The NCL Prima is a beautiful new ship, providing great onboard food and dining options with a friendly, accommodating staff. This cruise itinerary visits beautiful ports with great histories and we thoroughly enjoyed the experiences. The shipboard entertain options need improvement.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Smooth, easy embarkation process.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
Overall, the food and dining experiences on the NCL Prima were excellent. After approximately 35 cruises on seven different cruise lines, in my opinion the food quality and taste on NCL cruises is the best I have had. The buffet on the NCL Prima was smaller and offered a smaller variety of options than the buffets on competitor cruise lines similarly sized ships. This is offset by multiple dining options, both specialty and complementary throughout the ship.
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
This was a relatively cold weather cruise so outdoor shipboard activities were rather limited.
Entertainment
3 out of 5
Overall, the entertainment options and offerings on the NCL Prima were very disappointing, particularly if you are a frequent cruiser and have experienced the entertainment on other NCL ships such as the NCL Joy or have cruised with Royal Caribbean, Princess or Celebrity, among others. NCL has obviously cut back on their entertainment budget dramatically. During this 11 day cruise there was only one production show, a recreation of the "Donna Summer" Broadway show. The show utilizes a musical soundtrack that the singers perform with. The show itself was very good and the performers were excellent however there were no live musicians. There were several performances of this show throughout the 11 day cruise with no other options in the theater on those days. The sound system quality is excellent but the absence of live musicians in this musical production is noticeable.
There was one headliner vocalist performer presented in the theater during the cruise. Mike Sterling is a great vocal performer with a West End London Theater and operatic background. Again, he had no live musicians to perform with and he sang using a musical soundtrack. He did three different performances in the theater over the 11 days and each of those performances had missed cues, both lighting and musical soundtrack that were not the performer's fault. Mike Sterling's singing was flawless and he received standing ovations at the conclusion of each of his performances. Mr. Sterling worked through the relatively minor hitches smoothly and professionally.
There was one other headliner performer in the theater during the cruise. He was a multi-instrumentalist, who played his instruments with a soundtrack, like the other performers.
Any other entertainment throughout the ship during the cruise was very limited. There was one outstanding three three piece band (singer, keyboards and drums) named "Familiar Strangers" who performed primarily in the atrium area adjacent to the Primrose Bar in the evenings, who usually received standing ovations for their fun, high energy sets.
The Prima has a relatively small venue called "The Improv" that was basically utilized as a place for guests to entertain themselves singing karaoke. There were no comedians to my knowledge on the ship at all and consequently there was no comedy offered in the Prima's venue named after the world famous "Improv" comedy clubs.
Across from "The Improv" is another small venue called "Sid Norman's Pour House" that does have very good live music performances however the performances are limited and the venue is much too small to accommodate the large number of guests who want to enjoy live music.
NCL really needs to improve their entertainment offerings on the Prima.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
The overall service and the staff were excellent.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
The Prima is a beautiful ship with a good layout. The ship is being maintained beautifully. There were crew members touching up paint on the ship hull at every port. The interior of the ship was immaculate with ship staff cleaning floors, public bathrooms and wiping down hand rails and cleaning floors throughout the ship during the entire cruise.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
We were every happy with the comfort, size and cleanliness of our room. The new Prima design provides slightly larger bathrooms and showers that really improves utilization.
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