Brief overview, there were 7 of us traveling. 3 adults, 1 senior in an electric scooter and 3 children. We have been on 7 cruises and this was our first on NCL. We wanted to see what the whole freestyle cruising buzz was about. We live in Florida so it was an easy drive to Miami. Embarkation was easy and uneventful. Tip: if you have a handicap sticker or tag make sure you put it up when you go to park. Parking for cars with a handicap tag park for FREE. That's a big savings right up front.

The Pearl is a beautiful ship, very whimsical and colorful. We had a balcony cabin with another balcony adjoining our room. We had gotten cabins together before and looked forward to having our balcony privacy door be opened so we could have one large area for our two cabins. However do not expect that to happen because no one would open it unless we were in port and not on sea days. So we never had it opened because we were never in our cabin on port days. Our room steward was lackluster. He never made towel animals and that is one thing that my children always enjoy. Only after we asked did he make one that night. There were dirty cups and plates left behind and one night my daughter had spilled something on her duvet and it was wet allover. Instead of replacing it for that night our room steward made up her bed with the same wet duvet. I had to call reception to have the soiled one removed and a new one brought to our cabin. The NCL balcony cabins are very small, especially with four people. Even on other ships we have always had more room. When the sofa was pulled out you had to climb over the bed to get out to the balcony. When you are dressed in your nice dress climbing over things is not exactly what you want to do.

Our experience in the restaurants was disappointing. We ate in Teppanyaki 2X and that was probably the best meal we had the whole cruise $20 PP charge). The Garden Cafe buffet was good but it was usually the same food everyday. Summer Palace and Indigo(FREE) food was OK but service was terrible. Wait staff were not overly friendly nor did they go out of their way to help you. Mambos(mexican-FREE)was the worst. Service was so slow, it took almost an hour just to get our entree that all 7 of us got up an left. We were going to miss the show. To top that off, my brother had worn shorts to dinner and when we got there which was around 5pm it wasn't a problem but when he got up to go the restroom the hostess came over and told him he couldn't wear shorts after 5 pm and that he needed to go and change. We were disgusted at that point because all around us were people in shorts for dinner. Freestyle cruising is really not accurate. You have to make a reservation the day before or early in the morning especially for a popular restaurant. There were several times where we tried to make a reservation but the time was taken so we never ate at some of the specialty restaurants because we couldn't get in. Read more