Overall the cruise was good, however, NCL lacks proper communication to its guests about what’s going on and what is happening. In every port in Japan, the locals put on a different show wishing us a farewell and thanking us for visiting. The captain and cruise director did not make a single mention of this to encourage guests to watch the performance and instead found out by sheer luck as they walked by on the promenade deck.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
NCL made us queue up for check-in, despite there being no queue at check-in.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
4 out of 5
Tsar's Main Dining Room
3 out of 5
The main dining room, food here is 80% of the time great, the other 20% is mainly just me just not likening the options available.However, NCL has replaced the beef option on the menu with a 2nd sea food dish and if you want beef, you will need to fork out $20.
The Great Outdoors
3 out of 5
It’s just the outside portion of the buffet.
Teppanyaki
3 out of 5
The same show as always, hasn’t changed at all, very boring, decent food. They add way too much salt to the food!
Le Bistro French Restaurant
4 out of 5
Another fantastic venue. NCL have added a surcharge of $10 for fillet Mignon, which is absolutely stupid for a specialty restaurant, a venue I have already pre-paid for…
Garden Cafe/Kid's Cafe
3 out of 5
It’s a buffet, not great but not bad either. However, it is not big enough for everyone on sea days or ports with departures near lunchtime.
Chin Chin Asian Restaurant
3 out of 5
Sub-par Asian cuisine, especially as we were travelling Japan and South Korea, should have really stepped up their quality.
Cagney's Steakhouse
5 out of 5
Cagney’s is always fantastic. Potato Gratins lacked some cheese though.
Atrium Cafe & Bar
4 out of 5
It’s just a Starbucks Cafe
Onboard Activities
2 out of 5
There’s generally a lack of activities throughout the day, they have nothing planned for any guests that choose to stay onboard in port days. Trivia is far and few between, about 3/4 a day.
Entertainment
4 out of 5
NCL has definitely reduced its entertainment budget, many of the live singers and bands, throughout the day, are now just groups of random people that can just about pass off as singers and don’t actually know each other before meeting onboard.
Stardust Theater
4 out of 5
The ship had 2 main shows, Rock You Tonight & Le Cirque Bijou.Rock You Tonight is just the replacement show for removing the broadway show as part of cost cutting measures. It was terrible, some of the most beloved rock songs from the 70s/80s butchered by the singers. It was their last sailing before they were replaced, so they could have been tired but there was no story to it and it’s only saving grace was the choreography.Le Cirque Bijou on the other hand was phenomenal, it had so much going on, the singers where in there zone and did fantastically.We had 3 independent individuals also performing, a piano man, ho was witty and put on a show. A comedian juggler who has me in stitches and an acrobatic duo, which I could not stand as something about their performance just did not sit well with me, despite what they do being impressive.
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
Staff just did their job, no one went the extra mile or anything, but I didn’t feel like they’d needed to do so.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
The ship was kept clean to a high standard and very well maintained. Layout is very similar to other smaller ships in their fleet like Norwegian Jade and Star
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Inside cabin, not a single issue to report. Other than maybe the reading lights being way to bright and do a better job of lighting the room up than the master lights.
Stayed the night in this port as has flight the next day. We stayed in the Songdo area of Incheon and my, I loved the area, there’s a huge shopping centre, Hyundai Outlet, which is across 3 floors, with the bulk being underground. I was surprised with the whole area being so modern, clean and genuinely a great day.
Small island with little to nothing really available. It was a very nice island but was used more as an itinerary filler for the cruise.
The shopping experience is small but very much local and more traditional. No photos of this port.
We had an overnight here.
Day 1 Nara & Kyoto
Day 2 Osaka
Nara and Kyoto are highlights for this stop, I found Osaka to be a bit of a disappointment especially Osaka castle.
The deer park and nudist temple are just so fun and feel good with the temple being impressive and huge!
Took a private tour with a local to a shrine, the Toyota museum as well as Nagoya castle and lunch before taking us to a local shopping street. Brilliant tour and lovely port.
Did a ship excursion, the tour offered was terrible. The island is very much a touristy place and it shows. The site we were taken took wheee very much not worth it. Should have stayed on the ship.
A very interesting city as it was the location of the second nuclear bomb explosion from the USA.
We took a private tour with an Aussie that moved to Japan about 20 years ago. He was fantastic, very knowledgeable about the history and local area.
He took us to see a few sites just outside the city before having a picnic at the Obama Hot Springs, wheee we enjoyed a relaxing footpath before heading to the Peace Park and Atomic Bomb museum.
Was slow in Incheon, they cranked up the heating to try get people out faster but only just made waiting to get off worse as the terminal was controlling the pace of people as their went through customs.
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