Europe - Eastern Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

It was a good trip over all. The food was great as well the staff. That is all I can say for right now. fdffddfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdffdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdfdf

The cruise was fantastic!  All four stops were totally "different" from each other --and all beautiful in a unique way.  The fact that the cruise begins in Venice allows for another fantastic opportunity.  We couldn't be more pleased.  

This was the second time we had been on the Jade (different ports) and it has been updated since our last cruise.  Great quality all the way around.  

This was our 1st cruise....and our honeymoon! We loved it......the staff was superb and some of the nicest people you could ever be with on vacation. The food was also very good....we didn't buy the upgraded food package but were very happy with the complimentary choices. We stayed in a cabin with a window....i think next time we will splurge for a room with a balcony and a little more space. Other than being small, the room was very nice, nicer than we expected! The cruise stops themselves were great! We especially loved Santorini & Mykonos.

We had a pleasant surprise and time in our cruise with Jade. I was expecting an average food and service in Jade because of my previous trip with Epic but lo and behold buffet food was better, room housekeeping is excellent as in Epic and some of the entertainment is quite good, to mention 'Shout Out' is exceptional. Jade is considered mid-size compared to Epic and thus manning and managing the ship is more efficient. From embarkation to disembarkation, traffic went on smoothly and efficiently. Seating in the buffet for both ships can be full at times especially at breakfast but you can sit in 'Cucina', an adjacent restaurant. Besides all restaurants serve breakfast if you want to avoid crowds. The Suckling Pig and Paella were excellent in the launch pool area.

I also had a trip with Celebrity cruise. Jade's main buffet at dinner time has a variety of 'theme' of food, 'Indian, 'Greer', etc. something to tap at dinner time, just like Celebrity.  There are complimentary restaurants at Jade, Grand Pacific, Alizar and Jasmine. Jade compared to the sit-in meals with Celebrity, the latter, Celebrity,  is rated 5-star to 3-4 star with the former.

The waiting service and housekeeping are excellent for all the ships mentioned.

The destination ports are all worth the visit. Breath taking views in Dubrovnik and fascinating ruins in Acropolis and Ephesus.

Let me mention and thank these guys who went out of their way or have done excellent job on what they are doing: Archie Achibald, daily morning orientation help in planning our day's activities and itinerary. Jorge al Deck 9 adept housekeeping, Alma's smile greeting at Jasmine Garden, Alan's waiting at Alizar, Rose Ann Genario's excellent waiting at buffet and Alizar and Alex Pagtagnan's stopping to converse with us.

All personnel in the main reception were also very helpful.

The ports we visited were awesome. The staff on the ship was great for the most part. The food was okay in most restaurants, and very good at Le Bistro. We had the ultimate dining and drink packages. It was hard to get a reservation in the specialty restaurants for the dining package. I did not understand how you could get a $10 adult beverage with your drink card, but could not get a $1.75 cup of coffee.

We had an issue with the bingo game and the "new" staff member. Overall the cruise was good. 

Great ports of call and shore excursions. Main dining room is excellent with fine dining menu changing every night. Bars and lounges are tastefully decorated with great musicians and vocalists.  Breakfasts and lunches at the main cafeteria is a nightmare, an eating frenzy with insufficient tables and have to wait in line for food and dodging on-coming crowd. Beverage stations are always either "out of order" or empty of hot water, or something. Majority of passengers are Europeans with Germans and Italians making up more than 50% of the entire load, which resulted in stiff, poker face unfriendly people. There are also quite a handful of families with young kids, babies in strollers and noisy toddlers running around during the busy breakfast and lunch hour. Shows are mediocre in 5 out of 7. Overall service by the crew is excellent except for a few overworked individuals. 

The cruise started on a sour note when we arrived by train at the Venice St Lucia station. There was a guy carrying the Norwegian Jade sign & he asked us to go to Platform No. 1 where the second guy told us to go back as he was no longer taking NCL passengers. After much back & forth, we finally found we had to walk across a bridge to get a cab or the "people mover" train to go to the cruise terminal.

Once we reached the terminal, the cruise itself  was great - no complaints at all. Suggest everyone gets the Ultimate Beverage Package unless you are a teetotaller.

Some suggestions for improvement:

1. Trivia - get the questions set in advance by a pro quizmaster. Have a set of 30 ready for each session. Train the guys on the answers before starting on the questions - in short do your homework

2. The evening shows are at 730PM and 930 PM. We generally went to the 730 show and had dinner after that. This meant we could not participate in the 830 PM festivities. Suggest the 830 item is moved to 930 PM.

