I was nervous before we went on this cruise because of the many negative reviews of the ship and staff. Overall, we had a great time, in spite of some pretty miserable weather. I was travelling with my 10 year old daughter, so stormy days and the closing of the pools were disappointing. Embarking was easy -- there was a long line of cars to get into the port at around 11 (but that isn't NCL's fault), but once we got off the shuttle, we literally walked through the check-in process. No lines at all.

We had an inside cabin, it was clean and I was happy with the layout. Lots of places to put away our things and better laid out that some others I have been in. The washroom set up didn't bother us at all and I managed to do some limited sink laundry without problems (I did mostly undies -- bulky items would be a problem). Our cabin steward was great and made us increasingly more elaborate towel animals every night!

I have to follow a strict gluten free diet (if that doesn't interest you, skip ahead). I was very impressed by how the ship handled it. The waiters in charge of special diets in the dining rooms were amazing. I was given the menu in advance to order for the following day and I could order basically anything from the menu and they would modify it. They could cook fries in a separate fryer, provide decent gluten free bread, and had some dessert available every time. I did not get sick once. In the buffet, it was much harder. I would have to find someone to ask for help and then choose what was identified as gluten free. There were always options though, but it was more time consuming and I felt like a bit of a pain holding up the lines. I will say that one day I ordered a gluten free pizza from the buffet and I was incredibly impressed with the precautions the guy took to ensure there wasn't cross contamination. One criticism is that it would be nice to have some gluten free snacks/desserts available in the buffets other than jello (that was a bit pathetic). Read more