It's been months since I've returned, and I've needed the extra time to temper my comments.

Pre-cruising was unpleasant. I had several instances to have to contact the cruise line before departure. Each time, NCL refused to deal with me directly because I hadn't booked directly with NCL, my travel agent had booked my reservation. I'm a Latitudes member and this cruise was my 4th with NCL. So when I had issues and questions regarding Latitudes, I was really upset that they refused to talk to me because I'd booked with a travel agent. I assume they'll only offer you customer service if you've booked directly with NCL (online?) Irrespective of how I book my cruise, a Latitude member should be able to have a Latitude issue dealt with.

Embarkation was a circus. The staff at Dover was entirely out of control. There was no direction to Latitudes checkin. There was insufficient seating to accommodate passengers in the waiting area. The air was stifling. Everybody was waiting and waiting for embarkation to commence and when they finally started calling categories to board, they did so without the use of microphones, so it was a "state secret" which category they called. People were getting agressive second guessing what was going on and they were pushing their way to the front of the line. I've never seen such a chaotic, unnecessarily disorganized embarkation. I had booked a minisuite, category AF. We were on deck 11, aft, port side. The cabin was beautiful, but to be honest, it was identical to the balcony stateroom I had been in on NCL Sun. Not at all any more spacious than a balcony stateroom, much to our disappointment. We could have saved ourselves hundreds of dollars had we known this. Our cabin attendants were magnificent. Read more