This was a great cruise. Embarkation was smooth, and we soon found ourselves having lunch in an empty Summer Palace. Service there as everywhere else was absolutely excellent. We were also very pleased with the quality of the food overall. Since we had tried Le Bistro and La Cucina on the Dawn and found the quality of the food to be comparable to the main dining rooms, we only tried one specialty restaurant: Teppanyaki. Here the show was the main attraction and it was fantastic, but we're foodies and found the food not particularly special, not worth the $25pp cover charge. As far as other eating venues, for breakfast and lunch we would often load up from the huge selection in the Garden Cafe and sit out in the Great Outdoors at the aft section of the ship as the sea and clouds rolled by. A huge plus for me were the free and fabulous self-serve lattes available way aft in the Garden Cafe, with beans ground fresh. On our last night we discovered the made-to-order dessert crepes in the Cafe, and we skipped dessert in the dining room and feasted on pear/chocolate crepes a la mode as a finale to our eating on the cruise.
We chose an outside porthole cabin and it was adequate. Signature 3 part NCL bathroom was GREAT! Our Cabin Steward Ari was the best cabin steward we have ever had (this is our 10th cruise)and we commended him for his service in written format to NCL.
For shore excursions we arranged our own. Terry Bandini took us on a horseback ride to El Limon, an enormous gorgeous waterfall in Samana, DR, followed by an authentic home-cooked Dominican meal--the trip was unforgettable. In St. Thomas we took a taxi to Sapphire Bay Beach, which is a small curve of lovely white sand with sea grape trees for shade, overlooking the BVI. In Tortola we shopped--we've been there several times before, the weather was lousy, and the ship left at 3 so we were hesitant to take a trip to a beach. Great Stirrup Cay was great, actually--warm water, that pretty pink Bahamas sand, good food--how could we want to get back on the ship to go home?
Huge closet, fabulous 3-part bathroom, with double bed a little hard to get around. Porthole window, extremely quiet.