This cruise had a great itinerary that started by leaving from NYC (no flying for us) and doing some really good ports including Turks & Caicos, the Dominican Republic, Curacao, Costa Rica, and a full transit of the Panama Canal. Then I learned from CruiseCritic (not from NCL!!) that Grand Turk and Curacao were replaced by Bermuda (which we missed anyway, due to weather conditions) and Catalina Island as an extra Dominican Republic stop. Not nearly as good an itinerary and, especially disturbing, no information from NCL about the changes.

A few points of concern about the ship: our balcony stateroom had a total of 2 outlets to charge all of our devices, a truly inadequate number. We had a problem with the thermostat, and it took two tries to get it fixed correctly. Storage in our cabin also seemed poorer than normal. Finally, the main theater does not have railings in most of the areas, making walking to and from seats a real hazard.

There has been a significant reduction in staff, and there are no longer assistant room stewards, assistant waiters, bus boys, and apparently other staff cuts as well. While we had no issue with having our room made up fairly late in the day, the lack of staffing also showed up with getting only warm food in all of the main dining rooms, not the fresh and hot food we expected. Additionally, the public toilets were always in need of cleaning. Read more