This was our first cruise on NCL having cruised before on Princess, HAL and Cunard. In sum, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience and would recommend NCL. The best part of the trip was the staff who are, in one word, phenomenal. We had mainly Filipino wait-staff as well as Indian, Jamaican, Romanian and Peruvian. The staff were warm, wonderful, welcoming us at every turn. We read before our cruise on this forum that staff would ask if we were having a good day (or wish us one) and that they meant it; sure enough they did! How NCL trains and motivates their staff to be so friendly, without being intrusive, is beyond us, but we will return, if for nothing else, because of the way in which we were treated which was like royalty!

The food in the Main Dining Room (MDR) and buffet, as we had read previously on the forum, was fair to good, nothing great except for the specialty restaurants of which we went to the Brazilian steakhouse and the French bistro, both of which were very good. Our only complaint was that the lunch menu in the MDR never changed (but it had our favorites so we returned time and time again) and that the dress code in the MDR of no shorts or baseball caps was not enforced at dinner. We liked very much NCL's Free Style so we could eat dinner whenever we wanted in the MDR and could dress casually, but come on fellow pax, the venue is gorgeous with white tablecloths and linen napkins, (electric) candles, ocean views, beautiful murals on the walls and soft piano music -- if you want to wear a tee shirt, shorts, flip-flops and keep your baseball cap on while you eat, then go to the buffet or the other dining room which is far more informal and let the rest of us enjoy the special surroundings of the MDR, please! Even the kids (of which there were many) were well-dressed (and well-behaved) in the MDR. As previous critics on this forum have pleaded, NCL, please, enforce your own dress code in the MDR to make it a memorable experience for the vast majority of us who want a special night out!

The theater is amazing -- huge, with comfortable seats. We enjoyed 2 of the 3 dance/singing shows, left after a few minutes of the ordinaire magic show, and skipped the comedian all together. Each to their own, but there certainly is a variety of entertainment from which to choose. Not to be missed is the Dawn's staff show which was even better than the professional shows (kudos again to NCL for hiring and supporting an amazing staff). We did not utilize the pool (small) or hot tubs (plentiful, but crowded) or casino (which looked quite nice) nor participate in the art auction which, to our pleasant surprise compared to other cruise lines, was quite unobtrusive. Lots of pre-dinner time, posed picture taking which presented an obstacle course to navigate around in the Atrium, but was fun for people-watching. We liked being able to walk around outside on the promenade deck (6) and, especially, the two uppermost decks (12 and 13) to work off all the food we ate and even stopped a few times to play ping pong, shuffle board, giant checkers (they have a giant chess set too) and even basketball (we skipped the golf). There is also a video arcade next to the teen/kids area for more things to do. Read more