Our family tries to go on a cruise every year and we usually sail with Royal Caribbean and Princess, but this cruise with Norwegian was at a time when the whole family could attend. This experience was lackluster and sub-par in most arenas. Service was poor most of the time, drinks were either burnt or too sweet, the food was OKAY, the specialty restaurant we went to was awful, the shore excursion we took was terrible, and we will not be cruising with Norwegian again based on this experience. Overall grade: D

First, Norwegian boasts a "freestyle dining" experience, with many specialty restaurants (which you must make reservations for 24 hours in advance and pay extra per person); but, the experience was extremely strict. The buffet was only open during certain hours, and only one restaurant was open 24 hours and it took 45 minutes on average to receive anything from it. Room service wasn't available every night, and you could only eat at one dining room during breakfast and lunch. My sister has a 1 year old and it was very difficult for her to have any kind of schedule when the buffet was not open and it took 30 minutes to get a glass of milk for the baby. Additionally, the dining room hostesses were discriminatory against us as we saw many people wearing shorts during dinner while my husband was turned away as unacceptable (many Hispanics were given preferential treatment during the cruise - I am mostly Hispanic, but my husband is Caucasian). The specialty restaurant we attended (Teppanyaki) was more of a disaster than anything else. The chefs were watched so closely by their superiors that they were afraid to do anything but clean the grill the entire time! I've had better experiences watching the sandwich crafters at Subway. The food was too salty, the rice was horrible, and the service was pushy. Overall grade: F-

We LOVED the shower! We had a balcony stateroom and it was fairly average (a bit smaller) than on Royal and Princess, but the shower was great! Instead of the clingy shower curtain it was a separate stall with a glass sliding door. Fabulous. The stateroom and bathroom itself was actually quite dingy and not very clean. Overall grade: B- Read more