Norwegian Pearl Review

4.0 / 5.0
2,401 reviews

BEWARE OF NCL PEARL!!!!!

Review for Alaska Cruise on Norwegian Pearl
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sixsticks
First Time Cruiser • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Jul 2008
Cabin: Mid-Ship Mini-Suite with Balcony

We were a party of 20, family and friends, who cruised on the NCL Pearl for 7 nights to Alaska, July 6 - 13, 2008. I was delegated to research and select the ship we would cruise with. I was limited with the decision for three reasons; the ship had to embark from the Port of Seattle, we wanted a relatively newer ship and it had to have roomy mini suites. After much extensive online research, I chose the NCL Pearl and what a huge mistake that turned out to be! Most of us had cruised many times before, a few had never cruised before. Since we were a big group, we utilized the assistance of a local travel agency who is a family friend. When I advised her of my choice of ships, she strongly urged me to select another ship knowing that NCL did not have the greatest of reputations. Unfortunately, I didn't heed her advise. She obviously knew about a lot of negative issues regarding NCL and the Pearl that I didn't come across through my own extensive research. I attribute the many positive reviews that I found to perhaps be written by those who were not experienced cruisers and really didn't know any better.

We decided to spend a week in Seattle prior to the cruise. Our oldest son now lives in Seattle and was also going on the cruise. We stayed at the Hotel 1000 and was thoroughly impressed. It was quite pricey but well worth it. The service was impeccable, from the doormen, front desk staff, housekeeping and concierge. The room was gorgeous and extremely well appointed with extra touches such as fresh French pressed coffee makers in the room. We highly recommend this very fine hotel to anyone planning a trip to Seattle which is also very conveniently located to most areas people don't want to miss visiting.

We hired limo's to take us to the Port of Seattle. Since my sister and her husband had a Owner' Suite, they had VIP privileges that enabled us to avoid the terribly long lines to embark. What a plus that tuned out to be as it was like a zoo at the port. Consequently, for us, the embarkation was much easier than it appeared for others. Disembarkation was smooth due to the VIP service we received for that as well. Our stateroom was not near ready and had to wait a few hours. The ship provided very little in the way of food during this waiting period. It was a very windy and cool day and they had the food set up by the pool with a terrible band for entertainment and everyone was freezing. This was just the beginning of what would be our terrible experience on the Pearl.

Cabin Review

Mid-Ship Mini-Suite with Balcony

Cabin MA

Our stateroom (a mini suite) was very nice on first impression. It was equipped with a very small flat screen TV, a pull out sofa, a queen bed, balcony with 2 chairs and a table, hair dryer, make up mirror, desk, decent amount of storage/closet space and a great bathroom (for a ship) including a separate toilet area, bath tub/shower and sink. Shortly after trying to settle in to our stateroom, we started noticing that it was less than clean. Our steward was far more than disappointing. He was extremely unaccommodating, inattentive to our needs, and there was a very bad communication problem as was the case with most of the cruise staff. He basically ignored our requests to perform he simplest of tasks, i.e., clean out the coffee pot, remove dirty cups/glasses and replace used towels, etc. Yes, we did voice our complaints, however, they appeared to fall on deaf ears!

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