What follows is a review of the Norwegian Sun on its Oct. 24-Nov.4th voyage from San Francisco to the Mexican Riviera. I must admit that after I read the reviews on this site dated Oct. 8th that I had some misgivings about having selected this cruise. Fortunately, I found a lot to like, tho we had a couple of significant perturbations.

We had two adjacent cabins booked, one of them for my daughter, son-in-law and 16-month-old daughter. Alas, on arrival their cabin wreaked of cigarette smoke. I'm no goodie two shoes on the smoking issue but this cabin stunk so badly you could smell it in the hall with the door closed (no exaggeration). We complained at the front desk, they did another cleaning and it was better, but still had a residual smell. The next morning the odor was back in nearly full force. What followed was me at the reception desk having a long session with the desk lady (not very cooperative) and her supervisor Mr. Boyle (who ended up chewing her out in front of me�bad practice). The only alternative cabin they could offer (the smoked out cabin was a superior outside cabin on Deck 9) was a cabin of the same size on Deck 6�the promenade deck with partially obstructed view. They insisted they had nothing equivalent or better. So, they cleaned again, this time very thoroughly, but it meant the cabin wasn't available for several hours. In compensation they offered $50 onboard credit and 3 free dinners at our choice of the pay restaurants. Given the grief I had to expend to deal with these folks and the time lost in the cabin I'm not convinced that was just compensation but I was in no mood to go back and deal with them again. My main gripe here is, how in the world does Norwegian let a cabin that so wreaked of smoke be issued to nonsmoking passengers. Absolute lack of quality control here and a definite black mark for NCL.

With that out of the way there was little else of great significance to complain about on this trip. The food was generally quite superior and we ate in a pay restaurant only the one time. Bakery and dessert items were just plain delicious and I'd love to have their baker in my neighborhood. Meals taken in the tapas restaurant, the Garden Cafe (cafeteria), and the two main dining rooms were all more than satisfactory. Omelets were available at three different stations. A separate waffle station occupied what became the Pacific Heights restaurant in the evenings. Abundant fruit and salad ingredients were supplied at all lunches and dinners (and fruit for breakfast as well). My only three dings here are: 1) the bleu cheese dressing was the worst I've had�you'll never find a chunk of bleu cheese in that stuff, 2) the "orange juice" was generally half water and not anything anyone would mistake for real orange juice, 3) the last few days only powdered milk was available in the milk machines�absolutely unacceptable. Would NCL execs drink powdered milk? What are they doing serving it on a cruise ship??? Read more