Our overall rating of this cruise is poor; however, not completely the fault of NCL. We have not taken a true vacation in about 13 years, so we were extremely excited about this vacation. Unfortunately, weather did not cooperate. The entire cruise was battered with high winds and rough seas, so much so that we could not stop at our second destination, Great Stirrup Cay, NCL's private island and the one destination we were looking forward to the most. We recognize that NCL does not control the weather, and the decision to bypass GSC was made for the safety of passengers.

On the ship, we found the food to be mediocre, at best, and with few exception, the staff of the restaurants were inattentive and just went through the motions of serving tables. Seems the industry standard is to pay a set fee for gratuities; however, doing so results in the staff providing average service. We dined 11 times in 5 of the ship's restaurants and purchased drinks 4 times from 3 of the ship's bars. We had only two waiters who were spot-on attentive, accommodating, and gave us the sense that we were valued guests. Even though you are charged gratuities (i.e. service fees) at a set rate p/p/d, a 20% gratuity was further added to drink purchases at the bar...seemed excessive.

We did not spend much time on the ship's decks, as much of the forward of the ship was roped off because of wind most of the times we ventured out. While some of the promenades remained open, the wind made it uncomfortable to stay out for long periods of time. Read more