This was my 5th NCL cruise and the 2nd on the NCL Pearl. The ship had recently undergone an overhaul and most of the areas were done quite well. The best part was the room stewards and bar tenders, and the evening shows were fantastic, other than that my wife and I were totally disappointed. Food was less than adequate, open dining area was really noisy. Don't think they had a clue what acoustics's are since at only about 25% full you couldn't carry on a conversation because of the noise. Food selection in the main dinning rooms was limited and quality was poor, and the servers were not very friendly. Speciality restaurants were pretty good and I think that was intentionally that way to encourage passengers to eat in the speciality restaurants, at an extra fee, rather than the open dining.
Cabins were more expensive and smaller than other cruise lines we have used. We opted for the last minuet cabin selection. We were told it was a two unit upgrade but it was located on deck 11 directly under the kids play area, so it was pretty noisy in the evenings. TV was entirely too small and not located so you could easily watch it from the bed. Remote didn't work, and channels were limited. Movies were rather old. Storage area was adequate and easily accessed.
We were never told at anytime that the week we booked was a spring break week. Kids overall were good but had I known I would not have gone the same week. Disembarkation was a total joke. Was supposed to be scheduled departures based on the color code of your bag tags. Nobody paid any attention to color codes so it was mass bedlam in the baggage area and super long lines trying to get to custom's. No NCL oversight there they just let people fend for themselves. I purchased a bottle of rum in Jamaica and on the last day they told everyone that booze purchased onshore wouldn't be delivered to your room till the morning you get off. Well we had to pack ours in our suitcase since we were taking a plane from Miami and our luggage had to be outside our stateroom the night before were to get off. I had to raise hell at the service desk and finally they told me since I was a gold latitudes member they would make an exception just for us, they finally did deliver it the night before. I guess NCL doesn't understand that there is a lot of competition out there for our business. As far as we are concerned that is the last NCL will get our business. There loss not ours....
Cabins were more expensive and smaller than other cruise lines we have used. We opted for the last minuet cabin selection. We were told it was a two unit upgrade but it was located on deck 11 directly under the kids play area, so it was pretty noisy in the evenings. TV was entirely too small and not located so you could easily watch it from the bed. Remote didn't work, and channels were limited. Movies were rather old. Storage area was adequate and easily accessed.