This was my 12th cruise, 4th with NCL. This was a vacation for three odd couples: my wife and I are in our early fifties, the second couple are in their late forties (first time cruisers) and the third couple (seasoned cruisers) are in their early thirties. Even though I am not a professional writer, I will I rate each category with my own arbitrary, yet uncreative rating system of 1 to 5: 5 being Outstanding, 4 excellent, 3 satisfactory, 2 marginal, and 1 unsatisfactory. Remember, everyone's cruising experience differs, so I try to stick to the facts (unlike government) and let you draw your own conclusions.

Embarkation: Solid 4 stars NCL has online registration that includes e-tickets. If you've used a computer in the last 5 years, you can use e-tickets. You just print out the materials and have them checked at the dock outside the main building. You go through one line at the dock area to hand in your pre-registration, then you move inside a building for actual key card registration, photo etc. The lines inside the building where short and fast moving, and the building was air conditioned and bathrooms are readily available. You could say it was an improvement from the standard cattle corral that we're all familiar with at check-in. There is also a latitudes line for key card registration to facilitate repeat NCL guests -moved fast and was a nice perk. My only negative was the total "CONFUSION" surrounding luggage tags. You are expected to turn in your luggage to a porter once you arrive at the NCL dock area. However, there are NO signs, no general area marked and everybody seems to point to a different direction. I finally found the desk (that was not manned at the time - 10:00 am) and then you need to find your room number to get the correct tags, put them on your bags right then and there and then hand them to a porter - big hassle! Bottom line, NCL could easily solve the luggage tag problem, and when you're going to Mexico for the next week, this definitely won't ruin your vacation.

Cabins: 4 stars Very nice. We had three different cabin categories assigned: Inside, Outside, and Balcony. Each cabin category appears slightly larger in size. I viewed all three cabins and was impressed. The outside cabin has a nice size picture window and the bathroom is nicely laid out. The shower had a door instead of a curtain, which was nice. Each room is equipped with a small fridge. The closet storage space was adequate and had a room safe. The only real complaint was that you could hear talking, noise and sounds from cabins next door and cabins above. On two separate occasions the banging/vacuuming above my cabin was so loud that I could hardly sleep all night, perhaps better soundproofing could have helped but it is a little late. The TV had two separate commercial channels, plus the on board channel and two movie selections, although I was rarely in my room to watch. Needless to say, I didn't pay a couple thousand bucks to watch 5 TV channels - I got better things to do. Our cabin steward was fine, doing the basic good cleaning and a few smiles in the hallways. Read more