loislane
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2008
We are not seasoned cruisers. We've sailed on the Dream and the Wish, so NCL was just our third cruise overall and our first non-Disney one. I thought I'd share a bit of what we experienced and our thoughts on them, in particular in relation to things on DCL. It's not really an apples to apples comparison because they really are two very different experiences.
Things we liked:
Cruise director and entertainment staff. They were FANTASTIC! We like to attend activities throughout the cruise- trivia, bingo, etc., - so we encountered these folks frequently and really adored all of them. They had great personalities, great energy, and put their all into making activities fun. They did a thing the last night where they acted out movie scenes for the crowd to guess and my lord, I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard. Tears were pouring down my face from laughing.
The ship - we were on the Escape - was clean and well tended. The USB port on one side of our bed was broken so we reported it to guest services. It was fixed by the end of that day.
Main theater shows. We saw the Nashville Tenors and The Choir of Man during our cruise and they were excellent.
Specialty restaurants. The package we booked included two specialty restaurant dinners and we loved how many choices there were. We opted for the teppanyaki restaurant, which was great. Chefs were very entertaining and the food was good. We also went to Cagney's Steakhouse where the food was also very good.
Elevators - lots of them, fore and aft. The only time we really struggled to get an elevator was the day we got off. We opted for early walk-off with our own bags, as did a lot of other people. So it took about 10 minutes for us to finally get an elevator empty enough to fit us and our luggage.
Things we didn't like:
Don't judge, but mama needs her Diet Coke and it was a pain in the tush to get it because we had to go to one of the bars for it. Then it's a tiny glass mostly filled with ice. As an adult, not a huge deal to visit the bar for a soda, but we absolutely hated seeing kids have to do this. One afternoon we were on the pool deck and watched a girl - maybe 11 or 12 - waiting at the bar, grown adults sitting all around her drinking and swearing and oblivious to her there, as she tried to get the bartender's attention to get a soda. Norwegian needs to do this differently. Would love to see some freestyle machines or something and cups with the RFID chip like Disney does or scan your key card to activate the machine.
Entertainment variety. While the entertainment crew did an excellent job, the offerings did get kind of repetitive throughout the week. Bingo every day. Deal or No Deal every day. Really only 2 "big" main theater options, so once you'd seen those, you were done there. We also didn't like the timing of some stuff - we would have loved to check out the 80s party or the glow party, but those start at 10:30, which is too late for me. My body wakes me up by 6 a.m. whether I want it to or not - lol - so we missed out on the late night stuff.
The casino location. We visited a few times and it was fun to have that option, but I didn't like where it was located right in the middle of the ship. I get that it's their money maker, but I guess I'm just a PG girl at heart and would have liked it tucked away fore or aft. Not a judgement, just my personal opinion.
No towel animals. And no meeting our stateroom host. I don't know if it's a Disney thing or just the two hosts we had on Disney, but both made it a point to stop by and introduce themselves to us very early in the cruise. On NCL, the only reason we knew our host's name was because it was listed on the TV in the room. We never met him and didn't even know which person it was from the 3 or 4 we'd regularly see in the hallway around our room. Not really a huge thing, but it IS kind of nice to meet the person who is going to be in your room with your stuff every day for a week.
Meals felt very rushed in the main dining rooms. I get that they need to funnel people through, but don't make me feel like you're trying to funnel me through. Given the choice, we prefer Disney's rotational dining with our lovely staff that follows us throughout the cruise. And we also kind of liked being seated with two other couples our last cruise because it made for more lively dinner conversation.
Room service "courtesy" charge. Room service was complimentary - after a $4.95+tax charge. So, not really complimentary. LOL. On Disney, we enjoy some early morning coffee and pastries on the verandah before getting ready and eventually heading to breakfast. At 5 bucks a day before I even tip the server, it wasn't gonna happen on NCL. They did - weirdly since we didn't request it - bring a coffee maker to our room the second morning.
Our day on NCL's Great Stirrup Cay was a short one due to weather moving in. We tendered over (not a fan of the tendering either, takes so much time) around 9:30 and by 11, they had stopped letting people over because the swells were getting so bad. At 11:30, they started asking everyone on the island to head back. We got some chairs, walked the beach, checked out the straw market, and had some (cold) BBQ lunch before heading back. This was the part that made me miss Disney the most because we love Castaway Cay and feel there is a lot more to see/do/explore there.
Final thoughts:
It seems like there are a lot of things we didn't like, but none of them were so major that they ruined the cruise for us or anything dramatic like that. My husband pointed out that it really did align fairly well with what we paid. We pay more for a premium experience on Disney. This 7-night cruise on NCL was about the same price as a 4-night on Disney, so we tried to keep that in mind.
Overall, we had a good time and while not in a rush to do so (We have DCL booked this August and next April), we will probably cruise NCL again at some point.
