We booked NCL because of all the freebies. Overall it was a good cruise, but the issues with tendering on two of the ports was enough to make you not want to cruise with NCL. a couple of hours lost on the ports of call because of the tendering. The private island was frustrating also. Bad enough you had to pay for drinks and food on the private island but the drink prices were high. $6.75 for a draft beer $10-$12 for a mixed drink. I would think hard before taking another NCL cruise
Embarkation
1 out of 5
Terrible, Long line took over an hour to get on board. What is the purpose of boarding times if you still wait over an hour
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
Buffet was below average. Food at the buffet was lukewarm for most items. Main dining room service was extremely slow but the food was good. Specialty restaurants were excellent
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
Main Pool was extremely crowded and loud. Maybe replace the kiddie area with another adult pool or put a pool deck 16.
Entertainment
5 out of 5
All the shows were good. Cirque and Steam was outstanding and the dinner was great.
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
All the staff were friendly. the bars seemed to be understaffed. Took to long to get a drink.
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
Design was fine but more adult area. 120 kids on board 3800 adults why have all that space for kids.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Cabin was excellent. Room steward did a great job. Did miss the towel animals at turndown
Ship tip
Don't get off on any islands that require tendereing in.
Did a non NCL excursions because of the poor reviews of the stingray city tour. Getting off the ship was no to bad but tendering back was a disaster. over 1 hr to get on board the ship. Ridiculous -more tenders were needed. The other ships in port used the local tendering service and had NO lines. Spend the extra bucks on the local tender service
Signed up for an excursion. Long wait to disembark on the tenders again. Got to the pier and there were about 200 people booked for this excursion. I asked on of the tour organizers how many catamarans they had for the excursion and they said 3. 200 people on 3 sailboats seemed extremely unsafe. Our group did not go. NCL did refund me the price of the excursion. Same issue with the tenders re-boarding. Over an hour in line to get back on the ship. No excuse other than incompetence by NCL. if you have a couple dozen lifeboats being used to tender why not put enough in the water to accomodate the number of passengers getting off the ship.
No excursion but what a rip off. The island was nicely done, Pool was great. Beach was great. but Food and drinks were extra. If I have a drink package why am I paying for drinks on a NCL owned property. Also any other private island on other cruise lines had a food buffet available at no charge.
I can totally appreciate your frustrations with the embarkation and tendering process. We had a 1.5 hour long line that wound all along the outside of the ship,back down the same deck and then all throughout the ship. It snaked through the entire deck. It was quite frustrating. And yes embarkation was only slightly better.
I also understand that every cruise is different and many are probably unable to relate.
Please note that "Harvest Caye" is NOT a private island. It is a "joint venture" maybe, but Belize owns the island, NCL has exclusive usage of it at this time. Could/should drinks & food be cheaper? Probably, but Belize needs to make some money out of the deal.
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