Disappointing Cruise on NCL

My favorite part of the cruise was getting off the ship for the last time; it was disappointing from start to finish…the one positive thing was embarkation was

quick and smooth.

It was obvious from the very beginning of the cruise was that they wanted to screw us out of as much money as possible; this included the purchase of water, alcohol and soft drinks plus photo packages.  My husband made the mistake just once of purchasing a single glass of wine, which came to $16.00.  After that we made sure to grab drinks when we were visiting ports of call.

From the very first night there was a problem of smoking/profanity/banging/

screaming coming from our next door neighbors; we called and called and called until 1:30 am for two nights and even went to the desk downstairs in the daytime to make sure our complaints were heard.  Finally, after the third day of

sleepless nights, they finally and begrudgingly moved us to another room.

The insult to injury happened when a terrible storm hit us after departing Naples; during the storm there were rumors that we probably would not go to Mykonos, and even though the bad weather had passed a day before we were supposed to arrive there but  the rumors still persisted!  The staff was rude and discourteous and would not come clean and truthful in any way.  To add to the problem, a man had a heart attack and after they removed him he unfortunately passed away.  Then an hour later another man was taken off the ship since he broke a hip.  I am not being heartless, but these two evacuations took three hours and could have been expedited by an emergency helicopter.  Then we got stuck on the coast of Messina when Italian authorities came aboard to do an investigation…meanwhile, the ship's captain never told us what had really happened.  The ship had plenty of time after that to have made it to Mykonos, but the captain instead crawled so, so slowly and skipped that port and instead took the sloooooow boat to Athens so that we arrived there 'on time.'  (Life and death happens, and I am not being heartless, but 2,000 + passengers lost 1/10th of the ports we were supposed to visit, and not

one apology or financial incentive by NCL was offered to salve the wound.  Why would I ever want to return to one of their cruises?  It would have to be something incredibly lucrative for me to spend money again on their cruises.

The last item that was horrible was catching a porter going through a drawer in my room; when I came in the room, he quickly pretended to be dusting.  When we reported him, the representative covered for the porter and said he had simply been looking for a bible.

As you can see, except for the nine ports we visited, it was a disappointing experience for my husband and me.  Other cruise lines allow you to bring on board a bottle of wine each, and give free soda!

Diana and Eric Knowlton