I have been cruising for 40 years. My very fist cruise was on NCL Starward in 1984. This was a theme cruise which it why I chose it. The Summer Palace was beautiful, the dining room staff was very pleasant, but the food. OMG! Terrible is an understatement for the worst dining room food I have ever experienced. I am amazed at how bad it was! The menu never changed, & the menu descriptions did not ...
We chose this cruise because it went to several islands we have never visited before. It also ended in New York City, which is a place we've wanted to revisit again. Plus, we had to use our "bonus" dollars before they expired, so the timing, places and events were perfect. We really enjoyed the nightly entertainment in the Theater and the extra planned evenings. I think Pedro and Tiara were ...
Being the first time on Norwegian we weren’t sure what to expect but we were quite underwhelmed overall.
The ship was clean and easy to get around but there was no grandeur when you first step into the atrium as we had with any and all of the seven Carnival ships we’ve cruised on.
We ate in the both of the main dining rooms (same menu in both - disappointing as you had to dress a little ...
We chose this cruise because of the itinerary (Aruba, St. Lucia) and the fact that it ended in NYC so we could visit there as well when we got off the ship. We had a wonderful time, found the service to be excellent (in particular the bartenders), and always found there was something to keep up occupied. We often dined at the buffet for breakfast and lunch, we found their to be a great selection, ...
We recently cruised for 11 days to 6 different islands in the Southern Carribean on the Norwegian Pearl. Everything from beginning to end was absolutely wonderful! It was a repositioning cruise starting in Tampa, FL and ending in NYC! We went to the Cayman Islands, Aruba, Bonaire, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, St. Thomas and NYC. We took port exercusions to all these beautiful islands, each being a little ...
The itinerary caught my eye, embark Tampa , visit 6 Caribbean ports, disembark NYC.We arrived the evening before the cruise, ate locally and got a good night's sleep at the Quality Inn. Arrived on Sunday at the port with everyone else going on the cruise ( or so it seemed) ,boarded about 1 hour 15 minutes after arriving. The Pearl is an older, smaller ship but in my opinion a nice ship to spend 11 ...
Very relaxed, flexible dining options, times and location. Did not have to be scheduled ever day hence the term vacation. Many excursions to choose from. Sea days were welcomed as were the excursion days, good ratio. Crew were friendly including cabin crew.Would do it again.
The entertainment was lovely, with 2 showing times for the theatre shows. Loved the female cuban singer as well as ...
We never sailed Norwegian before but have been on all the other lines previously and this being our tenth cruise I will compare it to other experiences. We did not want a mega ship so we choose the Pearl for this reason and the ports it was stopping at and being 11 nights also appealed to us. The embarkation took about an hour we arrived at noon on their transfer service the lines were not too bad ...
Never having cruise NCL before and reading the reviews about freestyle cruising our expectations were set fairly low, but I have to admit now it was much much better than expected.
This cruise left from Tampa and we stayed at the Westin Waterside. You could almost walk to the terminal/ship from there. Lots to see and do in Tampa and we wish we had a little more time to do so.
The Tampa ...
This was our first cruise EVER with any cruise line. Our expectation when we purchased the cruise from Costco was that everything was included. Clearly not the case. Little things kept on adding up. For instance the fees and gratuities added to the "FREE" drink package and "FREE" specialty restaurants that we chose. That is the first extras on top of our rate, and then the surprise daily rate of ...