I choose this mini cruise as I had never been with NCL before and wanted to try a short cruise with them. So here’s a summary of my trip.

Boarding: Barcelona port is easy to get to by taxi, but if you get there before 1pm be prepared to queue in the building and then outside and down the side of the terminal. There is no shade at all, and you could be waiting an hour at least just to get in the terminal. I got there for 11:10 and within 20 mins was in the terminal but that only because they filled up the snakes queues with people. Once security opened and you got through to check in it went quite quickly and boarding was smooth.

The ship: only having lifts front and back is a pain and you cannot take a lift straight down to level 5 where guest services are. You have to go to 6, walk through the casino and then take the escalator up and down. Guest services do not have enough people on for the number on the ship, be prepared for at least a 20 minute wait to talk to someone if you go between 8am and 9pm. There is no smoking inside the ship, but you can still smell it when you go through the casino. There seemed to be plenty of places to sit and enjoy the world going by and lots of loungers on deck. I never saw the marketplace lit up the way it is on the pictures and could not access H2O at any time on the first day as it was booked by a private party. I only ate in taste on a morning for breakfast and it was okay. I asked for toast and got two slices of slightly warm bread that quickly went damp and floppy, but the service was good. I ate in the 3 speciality restaurants le bistro, Teppanyaki and cagneys. The bistro was by far the best - excellent service and food. Teppanyaki was good, but very loud and go hungry as you get lots! By far the worst was cagneys, I had been really looking forward to this as I had read so many good reviews, but the service was poor and the food not great. The steak was not of great quality (I ordered filet mignon which should be full of flavour), but it tasted of nothing and the Parmesan fries were cold after a couple of minutes on my plate and the mac and cheese was gloopy and again tasted of very little. Desert was good, but the portion size was massive and the service was not great. I’ve had far better steak and service at home. I ate in o’sheehans once but to be honest it was just basic burgers, hotdogs and wings and again they were okay but nothing special. I had to wait 20 mins for a table but that was probably because it was a bad day at sea so everyone was eating and staying inside. Apart from le bistro the food was very much the ‘mass catering’ standard you would get at any middle of the road mall or chain restaurant. Read more