NCL has gone from Freestyle to No Style unless you’re prepared to pay substantially more for extras.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
1 out of 5
The quality and range of the food has plummeted. We normally enjoy a nice cooked breakfast during a cruise but everything we usually enjoy is no longer on the menu. No fried eggs, no sautéed mushrooms, no hash browns, no fried bread, no plum tomatoes, no black pudding. Items that were on the menu seemed to be of a much lower quality especially the sausages and baked beans.
Fish and seafood dishes were scarce apart from the occasional anonymous white fish fillet.
Dessert usually consisted of various mousse creations.
The buffet was usually very busy
Onboard Activities
1 out of 5
Don’t expect lockers or showers at the fitness centre - there aren’t any.
Crazy golf was good.
Entertainment
1 out of 5
No NCL orchestra or NCL dancers. There were no big production shows. The only decent show in the theatre was The Choir of Man.
Service and Staff
3 out of 5
Ship personnel were pleasant and friendly but desperately overworked.
Ship Quality
3 out of 5
Beautiful ship with well maintained common areas.
Our stateroom had lots of dusty ledges, grubby surfaces, sticky phone buttons and the bathroom floor had hair from a previous occupant which was never removed during the whole cruise.
Cabin / Stateroom
2 out of 5
Our stateroom had lots of dusty ledges, grubby surfaces, sticky phone buttons and the bathroom floor had hair from a previous occupant which was never removed during the whole cruise.
Well thanks Bulsar for doubling down on your post. I will stand by my reply to your post, cause the issues you mentioned either were incorrect or petty at best. BTW, at the omelet station you can order a omelet or get eggs cooked to your liking. The buffets on the newer NCL ships are huge and repetitive, so to prevent crowding in one area.
In response to 1960cruiser - the food items I listed as not available at breakfast were definitely not available.
Dusty ledges above the bed are a problem when the dust falls onto your pillows.
After almost 30 cruises (several with NCL) we know what to expect and we can tell when standards have slipped. Standards have definitely slipped at NCL.
The Freestyle Daily newsletters from some of our earlier NCL cruises show just how much entertainment there used to be compared to today’s stripped back offerings.
I doubt that all those items you listed for breakfast were not available. I've been on many NCL cruises and twice on the Escape and those items were available, so maybe you just missed them. I dont understand people who go on cruises to expect presidential treatment and spotless clean cabins or common areas. If you set you standards that high, you will always be disappointed and then blame cruise line fir ruining your cruise, when in fact YOU ruined your cruise. I totally understand that cabins should be clean, but you will find dust in the high end hotels as well. People need to learn to let the small stuff go, cause in all my cruises, I have yet to have that perfect cruise, nor do I expect to ever go on one that is perfect, cause things will go wrong at some point or another.
I've sailed them all. MSC is your best bet for cost, going on knowing the European attitude. NCL 💩
Carnival, McDonald's
Royal, over priced, but good with teens.
Princess is the best with the technology and the 60$ a day, includes gratuities, drinks, hi speed WiFi and delivery on demand anywhere. Can't beat it. However, if you have kids, nevermind. Not a cruise for children. All adults. Thank God
They are the worst. I have many stories. They hound you to book. Then they SUCK at guest relations onboard if you book. I have stories. And I'm easy. So.... Ugh
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