I'm not the type to complain; a bad day cruising is better than any day working, but the childcare program on NCL's Pearl compared to Carnival and Royal Caribbean is lacking in both substance of activities and frequency of events. While I had read the reviews warning me away from NCL, We chose to sail on the Pearl because it had an unusual Caribbean itinerary: Belize and Roatan, and because the ship itself received lovely reviews.
Here's what worked on the ship: the service was great, never felt like I was bothering the staff, and my steward placed a lounge chair on my balcony after I made a request. The food was good, not great, but I'm easy to please. The entertainment was excellent, particularly the act Sharkbaittwo jugglers, who were quite energetic and engaging. They played two shows on the ship, and my family and I enjoyed both. We also thought the comedian, David Nester, was a strong talent.
Here's what didn't work: the childcare program. I traveled with four teenagers (ranging in age from 14-18), and a four-year-old. For whatever reason, there were virtually no teenagers on this ship, and my teens were told that there were only 30 teens aboard the ship, and only 10 registered for the teen program (this included my three teens). Every time they went to the teen lounge, there were no activities going on, because there were so few teens, there was no way to coordinate events. This was disappointing, since my teens looked forward to making new friends on this cruise, as they had on my previous cruises with Carnival and Royal Caribbean. More troubling, however, was the young children's program. We had scheduled two shore excursions that excluded my four-year-old because they were "adventure" excursions: cave tubing (more on this in a moment) and swimming with the dolphins. On those days, we had to pay for our child to stay in childcare. This may be standard on all ships, and I wouldn't have minded, but again, my child was the only one in childcare. Moreover, every activity seemed to have a television component. Every day had a two hour movie activity, and when, for instance, they had a Blue's Clue Birthday Party, they, of course, had to include watching an episode or two of Blue. Moreover, unlike Carnival which has shore excursions for kids, NCL doesn't. So on a day where we were out for six hours, my daughter remained on the ship, watching movies. The childcare facility itself is well designed, with a terrific jungle gym, so really the problem has to do with programing. We also had a our shore excursion cancelled at the last minute. The entire reason we booked with NCL was to go cave tubing in Belize, which everyone describes as a terrific adventure. On the day of our shore excursion were were told that it was cancelled and we frantically scrambled to replace the activity. Feeling pressure, we choose to do "jungle tubing" instead. It was horrible. You take an hour and half bus ride to a "jungle" camp, then float down a boring river. The air did not seem to be working on the bus, so we were sweating, and we could not understand the guide. A very disappointing day. To NCL's credit, while they said they couldn't refund our money for this shore excursion, they did reduce the amount of the excursion by $20.00 per person.
Loved the room; the minisuites are the way to travel; clean, great balcony, and the curtain that divided the cabin gave the feeling of privacy.