Very Disappointed!

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 8

Review summary

I have been cruising for over 20 years. I've traveled with Norwegian many times and this cruise by far has been my worst experience of any cruise line I've even been on. This was a holiday cruise meaning families would be attending and the fact that there was literally no place for not only my children but the majority of the guests children had absolutely nothing to do ruined our vacation. With over 1400 children on this Thanksgiving cruise and the ship was only able to accommodate 110 children from age 3-16 for their Splash Academy was ridiculous. 7 days on the cruise and my children could not participate in the laser tag, race cars, or splash academy blew my mind. Day 1 everything was booked and everything was an added expense. The fun part about cruises is that everything is SUPPOSE to be all inclusive. But not on the Encore! You have to pay for everything that the children want to do. The only thing that kept me from paying so much money for their entertainment was that there were no available reservations for them to participate in anything fun. They were simply limited to the pool. For months my children Youtubed this cruise because they were so excited for all the cool stuff Encore offered. And yet after 7 days on the boat they were unable to do anything they imagined they would get to do. We celebrated my daughter's 11th birthday and I paid the $40.00 to have our room setup with the birthday decorations and cake. And to my surprise there was no decorations but there was a withdrawal from my account for the payment. When i told my stewart about it he completely did not help at all for the entire cruise. He was terrible!!! The bar tenders literally never served me, i would stand at every bar for over 20 minutes before they would acknowledge my existence to get a drink. They wouldn't treat the black passengers as well as they treated the white passengers. This was at every bar I went to or every waiter I stopped to ask for a drink. Either they wouldn't serve me or they would forget my order when they finally did take it. I was really excited about visiting Puerto Rico, but i grew less excited when i realized we would only be there for 5 hours and those 5 hours were from 5:30 pm to 11:59 pm!!! We literally had no time to enjoy each port because you didn't leave time for enjoyment on the itinerary. If you 're not going to have anything for children to do on the boat at least give us an opportunity to show them a great time on the islands!! Customer service sucked no one wanted to assist, even with all the complaints they received from 95% of the guests. I really advise that you have further training for all the staff and that you build an addition for the children area so that more than 110 can be accommodated. After this experience, I no longer wish to cruise with Norwegian. I felt that myself and all the passengers were ripped off and the only thing that we all had in common was that our experiences were awful. For this to be the first cruise for Encore I expected to have the red carpet rolled out, but it was a complete let down. We couldn't even get into the specialty restaurants and it came with our package, no reservations! You clearly know how many passengers you have booked on the cruise before we embark, i suggest you make accommodations for all your guest instead of just a small hand full. I could go on and on about why I gave this cruise a poor experience but I'm pretty sure whoever reads this doesn't care just like the staff on the cruise didn't care. Please do better so that the other people who choose to go on this cruise does not have the same experience that we had.

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Children's Programs

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Miami, Florida

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Disembarkation

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