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The Sky Remodel Worked For Some Ship Spaces But Not All Spaces

I must start by saying that we have taken 8 cruises with Norwegian over the years and have begun to notice during the last three especially this one the decline in the overall quality of what they provide, the quality of the food, the upkeep of the ships and the increased cost of charges and the far less of what you get. First I will start with the transfer from the airport to the port which was approximately a 20 minute trip. When we got to the meeting area we were told it would be about a 20 to 30 minute wait well one in half hours later we were still waiting it took us over 2 hours and 20 minutes to get to the port and once we got there it was nothing but confusion. It was another hour in half for boarding and we have priority boarding and yes this set the tone for the cruise. The food quality and variety was poor at best with the expectation of the speciality restaurants. The food on the buffet was always lukewarm which we were not comfortable eating. We had pre-booked our shore tours which most were cancelled or changed to something we were not interested in. We were however, able to rebook to others. The tours though were late getting started and not by just minutes sometimes by an hour which would cause them to be shortened and us missing out on seeing parts of the cities we were visiting. Please don’t get me wrong Africa was absolutely beautiful and I encourage everyone to see it but not with this cruise line which changed the itinerary at the last minute taking  many of the African countries off.  I must say the majority of the staff worked very hard to meet our needs.  We were very disappointed in Norwegian and the decline in what they are now offering and when you bring your concerns to them the lack of actions it was extremely frustrating and disappointing.

Frustrated 

The good:

* Although older, the ship is well maintained. You really have to look to see signs of her age.

* Housekeeping staff was attentive and treated us very well.

* Free sit-down dining and the specialty dining we tried (Cagney's and Le Bistro) were wonderful.

* The Barcelona, Spain embark and Lisbon disembark processes were among the smoothest we ever experienced.

The not-so-good:

* As an older shop, rooms were smaller.

* We experienced plumbing issues such as showers backing up and toilets that would not flush.

* Much of the customer service staff were a combination of aloof and at times, downright rude.

* Excursion options were mediocre and somewhat expensive. True historical sites (such as The Alhambra out of Motril, Spain) were not offered at all. Excursions seemed to focus on forced shopping excursions, long bus rides, and selfies - none of which were of any onterest to us.

* As an older, smaller ship things we take for granted on newer boats such as good entertainment options, menu variety, shopping, and modern amenities are missing. We did not see a show of any sort that was compelling.

An Older Boat With Fewer Options All Around

We booked this because the itinerary at this time of year was good. We left Barcelona in a tremendous thunder and rain storm. However the next day and we had excellent weather around Morocco and Canary Islands.

We knew the ship was older and was smaller than the Viva that we had sailed on previously. NCL though have done an excellent job of the refurb and the ship was in great condition. 

The pool area was excellent with a deep adult pool and lots of areas of enjoy.

Food was good bar the Bistro that wasn't up to the usual standard. Tiny lamb chops are always going to be dry.

Drinks with the Free at Sea Package were great and top value.

I know its always said but on this cruise the staff at levels from the senior officers downwards where brilliant. 

The cabin is smaller and the entertainment not the bells and whistles of other ships but that's known before you book.

All in all a great value for money cruise

Refurbished Sky is an excellent choice

I've been on many cruises but this one is the worst when they don't even have onions or grapes on a ship. The food was no good. The service was ok but they just look at you seating there with a dirty table. Something not right. I did ask them to clean off table. Ask for mushrooms or onions in my onion soup there was none left. As for the shows in theatre we did try 3 times to see comic but he was not good walked out each time. The only good thing was my cabin steward was great If we needed anything she was always on hand to bring what we needed. I really think its the chef on ship that should be changed since he is in charge of the food for the ship. If we when to the paying restaurents everything was great good.  good day

worst ship i been on. 

I loved the sky, it's older/well maintained, crew outstanding, cabins smaller, great for solos, and folks w/o children!  it's not equipped for entertaining children like the newer ships and has about 2,000 passenger capacity!   

Only complaint  was the food and i know they certainly want to provide their best especially with the multi nations sailing on board, it's difficult to provide for all !   so here goes...  the local bar opens at 6pm-3am (not many folks up at that hour) and it's a disgrace to serve this as a rueben...soaked  in grease, no meat & cheese, disgusting.  i'm from ny and the cook should be trained in a ny delli, omg!   finally, the french onion soup is another not good, and this is throughout the entire fleet! Then buffet & restaurants main problem was the beef/steak(?) it was so tough i couldn't cut it w/a knife?...not even the waiter, he struggled at best.   specialty restaurants the best as usual!!

