We are seasoned cruisers. On NCL alone we have been on 29 cruises. We love freestyle cruising but we liked NCL way before they began freestyle.
We flew into Miami one day prior to our cruise. This I do highly recommend as it makes the day of embarkation less hectic. We had reservations at the Fairfield Inn and Suites. We were picked up at the airport by their free shuttle very promptly. If you decide to stay at the Fairfield Inn there is a wonderful restaurant two blocks away by the name of Latin Cafe that is excellent.
Embarkation went very smoothly.
Our disappointment this trip was our cabin and the lack of concern from guest relations. On arrival we walked into our cabin and saw the bed with the big sway in each bed and said oh no, can't do that for 11 nights. We then walked out to the balcony and saw a lot of white trash on it. We started looking around and realized it was paint chips. The cabin steward was nice and cleaned up the chips so we wouldn't track them into the room. My husband went to guest relations to talk with them about the bed. They told him for us not to unpack and when everyone was onboard they would call us and move us to another cabin. That was fine and we went exploring the ship. When it was time for dinner and we had not heard from them my husband went back to guest relations to get the new cabin #. He was told they would move us to an inside room. Now keep in mind, we paid for a balcony. Of course he wasn't happy with that. They said every other cabin on the ship was full. REALLY?
They did change our mattress which did make the bed fine. After the paint kept falling in big chunks and one fell on my husbands leg and cut it they did decide to paint the balcony while we were in our first port. They scraped off the old paint and painted it and that did remedy that situation. Toilet oVerflowed one time and two days later would not flush at all. I have written to NCL about all of this but to date have not heard back from them. There seems to be a total lack of concern from their management.