Norwegian not up to Carnival or Royal Caribbean standards

My family of 5 took what we refer to as "Our trip of a lifetime" of the Norwegian Spirit.  We choose this particular cruise for the itinerary and timing...we have cruised many times before and have never been disappointed... until now. The ship was lovely and clean but the lack of customer service and not being up front about on board credits and cell phone compatibility leaves us wishing we waited for Carnival to return to Europe!  To get right to the point I have Sprint as my cell phone carrier and was told that it is incompatible with Norwegian...at least the Spirit....and I have an I-phone and Norwegian blocks the I-cloud!!!  If we were made aware of this...we could have worked around certain issues but it is not disclosed anywhere. Next as part of a promotion we were given $250 on board credit per stateroom which I asked if I could use toward gratuities...and was told yes...but when the final bill came they left over $300 credit on my account and said I could only use part of it...but 2 days prior to leaving I asked to see my bill and was never told that It could not be used toward gratuities...why would anyone leave a $300 credit on their account?  We could have spent that 10 times over...nowhere on the bill does it state that you can not nor does it state it on the paperwork I received from my travel agency.  Hear is where I lost all respect for Norwegian Cruise Line...as I was arguing about the bill their only solution was to take the money off of the gratuities for the employees!!!  Why should they suffer because the company is trying to pull a fast one on the consumer!  Shame on them...I will never cruise Norwegian again knowing that is how they treat their employees!

As for the lack of customer service...they need to take a Carnival cruise to see how it is done right.  To give just a couple of examples...my 11 year wanted an ice cream cone...they only have one machine...it was empty...but there was a sundae bar right next to it...so I ask the girl behind the counter for a scoop of ice cream for my son's cone that I was holding and she told me she could not give me one until 5:00!  I said are you kidding me the machine is out of order but she would not give me the ice cream so we waited for 5:00 and then she disappeared!  Still in disbelief I went to ask why and after 15 minutes I was put the phone with a chef that said it should not have happened...but it did. Then there was the pillow incident...the pillows were flat and hard and I had a very hard time sleeping so on the 4th day of the cruise I asked my steward for a different pillow...he told me to call customer service so he did not have to go and get it...I complied against my better judgment only to be told by housekeeping that is the only pillow available to me since I am not a VIP!  I still can not believe she said that to me...so no pillow for me for 2 more nights...then 2 different pillows showed up in our stateroom because I did not respond to a paper left on my door asking me if my problem was resolved to my satisfaction. We had several staff members be absolutely rude to us which has never happened on any of my other cruises.  We also had the unlimited drink package...good luck finding a waiter on the ship to come and get your order...we would wait no less than 1/2 hours to get a drink...most of the time we would just go to the bar ourselves.  My 11 year had a drink or soda package and we do not drink soda and I specifically asked if he could get virgin strawberry daiquiris  and juice...I was told yes...but no they would not give him either!  
They say it is free style cruising but it is far from that...dinner there are 2 restaurants you can use unless again you want to pay more but really only one because you have to be dressed according to the dress code to get in to one of them.Then there was the matter of room service...they charge you $7.95 plus gratuities every time you use it.  And if your kids are in their camp there is a fee to feed them!  I have never been charged to feed the kids on my other cruises.  There unfortunately where many of these little incidents which made us very unhappy and they did not care at all...the lack of customer service was unbelievable!