Love the Sky except food

This was my 54th cruise, having cruised on Virgin 10 times and Celebrity 18 times, among other lines.  I booked this in late August and saw this itinerary and the price drop, so I thought I’d give NCL a try.   I don’t cruise on old ships, so I knew at 25 years old, the Sky could be a problem ship, but I read that it was refurbished in 2024.  My expectations for an enjoyable cruise include great sleep quality, food, itinerary, cleanliness, and crew.   I do not eat at buffets for the obvious unsanitary reasons.  The buffet on this ship is way too small and, boy, was it crowded.  I only passed through on my way to other places, and it was elbow to elbow and no place to sit.

You should note that Cruise Critic’s review of this ship is outdated and inaccurate.  

Smoking is Allowed?  It never crossed my mind that NCL allows smoking on their ships.  Celebrity and Virgin do not.  The ventilation is so poor on the Sky that the stench of cigarette smoke permeates to other decks from the casino.  Why hasn’t NCL embraced the 21st-century practices of nonsmoking ships?  Nobody wants to walk through a smoky casino!

I was impressed at how new the public areas looked, and the refurbishments made the Sky look quite nice.  But, an old ship is still an old ship.  The pesky sewer smells and the smoke from the casino was a bad mix.  The lights in the stateroom hallways are very hot LED lights, so these areas were not properly air-conditioned.   The MDRs were too warm, but Le Bistro was freezing cold.

The elevators are tiny…so tiny that only 8 normal size people can fit.  Add a walker or a wheelchair, and the elevator only holds 4 people.  By the way, this sailing had lots of seniors, walkers, wheelchairs, and much older people than me.  On the flip side, thank goodness there were only four kids.

This was a weird itinerary timing-wise because NCL changed the port times pre-cruise, so we only had from 7 a.m. (when nothing is open) to 2:30 p.m. in Boston.  That was a wasted day.   Portland, Maine, was the port where we cleared customs, and NCL ran it like a circus.  Port times were from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.  Why the late arrival when we have to clear customs?  We actually arrived in port at about 10:30 a.m., but it took the customs agents quite a while to get on board.  Then it took 2 hours to clear customs.  Anyone who had an independent tour was screwed.  I got off the ship a bit after 1 p.m., walked around a bit, grabbed a late lunch, then things start closing at 4:30 p.m., like shops and museums.  There’s nothing to do in port till 7:30 p.m.

Another negative surprise was that you don’t get bottled water in the Free At Sea package.  I drink a lot of water and not much soda, juice or alcohol, so this was wasted on me.  The one and only water bottle refill station on the entire ship was broken for half the cruise, so there was nowhere to get filtered water.  I’ve attached a picture of the broken unit.  I know the buffet has a water dispenser, but no one could tell me how that water was sourced and filtered.  

The quality of the coffee is really bad.  The flavor is dull and it’s very weak.  The bartenders are untrained and I wouldn’t call them bartenders at all.   The only decent bartender I found was in the Observation Lounge, an Eastern European gentleman who was a great mixologist.  He really knew how to use the bitters, fruits, and blending techniques that make a really good cocktail.  Unfortunately, I didn’t discover him until the end of the cruise.  In the Sugarcane Mojito bar, they just throw the ingredients into the glass and do not muddle the mint for a mojito.  That’s basic 101 bartending.  Muddle the mint!  They are incapable of making cocktails, so I just went to a simple vodka and soda.  

This freestyle dining concept is an epic fail.  The dining room hours were too short, and there was always a line.  When the crowds were too heavy, they handed out pagers.  The menus are uninspiring and boring with little change from day to day.  The slop that NCL serves would best be served to my dog.  There’s an obvious lack of care for making a presentation with their meal service and NCL is very stingy with ingredients, especially the healthy ones, like fruits and vegetables.  The salmon, cream cheese, and bagel with red onion, lettuce, capers and tomato was pathetic.  The cream cheese barely covered the bagel.   There is one piece each of lettuce, tomato, and onion and 3 capers.   And when I say one piece, I mean these were barely visible on the plate.  

For breakfast, I sampled many items trying to find some edible food.  These cooks cannot even make eggs.  The eggs benedict was more like a soft boiled egg, and the hollandaise sauce was tasteless.  The pancakes tasted like cardboard.  You must ask for fresh eggs to be used when making your order, otherwise, they will use liquid/powdered eggs.  When I ordered muesli, which comes with fruit, there was one-half of one strawberry and a few shavings of green apple.  I asked for a cup of berries on the side.  They ran out of berries on day 7.  I finally ordered something that tasted good, the Belgian waffles.  They were cooked correctly and had a good flavor.  By day 5, they figured out how to make an omelet with real eggs. 

The meal in Le Bistro was the worst specialty dining experience I’ve ever had on a cruise.  I had the Dover sole fish, which was a very thin fillet, and if it was 6 ounces, I’d be surprised.  It came with two tiny potato wedges, so I asked for more.   No vegetables came with the meal.   A real restaurant meal has a protein, a vegetable, and a carbohydrate.   Not with NCL…they strip down everything to bare bones.

