The cruise itself was very average in most respects. The embark/debark went smoothly. The ship stayed on schedule and the ports of call were all typical tourist attractions. The service for the most part was very good, especially in the cabin and main dining room. However, there was a tendency on the part of the staff who worked the open areas (buffets, poolside, etc.) to cut through lines or in front of customers to get their jobs done. This is rude behavior and someone should be training them better. The food was acceptable for the most part, and if you wanted to get a cut above it was necessary to pay extra to get into the boutique restaurants. The entertainment was amateurish and throughout the shows, the staff was constantly in the aisles pushing drinks. The drinks were pricey and the pour was conservative - they apparently make a good profit on beverages. Speaking of profit, they were constantly pedaling all sorts of things on board, from art to jewelry to shore trips to raffle and bingo tickets to massages to drinks. It became apparent that the friendliest employees were usually trying to sell something, and it was irritating. You could easily find yourself with a huge credit card tab at the end of the cruise, and of course they have the upper hand because they have already established an account for you with your bank credit card (or cash).

All in all, it was a good but not great cruise. Nothing stuck out as being significant, neither positive nor negative. We got what we paid for.

Having said all that, we did have an issue with NCL prior to the cruise that took months to resolve. When we booked the trip, we got our original booking plus a duplicate, due to a fault in their booking process. Even though we immediately brought the error to their attention, they charged deposit fees for both bookings. They were very difficult to work with to correct the problem. In fact, after repeated attempts to resolve the problem, it became necessary to file a dispute with our credit card company in order to get our money back. We will not do business with NCL again.