First - The staff was amazing. The bartenders were attentive and knowledgeable. The surveys were always asking about allergies. Everyone said hi in passing. Our house keeper even knew our names without an introduction. The staff was the best part of our vacation!
Second - I'm not going to complain about Mykonos and Athens switching days and eventually Mykonos being cancelled. I don't work in transportation logistics and I've only driven a fishing boat once. I'm sure the experts at Norwegian and the Captain made the best decisions they could.
Third - it's hot in the Mediterranean this time of year. Unnecessarily, unreasonablely, stupid hot. We average 7 miles of walking at every port. We're in our early 40s and I'm in 10k running shape and we struggled every day. I cannot stress enough how important mobility is for this itinerary. You will need to be prepared and hydrated, and unless you're someone that lives for 90 degrees 90% humidity, you're going to suffer regardless.
Overall we loved our vacation! We learned, we laughed, we cried (at the sun). Highly recommend Norwegian and this itinerary!
Embarkation
4 out of 5
The elevator situation getting on was a bit frustrating.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
4 out of 5
The buffet is what you expect from a buffet. The "not included" restaurants were the best.
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
Wish there had been more adult things to do.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
The best part of our cruise was the staff!
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
Cabin / Stateroom
4 out of 5
Ship tip
You cannot just bring alcohol and soft drinks on board. If you buy something on shore the ship keeps it until you leave.
We completely winged it in Malta and could have done a lot better. We paid for a hop-on hop-off tour bus that sounded like it was going to be a good way of getting around the island, but was not. They also closed down early on one of the longer days of this cruise. We went to a beach in Bugibba that was hot and didn't have much appeal. We saw several on the way back to port we wish we had chosen instead. We ended but paying for a cab to take us back to Medina because we missed it on the bus tour. We also missed the Crafts Village on the way out and it was closed when we came back latter in the day. We think this could have been a neat part to visit. Based on our miss steps Medina is a must, Crafts village could have been good, and the South-east part of the island seemed to have the more interesting and party beaches.
I would recommend doing an excursion that doesn't require using the tram or donkies. It took over 2 hours for us to tender to port and get the tram to the top. We road the donkies down because the tram line at the top was extremely long. I would not recommend the donkies. The handlers are rude. I'm not an expert by any means, but the donkies appeared fatigued. It's not a comfortable ride, it's actually a bit scary. The food and shopping is great in Santorini, it's just hard to access with the short amount of time with this cruise.
We rented a car and drove to Taormina. We had some good wine and food, did some shopping, saw Mt Etna. Taormina is beautiful and definitely would recommend it. We attempted to find a winery or a restaurant on the way back to port but everything was closed.
This is a hard port because of how far everything of interest is from Lorvino. This was the only day we did an excursion, choosing one that went to Florence for a few hours and the a wine tasting in a Tuscan Castle. We booked the excursion through Norwegian the day before and it was worth what we paid. We did not see Piza. I think would be hard to really see Piza and Florence in one day. The shopping and dining in Florence was amazing!
Pompeii is a must. Once again we went out on our own and took a taxi from port to the museum. This was our most expensive transportation day. About 70 Euro each was from Naples. Afterwards we had just enough time to get pizza in splitter street before heading back to port.
This port was cancelled due to high winds the day we were there. We had planned a beach day that we had already considered ruined by the wind before the ship anounced they were not going to port.
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