This was our first trip on Norwegian and we were very excited to try a new line. We have cruised before on Carnival multiple times and always in suites. We were cruising with 9 people in two suites on the Norwegian Jewel for seven days to the Mexican Riviera.

Dining: we had upgraded dining for our entire party and ate at all of the upgraded dining restaurants. The service and food at La Cucina was amazing. Our waiter was attentive to our large party of 9, service was well timed and the atmosphere was nice. The food at Le Bistro was also very good - best creme brulee I have ever had at sea. Service was a little slow but not inordinately so given the size of our group. Cagneys and Moderno's share a kitchen and DEPLORABLE service and so-so food. We went to Moderno's upon boarding and lunch took us over two hours with no refills of drinks for anyone in the party, terrible service all around, etc. Dinner at Moderno's was even worse. The salad bar is amazing but we had all eaten our salads before we even received water much less our drink orders. The server took our passes and disappeared. We would have the meat skewers brought to our table with 1/2 the table served and the rest skipped. One side of our table we ended up getting food for on the other side. Then when desert time came we refused desert and wanted to leave and it took another 30 minutes to get our cards back from the server. When we went to Moderno's the food was all OK but again the service was absolutely atrocious. As big fans of teppanyaki, we were pleased with the teppanyaki skills of the chefs but again all other aspects of service were sub-par. OF all of the up-priced dining options, the only one we could foresee making it in the real world was the Italian restaurant.

As suite guests one of the nicest perks is priority embarkation/disembarkation. On Norwegian - your priority status is NOT printed on your paperwork - make sure to bring one of your extra luggage tags with you. We had to speak with three different individuals in the port of Los Angeles before we could get one to direct us to the priority line rather than the regular line. This was a very frustrating way to start off the trip. At disembarkation, the priority only lets you slide in front of a few people. We ended up taking an hour to get from the Priority line to the point where we met with customs. Read more