Europe - Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

The ship was immaculate!  ALL of the crew were friendly and helpful.  The excursions and the tour guides were all first class.  The food was wonderful and plentiful.  I recommend this cruise to anyone interested in the eastern Mediterranean.  I would do it again.

Loved this cruise. The suites were wonderful and it was a trip of a lifetime for myself and my 4 sisters. I would prefer to not have the Turkey stop though and have more of the Greek Islands included in this trip. The ship was beautiful and the staff in every department was excellent. 

Overall a very positive experience.

Only negatives were our stateroom was under main dining room and crew members made loud noises over our heads in middle of night. Complaint to woman who professed to be the manager were ignored and I was told "too bad we have to get our work done" . Further complaints to Customer Service got the attention of the overall restaurant manager who resolved the problem. The disembarkation was a nightmare the way the luggage retrieval from the dock was handled. Also, crew members placed a priority on getting their assigned chores completed rather than on the comfort of the passengers.

Except for the few aforementioned negatives the cruise was very pleasant and I consider above average.

We have taken cruises with other organizations. We found Norwegian to be a very good choice. Staff, food, facilities were excellent. Room was always clean and neat. Only a few "little" things could be improved upon. I love having a banana in the morning, however was very disappointed when I found nothing but rotten bananas or no bananas at all. It would be nice if Norwegian Cruise Line would provide city maps of ports of call. I understand that they make money by selling shore excursions but some people (like us) enjoy exploring on our own. Cruise did not provide any sports information. No daily flyer and no tv channel with scores. I understand I am on a cruise and I am not asking for "live feeds" of games ..... only yesterdays scores. Bottom line. Great cruise experience .... give me a decent banana, a city map, and yesterdays scores and you will get 5 stars next time. Gary

Ship experience was great. Unfortunately, the ports are to far from the major cities. It was a two hour bus ride to visit Florence, only three hours to tour and then a two hour bus ride back to the ship. Same situation with Rome.

Great effort was expended to sell us various beverage packages.  We were told we couldn't even get a glass of water at dinner.  I bought a water package.  Each night after that we were given water with no charge against the package.  Wound up with five extra bottles of water at the end of the week.  Another ruse to get euros out of us.  The food was lousy.  I had a couple of dishes that were OK, but none I considered really good.  Tried the veal belly.  YUK!  All of the beef dishes, including the hamburgers, were poor.  I realize now that I'm spoiled on American beef.  The entertainment was weak, also.  Having cruised with Carnival I expected much more, and found much less.  I heard the same comment from others on the cruise about the unexpected slights from Costa compared to Carnival.  One of the excursions we had looked forward to was cancelled because there was no English speaking guide.  It was a wine and truffle excursion.  The language was not really a barrier, but we were not offered an alternative.  The only high point of my time with Costa was the cabin steward.  He did an excellent job.  I will not cruise Costa again, nor would I recommend it to anyone.

This was my first Norwegian cruise. I have only taken Carnival cruises before and in general, I preferred Carnival. One thing Norwegian gets right is crowd control; I never had to wait in a line my entire cruise, including embarking and disembarking. Other than that, I was not really impressed with Norwegian. The food was so so and heavy. I did not think the pay for restaurants were all that special. My cabin was very small and the bed was excruciatingly uncomfortable. I really hated my  extra large balcony I paid extra for; it should have been sold as an obstructed view due to the fact that instead of a glass enclosure, we had a steel bulkhead. It was impossible to sit on the balcony and see water; that has always been a favorite part of  cruises for me. However, we took this cruise to see Europe and it was wonderful to awake in a new country/city each day. We took the Capri Island of Romance, Ultimate Rome and Pisa and taste of Tuscany tours and thought the tour guides were phenomenal (and  I am not a tour taking kind of person). Our Capri tour started late and uses were not ready when needed so that was a drag. But our lunch and  the tram to the top of Capri were amazing. I thought I had purchased exclusive Rome, vs Ultimate Rome but turns out they were the same price so maybe I picked wrong. The difference seemed to be lunch. But our tour guide Elinora was excellent and enhanced the tour immensely; she made the long day ad crowds worthwhile. Pisa and a Tuscan winery were a nice respite the next day; once again, we loved our guide Laia. The winery was delightful and picturesque and Laia showed us parts of the town of Pisa we would not have normally visited. We had enough tours by Cannes and Palma so we just bummed around on foot. I recommend taking the shuttle to the center of Palma since it is a long walk into town with little to look at. All in all, I am glad I went but if I go back, I will probably not cruise Norwegian.

