My wife and I have cruised before on RCCL and Carnival. This was our first time on NCL. We had a good time - we always do on holiday. Nevertheless, our feeling was that either of the other two cruise lines provided a better experience. At Miami most of the embarkation was well organized - although I always resent being delayed so that passengers can be herded through photo opportunities. We had a mini-suite - the room was comfortable and the stewards were nice. They did a good job and were responsive. The luggage showed up. We had a late lunch at the buffet - it was good. We reported to a bar for our lifeboat drill - which was comfortable but not comforting.

The food in the main dining rooms was OK - nothing special. We preferred Indigo to the Summer Place - the food was a touch warmer when served at Indigo. Serving food hot seemed to be a problem with food service everywhere but La Cucina. Not cold - lukewarm. Not that the service was bad - just indifferent. Of the specialty restaurants - La Cucina was the only one I thought worth the surcharge. Mambos food was bland and the tables located next to the atrium are awful. Le Bistro was not unpleasant but was not memorable either. The Blue Lagoon was a good snack place if you could get service. The buffet was pretty good. The main problem was finding a table - especially at breakfast time. I never was able to get eggs cooked to order. Usually they would only have one cook there - regardless of the number of people in line - producing one egg order every 3 minutes. If you were 5th in line - be prepared to wait at least 10-15 min. Or get something else. Wasn't worth the wait but was disappointing. Room service was hit or miss - in our case 50% of the time we ordered something - it did not show up.

We liked Sharkbait - they were very good - the stars of the shows. The other acts - Second City, the comedian, and the dancers were OK - in that order. But those are personal preference issues. There seemed to be an unusual number of people who came or left the middle of the show. Or they had to tell their spouse / significant other the details how funny all the fart jokes were during the show. Also annoying - the masses of idle teens and tweens stuck on the boat who spend their evening blocking the stairwells in groups because they have no real place to go and nothing (apparently) of interest to do. I never saw one any ship personnel ask them not to block the steps or at least not lay across them. Most likely they just left them alone because the ship was very crowded and there were long waits for anything. We were asked to wait 20 minutes after the start time for a whiskey tasting course because the mohito tasting course was overcrowded and running over. After waiting we were told NCL decided to cancel it because not enough people waited to make it worth their while to do their advertised activity. Read more