My boyfriend and I took this cruise for my 30th bday. I was told really good things about cruising, so I was really excited. The food was the most disappointing thing about the cruise. We did not have a single "amazing" meal. Having Chili's or Applebee's would have been a major upgrade. I spit out what was in my mouth twice. We ate at the buffet a lot because of timing issues. We tried to go to the poolside BBQ, but never got to because it never made any sense. The schedule said noon to close, we got there at 130, after an activity we were at, and they were already torn down and putting the leftover food away. We ate sit down dinners 3 times and at the sports bar twice. At Seven Seas, they messed up my drink from the bar twice and gave me the wrong dinner. The steaks we got from both the Four Seasons and Seven Seas were thin, tough, and had so much fat on them, it was unappetizing. They had a lot of the same items on the menu every single day. We ordered room service 3 or 4 times and they messed up our order each and every time. The bar staff was 50/50. The ones at the bar near our room were pretty good, the 2 guys in the observation lounge were great, and one of the waiters in Dazzles was really good. Other than that, it was fairly poor. It was almost impossible to get service at the poolside bar unless you were a hot chick in a bikini. The staff in the Windjammer didn't seem to care at all about service. I was completely ignored my first time there and then another, the waiter insulted my drink choice. They did not have enough waiters in the stardust lounge. There would be old glasses from the previous event and you would have to leave and walk over to the Windjammer to get a drink. They must use really cheap, watered down liquor because I TRIED to get drunk with our unlimited drink package on the day at sea and couldn't, despite drinking 12 drinks. The disembarkation was confusing, with no real direction on where to go or what to do. There really should have been people walking around the atrium to answer questions and direct people. Everyone just kind of made their own lines and we ended up waiting in a long one to find out it was for the wrong department. The excursions we picked were pretty good, except for the last one we completely missed because of a mix up at the meeting point. But you have to spend over $100 per person to get a good excursion. And make sure you bring PLENTY of cash, even though in the shoppin lecture they say everyone takes cards. They don't. Mostly everyone takes cash only. Even the restaurant on the pier of the port takes cash only. Speaking of, don't bother with the port shopping lecture unless you're only there to buy diamonds and gemstones because that is all he talks about. Our room steward was great and friendly. But they apparently don't have a system to recognize great service. We had one really good waiter in the Four Seasons and we went to the service desk to make sure the compliment got his supervisors, but the girl at the counter didn't know what to do with it, so she had us write it down on a piece of paper from her pocket and said she'd let them know. The activities staff was great. The activities we did attend were a lot of fun, but the schedule of activities could use some work. There seemed to be a lot to do for kids, retirees, and spring breakers, but not as much for the 30s or so crowd. Similar things would be scheduled at the same time, so you'd have to do one or the other and then there wouldn't be anything again for a few hours. And the locations could have been better. They had the trivia-type games in the Windjammer lounge, which was very cramped on space and the bar staff was not the best. On the last day, they hosted on in the observation deck, and we both thought they should have been doing them there the whole time. The bar staff there was so much better, there was so much more room for everyone, and there was an amazing view. Some things were oversexualized to the point that I thought it was inappropriate for a family atmosphere. The Perfect Couple game was the biggest example. The whole thing was one sexual gesture after another. And there were kids in the front. We left before it was over! Tim Kaminski's shows were really good. His interactive shows were a lot better than his stand up. There was some cheesy lounge singer on before his first performance and we almost got up and left and would have missed out on Tim. The casino staff seemed to not care at all and it was very smoky. We left pretty quickly. This was my boyfriend's 3rd cruise, 1st with Norwegian, and my first cruise ever. From what we've been told by friends that heard about our experience, it must be either the cruise line or the ship itself because they have never had an experience anything like this on any of the other cruise lines. We're already planning our next cruise, but it will definitely not be with Norwegian.
We actually missed our ferry by about 2 minutes because they had multiple groups meeting in the Stardust lounge at the same time we got up and left with the wrong group. We spent the day walking around Cozumel. It was ok. Salespeople were pretty pushy, more so if you leave the mall and go to other shops. They tried to price gouge you too. You really have to haggle with them to get an even decent price. We went to a local restaurant recommended to us, Costa Brava. Most of the food was really good, the margaritas were snow cones with booze, and they ripped us off by charging us like 8 or 9 bucks (everything was in pesos) for chips and salsa when we didn't even ask for it, they just brought it out to the table, so we thought it was complimentary.