Things we liked:
Cruise director and entertainment staff. They were FANTASTIC! We like to attend activities throughout the cruise- trivia, bingo, etc., - so we encountered these folks frequently and really adored all of them. They had great personalities, great energy, and put their all into making activities fun. They did a thing the last night where they acted out movie scenes for the crowd to guess and my lord, I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard. Tears were pouring down my face from laughing.
The ship - we were on the Escape - was clean and well tended. The USB port on one side of our bed was broken so we reported it to guest services. It was fixed by the end of that day.
Main theater shows. We saw the Nashville Tenors and The Choir of Man during our cruise and they were excellent.
Specialty restaurants. The package we booked included two specialty restaurant dinners and we loved how many choices there were. We opted for the teppanyaki restaurant, which was great. Chefs were very entertaining and the food was good. We also went to Cagney's Steakhouse where the food was also very good.
Elevators - lots of them, fore and aft. The only time we really struggled to get an elevator was the day we got off. We opted for early walk-off with our own bags, as did a lot of other people. So it took about 10 minutes for us to finally get an elevator empty enough to fit us and our luggage.
Things we didn't like:
Don't judge, but mama needs her Diet Coke and it was a pain in the tush to get it because we had to go to one of the bars for it. Then it's a tiny glass mostly filled with ice. As an adult, not a huge deal to visit the bar for a soda, but we absolutely hated seeing kids have to do this. One afternoon we were on the pool deck and watched a girl - maybe 11 or 12 - waiting at the bar, grown adults sitting all around her drinking and swearing and oblivious to her there, as she tried to get the bartender's attention to get a soda. Norwegian needs to do this differently. Would love to see some freestyle machines or something and cups with the RFID chip like Disney does or scan your key card to activate the machine.
Entertainment variety. While the entertainment crew did an excellent job, the offerings did get kind of repetitive throughout the week. Bingo every day. Deal or No Deal every day. Really only 2 "big" main theater options, so once you'd seen those, you were done there. We also didn't like the timing of some stuff - we would have loved to check out the 80s party or the glow party, but those start at 10:30, which is too late for me. My body wakes me up by 6 a.m. whether I want it to or not - lol - so we missed out on the late night stuff.
The casino location. We visited a few times and it was fun to have that option, but I didn't like where it was located right in the middle of the ship. I get that it's their money maker, but I guess I'm just a PG girl at heart and would have liked it tucked away fore or aft. Not a judgement, just my personal opinion.
No towel animals. And no meeting our stateroom host. I don't know if it's a Disney thing or just the two hosts we had on Disney, but both made it a point to stop by and introduce themselves to us very early in the cruise. On NCL, the only reason we knew our host's name was because it was listed on the TV in the room. We never met him and didn't even know which person it was from the 3 or 4 we'd regularly see in the hallway around our room. Not really a huge thing, but it IS kind of nice to meet the person who is going to be in your room with your stuff every day for a week.
Meals felt very rushed in the main dining rooms. I get that they need to funnel people through, but don't make me feel like you're trying to funnel me through. Given the choice, we prefer Disney's rotational dining with our lovely staff that follows us throughout the cruise. And we also kind of liked being seated with two other couples our last cruise because it made for more lively dinner conversation.
Room service "courtesy" charge. Room service was complimentary - after a $4.95+tax charge. So, not really complimentary. LOL. On Disney, we enjoy some early morning coffee and pastries on the verandah before getting ready and eventually heading to breakfast. At 5 bucks a day before I even tip the server, it wasn't gonna happen on NCL. They did - weirdly since we didn't request it - bring a coffee maker to our room the second morning.
Our day on NCL's Great Stirrup Cay was a short one due to weather moving in. We tendered over (not a fan of the tendering either, takes so much time) around 9:30 and by 11, they had stopped letting people over because the swells were getting so bad. At 11:30, they started asking everyone on the island to head back. We got some chairs, walked the beach, checked out the straw market, and had some (cold) BBQ lunch before heading back. This was the part that made me miss Disney the most because we love Castaway Cay and feel there is a lot more to see/do/explore there.
Final thoughts:
It seems like there are a lot of things we didn't like, but none of them were so major that they ruined the cruise for us or anything dramatic like that. My husband pointed out that it really did align fairly well with what we paid. We pay more for a premium experience on Disney. This 7-night cruise on NCL was about the same price as a 4-night on Disney, so we tried to keep that in mind.
Overall, we had a good time and while not in a rush to do so (We have DCL booked this August and next April), we will probably cruise NCL again at some point.
).
We did do a lot of trivia and such because we are competitive and enjoy those. A lot of the board games during the day were at Le Bistro.
!
We have sailed NCL 3 times and I had to bring my own. They only had Pepsi products on the ships we were on.
