Norwegian Pearl Review
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We traveled on the 5-night trip to Cozumel and Grand Cayman with our 2 kids and 2 other families, giving us a total of 6 adults, and 6 kids ages 9-11. My wife and I have cruised regularly, but this was the first time with the kids, so we knew it would take a bit more work to keep everything going smoothly. We definitely enjoyed ourselves, but just a few nitpicks keep this cruise line from being worth recommending over the others our group has tried (Disney and Royal Caribbean.)
On the plus side, the port of Miami is a breeze - quick cab ride, and really quick embarkation. We arrived just after noon and it took maybe 20 minutes from the time we arrived at the port to be on the ship. While the ship doesn't have a nice big atrium to greet you in, it's still well laid out. Lots of areas to explore, and very clean and "new" looking. (and if you don't like bright colors, you probably don't belong on many cruise ships anyway.) Our first mission was to go make reservations for dinner that night and the next. We have read about the freestyle cruising hassles people complained about, so we thought we'd need to stay on our game with a party of 12 to manage.
Here's our take on this: yes, the visuals you get in the TV commercial are a bit misleading. You cannot just decide last minute to go to dinner at a specialty restaurant at 7pm and expect immediate seating. (Especially if you have a party > 2.) But my response to those that complain is this: where exactly do you live where you could do this at a popular land-based restaurant? In our suburban enclave, any given weekend at a restaurant at prime-time will find you with a red beeper in your hand. This is no different. Fortunately, NCL solves this through their reservation system. With just a tiny bit of forethought, you should have no problems getting reasonable times for the restaurants of your choice. We were able, with our party of 12, to get to every restaurant we wanted right around WHEN we wanted for our full 5-day cruise. All it took was for 1 of our party to go to a reservation desk during breakfast and get a reservation for the following night. (They allow you to reserve 1-day ahead.) Piece of cake!