THIS SHIP IS VERY CROWDED when it is at capacity.

The Encore is NCL's largest ship that feels incredibly small, all they did was add significantly more guest rooms but kept all the same number of amenities/activities as their smaller ships sizes. This lead to terrible crowding during our ENTIRE cruise, there lines everywhere from the café, bars, slides, shows, and activities unless you really ventured outside of normal times. Every reservation and excursion was booked out before we even got onto our ship. They only have two very small pools (one adult and one kid) for almost 4000 passengers (ignoring The Haven pool which most do not have access to) so sea days were cramped and it seems NCL's solution was to take away almost all the loungers and replace them with chairs that you cannot put your feet up. Imagine- its like trying to lay in the sun in an airplane seat.

It now appears Norwegian has moved into total cash grab territory where they removed a lot of "free activities" and shows. They used up tons of deck space (probably around 25% of the ship) for their exclusive "Haven" causing massive crowding for the rest of the ship. I have never been on a ship this size and felt it was so small. Read more