Zenith Review

-- / 5.0
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Terrible food, avoid lower aft staterooms

Review for Norwegian Fjords Cruise on Zenith
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gypsy mom
6-10 Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Jun 2018

We chose this cruise as it was a fairly late decision to go on a Norway cruise, and the American cruise lines were sold out. We were a little worried that Pullmantur is a Spanish language cruise, but we never had a problem communicating with any of the staff on board. Important announcements were also made in English, and we were provided English menus and daily cruise news. Entertainment is in Spanish, which we knew in advance, so we skipped it. Excursions are also in Spanish, so we booked our own independent excursions where we wanted.

We had stateroom 5147, which had staterooms above and below it, so hoped for a quiet room. Unfortunately, we were very aft, and evidently above engines or thrusters. When they came on (middle of the night, and when docking and leaving), our entire cabin would shake very hard, and it was extremely noisy. Woke us up every time. It generally lasted 30 minutes or more, so very much disrupted our sleep. Stay away from any lower aft stateroom. Walking down the hallway, it seemed like the shaking and noise continued for at least another 8-10 staterooms toward midship. The stateroom itself had 2 sets of bunk beds. Beds were comfortable, although the pillows were very flat. We had two closets in the room, and plenty of drawers. Only seating was one chair by a small table; it would have been nicer to have a small loveseat. The bathroom was decent size, as was the shower. No cabinets in the bathroom, but there was a glass shelf above the sink. No problems with the toilet as some have reported. I only saw our stateroom attendant once. Rooms are only serviced in the morning or early afternoon, so if you sleep in and miss your time, you are out of luck. Service was more like any regular hotel. We did get one towel animal in the middle of the week. The room was clean, but the bathroom desperately needed a really thorough grout cleaning, and the tile on the floor was uneven.

My major complaint with this cruise was the food. It was absolutely terrible. Almost everything was very overcooked, sometimes to the point where you could not even cut the meat. We had early seating dinner at 7:30. Late seating was 9:45. We were seated with the other Americans at our table of 9. The dining room food was never hot, lukewarm mostly. No coffee or after dinner drinks are served; you have to go to the buffet or bar afterwards for those. Dinner is 3 courses, an appetizer, entree, and dessert. There are everyday choices, vegetarian, and daily. Portions are very small, and entrees do not come with sides or veggies for the most part-just meat. There was a sugar free dessert choice every day except the gala dinner. The gala dinner was a set menu, you had no choice of anything on that 6 course meal, not even a sugar free choice (I'm diabetic). Out of the 6 courses, I only ate the soup, the rest was food I could not/want to eat (like the salmon in baby squid sauce-yuck). Most at our table started ordering two appetizers at dinner. You have to order your dessert with the rest of the meal, and no options to try something different if you did not like something. Most nights we went to the buffet to find more food as we were hungry after dinner-and saw our table mates there :-). I skipped two nights in the dining room too.

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