Great Getaway!

We chose this cruise because of the port of New Orleans being the start and end, and we received free air fare as part of an NCL promotion. We went a day early to explore and had no issues with our flights. The port location itself is not the easiest to navigate and it took a long time for our driver to drop us off and the process was very disorganized and frankly dangerous. This wasn’t NCL fault, but worth noting. Once inside, the process to board was extremely disorganized and we arrived around 1pm. Other than embarkation we really enjoyed everything else. We had to tender at two ports - grand cayman and Honduras and that was a mess and not well communicated by the ship. The process wasn’t all that smooth using the ships own emergency boats and it seemed other ships had a much easier and faster time rendering than we did. The captain on our cruise was awesome - he got us to each port early and many times started allowing passengers off early as well. He talked daily and more than any other captain providing history and insight into where we were. We enjoyed him a lot more than the cruise director who we never really saw and seemed to be more a salesman when he did get on the PA. He didn’t seem to interact much with guests like we’ve experienced on other NCL cruises. We had a spa balcony cabin and it was perfect - no complaints and would recommend as it gives access to spa amenities that came in handy on the rainy/cool days. We ate every night at a specialty restaurant because our previous experiences in the free dining room were not good. It seemed as though every specialty restaurant now has an upcharge which we found absolutely ridiculous when ur paying for a cruise that covers food, plus then paying about 30/person/meal to eat at the specialty dining and then have to pay say an extra $5 for a crab cake?! This ship was very clean, never had an issue getting a seat or finding a clean table in the buffet - cleanest we’ve ever seen cruising! We had the beverage package Included and used it - only thing we found a problem was that a lot of wine was an additional cost - even a $12 bottle of wine they were charging $22 a glass!! So not Only do you have to pay the difference of $7 but they add 20% gratuity to that amount. I’d like NCL to confirm that the bar staff actually get the entire 20% gratuity we get charged as I assume they are likely pocketing a chunk of it. Also a frustration with the drink package is that it doesn’t include any sort of bottled water even though you can’t bring any onboard and it is definitely cheaper than liquor! We bought future cruise credit and will definitely cruise again soon! You should absolutely cruise on the getaway but just be aware of the upcharges and fees for almost everything.