I am 19 and have had the privilege of sailing on 12 cruises across 4 different cruise lines in the past 10 years. I have never been compelled to write a review until I sailed on Norwegian for the first time onboard the Norwegian Joy last week because I want potential Norwegian customers to be aware of their other choices and scam-like onboard experience. I have sailed with Celebrity, Princess, Royal Caribbean, and now Norwegian, so my expectations for a cruise are well-defined and I feel as if my opinions can help guide other cruisers.

This being said, I would like to start off with the mess of embarkation that ensued at the Port of Los Angeles. I have never been forced for hours to wait to board a ship - until this cruise. You will be given a boarding group and told to sit in an area with hundreds of other passengers with no updates until a man with a microphone comes and starts yelling out random numbers hours later. At this point, it was utter chaos, and people were pushing and shoving to board the ship. Even when we boarded the ship at 1:00 PM (after already waiting for 3 hours in the terminal) the staterooms weren't ready for another hour. After a long travel day, the last thing someone wants to hear is that their stateroom, which was cleared out by 9:00 AM that morning, isn't ready. Additionally, we were set to depart at 4:00 PM, and we didn't leave until 7:00 PM, a commonality I have read about on Norwegian cruises. In summary, in comparison to other cruise lines, embarkation day was a prolonged, disorganized mess.

The ports of call on our 5 night sailing were Cabo San Lucas (11:00 AM - 8:00 PM) and Ensenada (8:00 AM - 5:00 PM). Cabo San Lucas was a tendered port and Ensenada was a docked port. Despite arriving into Cabo San Lucas on time, and reserving the SECOND tender group, Norwegian staff trapped us in the theater for TWO HOURS because of their disorganized tender operation. They threatened to not let us on shore if we left the theater, so we were forced to wait until a tender was available, and the staff even locked the doors. The very first group to get into Cabo arrived at around 12:45; we landed a little after 1. Many people missed independent short excursions and lunch reservations. To make matters worse, even though the ship was scheduled to depart at 8:00 PM, the last tender was scheduled at 6:00 PM. If passengers can only be on shore from 1:00 to 6:00 PM, this is an advertised scam on the itinerary as 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM. The cherry on top of our 5 hour Cabo visit was the fact that the ship's anchor broke and we didn't leave the port until 1:00 AM, which caused us to be late to Ensenada by 2 hours. This caused our Norwegian-sponsored excursion (Ensenada Highlights & Shopping) to be pushed back. We even left Ensenada late for whatever reason Norwegian made up that night. In comparison to the other 3 cruise lines I have sailed on, I have never been late to a port or had so many excuses given to cover the absolute disorganization Norwegian has going on for its sham operation. Read more