We cruised August 24-31 on the Norwegian Pearl.
Embarkation was very easy. We arrived early and dropped off our bags. There we were greeted with the letter that so thoroughly upset me. Our ship had a problem with the "thrust bearing" which meant we would need to travel at a slower speed and miss our stop in Victoria, B.C. Oh, and NCL decided to throw in a $25 credit because of the inconvenience. My initial thought? "Ok, but missing a port is equivalent to missing 1/4 of my promised vacation." I thought the refund could have been a bit more generous. This also may be because I am a biologist and was most looking forward to the stop in Victoria because of my scheduled Orca Whale Watching Expedition. The letter was very frank, and we never received an apology on ship..from the captain...or anyone! NCL could have handled the notification process better. They have the majority of our e-mail addresses, and we should have found out before we got into that line.
The ship is pretty, and I liked the decor. My only complaint would be that many of the sales pitches were held in the common atrium. I really grew tired of walking through sales pitch after sales pitch about gemstones, or future cruises. These presentations should be held in the auditorium.