I had cruised with Norwegian as a passenger, guest lecturer, and Hawaiian Ambassador & was always very happy with the cabins, food, service, entertainment, ports, ships' amenities, and ships' conditions. We have traveled on Carnival,Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Princess, & Holland America as well, but found Norwegian to be our favorite due to casual relaxed atmosphere and all previously stated. We have taken well over fifty cruises and were always looking forward to our next cruise! We have not cruised for 4 years, and decided to cruise again and it was a no-brainer to choose Norwegian! We liked the itinerary and the embarkation port since we live in Tampa, so we booked on the Sun. We had never been to Costa Maya, and believe me we will never again go there!! It is an insect infested area with no good snorkeling or diving.

We had booked an ocean view cabin with a porthole. Unfortunately, we were "upgraded" to a cabin with a window on deck 6A. Deck 6A is NOT ACCESSIBLE BY ELEVATOR! In all my cruising, We never heard of a passenger cabin like that! When we got our cruise docs and saw that, I immediately called customer service to get our cabin changed as I have a knee problem and cannot climb stairs. They told me, rather rudely,that I should be happy to get such an upgrade to a cabin with a wonderful window and besides the ship was sold out and I could cancel if I wished, but there would be no refund! I asked if they could "upgrade" another passenger from a porthole cabin to this one with the wonderful window & put us in the "lesser" porthole cabin. Again rudely, I was told absolutely not, that they did not change assignments once made. I told her that I knew that they did it frequently and asked for a supervisor. I had the same rude experience with the supervisor! When we boarded the ship, we went to guest relations trying to get a cabin change, but they could not do it either. At least they were nice, not rude. My son explained the situation and the guest relations person excused herself and disappeared for a few minutes. She came back with a special pass that allowed us to use crew elevators which DID access deck 6A! The cabin was ok, but the carpet was loose in a few places and the vanity chair had a dangerously bent leg! I purchased the 6 bottles of water to be delivered to the cabin, but had to call guest services on the second day because they had not arrived yet! My son purchased the soda package, and almost every time he used at a bar, he was treated rudely! One time at the pool he ordered a soda and when the server came back with it, my son asked him to come back in ten or fifteen minutes with another one. We never saw the server again!

The shore excursion people frequently gave out false information! The excursions that we took were fine, but the selection was more limited than before. As to the food: how disappointing!!! The supposed prime rib was definitely not prime, and it was tasteless. The buffet selections were not up to the standards we had come to expect from Norwegian. The buffet servers were rude when they replaced the silverware in the container on the table as if we were inconveniencing them by being there! There was no lobster night! This used to be standard on all of the cruise lines! At one of the on-deck BBQ's, the sausages were tiny and tasteless, and the main meat was pork belly!!! Naturally, it was globs of fat with a small strip of meat attached!! How classless! The main dining rooms (we ate at both) were never full, but even so, the service was verrrry slow! The selections were acceptable, but the quality was less than expected. We ate ate at 2 of the extra charge restaurants, Le Bistro and Teppanyaki. The menu selection at Le Bistro was not good as it used to be. The service was not up to par. The server even forgot our amuse bouche, and after we mentioned it he laughed and said it was sitting over on the counter. He just forgot it! The food was quite tasty. Teppanyaki was nice, but we missed 2 of the standard parts: onion volcano, and shrimp for everyone with one being tossed into the chef's pocket! We got the seafood selection and the calamari was superb, scallops very good, but the lobster dry and salty. Throughout the ship, there were places where the carpet was loose, spotted, and quite worn. The entertainment was standard cruise fare, all enjoyable. Disembarkation was smooth, easy, and even early! Read more