My DH and I have taken this same cruise, in the same cabin, once before. In October of 2008, it was a different experience. We have cruised with NCL now 5 times. All very different experiences. However, having been on this exact cruise before gives us a chance to do an exact comparison. This cruise lacked so many of the things that made our previous cruise wonderful.

Boarding: We drove to the pier in NY, and in the rain, unloaded out luggage and I waited while my DH parked the car. We had two 22 inch suitcases and about 6 pieces of hand luggage. Parking was easy, but getting all the luggage down to the pier was not. There was no one to give us instructions as to where to take our larger pieces. The first porter we came to was quite rude. We eventually found a porter willing to take our bags, and proceeded into the terminal. By now my DH was not in a good mood, and we still had a lot of hand luggage. We went thru security, and were rudely told we were 'hiding a bottle of wine'. I said I knew we had a bottle, and not trying to hide it, but simply packed it. We were instructed to a table on the side to pay our $15.00 corkage fee. We expected this, and had no problem with the fee. After this we were finally escorted to the Suite and Latitude lounge, where we could relax. There we met Anshuman, who we already knew from the previous cruise. At that point things went a bit smoother. We were escorted to the ship, then told our cabin was not ready and advised to have lunch in Cagneys and then proceed to our cabin. We were just happy to be aboard and get something to eat. After a nice lunch, we proceeded to our cabin. Eventually our luggage showed up. However, we were missing a piece of hand luggage. We reported it, but it was not found, so we assumed we must have left it in the car. It turned out that it was not in the car. My DH thinks he may have left it in the pier area after all the times he sat it down, picked it up, got in a new line etc. Not NCL's fault, however, it may not have happened if the boarding process for people parking at the pier were handled in an easier way.

The Cabin: Having been in the exact cabin previously, we concluded nothing had changed except the position of the coffee machine, it was now on the bar. The cabin was just shabbier. The gauzy curtain had grey stains on it. The sofa cover had a hole in it and was ill fitting from too many cleanings. There was dust on several things. One of the glasses had the cover on it, but contained a clear liquid. Obviously used. We pointed this out to our butler, Ravi, but he brushed it off as not importent. The mattress when viewed from the sofa, had two impressions from use. It may have been the same one we used previously. One of the lights didn't work, which we never did point out. On the good side, we had a bowl of fresh fruit, and a bottle of sparkling wine chilled. An arrangement of flowers was delivered and was beautiful. It survived one day. Ravi moved it to the little table by the sofa where it fell on the sofa, leaving water and debri, then onto the floor. Ravi made no attempt to do anything at all to clean it up. Read more