Enjoyable cruise

Norwegian Sky Cruise Review to Cuba

Cruises: 2-3 cruises
Reviews: 3
Helpful Votes: 103

Overall rating:

4.4 out of 5
Norwegian Sky

4 Night Cuba Overnight & Bahamas (Miami Roundtrip)

Sail date: September 17, 2018

Ship: Norwegian Sky

Cabin type: Oceanview

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

This was a cruise that was booked for our honeymoon because it worked with our time off (original plan was to go glamping for a week). We chose Cuba because, well, why not? This was our first time on Norwegian, and we had been told by other Norwegian "veterans" not to judge our Norwegian experience off the Sky. We were actually impressed at the port, long lines to check in and get your visa's, but NCL had a gentleman who was in charge of ensuring that guests were directed to the next open assistant, very smooth. Then, there were crew members to greet you as you actually boarded and a hand wash attendant ("Washy Washy!!) before you entered. Our stateroom was small but clean and finding our way to the Oslo Deck was a little adventure (its like deck 6.5 and you have to go to deck 7 to access it). The mandatory evacuation drill was very hot and very noisy-there is construction going on at the NCL port which made hearing some of the announcements very difficult. Cuba was old and tired. Looking beyond the facade of the buildings, it was obviously once a beautiful city. Perhaps we will return there someday to see if the city has been rebuilt. The food was very good, the buffets were nice, slightly different choices on each side of the buffet and lunch time sandwiches were nice! (Upon embarkation we just really wanted a light lunch and the tuna salad croissants were excellent). We did experience on hiccup with the cruise, and that was our mini-fridge being locked up on the second night of our cruise. It took several attempts to get anyone to come and unlock it so we could put our waters in to cool. Overall, the cruise was good. We enjoyed our time on the Sky and would likely cruise on that ship again. Disembarkation was easy and smooth.

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Cagney's Steakhouse

5 out of 5

Food was excellent, the staff very attentive and would definitely recommend this!

Onboard Activities

5 out of 5

Entertainment

5 out of 5
The "house band" Power of Six were excellent, great cover band! Russ the Guitarist -- meh....some classics should not be altered

Stardust Lounge

4 out of 5

They seem to have too many seats packed into the theater, difficulty to get into anything but the front row. The comedian was ok. Was, perhaps, a little offensive for the family show. The Rock and Roll Show was pretty good, a good cover of some classic rock songs.

Children's Programs

Service and Staff

3 out of 5
We had seen several reviews that mentioned that housekeeping/service staff were not so great. Our housekeeper was ok, but we had done an excursion that took all morning and when we came back to shower off and change our room was still not made up (left the ship at 8 a.m. and returned around 1:30 p.m.) We also had an issue where they had locked our mini-fridge on day 2 of the cruise instead of the last night (they do this to avoid guest from taking their $5 waters) and were unable to refrigerate our dessert from Cagney's. It was resolved eventually (2 trips to guest service and 2 phone calls later).

Ship Quality

5 out of 5
The ship is older and one of the smallest I've been on. There were occasional hints of cigarette smoke from the casino area in the main lobby, but otherwise it seems to be well maintained.

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5
Very small cabins. I'm glad there weren't 3 of us in the cabin. The pull out couch needs to be recovered (very worn). Not a lot of storage, so very glad this was not a long duration cruise.

Ports of call

Miami, Florida

5 out of 5
We did the "Hop-on Hop-off" tour of Miami, unfortunately the AC on our bus was not working very well and it was very hot the day we visited (we understand it is Miami, but working AC would have been nice). Beautiful city and the tour was very informative. The Art Deco area was absolutely stunning!

Great Stirrup Cay (Cruise Line Private Island), Bahamas

5 out of 5
Well maintained, not overly crowded. NCL is working on improvements to make it even better. We went swimming with/feeding the stingrays. Our guide was very well versed and knew all the rays they had. It was a very enjoyable excursion.

HAVANA, CUBA

3 out of 5
The old cars were nice to look at. Havana is an old city that has suffered from years of neglect and several storms. Our Excursion was the Highlights of Havana tour. Our Guide was more interested in speaking about the Cuban system of

Disembarkation

5 out of 5
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3 Comments

VOLFORLIFE    6 years ago

Good review! Thanks! I had been wondering about Cuba.

IkeDeb    6 years ago

Thanks for your review 😋

lrgd    6 years ago

Very nice. Glad you enjoyed

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