you in, you shouldn't be in the there, it's your own fault" I couldn't believe how rude she was. 

 

Managers on the ship especially in the buffet are rude to staff in front of guests, the work culture here stinks. 

 

Talking of stinks the bathroom smells like a sewer often due to the fact the toilet doesn't always fill with water leaving the pipe open for gas to come it and the drain in the floor under the sink smelling foul, they know this as they took the bin out of its holder and keep it on the floor over the drain. 

 

On the stinky front we can smell rotten waste smells some days on the aft stairs, my partner says it had the smell of a rotting rat (if you keep you know apparently). 

 

NCL still things it's the 90's and allows smoking in the casino which is fine as it stopped me spending a single dollar in there as it seems NCL favour a few smokers using the casino over 95% of the other guests who stayed away. The problem is the smoke floats everywhere as the casino has no doors and to avoid it we had to go up and down stairs. The smoking area outside is next to a main door to thr pool area, it should be miles from kids playing around the pool. 

 

When we had a missed port all other cruise lines give us a letter for our missed port insurance or put a stack of them on the guest services desk but not NCL, this is because NCL don't want to put in writing the missed port as they are keeping the taxes and fees for the port due to a "change in the maritime laws" according to the staff. 

 

NCL can't organise a tender system they give out tickets from 6am with people waiting since 4am! Why not hand them out the night before? Why not run all 6 tenders to the Falkland Islands instead of 3 then later 4 when it became apparent that it would take from 7am to 1pm to get everyone off when the final return tender was to be 4pm which ended up being 6.45pm. Why only arrange to use one dock that holds one boat and not the second dock as the local port agent was saying NCL should have done but didn't (most likely because they didn't give the tickets out the night before so had no clue of how many would go ashore so made no sufficient plans)

 

Some positives about NCL

 

Drinks package offers a good selection of in stock

Paid restaurants are good

The live music was generally good the B12 band are excellent 

 

So why do you sail NCL? Am I missing something? 

 

Never have had a bad experience on NCL. Never really have a bad experience on any cruise. Are they perfect? No. But I also don't expect everything to be perfect.

[lenquixote66]

We have been on a dozen NCL cruises and have never had any negatives.

[luv2kroooz]

44 minutes ago, lenquixote66 said:

We have been on a dozen NCL cruises and have never had any negatives.

Oh my, how boring to literally not be able to be honestly critical or identify one constructive thing that the cruise line could improve upon......I couldn't imagine sailing any cruise line for 12 times and not be able to constructively suggest one of two things that could be improved upon. 

[UKstages]

wow. a dozen cruises and nothing ever went wrong? nothing? wow.

 

i'll have what you're having.

 

i enjoy cruising on NCL, but things go wrong all the time, as they do on most cruise lines.

 

shows get canceled, ports get canceled, steaks get served at the wrong temperature, steaks are inedible, there's a 45-minute wait for a table at the MDR, the ship arrives into port early, the ship arrives into port late, they've run out of [insert your favorite food item here], bartender puts vodka in your mocktail, staff is surly, rude, absent, lacks empathy, doesn't listen or spills a hot beverage on your freshly laundered shirt, room service is late, room wasn't made up, housekeeper failed to bring extra towels, as requested.

 

nothing ever went wrong?

 

you are truly blessed with great good fortune.

 

 

[ChiefMateJRK]

52 minutes ago, lenquixote66 said:

We have been on a dozen NCL cruises and have never had any negatives.

Me neither.  I do understand that there are some who love to spend their time on the ship looking for things to complain about.  Some folks have strange hobbies.