Norwegian Pearl

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 13

Review summary

We sailed the 5 Night Western Caribbean itinerary out of Miami on 01/28/07. This was our fourth cruise overall but our first on NCL. We flew in the night before which I highly recommend and stayed at a hotel in South Beach. The next day we took a very short taxi ride over to the port around 3 PM and proceeded through the lines with ease. It took about 20 minutes total to check in and finally arrived at our inside Cabin on Deck 9. The room was adequate for two people..cant imagine more then two people in the room but it worked out quite nicely. The bed was a bit hard for our liking so we asked our cabin steward to place a mattress topper on the bed which he did and it was much more comfortable. Most nights we slept like babies. The bathroom was actually bigger then I expected which was a nice surprise. We missed having an ocean view room but spent little time in our room that it was fine. We did not have any problems with noisy neighbors but the couple we traveled with did. They were 3 cabins not from us but we did not hear a thing. Our luggage arrived about an hour later. Prior to our cruise, my husband had called NCL to have 2 bon voyage gifts delivered to our room and to the couple we were traveling with (their first cruise). We called and asked when the gifts would be delivered and they told us when we left port. The bon voyage gifts never came and my husband was extremely disappointed. The person we talked to said the order was never placed and they had no record of it. They were neither apologetic nor sympathetic regarding the mess up. That perturbed us. The funny thing is my husbands credit card was charged..would love to know who ended up with those bon voyage gifts. We did not really did not hang out on the pool deck other then passing through as we wandered the ship. As many other previous reviews have noted, it was difficult to obtain lounge chairs because people would mark their chairs with all of their belongings and take off for most of the day leaving empty chairs behind. That was a bit annoying. We really enjoyed hanging out on the higher decks which were less congested. Casino- We played blackjack a few times but didnt do that great. Also, wanted to play roulette, but they dont allow you to play your $5.00 minimum with $1.00 bets. That really disturbed me so I found the slot roulette which did allow you to place $1.00 bets. I didnt do to good on that either. You forget your on a cruise ship and expect to get your drinks for free but that did not happen. I think one night ladies drank for free for 2 hours and another night; it was buy 1 get 1 free. Still miss those free drinks while gambling. The $5.00 blackjack tables were usually crowded but would only have to wait a few minutes to get it in on the game. Most of the dealers we encountered were good but some had no personalities. Now for one of the major parts of any cruise, the eating. One of the reasons we had decided to try NCL was the Freestyle dining that they advertise. We had mixed feelings on that whole concept. The idea of not having to dress up and meet for dinner each night at the same time was actually quite nice. However, having to make reservations and wait for tables was not quite what we bargained for. Thanks to previous cruisers, we made reservation for 3 restaurants as soon as we got to our room. I thought we had reservation but realized that only 1 of my reservations was made when we made our way to La Cucinas our second night of the cruise. The hostess was very helpful and was able to get reservations for those other nights. Our first dining experience was at the main dining room, Indigo. We arrived and were told the wait would be about 45 minutes. They gave us one of those beeper devices and we ended up going to the bar for a drink which was no problem. We were seated within thirty minutes. The food and service were good. We also tried La Cucinas which we all though was

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Belize City, Belize