Susie from the 2/12 trip emailed me and asked me some questions, we were on the Jan 15th sailing, so I'll try to answer as best I can and give some other info too.

My wife and I and two kids (7 and 5) went on the Jan 15th W. Carib. Sailing out of Tampa on the Star. This is our 2nd time on the Star, we went 2 years ago to Alaska - a great trip! We stayed with friends in Tampa the night before, and flew out the afternoon of the return. Got to the ship at 11am, onboard by probably 11:30-40am. We are Latitudes members, which helped - might have taken an hour otherwise.

First the questions: Food quality. It seems that Norwegian has a bad rap for food. Having only been on 3 cruises (2 on the Star, one on Celebrity about 10 years ago) I probably don't have a lot to compare to. Because little kids are generally picky and fidgety, we found ourselves at the Kid's Cafe in the buffet for most meals, which is just a corner of the buffet with a separate food line for kids and short tables where we had fun sitting on "cubes" instead of chairs and eating with our knees in our face :o). We ate in Aqua once for dinner, and Versailles once for dinner and lunch the day we boarded. (On our Alaska cruise, we usually ate dinner in the MDR and other meals in the buffet). We always ate breakfast at the buffet. I have no idea when the steak and lobster are served because we obviously missed them. My general impression of the MDR food is that it's like an averagely nice, slightly upscale restaurant. It's not Ruth's Chris, but it's not Applebees either - it's somewhere in between. The portions are not huge, which is probably a good thing since most people don't need any more encouragement to eat. If you're super hungry, there was a guy on our trip who apparently ate 4 entree's one night (one of each I believe), I wouldn't worry that you will get off the cruise having lost weight. If you're a super picky, finicky, uptight person who loves to complain - STAY HOME, PLEASE, for the rest of our sakes... The buffet is well, it's a buffet. I don't know what people are expecting? There's a reason the finest restaurants around don't serve their food at a buffet, so don't expect it to look or taste like that. They've got a huge variety for all 3 meals. For dinner there's usually half a dozen "main course" type items, plus a pasta station (like an omelet station for pasta), pizza, carving station. If you can't find something you like, you must be my 5 year old daughter, in which case I would encourage you to go to the Kid's Cafe and have a burger, hot dog or mac and cheese. Read more