I booked this cruise due to a friend getting married on the Norwegian Sky. This was my first cruise ship experience so my expectations were probably higher than what another person may be. The ship is pretty old and I knew almost instantly when we boarded that I was on a budget booze cruise. The alcohol is free, but I think they offer this because the food is awful and everything tastes better when your drinking. I would recommend upgrading your meals. There is a central kitchen, so even when you go to the sit down restaurants you are getting the same food as whats offered in the buffet. But if you upgrade to the other restaurants they have there own kitchen the food is fresh, hot and much more favorable. The buffet offered outside after dinner hours is probably the best and it offered chicken wings, pizza and more specialty desserts. Overall the endless buffet people talk about on a cruise is sub par on the Norwegian Sky. Also when you go to the sit down restaurants even the non upgraded restaurants you will be charged 20% gratuity that's why they swipe your card. The buffet is the only way to avoid this fee.

Our room was what was to be expected although not even as close to what it looked like online, just outdated. Our toilet backed up twice as did our neighbors it was very difficult to get staff to take care of it. My suggestion is to learn Spanish before traveling as this is the primary language on the boat and will help you should problems arise. We got nothing but a $50/off a $100 massage at the spa for the inconvenience. lol we had to spend $100 first, of course! We couldn't use our room for 3 hours the 2nd time it happened and had a noisy fan left in our room until the carpet dried. We couldn't even negotiate because the staff could not understand us, how annoying! Thank god there was no real emergency!!

The best part of the cruise is the private island, its beautiful, we brought our own snorkeling gear and it was awesome. I am 38 yrs old and it was fun to see my peer group and older enjoying themselves in the ocean! The drinks were great along with the food.