3. When the off-shore excursions are announced in the theatre, use the screen with slides to call the groups and this will give all a current update on screen. Use a laptop and project on the screen.

We have done numerous cruises and agree this was one of the best. We spent extra nights in Venice, and being there at night when the city is quieter is magical. The ports are all excellent. Istanbul is awesome, but more crowded that when we were there 5 years ago, we did a tour thru Shore Excursions (bought the 3 pack, Athens, Santorini and Istanbul, and we were pleased with them all, excellent guides). Oai is one of the most beautiful places with gorgeous views and the tour included a stop at a winery that was very nice: no pressure to buy, and they served olives, bread, tomatoes and cheese.

We had to skip Lesbos due to high waves, and Argostoli was a cute town, but not much there.

the Nieuw amsterdam had an awesome crew: our room stewards were great, very attentive and we had fixed dining, with a fun group of people and our waiters took good care of us. Very patient with my elderly mother who is hard of hearing. even the servers in the Lido were helpful and patient. We were impressed with the room service this time, always prompt, and the order was always complete (something that has been a problem on the Eurodam in the past) and they even sent things we forgot to order, like brown sugar and raisins for the oatmeal. We were pleased with everything. The entertainment has improved (a new contract group for the song and dance stuff, much better) but some of the stuff still geared toward an older group.

We had an aft cabin, some + and some negative aspects. Far to walk to everywhere in the ship (but I didn't gain weight!) nice size balcony with a stunning night view in Istanbul, we saw the entire harbor. But I did notice more vibrations, and some noise from the lido deck above in the am and at night when they moved chairs.

would recommend!

Cruise rivals more expensive lines. 

Food:  Dining Room food not quite up to par with more expense lines;  but the rest was very comparable.  Almost all service staff very friendly and attentive.  Specialty restaurants offered variety and enhanced offerings.

 Housekeeping:  Awesome staff.  I got towel animals every nite in my interior cabin. Very friendly and efficient with no fault. 

Entertainment:  Very good, particularly aerial performers.  Good variety for 2 week cruise.  Performers in lounges around ship very popular to listen to although may not have had large crowds sitting all the time.  Plenty of activities around ship for varied interests during day.  Movies in cabin available if want/need that.

Gaming:  Casino, Bingo, Deal or No Deal game, raffle tickets...

Shore Excursions:  very good,  multiple offerings for varied interests,  smooth debarkation to bus.  To me, worth the extra money for convenience.

Kids:  the kids were seen in groups here and there looking like they were having a blast and were so cute!  Looks like the kids program is a success.

Overall:  excellent, recommended

The food was horrible and the choices limited. The cabin was old and just felt dirty. My bedspread had a patched hole. The TV was the old tube kind and was missing a button. The shower was so small that the moldy shower curtain kept touching you.

My expectations of my cruise were far greatly exceeded! Everything was perfect (food, crew members, ship condition, shore destinations, entertainment)! It's a humbling experience to have crew member's primary focus on you having the best vacation ever! There was not a sour attitude anywhere. I will highly recommend this cruise to my friends and family and I hope to return soon. Thank you NCL and for making this the best vacation ever!

Lisa Holland

The cruise was amazing except for the weather.  The dinning was nice but eating at Alizar and the Asian restaurant were a waste. The food was disgusting and not worth it.  Good thing they were both complimentary or I would have been very disappointed.  I think the time line for Turkey should be longer and less time in Split since there isn't much to do in split.  We felt really rushed in Turkey.  I got sick with a rash breakout and not sure if it was the food or the chemical used in the sheets.  The prices for the photos are ridiculous.  I think if the prices were cheaper, more people will purchase the photos.  We did because I got engaged during this trip and wanted them for the memories.  I will definitely cruise with NCL again.  My room was alway clean, thanks to Jorge and the Chef's Dinner was amazing and at a very reasonable price.  Oh, internet prices are ridiculous and a rip off!!!!! Overall, good experience and we enjoyed our trip.  

Staff and service was all excellent.  Food was very good and balcony rooms were very comfortable to for two people, could accommodate three without too much issue.

The disembarkment from two of the stops was a nightmare that felt closer to cattle herding rather than a vacation.  I'll chalk this up to it being the staff's first cruise of the year.

This was our seventh cruise, second on NCL.  We also have cruises on RC,Carnival, and Princess.  Really enjoyed the whole trip and ports.

The ship was very clean, and the staff was excellent.  Our stateroom attendant was one of the better ones that we have had.

We were quite disappointed in how poor quality the pay restaurants were.  I normally only eat at these restaurants, but by day 5 we switched over to the dining rooms, which had food that was about as good.

