This was a New Year’s cruise on the Norwegian Star. I have concluded that NCL is worse than ever.

The biggest issue for us was their much touted “Freestyle Dining”, which NCL alleges takes the stress out of dining. Nothing could be farther from the truth! With traditional dining, you have a set table at a set time every night; you’re always guaranteed a place to eat with the same waiter and assistant who quickly learn your preferences and serve you accordingly. Most (maybe all) ships also have specialty dining rooms where you can make a reservation for something different if you wish. With this freestyle dining nonsense, you get to stress every day about where you might find a place to eat that evening! At least in our case, the complimentary dining rooms could not be reserved except by large groups. Most premium dining rooms were fully booked for the week on the first day! Our tour package included dinner at 3 premium restaurants so we tried to make dinner reservations for the week shortly after we boarded. We had to do a lot of juggling to book three slots. We heard later that we were lucky to have done it so early; others failed to get the three. On the nights not in a premium restaurant, we had to show up at a restaurant, get a pager, and hang out somewhere until paged. I won’t do that at home; why would I expect to do it on a cruise??

Gatsby’s Lounge is located just outside of Le Bistro, one of the premium restaurants, and Le Bistro has a few tables outside of the restaurant proper; sort of a sidewalk café, so to speak. Immediately adjacent to that is the stage for the musicians in the Gatsby’s. That would be great if they played nice dinner music but is not so nice given the blaring music they offered! To compound the problem, Ginza, the Asian restaurant, overlooks Gatsby’s so people dining there are subject to the same noise. Read more