We chose this cruise because of its interesting itinerary of South America and the opportunity to go through the Panama Canal transit. From the smooth embarkment at Miami, to the culturally interesting ports of Columbia, Equador, Peru, and Chile, relaxing days at sea and finally our disembarkment at Santiago, Chile, we thoroughly enjoyed our voyage. The transit through the Panama Canal was one of our favorite parts. It was very interesting. We found the size of the ship to be perfect as it was not crowded and impersonal. We were not looking for water slides and zip lines for entertainment but enjoyed the walking track and sitting on deck. Our cabin was roomy and the king bed was very comfortable. It had storage drawers, and closets and a couch. The shower had shampoo, conditioner supplied and the water pressure was very strong. The complimentary food at the Four Seasons and the buffet was excellent and the servers were personable and professional. The meals were hot and there was never a wait at any open dining restaurant. All the staff on the Norwegian Sun was very accommodating and friendly and went the extra mile to take care of our questions or need. In particular, our cabin housekeeper, Francis, was detailed, kind and we developed a nice friendly relationship during our cruise. We enjoyed the economic speaker that advised us of each country's history and current condition prior to entering the port, the spanish classes, and also the most talented and quality entertainment provided us by the Atlantis Strings (an violin trio from Budapest). Upon arrival back onto the ship after an excursion, the staff greeted us with refreshing drinks and wet washclothes...that was nice. To sum it up, we have only good memories of our 30th anniversary trip aboard the Norwegian Sun! Read Less

I've been on the Sun now 4 times. I must say I believe that this is my favorite ship in the NCL fleet. I must say that the recent refurbishment has been a real plus. The color schemes are really great. This ship has plenty to do, but it's not like the mega ships. Being the smallest in the fleet it can't offer all the choices. I find it a ship where you can chill out and relax. The balcony rooms have more storage than any other balcony room I've been in. The shelves, cabinets, and drawers will provide more room to store your stuff than you may need. The bathroom is smaller. Plenty of shelve space but really only one can fit in the bathroom at a time. The Shower is also a bit small but not the worst I've seen. The dining is standard NCL. Now that all the ships follow the same menu if you like the food it is just as good here. I personally find the selections and quality of the food to be very good. Both the main dinning rooms are very nice. Either one is an enjoyable place to dine. Read Less

The most important for us was the itinerary. This was our first time sailing to South America. We enjoyed all the new ports on the way. The 3 tours which we took with NCL were very interesting and informative. This was also the first time we cruised with NCL and the experience was very good. I liked the ship and the many activities. There was a lot to choose from and everyone could find something for themselves. I enjoyed most the special evening production shows and the music at the bars. The food was very good. We eat breakfasts and lunches in the Garden Cafe; there were many choices and the staff was very kind and attentive. I was amazed how quickly the empty dishes were taken away and the tables cleaned. In the evenings we were dining in the both main restaurants. The service was good and we were very happy with the food, specially with the fish dishes. (the flounder was excellent) Also deserts were amazing. Overall my husband and I enjoyed the cruise very much and had a great experience with NCL. Read Less

We were looking for an alternative to flying to our destination and decided to try a cruise. It just so happened our travel agent found this cruise which met our travel dates. We convinced our brother-in-law & his wife the join us, too! We were pretty excited and really had no expectations. From arriving in Miami, the Pullman Hotel we felt very well taken care of. Once aboard the ship we were impressed with the decorations in celebration of Christmas. We liked the size of the ship, not so big that we were overwhelmed. Safety first with a drill organized before departing. We would highly recommend a room with a balcony. We upgraded with absolutely no regrets. It was also appreciated how relaxed the dress code was. You could get dressed up when you felt like it or not. The dining rooms were terrific! The staff left you wanting for nothing & many with a great sense of humour which we appreciated too. We can honestly say we never had the same meal twice! The buffet was amazing, we found we ate most breakfasts & lunch there! The shows were outstanding, a bit chilly in the theatre at times so bring a sweater! We booked a couple of excursions which were well organized and felt very safe. The ship was kept so clean! Read Less

