We had a medical emergency at sea that caused the ship to return to a port. It was domino affected later - late to the airport, missed flights etc. The captain was a super hero-he saved the persons life by making a difficult decision and it was the right decision in my view. The ship is beautiful, the staff work very hard and are polite, responsive and do their best to provide services. The only issue I have is the nickle and diming. For example, for those who like to watch television at night ( especially those with young children ) movies cost $10 each! They do provide a few free movies and play them over and over and over and over and over again. When you spend almost $20k on a family cruise and find you have to pay extra for evening movies for the kids it really tarnishes a fabulous experience . Cabin cleaning and 'make-up" in my case was really not consistent and I think that was attributable to the staff person assigned to our room and not generally reflective of the entire ship. All-in-all it is a great ship and great service but they need to know WHEN TO TOP THE EXTRA FRIVOLOUS CHARGES. Again-the crew did a great job and saved a passenger's life while doing everything they could to mitigate the impact of the medical emergency on all of the passengers. All-in-all I give it an 8 out of 10. One point lost with the cabin make up and one lost from the silly TV charges. Read Less

Beautiful ship, way too many people. Good luck finding a lounger by the pool, a specialty reservation after Day 1, or a table in the garden cafe at breakfast. My recommendation would be to look at alternative Breakaway class ships while the novelty of the Bliss wears off. Note, you will feel Nickle and Dimed to death on this ship. Things like bowling ($6 per person per game) go karts, laser tag, to name a few. Sorry, when we’re already spending $9k+ as a family of four I don’t need that type of feeing. Dining Thoughts Los Lobos is a nice addition, good food and service. Cagney’s was “off” but I’ll give them a slight pass as in the past it’s always been excellent. Portions on their sides have shrunk though and are no longer family style. Ocean Blue - Not a fan of the new menu but to each his own. Food Republic - Excellent La Cucina - Beat La Cucina experience we’ve ever had. Read Less

We booked this trip over the Christmas Holidays thinking that it would be special. Instead, it was absolutely terrible. The Food: They use low-quality products. Such products cannot result in good food. Quality and limited variety aside, food preparation was substandard. To make minestrone soup, they probably just dissolved some bouillon cubes in warm water. The cold cuts section looked like “delicatessen for people on food stamps”. How did they manage to develop a watermelon that’s not sweet? Personally, I prefer Italian and French cuisine to Indian food. I also like Chinese food. However, on this trip, I ate only Indian food because it was relatively speaking better than anything else. If not for that Indian food station my family and I would have nothing to eat. We tried their extra “specialty restaurants”: Cagney’s Steakhouse, Ocean Blue and Q. Of the three only the Q – Texas Grill was OK. The other two restaurants, although you pay extra money for it, serve the same chewy steak and the same tasteless fish. The service: All the service personnel was primarily from India and the Philippines. The service was polite, but there is nothing new about it. The entire Hospitality Industry had figured out some 20+ years ago that training people in how to be polite and cheerful are cheaper than buying quality food products. In my mind, the reason the food quality was so poor beside the substandard products was that Filipinos, unlike Chinese, Japanese or Thai are not known for being great cooks. Shortages: Allegedly, our cruise was fully booked. This may explain why all the specialty restaurants, all the entertainment shows and 99% of all other activities were sold out. However, if you come in person to the so-called “fully booked” restaurant they will sit you. While there, you will quickly notice that the restaurant is half empty. Shortage of cooks, perhaps? The Ship: Like us, most people wanted to book Bliss because it is a newly built ship. To me, it means no cockroaches and other bugs. But the boat is no frills, mind you. The floor covering is mostly linoleum and cheap carpets. Our stateroom was so cramped that there wasn’t enough room to open two small carryon suitcases. While the bathroom was small but sufficient, no magnifying mirror for shaving or makeup, no bar of soap, no shower cap, not even regimented 2 Q-tips. Forget it. It’s just the soap and the shampoo/conditioner dispensers. Our balcony was the smallest I have ever seen on a cruise ship. Commercial photography - Cheap Commercialism: We quickly discovered that their onboard