My husband and I and our 5 children ages, 10,10,12,17,19 took this cruise on the Norwegian Jewel as a winter getaway. We have cruised before, but never on NCL. Truthfully, we enjoyed our Carnival cruises more, mostly because of the better adult entertainment at night. I found myself bored by 10 pm on NCL. Yes, the dance parties are fun, but we love the adult comedy shows on other cruise lines and NCL didn't offer any! It was just a different dance party night after night.

The balcony cabins are much smaller than those on the Carnival ships we've sailed also. We had 2 adjoining balcony cabins, which was very convenient for our large family. Our cabin steward was nice enough, but he was not very good. He never left beach towels and each day we would have to go and hunt them down before we could leave for our excursion. My kids had top berths, which he would set up without ladders for them to get up there. Our towel animals never had "eyes" and weren't very creative. It seemed that he was throwing them together as quickly as possible. Yes, he would do anything we asked of him, but some things you shouldn't have to ask for.

While the food in the dining room was good, unless you had 2 hours to waste eating, they could never get it to you. The service was sooo slow! The other thing I hated about the restaurants was that they would serve you as your meal was ready instead of serving your whole party together. Several times one of us would be completely finished with our meal while someone else in our family was still waiting to get their food. If you asked for it to be served together, the dishes came out in various stages of hot and cold. So we ventured to the buffet because it was always quicker, but the food up there is TERRIBLE. It's more or less the same every night. The food is left to sit so it is often cold, dried out and over done. The coffee machines were often empty in the morning and you had to walk around to find one that wasn't. Tables weren't cleared as quickly and it was difficult to find silverware and cups. Not the service we've experienced before on our other Carnival cruises. Most annoying was the girl that stood outside the buffet with a spray bottle of Purell chasing your hands and yelling "WASHY WASHY, HAPPY HAPPY" at you every single time you walked through or even walked by. I am not in Kindergarten and found this totally annoying! Read more