This was my first cruise, and there are so many reviews already describing what this one was like compared to other cruiselines and cruises, so I thought I would instead concentrate my review on what a first cruise is like and how it compares with a 'regular' vacation.

From the start, my experience was questionable. Trying to book a cruise is overwhelming, and leaves me feeling like the cruiselines are being intentionally obtuse in an attempt to confuse travellers and swindle them as much as possible. Every ship is 1 (or at most 3) of a kind, and there are probably 5+ major cruiselines travelling to where you want to go, meaning you'll be expected to memorize 50+ ships by name, with ameneties and functions, to begin to make sense of things. This is part of the vacation! NCL, like all cruiselines, try to sell their cruises as complete vacations, yet they completely wash their hands of this part of the process. My partner and I spent a total of 20 hours (my phone logged 375 minutes of calls for that period), working together, just to figure out the travel and parking arrangements and insure we got the best price. This experience was terrible enough that before the cruise ever began, I had already decided I probably didn't want to go on another.

Cruises are often described as "the cheapest possible vacation," people love to say, "especially when you consider the costs of food and activities." I don't doubt that cruises can be a reasonable deal, or maybe used to be, but I feel like calling them "the cheapest" is intentionally misleading. Read more