photography studio owns the ship. All the traffic is centered on decks 6, 7 and 8 where the Customer Service, most restaurants and the entertainment are located. Every corner and every niche was populated with their photographers along with the lighting setups. Those photographers think that they own the ship. Consequently, if a fare-paying passenger would like to take a selfie with some of the ships Christmas decorations, or some ship stairway as the background, they are out of luck. We tried and were booted out. Incidentally, their onboard decorations are mediocre, to say the least. Chaos: We signed up for a snorkeling trip on St. Thomas. The minute you step on the pier you are lost. Their assistance of where to go and how to find the group you belong to was almost nonexistent. The same goes for checking out of the ship upon return to Miami. They put a lot of pressure on us to check out of our stateroom by 9 AM. However, when we’ve got to deck 6 for debarkation, we found a mile-long line. No wonder, the passengers for the next cruise were already waiting. The meat grinder must go on. We will never come back! Read Less

The ship itself was great. The staff was tenacious at keeping it clean. Almost to the point that I had to use a new fork for each bite because they'd swoop in so quickly to take away anything dirty! Otherwise, things were just "ok". We've been on a lot of cruise and this will probably be the least memorable. We had mixed results with dining room staff accommodating my daughter (8) who needs to be gluten free (celiac disease) - one person was great and raved about the GF cookies which he provided and she enjoyed... then the next day were told that the ship doesn't/didn't have GF cookies... obviously one of these people was misinformed but both spoke with absolute certainty, hopefully not the person who served her cookies. The ship ran out of GF bread for the last 2-3 days of the trip which was very disappointing and limiting for her. The kids club was ok. Our kids had fun but not to the point where they begged to go back like we experienced on prior cruises. The hours were limiting and especially frustrating when they would not allow new kids to checkin at certain times because some activity was underway. Our son (6) had a meltdown because the staff made a fuss to him about wearing flip flops vs. closed-toed shoes... a concern that was never mentioned to us parents. We went on one excursion which was pretty good. We didn't book other excursions through NCL because there wasn't much variety offered for families with young kids. Laser tag was a lot of fun but we got very little play time (10 minutes) for the price. Go karts were a neat experience but became a little frustrating because there wasn't room to pass the person in front of me who was going slow in the middle of the road. Never enough chairs on the pool deck but there was ample space for people everywhere else. The drink package was great and I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly the bar staff filled orders for those of us who were pre-paid. On our prior NCL trip several year ago, it felt like we were constantly being aggressively up-sold on things which I was glad was not the case here. The steward took basic care of our room and exchanged towels but most of the time we had to prompt him for it. In 7 nights, we saw 1 towel animal. They seemed understaffed here. There was a medical emergency that resulted in our ship returning to port and delaying disembarkation by a few hours. The captain made the right decisions here and everything seemed to be handled as good as could be expected (though the impact to us personally was negligible) with clear and frequent communication as things evolved. All in all, it was a *good* trip but not great. If NCL has an amazing price on an itinerary that aligns with our schedule in the future, we might do a 3rd NCL cruise but we're looking at going back to Carnival for next year's trip as our experiences with them have felt more "special" even on much older ships. Read Less

BACKGROUND: This was our 9th cruise, 8th NCL Cruise - and our 5th ship in the fleet. Also, this was our 3rd Christmas cruise in a row. I do extensive research before we leave, and read TONS of reviews. I always join our CC roll call and any others I can find elsewhere on the Internet. This cruise I was the Cruise Critic Meet & Greet organizer, which I love doing. We traveled with 8 people total. I'm almost 50, married and our 22 year old daughter was with us. HOTEL: We arrived very late into FLL on Friday night, so we decided to stay at an airport hotel to get some sleep. We stayed at the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood Airport Holiday Inn. We were happy with everything about the hotel. Beautiful lobby, we had breakfast at Denny's across the street, nice rooms, great