FQTV2002 Cruise Review on Norwegian Star on Apr 08, 2018

Norwegian Star Cruise Review

FQTV2002

Contributor Level: Purser

Reviews: 2

Helpful Votes: 20

Overall rating:

5 out of 5

Sail date: April 08, 2018

Ship: Norwegian Star

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

14-day Panama Canal cruise from Los Angeles to Miami (April 2018/ 2 adults + 2 kids): 👍🏻👍🏻 Itinerary - it was simply a perfect medley between exciting places, beach getaways and sea days. Except for Cartagena we enjoyed all stops, some were much better than expected. 👍🏻👍🏻 Cabin (Mini Suite) - Size (overall space, beds, bath, balcony) exceeded our expectations, and it was still in very good condition. The bed (German size, so almost king-size) was extremely comfy, haven’t slept so well in years. 👍🏻👍🏻 Dinner serving team - although NCL runs the freestyle concept, meaning you don‘t have a firm seating time (and same table every day), we requested the same server and assistant every following day after our first evening as the two were exceptionally courteous and welcoming. They even told the receptionist that they are serving us when we could not be seated in their area, which happened a couple of times. 👍🏻 Food in the main as well as the special restaurants was generally very good. 👍🏻 Excursion guide in Nicaragua - this guy was a living encyclopedia. He gave us such a volume of in-depth information about this country - I can say I have never learned so much about a country in such a short timeframe before. 👍🏻 Shows - great variety. Our favorite was magician and illusionist Michael White. 👍🏻👎🏻 Rest of restaurant staff (breakfast, lunch) - hit or miss. Admittedly the fact that our dinner serving duo stood out by a mile contributed a little bit to this impression. 👍🏻👎🏻 Tender process - very chaotic and insufficient capacity in Cabo San Lucas & San Juan del Sur, but it went much smoother in Grand Cayman. 👎🏻 Disembarkation - took forever, but to be fair it seems that this wasn’t NCL‘s fault. US immigration was clearly understaffed (5 officers for 2500 passengers 🙄). 👎🏻 Cartagena - what a disappointment, can‘t blame NCL for this one though! I really wanted to see the old town, but it was impossible to enjoy it as it was extremely crowded and street hawkers were all over you the whole time, so annoying. Many other passengers felt the same. 👎🏻👎🏻 Checkin - a complete mess. The staff made several conflicting announcements and was extremely slow. They were clearly overstrained. 👎🏻👎🏻 The buffet restaurant aka Market Cafe - quality and variety of food was miserable (no matter at which time of the day), „logistics“ were a nightmare the way it was set up, and the area had the appeal of a school cafeteria. NCL, you gotta step up your game here if you want to be at the same level as your main competitors (Royal Carib. etc.). Again, the few negatives put aside - none of them would hold me back to book with NCL again - overall it was an amazing cruise and worth every $$$ spent. Not many vacations have been as relaxing as this one, 2 weeks felt like a month.

FQTV2002 Cruise Review on Norwegian Star on Apr 08, 2018

Overall rating:

Review summary

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