My wife and I decided to do a quick 1 week cruise out of New York and traveled with my daughter and 11 month old grandson in a separate cabin. We had sailed the S.S. Norway and had such a bad experience we stayed away from NCL. We have 34 cruises under our belts so it was NCL, not cruising, we avoided. This was our least favorite of 13 cruise lines. I know they have their loyal following and it may be like preferring vanilla over chocolate ice cream but this was not what we have experienced on any other cruise line.

Embarkation was a long and tedious process but I don't blame NCL and the fault lies mainly with the company they contract with for the whole process. This was on me but I have always brought the usual one bottle of wine per adult for cabin consumption allowed on every other line we sailed. Not this one but, again, that is their policy and I didn't do my homework. I had to pay a corkage fee for each bottle. It didn't matter that I had the beverage package. It made no sense. As soon as we boarded we headed to the Lido as all of the other lunch venues were packed. But I'll discuss dining later.

The ship is older but we have sailed several old ships that have been maintained. This has not been maintained. We stayed in a mini-suite that was spacious enough but very worn. The AC was great and responded to changes very quickly. It also had a very musty odor like old sneakers. The cabin was well located mid-ship and was relatively quiet. The balcony was the standard size. What I was pleased with was the number of outlets it had if you knew enough to bring European and UK adapters which we did. Some of the outlets we located where a piece of furniture must have been since they were in the middle of the wall over an empty space and there were severe rub marks counter height. We had a full length sofa and the seating area was separated from the sleeping area by a curtain. The mattress was very hard for my taste and, by the end of the week, my back was sore. The bathroom was fine although I prefer a shower stall to a tub/shower. Water pressure was great. Generic soap dispensers and hand soap were plentiful. Now, for the musty odor, there was a major leak from the tub that saturated the carpet in the closet and soaked all of our clothes in our hamper. Read more