service. Our only piece of advice is for them to tighten up their logistics when it comes to their courtesy shuttle picking up folks at the airport. There were many people headed to the hotel, but it was very difficult to determine who had arrived at the curb first because there was no line. There were some raised voices and heated discussions among guests trying to figure out who had waited longer. Perhaps if the hotel gave out confirmation numbers or had a sign at the stop for folks to form a line, that would alleviate the stress. TRANSFERS: We decided to order an Uber/Lyft to take us to the Port of Miami from the hotel. I had been checking both apps and knew they were similarly priced. When we were ready to leave, I tried Uber, but there were none available, so I switched to Lyft. Within 2 minutes (literally) our driver arrived in a (surprise) Ford Explorer. Plenty of room for 3 of us and our 3 suit cases and 3 personal items. We were meeting our friends at the port. EMBARKATION: We arrived at the port at 10:30. Our luggage was pulled right from the car onto a cart, and we were through the terminal, security and check-in within 15 minutes start to finish. We stopped at the waiting area upstairs to meet our friends for our welcome-aboard photo (Matching t-shirts). We could have been on the ship before 11am! We ended up boarding before noon and watched many people breeze right through the waiting room on their way to boarding, too. SO smooth and easy. It is clear that they move lots of people in Miami. CABINS: We had two cabins - an inside cabin for my husband and I on Deck 11 within steps of the elevator. We LOVED the location. And the corridor was very quiet. Our room steward (Asha) was WONDERFUL. She took great care of us and kept our room well-supplied and looking great. She was always happy to see us and knew both our names every time. She was the best steward we have had in several cruises. We liked everything about our cabin with the exception of two storage issues: No drawers at all - storing socks, underwear and such was a pain! The other issue was the closet shelves faced sideways in the closet with no light in there. It was VERY difficult to stay organized and find items. On the other hand, the bathroom had more storage than we’ve ever seen! Our daughter was in a Studio cabin on Deck 11 and she loved it. We all wanted to take turns staying in there- laid out so nicely for one person. Well designed storage, plenty of plugs and charging ports, an oversized twin bed. Very nicely done and the virtual window was something she enjoyed. One downside for her was being able to hear sounds from surrounding cabins (snoring and puking, actually) even with her white noise machine on. It kind of bummed her out. MOBILE APP: We have paid for this app on 3 cruises. The first cruise we were very disappointed in it - we missed messages and it was unreliable. The second cruise we got it again because it was a big group of us and we knew we’d be on different schedules. The app had not improved much but we were better about opening our phones, opening the app and checking it more often. We never received alerts. On this cruise, the app had a facelift and we loved it. We could send photos, and actually call each other (or call cabins) using the app. Notifications came up more easily and with the group text feature we were able to keep everyone in the loop about meeting times and places. We loved it. ACTIVITIES: We love an active cruise. We join games, attend trivia, and usually take advantage of special features on ships. We found the Bliss to be pretty similar to other ships - with Silas as our cruise director (we’ve had him before) everything was fun. So, even though I’m going to point out some negatives, our OVERALL experience was excellent. Please, please, please stop using the Atrium for activities on ships! The customer service desks struggle to provide good service, there aren’t enough seats and it is VERY hard to have adult programming if there are kids floating in and out (or staying even though their parents have been advised about content). Go-Karts need some logistic changes. We used the video screen to make our reservation. There are two of us in our cabin, but we reserved for 4 people. We showed up 10 minutes early, made it right to the front of the line, then they looked down at our Crocs and said we needed sneakers. Your website does NOT say sneakers. It says Covered Shoes. Crocs are covered shoes in the opinions of many. So, 3 out of 4 of us ran back to cabin to change. We arrive back 5 minutes late, and they open our reservation for 4. They only allow the two people who are assigned to that cabin to load. So 2 of us watched. From start to finish, the process was 1h45m. That’s a LONG time to invest on a cruise. A child who couldn’t drive broke down 3 times, slowing their race until