I booked our cruise a few days before sail date and honestly did not expect much out of the Norwegian Sky ship itself or from the dining or service. I was wrong. NCL exceeded my expectations. The ship is actually very nice, especially for its age. It is a smaller ship, so we did feel quite a bit of movement and you could actually feel the engines moving it along, but this was not a negative and did not affect our experience. We had a porthole room, which we enjoyed more than we thought we would. It's always nice to be able to look out and know where you are when you are arriving in port or departing.

The buffet food was edible, though mostly not spectacular. Not unusual for cruise line food. The dining room food was very good, not great, but better than our previous cruise line experiences. The desserts, however, were spectacular, particularly the bread pudding and the warm banana souffle. The warm molten lave cake is very good as well.

Cuba was a bit underwhelming. It is fun to experience a different culture. The architecture is awesome to see and the people are nice. However, you do get asked if you need a taxi or a tour or if you'd like to buy cigars on the street about every 2 minutes. We took a 3 hour tour in an old convertible. The tour guide was very knowledgeable, but his accent was so thick that we could only understand about half of what he said. It was good to get out and see parts of Havana that were outside of walking distance. We also saw the show at the Tropicana, which was entertaining. Just don't book either of these excursions through the ship unless you like paying double the amount you can on your own. We booked on our own and did just fine. Just expect a $25-30 taxi ride each way to the Tropicana. It is well away from the port. Read more