This was my fifth cruise and fourth cruise line. The others have been Royal Caribbean (2), Celebrity and Holland America. Feel free to email me any questions.
What attracted me to NCL was their Freestyle dining plan. This is ideal for two types of travelers: couples wanting to spend time together (and avoid dining with strangers) and people who dont mind paying a bit more for better food. In my view they exceed expectations on both accounts. You can always eat as a couple and the premium restaurants offer better food at a modest fee (certainly cheaper than my experience dining out at home). I feel this plan succeeds to such a degree that I suggest they do away with one of the two traditional dining rooms on board and create another fee restaurant. This would still leave them with three free dining rooms (Garden Cafe and Pacific Heights being the others).
NCL also has a program that I disagree with entirely, mandatory tipping. This policy takes most of the incentive out of the service staff to actually provide service and it shows; to make matters worse, this fee is not cheap ($10 per day per person and 15% on drinks). Confusingly, they dont have mandatory tipping in the fee restaurants, but if you order a drink in one, they add a tip for the drink but the food tip is up to you. I generally found the staff to be extremely saccharine when providing one on one service. Further, in public areas, such as the pool, the staff buzzes around like fruit flies interrupting you each three to five minutes at times and asking if you want whatever it is they are pushing. My guest went so far as to suggest that NCL sell hand held signs to show to the staff when you need or decline service to avoid having to repeat oneself so often. Consider yourself lucky if less than 10 crew members ask you if you want to buy a water bottle on port of call days.