the last 4 laps seemed pointless. Just overall disappointing. We could never get reservations for Laser Tag. That was sad. :( What happened to Quest?? We MISS IT!!! Such a fun adult game and guessing because it would have to be in the Atrium might be the reason why it didn’t happen. Actually - any “Adult” entertainment was limited because of the atrium. There are MANY PEOPLE who are FINE WITH ADULT CONTENT AND HUMOR!! If you label/warn it as such, then stop backing down to those who complain! They can attend a different event!! We like that break from the routine at home. POOL CHAIRS: THANK you for the new policy! A large video screen at the pool said not to reserve chairs for more than an hour. Unattended chairs will be cleared of belongings and owners can pick them up at Deck 6. YES!! We loved watching unattended chairs (usually well more than an hour) get cleared off so folks could actually get seats. It was a little tricky for us when we went to the Go Kart track (see above) for 1 hour and 40 minutes (it should NEVER take that long) so we had to send folks in our group down in shifts to sit in our chairs to make sure they weren’t cleared. But, if they had, we would have understood. Next??!!? NCL needs to do the same in the Observatory because people save seats up there as well. We saw a few arguments over chairs while we were up there. SERVICE: Even before boarding, the CruiseNext rep came over to us in the waiting area to make sure we were okay (everyone was boarding and we were waiting for friends). He chatted with us for a while, answering questions, featuring the ship. I saw him ALL OVER the Bliss talking to passengers. He was awesome and exemplified the service we received all week. The bartenders are all amazing. Friendly and funny and engaging and efficient. Servers at all meals were great. They were attentive and kind, happy and accommodating. They would remember us if they saw us different days. The Muffin Girls were terrific! The only downside for me I’ve noticed on several ships and feel more confident in sharing. I don’t like watching the “managers” on duty in the dining rooms (any of them, really). They seem intense and intimidating. It does NOT seem like they trust the professional experts working under them. I will say that any time we wanted to ask for something that was forgotten or mixed up, we didn’t do it because we could see how hard the servers were working (Especially with the new iPad ordering system!!), so we didn’t want them to get in trouble. Anyways, in their zeal to make things “right” for the customers, those intense dining room managers are making it uneasy for all of us. Lighten up and Support Them instead of trying to catch them doing something wrong!! PORT & SHORE EXCURSIONS: We only went on one excursion - Best of St. Thomas. LOVED the twisty turny bus ride up to Mountain Top. View was awesome even though it rained. Magens Bay was gorgeous and we walked far away from the drop off point for our 2 hours. When we arrived back at the downtown area, we EASILY found where we were to catch our shuttle back to ship (Other reviews complain about this). Their written and verbal communication were very clear. However, it was Christmas and we didn’t want to wait - so we shared a taxi with another couple and 10 of us paid $4 each to drive back on our own. Not NCL’s fault, just our preference (Like I said time on a cruise ship is precious!!). Tortola we only explored the area right off the ship - cute shops, about 60 minutes spent there. Nassau we are not fans of, so we got off ship (there were FIVE SHIPS IN PORT!) and took some photos. DINING: Using the screens not ideal for groups to get reservations (we were 8 people, 4 cabins). Waiting in reservation line on Day 1 was a long time. Great service and they helped us with everything, but a LONG wait. . Food in all restaurants was delicious. We made reservations at Los Lobos for appetizers and it was awesome. I would do that again - wish they opened a bit earlier for people like us who only want apps. Buffet improvements since last cruises - love the high tables and it was MUCH cleaner. We are NOT fans of the buffet on any ship because of the noise and the mixture of smells. ENTERTAINMENT: We enjoyed the shows. We wondered why the theater was so small (no balcony?) but it did not affect our experience (well, except we like to exit down at the first row to get out and couldn’t). We loved them. We spent a few nights with Jim Badger and laughed the night away and sang at the top of our lungs. He was great. Enjoyed the Prohibition - the girls did a great job and the drinks were fine. They hung out and talked to audience members for quite some time after. It would be SO MUCH EASIER if one cabin could reserve multiple numbers (and enter cabin numbers for everyone!!) all in one fell swoop. MEET & GREET: I’ve been to a