My husband and I are both in our early 30s, we have been on 8 cruises together - this was our 4th on NCL. (Others were on RCCL) We were just on a 10 day Canada/New England cruise last month (Norwegian Dawn), but we booked this "Cruise to Nowhere" as a way for my aunt and uncle (late 40's) to try cruising for the first time. We thought it would be a great introduction, and a fun night away...

Check-in at Pier 90 was surprisingly smooth! It was so fast, we arrived at 11:45am, and were literally on the ship within 10 minutes of arriving at the pier. The cabins were not available until 2pm, so we had lunch in the Raffles buffet. None of us were at all impressed with the buffet. Having just traveled on the Dawn in September (where the buffet was slightly above average), this Raffles buffet was extremely disappointing to us. The salad dressings were all remarkably watered down to the point that when you brought the fork to your mouth - the dressing would drip all over the table (and you!). I had to put the salad aside because it was so drippy, and I didn't even load it up with dressing. The entree choices were medium-warm at best, and not tasty at all. They also did not have a nice cut-fruit salad like they did on the Dawn. The slices of fruit they had at the buffet had the rinds still attached, were cut awkwardly, and difficult to eat gracefully.

The signs stating that the cabins were not ready were still on the hallway doors well after 2pm, and finally we just opened the door and continued onto our cabin. There were a handful of other people we heard complaining about that as well from other corridors. One thing that was WONDERFUL - no muster drill! I can't tell you how thrilled we were to not have to go through that this time around! We both loathe the muster drill on cruises, and cannot truly begin to relax and enjoy our vacation until the muster is done - so we were excited to see there would be none! Read more