Excellent activities and friendly staff great music

We took the 14 night gem cruise because of cruise credits expirations. We were pleasantly surprised as last cruise on ncl was epic in 2013. Recently doing RCL and celebrity. Dining room staff excellent food decent. Activities staff outstanding. Zumba with Jeff was outstanding. Daily dancing activities. Every night a dance theme parties. Ports were excellent. Unfortunately quite a few drunks as this drink package thing is not controlled. The ship is a little worn out. Paint chipping etc. Prism band was outstanding. Production shows were excellent. Other acts were fair to great. We had an issue with chemical smell in our first ocean view room and after days of complaining we were switched to a balcony floor 8. Thankfully we enjoyed the fresh air but ceiling paint chips kept us out of balcony. Ncl activities staff were excellent and the dance parties were great as they added so much to everyone. Cruise came to an early end as a medical emergency had captain cruise full speed and we got off the ship with our luggage at 8 pm Thursday after dinner and show. I’m home writing review instead of waiting to embark on Friday morning.

We enjoyed the room as our original room 5085 had chemical fumes and we complained for days until they moved us. 8518 was a great location first forward facing balcony on floor 8. Nice size room. Paint chipping on balcony limited our using it.