Another item I feel the need to warn people about is the tour to Ephesus.  People need to know that the tour to Ephesus that interline offers has a tour guide which, while extremely knowledgeable on the area, is a shill for a carpet company in town.  The people in there are hard-sellers, so be ready to deal (their rugs are beautiful but you should only pay about 20-25% of what they ask, less on more expensive items), or once you see that this portion of the tour is starting, just duck out. 

The itinerary was also great.  While I'm not interested in going back to Split I'm glad I went, and the other ports were fabulous.  If you like martinis, take NCL up on their cheap tastings...the bartender is a real pro.  

All in all, great trip.  I'll sail NCL again.

The embarkation and disembarkation from Venice was very smooth.  The ports of call in Croatia, Piraeus(Athens),Greece and Kusadasi(Ephesus)were learning experiences and easily accessible.

The ship was clean and crew was friendly.  The weather at this time of year was super. The entertainment was excellent.

Terrible services!  My wife suffered food poisoning since day one and the management did  not responded after ccomplaint.  The 2nd complaint days later was acused by an assistant manager that was not their reponsibily and grabbed my wife's shirt and said " i can escort you to see a doctor but you have to pay for it."The restaurants were in slow service: ignored us without even offering water while 4 staffs chatting nearby and ignored us for 15 minutes.  The excursions wewr extremely expensive and not worthy (The lunch included only had pork which mmy wife is allergic to and the service manager said rudely you get what's available.  The ceilings are extremely low so that you always feel cramed and not relaxed!  

My husband, my kids and I used to go cruise 2 times per year. We tired many cruise lines like, Norwegian, Celebrity, Royal Caribean, Princes, and etc. We tried most of them, and we are very happy. We tried your MSC for the first but we are very disappointed. The boat is quite good, but, the Customer Service is the worst service I ever experience, all the staff do not speak Engish, they do not know even how to greet the guest .They never smile specially in the Front Desk and all the Manager had an attitude. The food are the same every single day, The worst food ever, there no presentations. The both manager in Quatro Viento Restaurant and other restaurant in 5th floor are so rude. We went to your cruise to celebrate my birthday, instead I will feel relax cursing, I got  a lot of stress in your boat. One of the thing that I do not like also, is your excursion is too short. We do not even have time to shop around. I will never ever recommend MSC Cruise Line to all the people that I know. it will be my first and last in your Cruise Line. It is the worst cruise line ever.

I waited my whole life to visit Greece, and I loved the excursions I took.  I also loved my experience aboard the Norwegian Jade :)  I traveled alone, and met wonderful crew and guests that made my trip extra enjoyable.  There were just a couple things that I didn't realize until the end of the trip, so it didn't get my excellent rating.  I did not realize you could bring your alcohol to dinner with you until the last night of the cruise.  I had bought two bottles of wine delivered to my room, but was under the impression that I had to drink it in my room.  I would have saved a little money if I had known that I could bring it with me.  I also had a problem with the coffee pot in my room, and had issues for three days.   At that point I offered to buy a new coffeepot onshore for the room.  It was then replaced.  Other than that, my cabin steward was awesome, and I contacted Norwegian directly regarding the wonderful service. I loved having a balcony, and a mini-suite, although in the future I would probably skip the balcony and go for more room space, especially if I am traveling with another person. 

Wasn't sure what to expect...but Norwegian exceeded all our expectations...great atmosphere onboard, great facilities, inc very spacious spa and gym. (VIP full package only price seemed a bit unfair perhaps) Food was excellent at times, with the only complaint being perhaps a bit more variety needed in the "inclusive" venues. Staff were genuinely friendly and helpful. Our only previous experiences have been with Cunard, so this was very different, but almost as enjoyable.  I don't think it was as relaxing a cruise as previous ones...on Cunard you have quiet places and have to go somewhere to find some "noise". On Jade it was salsa music and action all round the ship and you had to search for that quiet area to get away from it all.

Entertainment on the whole was very good, with the odd mediocre performance.

Not sure if I'd be that keen to sail out of Venice again...all a bit of a palaver. 

I need my Cunard fix next, but will definitely try NCL again in the future

Our captain brilliantly dodged any bad weather and Venice and Greece,well...wow!!

Food and entertainment were good and fellow passengers were very personable and

interesting.The all-day vaporetto pass with rides to Murano and Burano following cruise

were spectacular. Corfu was wonderful, Santorini a postcard at every turn, and we took

the bus to Paradise in Mykonos (they asked if we wanted a round-trip ticket!!?).