I chose this cruise solely for the itinerary. That said, I did read lots of reviews prior and I assumed the negative ones were by fussy people. I guess I must be a fussy person too then, because I found many of the comments made to be accurate. This is the absolute rudest crew I have ever encountered. Any comment seen as negative is likely to be met with rudeness. I was shocked until a crew member told us that there is a large turnover of staff, people rarely stay past their initial contract. To me that indicates issues with the running of the ship. It was my first experience with NCL and because of this experience, it was also my last. So my advice is interact with the ship as little as possible. Not all staff were rude, there were a couple of really excellent areas, the teppanyaki restaurant and the Brazilian restaurant. And the gift shop. I would point out the attitude issues are not just with guests, I also witnessed numerous incidents in which staff were verbally disciplined in front of guests, which I do not consider acceptable.

The itinerary for this cruise makes it the best cruise. Hawaii is just stunning. We booked most of our excursions with Roberts of Hawaii. We booked only one excursion with the ship, and to our surprise, when we got off the ship, they had farmed out the excursion to Roberts. We actually paid more to take the ship excursion than we would had we booked it with Roberts in the first place. Live and learn. Roberts was excellent though in every excursion we took. The cabins are small, balconies small, as others have said. We had a balcony on deck 11. It was a great location, if booking on 11 make sure you check which cabins have the overhang as it will impede your view. Our cabin had the overhang, something I was unaware of prior to sailing. The cabins do have a good amount of storage space, surprisingly a lot for such a small space. Cabin service was hit or miss. There was always something left undone every day. No complaints otherwise.

Breakfast is decent, they have somehow perfected having eggs Benedict at the buffet that is edible, unlike any cruise line I have been on. Their egg station is probably the best I have seen. Breakfast is pretty much a repeat daily, as is lunch, very little changes. We went to liberty dining room once. I don't like freestyle dining. Being crowded in a closed in hallway in a line waiting for a table to be free does not really live up to the idea you can actually dine when you choose. The hall has no airflow and gets very hot with all the people crushed in waiting. We ate at two specialty restaurants, teppanyaki and Brazilian. The teppanyaki had great service but I did not care for the food. It is not the same as other teppanyaki, because it cannot use open flame cooking, and the chef put so much garlic, an entire bowl, in the rice it was not really very good. The Brazilian restaurant was excellent, the service impeccable. Bravo. We also ate at Cadillac diner. It was so so. The staff was very cranky there. Read more