bunch and organized a bunch. This one was a bit different - we were given mimosas and passed appetizers. Crew members mingled with us. I was given a mic to say hi and used it for everyone to introduce themselves. After, we did a slot pull and then followed it up with a Bar Crawl. It was fun. Wish more participated (so many more RSVP’d) but we still had lots of fun and Bliss staff treated us so well. DISEMBARKATION: Because I organized the Cruise Critic meet & greet, I was granted Priority disembarkation. We were off the ship and at the curb within 15 minutes. So easy. Highly recommend. SUMMARY - Other reviews frustrate me. Their reviews talk about only one pool.? There are two main pools (one with no kids) plus a splash area for kids and a grotto area in H2O. This was a Christmas cruise - so yes, more kids. But this year was fewer kids than last two years and we had a greater chance of finding space on our own without them on this ship if we wanted to. Decorations were fine - many trees (not just a few!!) and it was the PASSENGERS who dressed up and decorated their doors who upped the Christmas Spirit. We only encountered ONE staff member who was less than awesome. And yes, she was miserable (bartender). But the others we met were so good to us. Even with my critiques, this was my favorite ship, and we had a great cruise. You might find me stowed away on the Waterfront if you go check right now…. Mojito, anyone?? Read Less

We booked this cruise for our honeymoon. We knew it was going to be over Christmas and anticipated it to be crowded but did not realize how crowded it would be. There were A TON of children. That being said, we knew there would be some kids but we never realized there would be this many. Embarkation was very smooth. We had the first time slot (11:00 am). There was no line and we walked almost right on to the ship. We immediately went to find the spot to buy tickets for Vibe beach club and it was already sold out. I was so disappointed since this was our honeymoon and I figured it would be the best place to escape the children. There weren't even that many people on board and it was barely 11:00 am! I don't know how all the passes were gone so fast. We then went and signed up for lazer tag (these spots fill up fast) and the person who was taking the reservations was doing it on a piece of computer paper with a pencil and not on the computer. We later discovered he registered us for the wrong time and place ( racetrack at 5:30 instead of lazertag at 5:00). They ended up letting us do it but it was still aggravating. The pool bar was open and we had a drink and then some lunch at the garden café. There were announcements being made on the top deck but you couldn't hear them so we have no clue what time our room was ready. We decided to check and see around 2:00 pm and it was ready. Our luggage was delivered during the safety presentation (around 4:00 pm). Our cabin was nice (10880). It had a balcony and the bathroom was bigger than past cruise ships. Joseph was our room steward and he was great. We had him empty out the mini bar so we could use the fridge. The TV's were updated because you are supposed to use them to make some reservations for events such as the silent disco (also sold out on the first day) and the comedy clubs. At first, the ship seemed overwhelmingly large. I got the hang of it after the first day. We had the specialty dining package and ate at specialty restaurants on 4 nights. The best of all of them was Q. We had an appetizer and split the combo platter. It was DELICIOUS. We ate at Los Lobos on Christmas eve. It was just okay. We used the dining package so we were both entitled to an appetizer but only had one delivered. I tried one of the fancy specialty margaritas but it was not that good. I had the fish tacos and they were just okay. My husband had a burrito and he said it was good. The best part was the dessert. It was home made ice cream with dulce de leche sauce on it. I could have had ten of those. The service at Los Lobos was subpar. Christmas day we went on a snorkeling catamaran to St. Thomas. It was amazing. We booked the earlier time slot. The crew was amazing. We snorkeled and then were brought to a smaller island for some swimming and we were served painkillers on the way home. It was a great day! The best day of the whole week was our excursion to Jost Van Dyke. We took a catamaran over there (about 45 minute ride) and sat in the water all day drinking pain killers from the Soggy Dollar. They returned to pick us up and we got back to the boat with 15 minutes to spare. It was great. The Bahamas were unmemorable. The port was dirty and crowded. I was glad we didn't book anything that day because it was raining. I couldn't see spending almost $500 on Atlantis either. Cagneys on Christmas night was just okay. The waitress was super nice but