not impressed

We sailed on the Norwegian Sky May 12-16, 2014.  When we were going through security, my purse AND carry on were both searched.  The carry on had 3 bottles of wine which we had to pay $15 a bottle corkage fee on (the other cruiseline we sailed does not charge this fee UNLESS you take it to the dining room to have with your meal) I paid more in corkage fees than I paid for the wine in the first place!!  After we got that issue taken care of, I was looking for my purse and it was still on the conveyor.  I went to get it and was very harshly asked where I was going with that bag.  I explained to the lady that it was my bag and I was going to board the ship.  She immediately started YELLING for security and I asked her why my bag needed to be searched, she never answered me, she continued to YELL security and I asked her if it was ok for me to take it to the table where my other bag was searched.  She didn't answer me, kept yelling security and I picked the bag up and took it to the table where my carry on was and she watched every step I made.  Had she told me what they were looking for, I could have told her that it was my fold up cane.  I was humiliated, to say the least.  Everyones eyes were on me.  The last cruiseline we sailed on, 3 weeks prior to this one, had no issue with my cane.  It went through the scanner with no problem.  By this time I was ready to cut our losses and drive back to NC from Miami!!!!!  I was totally blown away with the way I was treated.  I mentioned this to a couple of Norwegian staff and they just kinda blew it off.  They acted like it wasn't the first time they were told about this.  By now, I have been up for 36 hours, driven 14 hours, had a migraine and was past disgusted!!!  I needed to go to our balcony room, which I had been looking forward to, to sit on the balcony with a glass of wine and chill.  Not so much.....We had an aft balcony and there was soot EVERYWHERE!!!!  Avoid an aft balcony at all costs!!  Ruined a pair of brand new shorts because we weren't sure what it was, until we got up and had it floating in our drinks!  DISGUSTING to say the least.  When we mentioned this to our stewardess, she made out like that was the first time she had seen anything like that and 'attempted' (not very well) to clean the lounge chairs. Not only was there soot everywhere, there were chicken bones and cigarette butts out there.  Again, I was ready to cut our losses and go home!  When we received our checked luggage, it had been gone through also.  No one could explain why.  I guess, because of my cane, I was smuggling something in my checked luggage.  We only ate at the outdoor buffet and the garden cafe.  The food was wonderful!!  No compaints at all there.  I will have to say that the ship itself was clean and the staff was cordial.

We had made up our minds that we were going to try all of the cruise lines and see which one we liked best and right now the winner is NOT Norwegian!  I will never sail Norwegian again, unless they offer extremely deep discounted rate or give us a free cruise, even then, we would really have to think long and hard about sailing Norwegian again!!

Pictures are of the soot of the balcony that we took to send to Norwegian...