There was some apprehension on both my and my wife's part before we boarded this ship because of some of the reviews we read. But not only did we not experience anything close to some of the horrors people described, we were actually pleasantly surprised at a few of the things they did on this ship. My wife and I were both experienced 'cruisers' before we met and have been on a few together. We have both noticed over time that the elegance of a cruise is not what it once was. Having said that, yes, if you look hard, you can see signs of this ships age (i.e. the molded walls in our bathroom had some hairline cracking). But they do not effect any of the things that really mattered. Everything was clean, the food was always what we expected, and the staff was always friendly and helpful. An on deck barbeque by the pool certain nights as we left port where they had three big grills burning coals and cooking burgers, dogs, pork chops, grilled vegetables, grilled pineapple, and this ridiculous pot of jambalaya that they kept adding mussels, shrimp, and calamari to the entire time they were serving and the photo shop and bars being open until 9 am on the day returned were things we had never seen elsewhere. The shows were energetic and the cruise director and his staff were as entertaining as the shows.

Read into some of these bad reviews and take them with a grain of salt. A lot of people are complaining about things that weren't the cruise. I will say this- we spoke to the manager a Diamonds International in Nassau and he told us that he worked on the NCL Sky and quit after 25 days. His reason was that he started during the March/April time period where the 'spring breakers' were there. Apparently it is hellish during those weeks, to the point that swears he will never step foot on the ship again, so do avoid them. But for a trip we booked within four weeks of leaving and doing the whole thing for about $1k, what more could we ask for?