My spouse and I sailed on the Jade from Oct. 6-16 from NYC to the Maritimes and back. We previously sailed on 3 different Princess cruises. Could not find one with them that was going exactly where we wanted to go, so decided to take a chance on Norwegian as it did. Sorry to say that I doubt we will ever sail on Norwegian again. No one explained to us that people would be booking their specialty dining online in advance or on the first day of the cruise. When we asked, one staff told us you had to book the day you wanted to eat there. Also, no one told us you could make a reservation for the dining rooms. As a result we never got to eat at Cagney's and barely got to eat at the Teppanyaki restaurant. We finally were told you could reserve in one of the dining rooms, so we did. As we were leaving I asked to book for the next night and was told they do not book tables for two, yet we had done just that earlier that day! Staff often gave conflicting information or said "I don't know". Our first night was a disaster with having to wait nearly two hours to get our food, with a waiter that ignored us. We did complain, and the dining room maitre d' apologized profusely, and it was only because we had his card and had talked to him that we were able to get in the dining room and get decent service after that. The food that night was awful as well. It was almost as if they had all new staff and were in total disarray. The rest of the time the food ranged from decent to excellent, you never knew which it would be. We liked O'Sheehans for lunch and a couple of breakfasts. The buffet was okay. Lots of Indian and Asian food if that's your thing. Staff in the buffet barely acknowledged you and acted like they really didn't give a damn. The staff clearing and cleaning the tables were very nice, but the ones behind the counters were not! We found that most of the time you had to fight for seats in the bars, in the atrium, the theater, etc. The elevators were woefully inadequate for this crowded ship, and one of them was always out of order.

Our cabin steward was excellent as were a couple of the staff in the dining room. We were happy with all of the excursions we went on. We saw two of the shows, and they were excellent. But on the whole, we were not happy with Norwegian. The level of service and treatment was definitely not on par with what we were used to, I'm sorry to say, with a few exceptions.

The boarding process was awful as well. It was hot and humid and we were in line for well over an hour or hour and a half. I am diabetic and had to go sit down and try to scrounge up something to snack on. The snack bar in that area was closed. There were many many very elderly and disabled people on this cruise and they had much difficulty with this boarding process. We were herded like cattle while boarding and on a couple other instances on the ship. The elevators were inadequate for this full cruise, and one seemed always to be out of order. Read more