The ship was generally in good shape but the stairs were not solid and sagged at times when you went up or down the stairs. We had a nice balcony cabin for overlooking the Panama Canal. It was mid ship and we were able to see the other ships going in the opposite direction. For most of the cruise the bathroom smelled from sewage. We had the hotel director's staff come and look at the issue. They eventually fixed the problem. There was no reason for us to keep going to Guest Services to complain about the problem. The food service at the seven seas was awful. The food arrived cold and once the food was delivered, the server did not come back to check on us. We never saw the head waiter. In the four seasons, the waiters were very attentive, the hot food came hot. In the buffet it was hard for us to usually find food that we could eat. The Indian food is too spicy. Most of the other items had pork or pork products in it and we do not eat pork. This included bacon in the mac and cheese, ham in the sour kraut. various ham sandwiches and bacon in the salads. Towards the end of the cruise, they were running out of food and the milk was spoiled, same for the yogurt and you needed to find a manager to get the spoiled products removed. The cruise director was hard to find, he was hard to understand at the main theater and P A system announcements. The production shows were good. The cruise director staff provided us with good games and trivia challenges but they reused a number of the questions over and over again. Besides that there was not much to do on sea days. For some of the ports, the length of time in port was too short to really enjoy the port. I don't understand why we stopped at some of the ports. They barely even has a choice of shore excursions. Read Less

Chose this cruise because we had not crossed the Panama Canal. The food was just ok the excursion were also just ok. The bar service in the Spinnaker lounge was mediocre. There are no real quiet public areas to sit. The is music blasting everywhere. Not likely to cruise with NCL again. Our aft balcony stateroom was quite expensive and we later checked the cruise line to see the prices and saw the mini suite next to our room was less expensive so we contacted NCL to see if we could change room given our was more than the suite and they turned us down. NCL nickels and dimming was frustrating charging for water. We bought the ultimate beverage package. We only found out on the ship it did not cover water juices specialty coffees or soft drinks. NCL was offering a $500. For your flight so when we asked them about this they turned us down saying the major airlines they deal with do not operate out of Mexico City InternayAirport. Never again will we cruise with NCL there were more disappointments with the excursions but then this critic would go on forever Read Less

Although the Norwegian Sun has been recently renovated, they have a serious problem with proper ventilation. Smoke from the casino and designated smoking areas infiltrated the public areas of the ship. Why do they put designated smoking areas near the pool and over the aft eating area? It makes no sense. We felt that we could not get away from the smell of smoke. For whatever reason, Norwegian did not have my correct credit card number. I did not know this until three days into the voyage, when I received a curt letter informing me, "your onboard account has been deactivated and your signing privileges have been suspended." I am a Platinum member of Norwegian and found this shockingly offensive! How about a little courtesy; maybe something like, "Would you kindly come to Guest Services at your earliest convenience regarding the credit card we have on record for you." This kind of interaction with a longtime loyal guest is a surefire way to lose a customer. My next cruise will not be on Norwegian; I've just booked with Viking. This cruise had six sea days. There should be a far bigger selection of movies available to watch on television. There were only two movie channels and the same movies were recycled over and over and over again. Also, instead of the TV being mounted in front of the bed, it was way over to the right side of the cabin, which made watching in bed very uncomfortable. The Cruise Director had such a strong accent that we could hardly understand any of his announcements. This could be a safety issue in an emergency. Read Less

We had a good time. It seemed like a good itinerary but most of the ports had very little to do. The food was adequate. Dining room service was slow. They seemed understaffed. Wish they had a happy hour and afternoon tea. Some positive things: coffee maker in the room, fishes on the carpet to tell forward and aft, great entertainment, friendly staff and had only 75 percent occupancy. Just know what you are getting into before you go! The ship isn’t new but the cabins are spacious. Internet is slow and nothing available on tv like meals, bill, etc. NCL needs to revisit offerings on sea days. More activities. Activities appropriate for age of cruisers. Cagney ‘s was excellent! Food and service. There were no port lectures because the ship makes this path only once a year. So, no one could help and there were no maps available on the ship. Read Less

