This was a 12 day Caribbean cruise sailing from NYC. We are fairly seasoned cruisers, with this being our 8th or 9th cruise. We have cruised on Princess a bunch and Norwegian once before. This was the worst cruise experience, with the blame split between staffing shortages, an overcrowded ship with obnoxious and loud passengers, a glaring lowering of quality, and poor strategic space decisions on the part of NCL. About halfway throughout the cruise, we adapted to long waits by carrying a book everywhere to occupy ourselves while we waited in lines and by getting in lines an hour before events to make sure we got decent seats. I would not recommend this ship to anyone who wants a relaxing experience. Frustration abounded. Everyone I talked with had complaints. They cancelled our final stop in Dominican Republic saying that they were trying to improve their carbon footprint. Nonsense. They did it to save on fuel costs. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it came to cost and quality cutting, all in an effort to maximize shareholder value. If you've cruised in the past, and have based your expectations on those experiences, you will need to temper those so you can enjoy the cruise. If you can manage to adapt, you might have a halfway decent experience.

Pros: Beautiful ship; Spacious oceanview stateroom with plenty of storage and large bathroom (better staterooms than Princess); friendly and quality room steward; casino bartenders were friendly and funny and remembered our drinks; very good entertainment mostly (Million Dollar Quartet was awesome, the comedians were hilarious, there was a fun Michael Jackson/Madonna dance party night, good music in the night club, the band playing in Syd Norman's was excellent); good food in specialty dining (Cagneys, Le Bistro, Ocean Blue - we did speciality 6 times); main dining always had decent food options (though not always hot); Tropicana Room had a nightly show with dinner (if you could catch it at the right time); I really enjoyed my spa service (massage and facial).

Cons: Too few staff for the number of passengers; Staff were undertrained, overworked, and clearly burnt out (not their fault); Long waits for pretty much everything (must get in line a hour before a show begins to secure a decent seat); They won't open doors for shows until exactly 30 mins before showtime. This unnecessarily creates congestion with long lines and anger among passengers); Main dining service was very slow (especially for breakfast, but dinner could also take up to 2 hours); Buffet was always conjested no matter the time of day (they would close down half the buffet on port days and other times, which would create conjestion at the other half of the buffet); Almost no quiet spaces to read or just relax, and there were loud obnoxious guests talking (and woo-ing) loudly everywhere; Cigarette smoking in the casino (which is in the middle of the ship on floor 7) pollutes all of floors 6, 7, and 8, and you have to walk through the casino to get to event spaces and restaurants on floor 7; The spaces with some of the best shows (Syd Norman's, Headliners) are far too small for the events held in there (100 people can fit in Syd Normans for a ship that holds over 3,000 passengers!). Holding the most popular shows in there instead of larger spaces is a very poor strategic choice; They do not enforce their pool deck chair hoarding policy, so good luck finding an empty chair after 10 am; The quiet/adult only area on deck 16 was virtually unusable for the first 7 days due to engine emissions that smelled like burning rubber; No self-service laundry. If you want to have laundry done, you must pay them to do it. Another poor strategic decision is that they use a single disembarkation door for port days (for over 3000 passengers!) The line to disembark on Puerto Rico day was over an hour long. There were additional fees for everything. Even when paying $210 extra for unlimited wifi, you still have to pay an additional $9.95 per person if you want to be able to do on ship messaging with your cabin partner. $25 upcharge for lobster in specialty dining (on top of already heightened specialty dining charge). Read more