Let me start by saying that ALL aspects of this cruise were EXCELLENT. Having said that I must admit that I was somewhat concerned about this ship and it's crew after reading the multitude of bad reviews. Frankly, I don't know what ship these grouches were on, but it certainly wasn't NCL's Pride of America that I sailed on. Furthermore, this was my 18th cruise and an avid traveler, so I have lots of cruising experience enough to know the difference between good and bad. I am also the kind of person that tries to find good in every trip I take, so EVEN if I had found something negative about NCL's Pride of America (which I didn't) I would have tried to find the good things. The fact is that people only talk and write about bad things, but if things are good, they seem to forget to mention it. All these folks are grouches and party-poopers - they don't know a good thing even if it bit them in the face. NCL's Pride of America, is a VERY GOOD thing!
The Staff:
I do not exaggerate when I say that not one crew member or staff personnel was rude. In fact, it was a pleasure, beyond all other cruises I have taken, to speak with the American-only crew. Every one of these young men and women had a story, or a reason to be there and they worked very hard, were extremely pleasant and helpful and a joy to be around. From our cabin steward, room service attendants, shore excursion desk agents, front desk reps, and finally the absolute most wonderful dining room staff I have EVER had the pleasure to deal with on ANY cruise, by far. That includes the Maitre'd, the host/hostess, the head waiter, the assistant waiter, all of them....in dining rooms, as well as specialty restaurants. In fact. we had such a good time with one group in particular, we dined with them almost every night at the Liberty Dining Room -- and what a pleasure it was when we would run into them during the day at the other eating spots, and they would actually call us by our names, and yes, like the reviews said, "hey, how ya doing!" It felt wonderful and we loved them, shared e-mail addresses, took pictures and have already shared that with them! Thank you Dave Priest, Gaetano Castellano and A.J.! Three fine young men from different cities in our wonderful nation, all with big dreams and working hard. I can't emphasize this enough. We also met a young man, an employee with the security surveillance team who was extremely helpful to us in pointing out some of the local spots around the different islands. An absolute pleasure of a young man. The photographers, the gift shop attendants, I could go on and on and on and frankly am still amazed, and we often repeated it during the cruise, what were those other cruisers thinking when they wrote their reviews. We were in one of the jacuzzis late one afternoon and an older gentlemen from Kentucky was complaining about the dinner the previous night because the Pepper shaker was empty!!!!!!!!!!! For goodness sake! I would certainly hate to live with these folks. As to cabin stewards not being attentive????? Second after embarkation I walked into my cabin and found the connecting door to the other cabin (unrelated to me) was opened and not 10 minutes after I called, an attendant was there to lock the door. When I met our cabin steward I asked him for two special requests: (1) fresh towels every evening and (2) ice in our bucket twice a day. I did not have to repeat it twice. The minute we would turn that dial on the outside of the door to "make up room" or "turn down cabin" it was done! One day, WE forgot to turn the dial and left it at "do not disturb" and when we returned from the tour naturally cabin was not made up. Whose mistake was that? Certainly not his. I called the front desk, told them what had happened and left for lunch - when we returned from lunch, cabin was perfectly made.