Firstly, we chose this cruise mainly for rest and "landed" in the UK without the dreaded jetlag! We stayed in the Westin, very close to the port pre-cruise and had a complimentary van transfer which took less than 5 minutes...$20 tip shared between hotel bell-boy and driver for this excellent courtesy.

The embarkation experience was fabulous...we left the Westin hotel at 10.50am and stepped onto the ship at precisely 11.30am. Check-in was quick and smooth, and we were card number 2 for Platinum boarders. Suite guests were called at 11.15, and Platinum at 11.20....smoothest, quickest check-in ever on 39 cruises so well done Tampa and NCL.

When we boarded, we were advised cabins would be ready by 1.30pm however I wandered off to our cabin and it was ready so we dropped our roll-on luggage and headed for lunch, our first of many fabulous meals. We found the Garden Cafe buffet met our expectations for breakfast and lunch...it is a buffet, very busy, so do bear that in mind! We found the Alizar MDR provided better service than the Grand Pacific, to be fair we only had 2 evening meals in Alizar, and 1 in Grand Pacific. We had 2 free Speciality Restaurant meals (Platinum perk), and purchased a further 8 as UDP. We had 3 Cagneys (superb), 3 Le Bistro (excellent), 2 Moderno (very good, but a "meatfest"), 1 Teppanyaki (OK, but experienced previously) and 1 La Cucina (poor). On the final evening, we went to the Garden Cafe to work around our packing and were very satisfied. Read more