I have had my eye on this itinerary for a long time and was able to experience it on the new and improved Norwegian Joy. I have been on 10 cruises now, mostly with Princess with a little HAL, Carnival and Celebrity sprinkled in. I must say that Norwegian has a stellar product with its Breakaway Plus class ships. I think the layout is superior to anything sailing out there for this market segment.

This was a Panama Canal partial transit. The Panama Canal was a bucket list experience and the partial transit was only partially great. NCL canceled every shore excursion at this port! It was blamed on not enough available tenders from the Panama yacht club. (Was the reason given). We had pre-purchased the railroad excursion that tours the entire canal. The Island Princess was on a similar itinerary and I wonder if She won the Tender competition? I will put on my detective hat and find out here on Cruise Critic. Don't get me wrong, it was great to see the Joy sail through the Gatun locks and back. It really turned out to be another sea day which doesn't suck either.

The other ports were awesome with the shore excursions that NCL offered. I highly recommend the Old City tour in Cartagena, the Rainforest/wildlife extravaganza in Puerto Limon, The Dolphin encounter in Roatan, catch and release fishing and snorkeling in Belize. They were some of the best excursions I've ever been on. Read more