First a little demographic info- I went on this cruise with my husband, 11yr old daughter and 8 yr old son. It was our fourth cruise as a family, the first 3 were 4 day Disney Cruises (same itinerary as this one), so that is our point of comparison.

Overall, we enjoyed the cruise, we all agreed that it was relaxing and pleasant, and our favorite part was the food and the shore excursions. Compared to Disney, the main difference is the lower standards, below what we'd expect to be the minimum standards for a cruise, especially for such a well-known brand as NCL. On all our Disney cruises, we never saw a single thing out of place or done incorrectly, and on this cruise there was plenty to find fault with.

I would attribute most to new-ship and new-staff glitches. The positive comparison with a Disney cruise is that it seems much less crowded. Though the ship was completely full, there were never crowds and rarely were there lines, so it was more relaxing and less of a kid-oriented theme park atmosphere. Speaking of kid-oriented, we heard from the cruise staff that usually this ship would have 150 kids but because of the kids sail free promotion, there were 450 children on board. Very little accommodation was made for children. At restaurants, we always had to ask for kids menus and it took them a long time to locate them. During the port days there was almost nothing for families to do on board, only the pool, which does get old after a while. Our kids didn't mind, because they're old enough to enjoy what we like to do, but for little kids it would have been difficult to keep them amused. Something as simple as having some board games for families to use in one of the lounges during the day would have really helped. Below is my opinion on some shipboard categories, based on my family's observations: EMBARKATION: Very easy, we arrived at noon and there were no lines at all, we were on the ship by 12:30. We immediately noticed that the ship was very warm, the a/c appeared not to be working. We went straight to Le Adagio, and the custom made pizza and pastas were delicious. The pools were closed, so there was little to do while waiting for our stateroom. My husband had gym clothes on, so he spent the hours working out in the gym, which was pretty well cooled, while we wandered the ship looking for a cool place to sit. Our room was ready at 2, so we could put down all of our carry-ons and change clothes. At 4 we cooled off in the pool until the 4:30 safety drill, which was fairly quick and well-run. Read more