obviously busy as it was Christmas. The food was good but it didn't blow me away. We ate at Taste one night and that was okay as well. The menu was the same pretty much the next night when we ate at the Manhattan room. We did eat at Teppanyaki one night and that was delicious. I was hoping for sushi as an appetizer but the only place, I was told, to get sushi on board is Food Republic. I went there one afternoon and they were closed. I returned to get some at 5:00 pm (dinner wasn't until 8:30 that night). It was good. The service was just okay. Aggie was our favorite person on board. We tipped him the first day and he never let us go thirsty every time we were at the pool. The Jersey Boys play was GREAT!! Definitely worth seeing but make sure you make your reservations ahead of time. This was the worst part for us: The people in the room next to us slammed the doors morning, noon and night. When we asked guest services to talk to them, it was never resolved. I think they had teenagers in the room but it was just so aggravating. One night, the door slammed 5 times at 1:00 am. It was very annoying. I am one of those dreaded smokers. The smoking on the ship was a problem. There was one spot ALL the way in the back of the boat (Spice H20). It took a while to walk there from the main pool deck. I know we are almost an extinct breed but it was ridiculous that was the only spot. You could also smoke in a small spot in the casino (closed room) but only when the ship was at sea. This was very disappointing as well. The last issue I had was that there were signs everywhere that say you cannot save lounge chairs. This was not the case. One morning I went upstairs at 7:30 am and almost all the chairs near the pool were gone. One couples chairs were held for over 4 hours before I saw them. It made me anxious every morning that I had to get upstairs for a chair before I would have to sit a mile away. The whole process needs to be looked at. One day they tagged chairs for people who they hadn't seen but only removed a few towels. It definitely wasn't enforced. All in all the cruise was good. We relaxed and had a few great days. I probably wouldn't go on a cruise with so many days at sea again (3 in total). There was a lot of down time and with so many people on board, it was hard to relax by the pool. I work for the schools so I can really only take time off during vacations so I anticipate the rest of my vacations will be filled with kids which is okay, I just wish there were more adults only sections. Read Less

We previously cruised on the getaway and had a blast so we chose to bliss for our family vacation so the kids could play in the arcade, do race cars and laser tag. However, the race cars and laser tag were sold out before getting on the ship which was very disappointing. For kids to play in the arcade, it’s better if they can play with cash, NOT the room key which is connected to our bank account. That’s so dangerous and after playing for less than an hour, we accrued over $200 in just the arcade. Sadly, our kids didn’t have any fun. Our daughter is 19 and didn’t find anything appealing and our 10 year old son wanted to do laser tag and race cars and couldn’t. In addition, we paid for the haven. We had access to the haven but our room was on the other side of the ship. Our butler was amazing and so were the bartenders at H20. We are going to try again with a family vacation with 8 people next December and do the Hawaii cruise. Read Less

This was our first cruise and planned for over a year for Christmas week 2018. Boarded in Miami and cruised St.Thomas, Tortola, and Bahamas. After exploring the ship on boarding day and eating at the buffet I thought we were in for a week of our lives. On Sunday morning we woke fairly early to have our first pool day, to my disbelief there was barely a chair to be found. We found a couple chairs eventually in a shaded area far from the one pool. Yes, that is correct they have ONE pool! They advertise two but the second has toddlers in diapers connected to water park area for toddlers. So unless you have little ones or like to swim in diapers its not for you. The first pool I mentioned is about the same size as the pool in my backyard! There's no easy entrance to the pool, no swim up bar, but plenty of salt if you bring your margarita! I literally swam once in the entire week. The two slides are flawed as it takes 45 minutes in line to ride them. The extreme ride was designed so poorly that many riders actually don't make the apex and slide helplessly backward and need to be extracted by personnel. Needless to say I did not attempt this nor my two children as the wait and failure rate just didn't seem worth it. I will finish with this regarding the pool area, on day two I woke early to mark four chairs for my family with towels and clips and bags, as this is