horrible experience

1 st of all I have been on 11 NCL cruises, and never did we get treated like this before. We are kosher, and notified them right as we booked.They made a whole to do about getting an approval and an email saying we were approved and  having to bring the email to the dining room in order to get kosher food or it could not be guaranteed.

Which we did and they had no idea why we needed that. We ordered our dinner meal when we got on the boat. 

the 1st night they could not find our order, we sat for 3 hours before anyone came over to tell us this. The waiters never came to see if we were ok, never came to tell us they could not find the order, then the maitre d"came over to us,  after I kept complaining said well its the 1st night and they are very busy. I told them it should not matter since it was not the 1st night as a grand opening or first sailing ever. We asked to get salmon wrapped in tin foil and baked potato wrapped in tin foil, which we have gotten in the past on NCL and all other lines.They said they could not do that because other people will see it and want it and I said to him your regular customers have great food to eat , are you crazy! 

We had no food the 1st night, we ordered with the assistant matre d for the 2nd night, and when we went to dinner, it took 2 and a half hours to bring our order, which was wrong! We traveled and sat with my in laws who were not kosher and their meal took about 2 hours. NO ONE EVER CAME OVER AFTER THEY BROUGHT THE FOOD OR IN BETWEEN COURSES TO SEE IF WE NEEDED ANYTHING,MORE WATER,ETC (for my in laws, because we did not have courses, they just brought everything all at once-salad,soup,meal and dessert- which was horrible). I asked the asst maitre'd to have the head of restaurants get in touch with me , he never did!!!!

The following day we did not get to pre order because we were at port all day, when we went to the dining and saw a different maitre d from Jamaica, he was very nasty. He was mad because we did not pre order and we said we would just take salmon doubled wrapped in tin foil, with vegetables and potato the same way .He kept saying over and over we needed to pre order,it was as if he was not going to get us served. I also asked for salads on  paper plates, we got chopped romaine lettuce ,nothing else. All of which came at once close to 3 hours later.

The next  night  we did pre order and again it took close to 3 hours to get to us and most of it was not what we asked for. My husband was so aggravated and said we were lucky we were even served. To have to feel like that on a cruise is terrible!!

The following night  we were in port and forgot to pre order,we sat in the same section of the Taste dining room and got the same lovely maitre 'd. Again he was annoyed that he even had to deal with us, he told us since we did not pre order, it was going to take at least 3 hours, we told him it did not make a difference since when we do order it takes that long and is usually wrong!

He also kept saying how busy it was  and my husband asked if we should come back later, which he did not answer  My husband also said just bring whatever you feel you can bring we are not picky. He starting getting extremely nasty and we told him we do not want to fight, we will sit however long it takes, which seemed to make him even madder!

Over and over throughout the cruise all we heard was how busy it was, and your  staff can not seem to handle it, the waiters we had, had no bus staff, the maitre 'ds look to ignore or run from you ,unless you hunt them down.

Why do you have  a ship with 4100 passengers f you are not equipped to handle it!!!

They brought our food out on regular plates and said (meaning salad and pasta) they ran out of paper plates, we told them to look again and what do you know 40 minutes later they came out with new food on paper plates, same thing happened with avocados, they ran out and we said to look again and out they came with it.

The next night we did pre order and it did not make a difference since we waited 3 hours. I tried to order from the day before  when we did pre order , peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for my son and pasta with garlic and oil. The maitre 'd said I did not need to pre order that since it is not on the menu they  can  just make it when we go in that night ( no  problem). Which was really strange , because that was all my son and myself ate, and the nights we did not pre order they gave us a hard time about that.So when we sat down on the 6th night we said we did pre order , but also wanted the pb and j sandwiches and, the pasta, they complained we did not pre order it!! I  pre ordered salads and they brought us out the largest carrot I have ever seen, I asked if that was for a horse since it was so large , they brought a huge onion and I asked them how was I  supposed to cut it since we use plastic utensils! They brought our pasta and salad out on regular plates, we told them we could not eat it on  those plates we asked for paper, we said we needed new ones , not to switch plates because the food was no longer kosher.  So they came out within 5 minutes on paper, which we know they did not listen and switched the plates. We told them we needed it new and they got nasty.

