I should preface this review by saying that prior to sailing on the Sky, I had cruised on several of NCL's Breakaway and Breakaway plus class ships. NCL is my favorite cruise line. We booked the Sky for a large family cruise. There were 29 of us in total and the Holiday week, ship and itinerary was the only one that worked for all of us. We all booked oceanview cabins on deck 9. The Sky was refurbished in 2019. The ship was clean and appeared to be well maintained. The crew was fantastic. After sailing on the bigger ships, the Sky felt extremely congested and enclosed to me. I get it...the ship was built in 1999 and only holds 2000 guests. I'm spoiled by the big ships. I know that there are many people that like the "charm" of the small ships, but it just wasn't for me. The cabins were small, the hallways were small. The elevators, the buffet...all felt crowded. I also didn't like some design issues. The basketball court was right above the pool bar. All you heard all day was the sounds of basketballs being bounced above you. It was very annoying. The aft main dining room was on deck 5. However, you couldn't get there from deck 5. You had to walk aft on deck six then walk down a stairway to enter. Tons of people were confused on how to get there. I found the food at the buffet to be average. The meats were always dry. The burgers were like hockey pucks. Food in the main dining room was also average, but much better than the buffet. We dined at Cagney's on the last night of the cruise. We had a great meal. My biggest complaint about this ship was the odor of sewage on a few indoor decks as well as outdoor decks. It was very noticeable and many guests were complaining about it. I initially thought that it might be an isolated issue, but the odor persisted throughout the cruise. Once again, the ship was otherwise clean and the crew was fantastic. Never again on the SKy for me. I'll stick with the mega-ships.

Booked the Prima in 2024.