We were quite happy with this cruise. It was a repositioning cruise from Miami, through the Panama Canal, to Santiago, Chile. This was our first suite experience and had a fantastic time. This was the smallest ship we have been on, with a little less than 2,000 passengers. The ship itself was very easy to get around and never had a feeling of being overcrowded. We would absolutely recommend the Sun, depending on what is important to people below. Itinerary/Ports: The reason we booked the cruise was because the itinerary was completely new to us. After the sailing, we would absolutely do it again. For the most part the ports are ugly looking, commercial shipping ports. Once we left the port, we were very happy. Because so few cruise ships stop at these locations, it did not feel like we were being shuffled through the same, tired tourist, commercialized trap ports found in the Caribbean. We were able to get some good, authentic experiences, and felt like we were off the beaten path in many of the stops. On the flip side, the ports still seemed immature and still learning how to offer a wide-range of fun things to do for a couple of thousand of tourists only there for 5-12 hours. Ports included Cartagena and Santa Marta (Colombia), Manta (Ecuador), Trujillo and Lima/Callao (Peru), and Arica, Coquimbo, and San Antonio/Santiago (Chile). At three of the ports we saw some great wildlife - sea lions, dolphin pods, and a walrus. The Panal Canal Transit was outstanding and I would highly recommend to anyone. Seeing the locks and how they are done to lift and lower the ships was awesome. There were a couple of ports we only had 5-6 hours at - in general, I would recommend going through the ship for excursions for any port with that little time, unless there is a nice little town/beach right off the ship. This itinerary did not have those nice little port villages/beaches at the port. Food: We tried the Main Dining Room three times for dinner and then stopped going. Every night there seemed to be some kind of issue with temperature, quality, or options. The menu itself seemed very boring and repetitive. If we went more, we probably would have just returned food we didn't like or wasn't cooked right. Because we were in a suite, we were able to go to Cagneys for breakfast and lunch every day. After our dining packages ran out, we just paid ala carte at the specialty dining restaurants the rest of the cruise. We found all of the specialty restaurants to be good to excellent. Cagney's was probably the best - the meats were also cooked correctly. This was probably the best lamb I have ever had. Bistro was also very good. There were a couple of items I tried I didn't care for, but most of the menu was outstanding. The menu on La Cucina changed from our last sailing and I think we liked the older menu better. The new menu included some pizza options. We were pleasantly surprised by Los Lobos - we ended up going there three times. We did not have one item we didn't like. My favorite was the stuffed poblanos. We did Sushi one night - the Sushi on the Sun was better than the experiences we had on Celebrity's Sushi on Five. Moderno was ok - probably our least favorite of the options. It did not seem as good (quality of the cuts and options at the salad bar) as other ships, and we are spoiled with several Brazilian Steakhouses where we live that are much better. We did not go to the Teppanyaki - it looked like it was usually full, but we've done that so many times that the show the chef does is not exciting any more. Our only real gripe was the Sun does not have the Irish Pub, but has the Sports Bar instead. The menu and food at the Sports Bar was much worse than our experiences with the Pub and its not open as long. We never went to the buffet, so can't provide feedback with that. Entertainment: The entertainment on the Sun was below average for other NCL sailings we have been on. Maybe it was because it was a smaller ship. The production was not that good - the dancers seemed to always have a timing issue and only two of the singers were really good. Outside of the production, they had too much magic/hypnotism shows - it seemed like it was every other night. There was a Cuban born singer that performed two nights and she was outstanding. The Sun was also missing other options other NCL ships have, probably because of size: there is no Howl at the Moon dueling pianists, Cirque show, Burn the Floor, Bowling Alley etc. They did have a couple of hours of karaoke every night. There was also the typical Deal or No Deal, Bingo, and Trivia activities found on other ships. Service/Others: We were happy with the service on board (restaurant and room) and was a little above our experience on other Norwegian ships. My partner did three sessions with the Spa and really enjoyed the treatments. Often he has mixed reviews on spa treatments, but we have 100% positive about his experience on the Sun. The were plenty of bars scattered across the ship and never had difficulty getting served drinks. Because it was a small ship, the public pool area was small, but it never seemed overcrowded and there was always lounge chairs free. The Casino is tiny. Some of the table games only had one option, and the slot machines were boring. Read Less

We chose this cruise for the itinerary and we were not disappointed. We travelled the entire length of the Panama Canal and visited Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile. We had great shore excursions organized by some of our great roll call members. Waaaay cheaper than the NCL offers. I had read both good and bad reviews for the Norwegian Sun. Personally I found the ship the perfect size. Frankly I don't want or need water slides or thousands of people on a cruise of this type. The refurbished ship looked great especially the large fitness centre. Our inside stateroom chosen for us by NCL was larger than we expected and was a nice surprise. We only dined in either the buffet or complementary dining rooms. The food in the Seven Seas and Four Seasons was so good that we felt that paying extra for the specialty restaurants would be a waste of money. We dined early and the food arrived in good time and was hot. We liked the slower pace of the dining rooms allowing us to take our time and enjoy the meal. I found the buffets offered a good choice of food and we liked the themed nights. We did not purchase any alcohol on ship as we felt that it was overpriced. The drink packages at $69 and $99 per day seemed grossly overpriced. I couldn't conceive drinking that much every day. We found the complimentary tea, coffee, ice tea and lemonade sufficient. Finally the staff were terrific. Our cabin steward Amol was great. He learned my name the first day and always chatted with us about our day. Overall we had a great time and came away happy. Lastly I must mention that we LOVED the Atlantis Strings trio. We listened to them every night. A rare offering of culture amid the usual cruise fare. Read Less