A Cruise of Shortages, Chaos and Bad Food

Norwegian Bliss Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern

Frango

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 47

Overall rating:

2.3 out of 5

7 Night Eastern Caribbean (Miami Roundtrip)

Sail date: December 01, 2018

Ship: Norwegian Bliss

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 14808

Traveled as: Family (young children)

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

A Cruise of Shortages, Chaos and Bad Food We booked this trip over the Christmas Holidays thinking that it would be special. Instead, it was absolutely terrible. The Food: They use low-quality products. Such products cannot result in good food. Quality and limited variety aside, the preparation was substandard. To make minestrone soup, they probably just dissolved some bouillon cubes in warm water. The cold cuts section looked like “delicatessen for people on food stamps”. How did they manage to develop a watermelon that’s not sweet? Personally, I prefer Italian and French cuisine to Indian food. I also like Chinese food. However, on this trip, I ate only Indian food because it was relatively speaking better than anything else. If not for that Indian food station my family and I would have nothing to eat. We tried their extra “specialty restaurants”: Cagney’s Steakhouse, Ocean Blue and Q. Of the three only the Q – Texas Grill was OK. The other two restaurants, although you pay extra money for it, serve the same chewy steak and the same tasteless fish. The service: All the service personnel was primarily from India and the Philippines. The service was polite, but there is nothing new about it. The entire Hospitality Industry had figured out some 20+ years ago that training people in how to be polite and cheerful, is cheaper than buying quality food products. In my mind, the reason the food quality was so poor beside the substandard products was also that Filipinos, unlike Chinese, Japanese or Thai are not known for being great cooks. Shortages: Allegedly, our cruise was fully booked. This may explain why all the specialty restaurants, all the entertainment shows and 99% of all other activities were sold out. However, if you come in person to the so-called “fully booked” restaurant they will sit you. While there, you will quickly notice that the restaurant is half empty. Shortage of cooks, perhaps? The Ship: Like us, most people wanted to book Bliss because it is a newly built ship. To me, it means no cockroaches and other bugs. But the boat is no frills, mind you. The floor covering is mostly linoleum and cheap carpets. Our stateroom was so cramped0 that there wasn’t enough room to open two small carryon suitcases. While the bathroom was small but sufficient, no bar of soap, no shower cap, not even regimented 2 Q-tips. Forget it. It’s just the soap and the shampoo/conditioner dispensers. Our balcony was the smallest I have ever seen on a cruise ship. Commercial photography - Cheap Commercialism: We quickly discovered that their onboard photography studio owns the ship. All the traffic is centered on decks 6, 7 and 8 where the Customer Service, most restaurants and the entertainment are located. Every corner and every niche was populated with their photographers along with their lighting setups. Those photographers think that they own the ship. Consequently, if a fare-paying passenger would like to take a selfie with some of the ships Christmas decorations, or some ship stairway as the background they are out of luck. We tried and were booted out. Incidentally, their onboard decorations are mediocre, to say the least. Chaos: We signed up for a snorkeling trip on St. Thomas. The minute you step on the pier you are lost. Their assistance of where to go and how to find the group you belong to was almost nonexistent. The same goes for checking out of the ship upon return to Miami. They put a lot of pressure on us to check out of our stateroom by 9 AM. However, when we’ve got to deck 6 for debarkation we found a mile-long line. No wonder, the passengers for the next cruise were already waiting. The meat grinder must go on. We will never come back!