In April, 2008 my wife and I boarded the Norwegian Pearl in Miami for a cruise through the Panama Canal to Seattle, 19 days. We are both 66, and I'm retired Air Force but still working full-time. We've previously gone on a few short cruises, Carnival (and it WAS!), Celebrity, and Holland American. This was our first 'long' cruise. Embarkation in Miami -we had pick-up from the airport by the cruise line. When we got to the port the process was lengthy, required you to fill out several papers, and then sit for an hour or so. And yes, I had done the on-line check-in. We left the airport about 10:30 and finally got to our room around 2 PM. The bags didn't arrive until well after dinner. The room - quite nice, very adequate closet space and storage drawers, comfortable beds. We booked an unobstructed view picture window, and we were well pleased with the accommodations. Minor gripes - there was only one easily accessible electrical outlet, and we should have brought an extension cord, as we sometimes needed to charge more than one thing at a time. Also, we found the bathroom so narrow that we had to open the door in order to dry off our legs after a shower! The TV was nice enough, but the selection of channels was somewhat limited - would have been nice to have some of the cable channels we have at home, such as Discovery and the History channel. There were two news channels, both of which could have been re-named the Primaries channel, as it seemed that 75% of the programming was about Hillary and Barach. When you board, all of the cruise lines are very well aware that they have exclusive access to a large number of people with a significant amount of disposable income. The cruise line then considers it their moral obligation to help the passengers out as much as they can to dispose of that disposable income. But the Norwegian Cruise Line was by far the most enthusiastic in performing these duties. Also, on any cruise there is a 'hierarchy', with the folks in the upstairs penthouses being at the top of the pecking order. On other cruise lines it was pretty low key, but on NCL it was pretty clear that we were in the cheap seats, having an outside picture window on a lower deck. On the 'at sea' days there was plenty to do - if you enjoy bingo, or buying investment-quality Columbian emeralds, or duty-free gold chain (by the way, do you know the duty on gold? I do - there isn't any!), or participate in an art auction. Also, they made good use of the PA system. There were generally at least a dozen PA announcements, generally by the cruise director, inviting us to participate in the up-coming Bingo, Art Auction, seminar on investment-quality watches, etc., all trying to help you bump up your on-board tab. There were a total of four (4) 'informative' lectures on the cruise - Pirates of the Caribbean, the building of the Panama Canal, etc. And they were good lectures - but only four? We also had destination lectures before each port. Unfortunately these were chiefly concerned with making sure you didn't transgress by taking any tours not arranged by the cruise line and making sure you shopped on shore only at the cruise line approved stores - virtually nothing about the port itself or things to see and do (except take the approved shore excursions). And in one port, Santa Marta, apparently no one on board had any idea about what was there! Even if it was their first stop there they should have been provided SOME information about the city! The food was pretty good, overall - enjoyed the free-style dining, but noticed very early that there was a major difference in service between the 'main' dining room (Summer Palace) and the secondary dining room (Indigo), with the Indigo service being MUCH better! We tried the Summer Palace several times early-on for breakfast, and the food was quite good. I just wish it had been served in a timelier manner! Once I ordered a bowl of oatmeal, and found that by the time I got it that it would not melt the butter! And the eggs Benedict were very well prepared - but would have been MUCH better if they had been served at above room-temperature! We gave up on their breakfasts fast, and ate upstairs at the buffet, where the main problem was finding a seat. The dinner meals were similar - they probably use the same kitchen for both dining rooms, but the Indigo room seemed to have much faster, and better-spaced, service, as they didn't bring you the main course 5 minutes after serving the salad, or wait 15 minutes after removing the dinner dishes to serve the desserts. They also had several specialty restaurants, some requiring an additional charge. The Mexican restaurant was pretty good. We went to several of the other restaurants, but they were not spectacular. Evening entertainment - overall quite good, but - we learned early that you'd better be there a half-hour early if you wanted a seat! They had a nice selection of musicians, all of them quite entertaining. No points off there. Steward Service - I'm sure they were doing the best they could, but there just weren't enough people in the staff to take care of the cabins properly. On a few of the 'at sea' days we'd go out for breakfast and leave the 'make up cabin now' sign up. When we returned the cabin was unmade, so we switched to 'do not disturb'. Out for lunch, change sign. Back from lunch, still no make-up. Finally they came mid-afternoon, and said we needed to leave the room so they could make it up. I couldn't help but contrast this with the service on Holland America, where it seemed that if we went out for 15 minutes the steward was in straightening out the pillows we had disarranged. In fact I wondered if there was a hidden camera that he used to see if we had left the room . . .On the NCL there were a couple of days when we just didn't have the room made up at all. Anyway, points off for room make-up. The transit of the Panama Canal was the high-point of the cruise, by far. We were the 2nd ship to start the Atlantic-Pacific passage that day, and the views were wonderful. There was a very knowledgeable lecturer on the PA system giving us a lot of details about the construction of the canal, the features we were passing, and general canal knowledge. This was by far my favorite day of the cruise, and made up for a LOT of the less pleasant times. Shore excursions - this is probably pretty universal among the cruise lines, but it's annoying to book a tour on-board for $105 and find the same tour on the dock for $40. Also, the information given the night before about each port was scanty to non-existent. Also, at several of the ports you wound up in 20-30 minute lines to get back on the ship. On one occasion in particular they had only one boarding door operating, when there were two open for disembarkation. No idea why they closed the other one. Disembarkation at Seattle- the day before we disembarked we had a disembarkation lecture (where they also pointed out to us that this was our last chance to buy more goodies in the on-board shop) that was very clear on the procedures and timing. Then the last-night newsletter repeated the instructions from the lecture. This should have been pretty simple, as we had already gone through immigration at Los Angeles. So we had a clear picture of what should happen and when. Then we started the actual process and things just went loco. I don't know why the process was so slow, but there were people getting frantic as the clock ticked along and their flight time got closer and closer. The big spenders naturally got to disembark first, and the cheap seats were substantially delayed. Maybe it was the fault of US Customs, but after my previous experiences, I'd prefer to think it was typical of the NCL passenger-handling. When we finally go to disembark we had to find our bags in a LARGE holding area, then find a porter to carry them to a bus, and FINALLY we were off to the airport - where the bus dumped us off a half-mile from the boarding area, and we had to find yet ANOTHER porter to take our bags to the airport proper! We had signed up to disembark the ship at 8:30, and it was about noon when the bus dropped us off at (or near!) the airport. Overall - I paid quite a bit for them to entertain me, and they didn't do a very good job of it. Honestly this was a pretty cheap cruise, and I wound up paying for it. This will be my last Norwegian cruise - I'm already signed up for a South American Rio-to-Seattle cruise on Holland America, and back to the good life!