My wife an I are retirees who love cruising and were on our twenty fourth cruise, the fifth on NCL, the first on Dawn.
We traveled to New Orleans by car from Tulsa, Oklahoma and stopped overnight in Beau Bridge, Louisiana, the "Crayfish Capitol of the World". We had a great crayfish dinner and enjoyed the quaint shopping are in the town. We then traveled on to NO to enjoy a couple of days in the French Quarter. New Orleans is a great city with great restaurants and a unique culture and entertainment. We stayed at the Country Inn and Suites on Magazine, a hotel created out of four historic building in the downtown section of the city just off of Canal Street and within a short walk to the Quarter. Our car was checked in to a garage near the port and transportation was provided to the hotel and later on the embarkation day we were picked up and transported to the pier. Embarkation was quick and smooth, and we were on our way.
As we were making our way down the Mississippi we headed for the Spinnaker Lounge for a Bon Voyage drink and to watch the NFL semifinal game showing in the lounge. NCL needs to hire have cruise staff that understand the needs of their clients and American culture for US based cruises. With less than four minutes of play left in the game an NCL staff member told everyone that they would have to leave the lounge so that they could prepare for Trivia. There was standing room only in the lounge at the time and this ignited an immediate uproar. Everyone refused to leave with three minutes and thirteen seconds left on the clock. The staff then proceeded to enforce their will on the guests and pulled the plug on the game. The reaction from the guests was, as you might expect, outrage. People were on there feet yelling "NO!". The NCL employee at the front of the room was going to do it her way even in the face of all the uproar. The staff could not have found a more effective way to make so many guests, so angry in such a short time on the very first day of their cruise if they had wanted to. I guess that NCL feels that their will supersedes the pleasure of their guests. It was very clear that the guests wishes were secondary to keeping the schedule from slipping a few minutes. So much for customer service.
Small. Springs for a "pop-up" bed were stored under one of our beds. When we asked to have them removed we were told that our luggage could be stored elsewhere than in our room. Unacceptable! We should not have to give up limited storage space in a cramped cabin so that the cruise line can store their surplus equipment under our beds. We insisted that the surplus equipment be stored elsewhere and spent the first day tripping over suitcases waiting for some action.