We took our first cruise ever on NCL's Starwood back in 1987, and over the years have cruised 6 more times on Celebrity, Princess, RCCL, and Holland America. This 8th cruise was to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.
We came on this ship with low expectations because of the mixed reviews. We picked it because of its port intensive itinerary. We were part of a roll call Cruise Critic group and were able to have a Cruise Critic meeting on the day of embarkation with about 8 officers from the ship including the Captain, the Hotel Director, and the Head Chef. On Friday afternoon we all were invited back for a follow-up meeting with 8 top officers to give our input on the ship and the various experiences we had. On other ships we never met any officers as part of Cruise Critic meetings, so this showed a level of caring and commitment to improvement which was outstanding.
THE STATEROOM:
7102: OBSTRUCTED
We were in an obstructed view cabin, 7102, with a floor to ceiling window behind our bed. There was no shelf behind the bed so we could not prop our pillows up too much or they would fall into the window space behind the bed. The large window has almost a full view as only the back end of a lifeboat was visible. Several times during the cruise (daytimes) I noticed workmen walking about the little cat walk right outside out window, and although they were never looking in our window, we had to be careful about prancing around in the buff. On the last afternoon they washed the outside of the window.
The cabin was small and felt smaller because of the bunk beds hanging on both sides on the long walls. We had to watch we didn't hit our heads when getting OOB in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. The obstructed cabin 7100 next door didn't have as good of a view as ours, but at least the bed was arranged on the left long wall and had a tiny sofa bed next to it on the window side. We missed having somewhere to sit other than on the bed or the desk chair or a little round stool. The bed itself had some sag in it, and the pillows were not great. I packed my own oldest down pillow which helped me and then I just left it there after the cruise.
The bathroom was the standard ship bathroom but the shower had the best shower curtain with stiff rods in it making it stay in place.
The cabin was quiet. We never heard anyone on either side of us or above us.
We were in a great location near the stairs and elevators, and the only time we heard hall noise was a little around 9-10 PM at night.