Grammy and Bumpa's Disappointing Inaugural Cruise
Norwegian Bliss Cruise Review to Transatlantic
Contributor Level:
Second Mate
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 5
Helpful Votes: 164
12 Night Transatlantic Westbound (Southampton To New York)
Sail date: April 21, 2018
Ship: Norwegian Bliss
Cabin type: Balcony
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 6 years ago
Review summary
This part of the review is to convey my as well as my wife’s high level of dissatisfaction with 12 Day sailing with The Norwegian Bliss from Southampton, England on April 21, 2018. Please note that I did not use the term inaugural because NCL did absolutely nothing to make this a special or memorable event as far as inaugural sailings go. There was not a shirt, hat, lanyard, magnet, deck of cards, poster or any other item in the gift shop that commemorated this as “special inaugural event”, (except a cheap poorly made in China bag for 16 plus dollars) and for us it was supposed to be a special event for several reasons. We were celebrating our 49th wedding anniversary and as we have spent several others on cruises and enjoyed them tremendously we thought this would be a new and special type of cruise. We will spend our 50th on a cruise but unfortunately not with NCL. We thought this would be special because it was inaugural and we had heard how other cruise lines had made such a big deal of them leaving different trinkets and keepsakes on their beds each night and having memories of their “special” sailing. All we heard from NCL once we got aboard was how important their three day stay and promotion in New York City and later Miami was going to be: How they were going to wow all of the Travel Agents, Tour Directors, and Dignitaries. The Hotel Director Jovo Sekulovic even joked about this being a soft opening at a Meet Your Officers event. It was not a soft price we paid for the cruise!Embarkation
The embarkation port in Southampton, England was well organized. They could have done a better job at the special needs desk.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
The food on the Bliss was some of the best we have had on any cruise. Their 24 hour restaurant was the Local. It had a varied menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We ate here the most and I enjoyed some of the best Prime Rib ever and they served it on four different evenings. We enjoyed several lunches and breakfasts here also. Only drawback was the view from the window booths was totally obscured by life boats. The Garden Cafe (Buffet) was very nice. It was laid out differently from other ship's buffets. It was done in separate squares which helped traffic flow considerably. Food was good and varied. They served crab at one lunch, jumbo shrimp at another and New England Lobster at another. All were good. The main dinning room The Manhattan Room was nice also. we ate there three times and they had two smaller main dining rooms, Taste and Savor which were equally as nice. Of their specialty dining restaurants we had a package that included four so we chose, (these are in our order of enjoyment), Q which is a BBQ restaurant that served very good authentic BBQ: Teppanyaki great food and fun entertainment: Cagney's Steakhouse very good, try their truffle fries: La Cucina good Italian food. All of the restaurants offered attentive staff and good food. The District was sold as a craft brewhouse and for the first three days it lived up to its hype but on day three they started running out of draft beer and had to shut down taps. Each day after that they closed down several more. They did have a wide selection of bottles but it was very poor planning to run out of beer on a half full ship. Oh did I mention that unless you made reservations for the specialty dining venues on the first day the only times you could get were late night seating. Again for a half full ship!
Onboard Activities
Pools on 16th deck and tiny hot tubs on 17th deck, who thought up that one? No food out on the pool deck.Aft pool on 17th deck was not a pool at all just water features. Very poor design.
Entertainment
The entertainment was very poor. People were getting up and leaving many of the shows. A lot of the shows required reservations and unless these were made on day one you ended up being shut out. Several venues were very small and even the main theater only held less than 1000 I believe. I don't know what they do with a full ship
Service and Staff
Staff was generally very helpful with the exception of the hotel manager who seemed totally unconcerned that there were no receptacles at the head of the beads to plug in C-Pap machines. Plenty of USB ports though. NCL had brought many over from the ESCAPE to open this ship. Too bad they didn't listen to their suggestions.
Ship Quality
Ship was clean but it was also brand new. The design as pointed out above leaves much to be desired. The atrium where many programs were held was woefully small and they had to put out folding chairs for each event.
Cabin / Stateroom
One of the nicest rooms we have had. It was spacious, well laid out, nice large bathroom and nice large balcony. Only drawback was a three foot walkway outside of the balcony to facilitate work. It prevented us from looking directly down to the water.
Ports of call
Wonderful old town. Leave time to explore. Stay at the Holiday Inn, you can literally walk your bags to the cruise-line and it is a nice hotel.
Thumbs Up
4