That is when we really realized , your staff did not care and they were mocking us. I do not know if it was because we were kosher,Jewish and really I truly hope it was not because of that! 

The last night we decided to go  to the Manhattan dining room, where we did not get served the first night. I looked at a regular menu ordered the same salad that was on the regular menu on paper. My in laws salad came out in about 40 minutes. It was now almost 2 hours later with no food! I went to Damadon the maitre d and asked why it takes so long to get a salad that is on the regular menu on paper plate? I said look all around the dining room, all of these people did not preorder their salads, yet they are eating them. Why do you make such a big deal about a pre order when I ordered from the same menus. I also told him we are sitting close to 2 hours, no food, no service again no one came over to see if we needed water or anything.

It was the most awful experience we have ever encountered on a cruise.

We were starving, w e were afraid to ask for anything since we were already treated with such dislike by your staff. We did not understand when we finally were served, why they could not serve us in the same way they served non kosher guests. Meaning they bring first a salad , then a soup and then the entree,. That has nothing to do with being kosher, we have been served normally on other ships and other NCL cruises, this was just awful having everything brought out at once with no room ,it was totally dissatisfying!

We did know you had to pre book the shows. we could not get into any show, my husband went down and waited for blue man group and the girl said  IF SHE DECIDED TO LET US IN !!! How can  your staff say that to a customer???

The next night we went at exactly when the show started and said we just want to stand and see the show, she did not want to let us in, so we just walked in and what do you know you had empty couches, empty bar seats or stools and a few empty chairs! But your staff decides not to let people in!

You never used to charge for movies in the room, my kids would spend the whole night watching movies in their room free of charge, but now you charge  $10 a movie and most other lines its free!!  You play "finding nemo" on the outside screen at 11:15 at night???Pool  you charge $2, which on all other lines is free! I always bring on my kosher wine for shabbos, and was never charge anything, They would not let me bring it on without paying $15 corking fee, even though I told them I have my own cork screw , would not be using theirs since it is not kosher and we need it for prayers for Friday night and Saturday. So I had to pay $30 to bring wine on that I uncorked. You never used to charge for that and other ships let you bring on 2 bottles at no charge.

The last day we had dried blood on our sheet , and my daughter had dried blood on her pillow case ( 2 different rooms) when I went down to complain and saw Alexandrka, she asked if I notified anyone, I looked at her and said why do you think I am here, for that reason!!! She did not apologize , she said it will be looked into. 

No one ever came to look into it and the sheet and pillow caws was never changed!!!!

I had complained to guest services about all of this several times, they just did not care!

I am really a gold latitudes member , you have us  as a silver, I spoke to NCL before we left that they are missing 2 of our cruises,my kids used to be a bronze and one was a silver but since they were under 21 , they lost their points? Since when did you change that program? My son has all of his cards with his latitudes status!!

But being silver of gold latitudes member seemed to get me nothing and nowhere! So what really is the pint, no one even cared enough to try to make us happy. So we are pretty sure neither will corporate!

Interesting enough I sat with a cruise critic on Saturday morning for coffee, he was writing a review, he was not happy with his cruise ,but when I told him our experience he was quite shocked and interested. 

Your line has gotten very cheap ,petty,lousy quality control , beyond awful customer service, it is worse than carnival, I f I had to rate our experience I would say it is a 0!!!

We looked up teh epic online after we got back and it  has pretty bad reviews for service. Do you not care anymore since cruising is so popular now, that you can afford to lose customers, especially silver and gold latitudes members?

This cruise was like being abused, and to have to be afraid to ask for anything, .It was beyond awful!!!!!!!!

We would never go on NCL again, I feel like cancelling the credit card and notifying the NY times and all of the Jewish papers to tell them our experience ( the real kosher experience)!!!!