We took this cruise the week of April 16, 2023 and although we did have a good time, it was not because of anything NCL did. We had Priority Boarding and found the staff in San Diego to be very unhelpful. There was no process for explaining or assisting with Priority Boarding which we paid extra for. Seemed like it was simply a charge without any service. My wife asked a NCL representative how we board for our 12:30 selected time and the response she received was, "we are not going by times today, you need to get in line". Luckily a Porter heard this and offered to help. From there, boarding was fairly easy. Once on the ship, it was typical first days chaos so we were not too concerned. We ate pool side and found the hamburger/hot dog buns to be stale and fries cold. The stale buns were consistent throughout the entire cruise. Wait staff seemed to not really care about service but they did walk around a lot. First night we ate at the Brazilian Steakhouse but meats came out very slow and had to ask several times if anything else was coming. Since this was not a complimentary restaurant and we had to pay extra, I would have expected more. Food that night was good when we got it though. Buffet was not very good at breakfast, lunch or dinner and very salty, in fact without the salt there would not have been much flavor to anything. We were completely disappointed in the food choices and quality as it seemed like it was very basic cafeteria food. We ate nights in either of the two main dining rooms and not a ton of food quality difference and servers were slow to clear plates. Beef dishes had an enormous amount of fat and or gristle. We did the unlimited drink package and got good service away from dining halls were it seemed like any drinks were an afterthought. Overall food was at best a 2.5 out of 5.

Wife got a pedicure on day one and the manicurist cut her toes in three different places. The spa manager agreed this was not acceptable and took that off our bill.

Cabin was ok, we chose a window room as we spend very little time in our rooms on cruises. Had a very difficult time with the room cooling off and asked for some assistance. First attempt they increased the amount of air flow which created a minor difference. When they followed up, we asked again if there was anything that could be done since our daughter was in the next cabin and her room was significantly cooler. They removed the diffuser and that made all the difference in the world only to have them replace it the very next day! In speaking with ship staff they stated they would have someone again remove the diffuser but they did not show up. It was consistently cooler in the hallways than our room and that was not acceptable. Read more