Chose this cruise because our friends wanted to go and it was a good deal. We'd never been on Norwegian before (we're Holland and Princess all the way). Some of the problems we encountered seemed to be from understaffing, starting with embarkation in Miami. The lines were very long with clearly not enough staff to handle. Even the outside line was confusing; at one point an NCL staff person came by and directed a bunch of people in what seemed like the only line to a hastily assembled second line, which meant a lot of them effectively "jumped the line."

Our steward was good, but our friends' steward was clueless and paid little attention to the work. Other cruise lines seem to have a two-person team to handle steward duties, but not NCL.

Food was mixed at best. The buffets were reminiscent of high school cafeteria food - lots of items but dubious quality. Coffee was bad! We probably should have spring for some meals at what we heard were good pay restaurants like Cagney's. Read more