Almost perfect cruise

This reviews starts with some negatives as did our cruise did, however, stick around the review details how well the cruise turns out.

It just seems like the cruises just get better and better. One of the few problems we had on this cruise will teach us never, never leave your bags with the baggage handler /porter unless you have your cabin number on your luggage. We had the unfortunate problem of being told "don't worry I will hold your luggage separate until I receive the ship's manifest and will add on your cabin number". Not true.. I came back to the area we dropped off the luggage to find that our bags were all gone and after spending a bit of time looking for them found them in the piles of checked luggage, I found them and they still had no cabin number on them. I reported the problem to the person in charge and he told me "NEVER LEAVE YOUR BAGS UNLESS YOU HAVE YOUR CABIN NUMBER ON THEM." If you remember anything from our review, remember this, because this started our memorable cruise on a bad note. I had to go over to the information desk where I was totally ignored by the NCL employees. I tried speaking to them in English and Spanish and got no response. I started yelling at them in English asking them what language they spoke and no response. I assume they must have been deaf. Finally a lady that worked for NCL must have heard me and she approached the desk and asked the men who were ignoring me if they had the most current manifest. She looked up my name and told me our cabin number was 99999. This strange code turned out to be cruise line code for an unassigned cabin. The lady from NCL told me to walk all the way to the other end of the pier and ask a security guard to help. I motioned to my husband who was waiting with the luggage that I had to go to the end of the pier and for him to wait with the bags (I used sign language since he was too far away to hear me). I hoped he understood. He was too far away from me and my feet were already aching from being on them for so long. Both my husband and myself have back and leg problems and this unnecessary stress from standing was hurting us both. After explaining my problem to the security guard I was told to go inside of the building and ask the NCL representative for help. Here was another NCL representative also ignored me. He continued to check in other people and avoid me. I started yelling " I am sick and tired of being ignore. I am Platinum Latitudes and this treatment is unacceptable." I then saw another NCL employee and asked him for help. Tears were already running down my face from frustration and the pain shooting down my back. This man who claimed to be in charge of the front area check in told me not to worry and he would take my ticket and give it to a friend of his and be back in no time with our cabin number. This whole process took about an hour total. I was starting to worry about my husband and asked a security guard if I could use their phone to call my husband so he would not think I abandoned him. They told me you were not allowed to use phones in the building. I asked if they could go out to where my husband was waiting for me but they said that was too far away. They could not leave their posts. Finally the man came back with our cabin number. I ran to my husband and found him still standing by our luggage and in pain as well. I wrote our cabin number on the luggage and placed them on a bin that had other NCL luggage for the Dawn in it. Then another porter came over and said I wasn't supposed to do that, I explained that another porter had already been tipped and I was not about to do that again. We were not sure whether our bags would make it onto the ship. In the back of our minds we pictured this last porter removing our luggage or damaging it. At this point we did not care. We were both in pain and wanted to get on the ship and relax. After we reached the terminal we tried to check in in the VIP area as we were instructed by our cruise consultant, but were told that even though we were platinum latitude members we could only use VIP check in if we had a suite. We asked to speak to her manager and after telling her the whole story she invited us to go into the VIP area and sit down and she would check us in. This was very nice of her. After about 30 more minutes she returned with our room keys. Somehow our keys were coded as suite keys and when we were escorted onto the ship by our concierge, we were told we could have lunch in Cagney's while our room was being made ready for our arrival. We were also told that we could have breakfast and lunch in Cagney's everyday of the cruise. As we boarded the ship one of the crew helped us carry our carry on luggage and escorted us to Cagney's. This was when our vacation took a turn for the better. We were treated like royalty in Cagney's. The food was excellent! We did not know how this mistake occurred but only suite passengers are allowed to dine in Cagney's for breakfast and lunch. Our cabin was suppose to be an inside cabin. Not a suite. We relaxed and started to unwind and enjoy ourselves. We met some lovely people at the next table who we became friends with and met several times with them during the cruise. When the cabin was ready we were totally surprised to find our inside cabin was outside and had a balcony. Finally things were going right! Read more