The food in The Local was barely edible.  The fish and fries weren’t bad, but the artichoke dip looked like melted plastic and tasted horrible.  

I know this is a long list of food experiences, but I wanted to share more detail than just “the food was awful”.

The port of Charlottetown was cancelled a couple of hours before our arrival due to weather.  When a port is cancelled, the cruise line owes you a refund of the port fees and taxes.  This didn’t happen, and even after the cruise, I get form letters in response to my request, denying that they owe me anything.  Isn’t this illegal?  Well, they get away with it with thousands and thousands of passengers each year, and they’re making millions of dollars from those fees when they don’t provide the port of call.  I paid $339 in port fees (nearly 50% of the cruise fare), so it’s no small amount of money that would have been refunded.  Let’s say it was $30 owed.  How about spending that money and getting some fruits and vegetables for my meals?  And, really, it’s more about the principle of NCL keeping the money than the actual dollar amount.  I know this is really sarcastic, but it’s also really ridiculous on the part of NCL.

In general, the crew was friendly, but a lot of them were incompetent and didn’t know how to do their job.  From bar service to dining room service to the stateroom attendants to the cleaners, it was obvious that many of them were not properly trained or just didn’t care.  There was a HUGE lack of staff in all public spaces; long waits at the bar and no table service in the lounges and on the pool deck.  At our port stop in Boston, there was a large turnover of crew, maybe a couple hundred staff leaving and replacements coming on board.

I’ll pass along a pro tip.  My inside cabin was 149 square feet, whereas most inside cabins are 129 square feet.  There’s a few of these on the ship.  You just have to look at the deck plan to find them.  I’m not sure what cabins were refurbished, but based on my experience hearing other guests complain about their rooms, I assume that the cabins were not a priority for refurbishment.  I’ve gotten accustomed to a shower with a door on other cruise lines, but to my disappointment, this ship has a tubular-style shower with the curtain that blows around and sticks to your legs.  There’s not much storage, with only 4 drawers that screeched every time you opened them.  The mini-loveseat looked new and I used that as an extra storage area.  

There is only one plug at the vanity and no USB ports.  I would have thought that with a major refurbishment, NCL would have gotten into the 21st century and installed some USB ports or change out the bedside lamps to ones that have the USB ports.  I brought a power strip, so that helped.

Upon entering my room, it was far from clean.  There was hair on the floor in the bathroom, random gook on the walls, toilet paper in the toilet, and water splatter on the mirror.  All the glasses were so filthy that I could see the swipe marks where someone just took a used dirty rag to wipe out the glass.  It was really gross.   When I brought this to the attention of the attendant, I asked him to completely clean the room, surfaces, floors and toilet.  I also brought this to the attention of his boss.  He was apologetic and offered me free laundry during the cruise.  I normally don’t use ship laundry because I pack enough clothes for the cruise, but I went ahead and sent in some underwear and socks, and they couldn’t even get that right.  All the underwear had snags in the fabric.  

The mattress was too hard, but I travel with a blow-up camping pad that adds 4 inches to any mattress.  Combine that with earplugs, and I was able to sleep.

The nickel-and-diming of NCL is a real nuisance.  Since bottled water was not included in the Free at Sea, it would have cost me $6 per 16-ounce bottle.  Instead, at each port, I bought a few bottles to bring on board.  Room service is $12.  They add 20% onto everything.  

I never prepay tips before the cruise.  By doing that, you assume that you will get a good experience and good service.  NCL has the highest tip fee I’ve encountered at $20 per day, which is automatically added.  When I asked to have them removed, I was told that it couldn’t be done until the second-to-last day of the cruise, when the lines are long because everyone is trying to resolve their administrative issues.  They don’t even make that easy.  You have to fill out a form and state the reason why.  (Actually, it’s none of their business why.)  On Celebrity, I go to guest services on the second day, tell them I’ll pay cash for my tips, and in a few keystrokes, the auto gratuity is cancelled.  On Virgin, the tips are included in the cruise fare.  NCL makes everything difficult.

I did not buy extra wifi, and I’m glad I didn’t.  NCL claims to have Starlink on this ship, but I met several people who did not get the speed that Starlink is supposed to provide, and oftentimes, the connection would drop.  

What I Liked.  The itinerary is why I chose this cruise, and despite some adverse weather, getting to this part of North America was really nice.  The Fall foliage in Quebec City and Maine was stunning!  I would like to do this itinerary again on another cruise line, maybe in September instead of October when the weather is a bit better.  The Canadians are super friendly people and they are so pleasant to speak with.  Americans could learn some things from the Canadians about being pleasant.