Ship was nice. Good service, food was OK to Good ! Reasonable amenities, although we were on a Royal cruise that had 2 surf rider body board wave simulators, 2 rock climbing walls, and a golf simulator!! We would recommend this ship and itinerary. Dubrovnik and Kusadasi were fantastic! Split was nice and Athens is a big dirty city with the Acropolis in the middle of all of it. We were under whelmed in Athens and over whelmed in Dubrovnik and Kusadasi !

We booked this cruise almost a year ago.  There were four couples.  The cruise ship is great!  We truly enjoyed the ship and the free style cruising.  This worked very well for our group.  We really enjoyed the trivia games.  The tennis was fun.  A lot of our group used the exercise equipment and the spinning classes.  Our mini suite was the best cabin we've ever had.  Very much worth the extra money.  Also the 11th deck was close to the action  and the cafeteria.

It was fine, just the room in front of a boiler or machine room was not that quiet while sleeping.

Everything else was fine and the waiters at the dining table Francisco and Tedios were super fantastic.

Best cruise ever. Service, facilities, room, entertainment, absolutely perfect. Can't think of one negative comment. Go on this cruise. The sights you see are incredible.

The route is well designed and the places the ship visited are all very interesting and attractive. The food is generally ok but the space of the main café restaurant is very crowded plus the opening time is relatively short that make it hard sometimes to find available tables.

This is a very nice cruise in September.  The ship is first rate, and the destinations are all beautiful.  When it is really hot, do take advantage of the cable car trip to the top of Dubrovnik.  The restaurant up there is really nice with a terrific view.  The excursions remain very helpful.  Our guide in Athens was very informative.  The Kusadasi excursion in town ended with a demonstration of rug making that will amaze you.  Definitely take this excursion.

The ship was beautiful- the rooms with the balcony was so spacious & plenty of room for storage. The food was excellent and most important the staff was incredible. Our steward was the best you could ask for. The only disappointment was the entertainment. Very little variety in the main theater- teh shows were repetitive. I dont like the additiona;l charges for "specialty" restaurants or the "circque de soleil". Otherwise it was a wonderful experiance!

I enjoyed the cruise and the room was very comfortable, the food was good and the staff was courteous.  The only complaint I have is regarding the flight arrangements.  Whoever made the flight arrangements left me too little time for connecting flights, causing my luggage to be delayed and left me no time for an excursion in Rome due to early flight out.  It was a shame to be in Rome with my granddaughter and not be able to show her any of it.  If I had it to do over again, I would definitely use a travel agent to help me plan better.

I've only been on two other cruises and found this ship to be lovely.  Cabin was clean and kept up each day..Crew very helpful/friendly/food excellent and the shows were high quality.

The ship was great, enjoyed our room.

The only thing was that we went on most of the shore excursions and had to get up EARLY  most mornings . Food good, people and crew very good. 

The ship, staff, tour guides, NCL excursions were great . The main dining rooms did not have enough variety of food (many repeat items every night) but we enjoyed the free style dining and relaxed atmosphere

All our meals were plentiful and delicious

The ship needed more staff in busy areas for bar service and the free beverage area was only in one area making it difficult to access

Overall the experience was wonderful

It was a fair cruise, not the best we have had with Royal Caribbean, definitely,

the ports were the highlight of our trip.

Not the best food, our cabin was the smallest we have ever had , fun activities and good shows.

Crew are friendly, beverage waiters on the pool deck are not pushy, staterooms are clean, bathroom showers are big, shows are average but, trivia is a lot of fun.  Liked the Martini tasting but, missed the tequila tasting event.  White night was fun but, several people 'missed the memo' and weren't dressed in white.  That is typical on any cruise.  We had Oceanview 6570 because I am prone to seasickness.  It was a bit noisy at certain times of day as it is located directly under Henry's Pub so you could hear chairs being moved around.  We hit a few golf balls, shot a few hoops and my husband liked the gym okay but, there wasn't a lot of equipment.  Blue Lagoon rocked for their chicken wings and having Raffles overlooking the back of the ship is brilliant!  Watch the sun go down from the tiered tables.  It is breathtaking.  We have been on Royal Caribbean and Carnival so far and liked NCL the best so far for their freestyle attitude.  Don't forget to chat to your neighbour when sunning on the deck or eating in the Blue Lagoon or while playing Trivia at Henry's Pub and Champagne Charlie's and you may just make some new friends for life!  Cruising to us is the best way to see the world.  We pick based on the itinerary so the ship doesn't much matter to us.  It would be more important on a longer journey for sure but, this suited us just fine for a floating hotel.  This cruise is port intensive.  At this time of year, we only had to tender once in Mykonos so we were happy about that.  We got free champagne when we had to wait to be seated at Windows (the only 'formal' dining room) - Nice touch NCL!  If you want a lounger on sea days, get up early as they go FAST!!!  This appears to be the norm at any Resort or cruise.  Enjoy your cruise!!