So this was my first Norwegian cruise so that maybe I had high hopes but nothing really lived up to the hype and honestly there were plenty of moments where I was either really disappointed or just frustrated at Norwegian for making me stress over things that I shouldnt have to worry about on my vacation:

-Embarkation day can be full of lines on the best of days but this embarkation was a DISASTER. I'd heard rumors that the computers were down that morning and then someone said that New Orleans just wasn't equipped to handle such a large ship but whatever it was, it took us several hours of waiting in our Uber and then waiting in a line hundreds of people deep to wait in line again and then slowly creep onto the boat. We left our hotel at 11:00 AM for a 10 minute drive to the port and we got on the ship JUST in time for the muster drill at 4:00 PM. No one ever explained to us the problem or apologized about the mess or anything.

-Freestyle cruising is a MYTH. Its great that you don't have to choose a time to eat dinner in the main dining room but if you want to do ANYTHING...you must make a reservation in advance and good luck doing that once you're onboard. Apparently people start making reservations for shows and specialty restaurants months in advance. I get that they want to accommodate people on a first come first served basis but don't advertise that it's all on my time and all of these things are available without telling me I needed to plan my vacation to the minute months in advance. So much for freestyle. Read more