I have cruised with Crystal, Carnival, Princess and Disney. This was our first Norwegian Cruise. I selected the Getaway during Spring Break for my kids aged 14, 12 and 10. We really enjoyed Disney a few years back but thought that they were now older and would probably enjoy a cruise directed at tweens and teens.

We made our reservations through Norwegian directly. We chose 2 connected inside staterooms where 3 would sleep in one and 2 in the other. When we made the reservations, the prices automatically included free “Package” to select. We chose the dining package which allowed 2 individuals in each cabin to dine at 4 of the specialty restaurants. The agent said that would be fine because our youngest (10) could just order from the kids menu which was either free or a few dollars. That sounded fine and we didn’t have a choice so she set up the reservations. Once on board, we looked more closely at the paperwork and noticed that my youngest and me were in one room while my wife and the 2 older kids were booked in the other. You have to have one adult per room. We didn’t really think about it because we were in connecting rooms. When I noticed that it occurred to me that if only 2 per room could participate in the “Dining Package”, then my younger might be forced to order from the adult menu while the oldest might have to pay for her adult meal or order from the kids menu. I wanted to clear it up so I went to Guest Services and the agent quickly told me there was nothing she could do to change the names. She confirmed that the arrangement, made by a Norwegian agent, would in fact force the youngest to order from the adult menu and/or the oldest would have to pay full price. I told her that was silly because we didn’t care who was in which room because we were one family in 2 connecting rooms. Didn’t matter. She couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything. Just to test her and Norwegian’s philosophy, I told her both kids would order what they were forced to order and then just swap dinners. She said “you can do that”. I found the fact that an agent was telling me to “cheat” my way out of this disturbing.

Back to boarding. Boarding was reasonable considering it was a Spring Break cruise and there are 4000 or so potential passengers that need to get on board. We boarded at about 12 noon. We carried our important items, change of clothes etc, in 3 carry on suitcases while we checked the 2 large suitcases we had. We were scheduled to eat at Cagney’s Steak House at 5:30 on the 1st day. The only times we were offered were 5:30 and after 8:30. However, our bags never arrived to our room. Unfortunately, our dress clothes were in the checked bags. We called Cagneys to tell them that we were dressed in very casual shorts and T-shirts and that our bags had not arrived to our room yet and asked them for advice. I purposely asked them for advice, again to test the Norwegian philosophy. Cagney’s said, “you can just come as you are dressed”. I thought that was odd. A supposed upscale steak house where they charge $30 for entres and $50 for a bottle of wine and they were encouraging passengers to show up in gym shorts, tennis shoes and a Miami sweaty T-shirt. But we had no choice to we did it. Read more