We are a couple in late 60's, travelling with other friends. This was our 3rd cruise on NCL.

Embarkation started later and was slower than what we had expected. NCL staff was not good at letting people know what was happening. The announcement system in the terminal could not be understood due to the crowd noise and low volume. Once moving, things went fast and we were on board about one hour after arriving at the terminal. We ate lunch as a group in the Venetian main dinning room and all enjoyed it.

The following days we ate breakfast in the Blue Lagoon or Garden Cafe. Blue lagoon service was slow on sea days at 7:30am, but fine at other times. We ate dinner the first night in the Venetian (surf and turf) which was much better than expected. The steak was very good, but small and the lobster was cold water lobster tail (with more offered from a tray during the meal). The melted butter was more like corn oil with butter flavoring added. We ate other dinners in the Venetian and Aqua, and in both places it took about 1.5-2 hours, which we had planned for. They were very accommodating in taking reservations for 10-12 people when needed during the week. Food was good to excellent in the main dinning rooms, but portion sizes are small and some recipes seem unusual (beets in beef stroganoff?). I did not notice that the sauces were way over-salted as we had experienced before. We did not have complaints about the waiter service in any restaurant except Blue Lagoon on sea days. Food in the Garden Cafe was good, but they never had the full buffet set up...only three of the four lines were ever active. This buffet layout does not have obvious "action stations", so the crowd stands in line to go through the whole thing. Many times a coffee machine or drink machine was empty. The food seemed to be about the same every day. They did have lemonade, ice tea and flavored waters in the buffet machines after breakfast hours. Read more