how it's done on cruises. Upon arrival later that morning my chairs were now down to two, my bag was missing, and I almost got into a fight. Wow! what a cruise dream! They have go carts and laser tag for kids if you can sign up in time. I'll be honest I still don't know what that means because we never had a chance to sign up because it was full every time someone tried! Yes, we spent 7 days on a cruise ship with two teens and they barely swam, used one slide twice, and never saw go carts or laser tag. In my opinion they should have left the carts and tag off the ship and build some real pools. On the positive side the food and drinks were very good. The three shows we saw were also very well done. The room was decent size and always clean. The employees do an amazing job and are always friendly. Unfortunately for us this was designed around my kids and nephews who left highly disappointed. I would not recommend this ship to anyone with children, actually I would not recommend this ship to anyone as the pool deck experience is horrific! Read Less

To be fair, the cruise I went on was Christmas/Winter Break Week. But it may be typical for any cruise on that ship during any time the ship is packed with adults and 1,000 kids. Perhaps a not-so-popular week might be better. - My daughter, son-in-law, and 9-year-old grandson paid for my wife and I to go on this cruise with them. Most things were fine. But the problem is that the Bliss tried to cram far too much "extras" (race track and laser tag) when it isn't set up to do those things right. Both venues are outdoor "weather permitting" and you must - must - must - reserve a specific time slot in advance, and there really aren't that many slots available for 4,000+ adult passengers and another 1,000 kids. Also the 700-seat theater was far too small for their "big production" shows (Jersey Boys, Havana) which only had 4 shows each. And the theater was "reserve seating" only.....with a standby line for any no-shows. - Needless to say, those "first on board" could - and many did - "hog" all the "reserve" seating and slots for ALL the shows and ALL the available track and laser tag slots very, very quickly. To my knowledge there was nothing to prevent the first 700 passengers to book up ALL the show seating and nothing to prevent the first 100 - 200 passengers from "hogging" ALL the race track and laser tag slots. And why not? "Weather permitting" means you SHOULD sign up for as many as you can.....and they are FUN.....which means "more than once." Yes, there is a fee for the race track and laser tag.....but its incidental when compared to everything else you pay for. - There was nothing more disappointing than to tell my grandson that he could not do the race track or the laser tag because all - ALL - the slots had already been reserved. - My advice? Avoid any disappointment. Skip the Bliss or any ship that has a "wow" venue that only a minority of the passengers are going to be able to use. The fact is that the race track and the laser tag are outdoor venues that took up deck space that could have (and perhaps should have) been used for more pools, hot tubs, sun decks, lounge chairs, and even a bar or water slide that more passengers could enjoy. - Even if you have absolutely no interest in the race track or laser tag, the deck space they took up meant it was much harder to find an open lounge chair on what open decks remained. Read Less

Booed this cruise two years ago. There were 22 of us in all and we were really looking forward to a memorable Christmas Cruise on the nearly brand new Norwegian Bliss. Overall the service was good, not awesome but good. Food in general wasn’t very good, even in the cover charge venues. Dinner service in the Manhattan Room was painfully slow and woefully disorganized. Ship is already looking worn out, especially in the atrium; worn out furniture all over the place seemed disturbing for a ship not even a year old. I sprained my knee on Tortola and needed medical attention. Staff was for more concerned about being compensated than about caring for the patient. There was zero follow up despite a fairly severe injury and when I hobbled back to get the dressing changed after two days the first thing I got was “extra band-aids are $1.50 each.” Just WOW... charging for the go-carts and laser tag was off-putting as well. Internet which I paid nearly $400 for (I needed to work) was the worst I have ever had on any ship and the app they charge you $10 for never worked properly. Overall the one thing NCL does really, really well is nickel and dining you for absolutely everything. After three NCL cruises with each getting progressively worse we’re done. Princess and Celebrity are hands-down far superior in every way. I used to thing of NCL as on-par with Royal Caribbean but it’s really on the same level as Carnival. Read Less