Summary.  I paid $1019 for an inside cabin as a solo traveler for this 10-day cruise, which is $101.90 per day.  I got what I paid for…a garbage cruise from a garbage cruise line.  Needless to say, I’ll not be booking on NCL ever again.  They are the bottom of the barrel of the cruise lines I’ve been on so far.

What a Horrible Cruise!

We have just spent 10 days on the Sky.  Unfortunately it was not the best experience for us.  We were in balcony cabin. It was the smallest cabin we've ever been in on any line!  Very limited storage and an uncomfortable loveseat-size couch.  Tiny bathroom. We were the middle cabin in a row of three traveling together and thought we'd be able to open the balcony dividers. Nope. NCL won't open those. They said safety risk?  The menus in the restaurant were boring and uninspired with just a few changes each day. Service was quite slow. The tiny buffet was disappointing with limited options and poor layout.  As our itinerary was in colder temps, no one could use the outside spaces until the warmer last day.  This meant the indoor spots were overcrowded and many couldn't find a seat unless they got there early.  We did enjoy our excursions though.

Less than expected 

We had all enjoyed Quebec City and were excited to get on the Sky and do the Canada -New England cruise. Indeed we had used NCL before for a Hawaii cruise and thought the standards would be similar. Big mistake !! the food in the buffet was poor, evening meals, very poor and the same most days only 2 items change. Entertainment was OK most nights but the DJ had very little idea of the music which most would enjoy.

We had the all inclusive at sea for drinks so ordered our usual vodka and diet coke on night 2, we then realized that we had been charged $89 to our rooms for Grey Goose which we did not order or request or sign for. We reported this to reception who said they would deal with it that day which they did not. we then went again the next day to complain that it had not been resolved , thats OK we will get it sorted. The next day came again still on the bill, 3 days and still not corrected, I was fed up with it, excuse after excuse and  one manager of Crossings Restaurant where the charge originated said he was to busy to deal with it, could we come back again!!! I had enough, I was not moving on until it had been deleted, we wrote a note to the Services Manger and never got a reply. In the end they removed it but we did not need 3 visits and 3 hours of our time and an argument to get this overcharge sorted.

Watch Charges On Your Bill !!!!!!!!!!!!

We were surprised at the beauty and cleanliness of the Norwegian Sky.  The inside stateroom had everything we needed, the bed was very comfortable and the room temperature was good.  

We enjoyed the city of Quebec before the cruise. It was astonishing how much it is like Paris! The dancers who greeted us in Sanguenay were fun and friendly. We walked down a waterfront path there. Halifax was a big surprise! A huge waterfront boardwalk with lots to see and do, just lively and fun.  We also went to Peggy's Cove, the quintessential Nova Scotia I had imagined. We took a taxi, and he waited, meter running for us. The hour we spent there was sufficient to experience the town and lighthouse.  Charlottetown, PEI was charming and quaint. A nice harbor front with shops and the town is pleasant to explore. Bar Harbor, likewise, is a nice town to explore. We did the shore walk and ended up in town. In Portland, we went on the mail boat route through the islands in the bay, an experience we loved from a previous trip. Newport would have been better if we had more time.  NCL could improve the experience by being better organized with the tenders.  We were required to pick up a ticket, with a long messy line, and never had to show it.  The tenders were delayed.   We went on the Cliff Walk, taking an Uber out to one end of it, but didn't have time to walk very much, then a long line to get on the tender again.  Boston was a nice day, we walked the Freedom Trail, really enjoyed the history and the USS Constitution.

The entertainment was good, an awesome violinist, a couple vocalists, a hypnosist , a funny comedian.  Kareoke was going on in one of the lounges.

The only down side was the annoying and flamboyant cruise director who gave incomplete information   he would say when an event was happening, but not where, etc. Not very professional.  Didn't want to mark the whole cruise down, but he and his assistant were less than stellar.

Food was okay! Buffet wAs busy but lots of variety. The dining room experience was elegant and service was superb.

Immaculate Ship! Great itinerary.

We experienced the Norwegian Sky as markedly limited in dinning options. The quality of the food was remarkably poor.  Chicken quality was below what I would hope to be pet food grade.  The fish seemed frozen/tasteless at best.  We did not have a single  great dinner on the entire 11 day cruise, though several were memorably bad.  There were no good pastries/breads available for breakfast, only monotonous cheap generic prepackaged like items. Lunch offerings were of notably poor quality - we left an entire lunch uneaten on the table.  Our room was memorably poor.  The shower was enclosed by a poorly functioning curtain, the toliet knee space was less than an airplane's,  the sink faucet malfunctioned releasing scalding water 95% of the time and it took days before it was repaired. Our bed was uncomfortable causing back pain and our "quiet" room booked through Norwegian was directly over the theater.

Worst cruise ever. 

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