We had a large group of 11 people cruising so that could have impacted our experience, but some things just weren't up to par even if you were cruising with a smaller family.

Embarkation in Miami was fine. It seemed well organized, but I don't understand why they offer early check-in times as early as 9:00, when you then have to sit in the terminal and wait to get on the ship at about 12:00. At check-in, we set up our on-board account and blocked my son from the ability to make purchases. We felt any purchases should be done when he was with us, but one of the other families we were sailing with wasn't even offered that as an option. Once on board, we went straight to the area where we needed to purchase the soda package for the kids. The crew member working there seemed to have no clue what he was talking about. He kept calling it a juice package and we had to ask several times if it included soda, just to make sure. He also said that the kids weren't supposed to get a refillable cup, but they would with the less expensive package. Huh??? After checking with guest services, we were directed to go to another area to get cups for the kids because of course, they were supposed to be included.

We felt the ports were great! We had booked all of our excursions through outside companies before sailing, so we didn't have any difficulties with that. I can't speak to excursions that were booked through NCL. The weather was beautiful and the excursions were a lot of fun. I just wish we had a little more time at each port. In Honduras, we were only there from 10-5:30 and Belize was 8-4. Even being on the first tender in Belize, we felt like we were rushed to make it back on time. Read more