I loved that there was hardly anyone on this cruise. There was no walking around forever trying to find a table to eat on. Not many food or activity options for how much we paid. I never once saw the cruise director anywhere throughout the ship which is weird since they should be everywhere.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
There was not even a two minute wait before we were being helped at a desk. I liked that there was not much of a line. It was a lot different when we sailed on POA in 2009.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
4 out of 5
I can’t say I really tried the escargot because I had my dad eat it while I dipped my dinner bread into the yummy garlicky butter
Aloha Café
4 out of 5
Food looked & tasted good. A lot of the food was looking like it needed to be mixed, like the heat lamp was drying out some of the gravy or sauces on some dishes.There was a lady named Carrie? Carey? She was working the carving station & she was the only one with an outgoing personality. She would greet or talk to all guests passing her station & get them hyped for whatever was being served or hyped for whatever port we pulled into. She is an asset to this ship as not many of the staff is like her.
Cadillac Diner
5 out of 5
They were quick to greet us upon arrival. We were sat & our order was taken. We had six milkshakes that I thought would take a while but they mixed it up quick & got it right out to us with some chicken wings.Other than the server having a minor hygiene issue, everything else was fabulous
Onboard Activities
1 out of 5
There wasn’t much to do on this ship. We enjoyed the pool since it was only at 40% capacity. There is the normal chess/checkers or shuffle board on deck but no rock wall climbing or slides to go down. We did play a little “corm hole?”My son was at the gym most of the time.
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
We had one waitress in the Cadillac diner that had a great personality but bad breath so when she stood above/next to me all I could smell was her breathing/talking.She was attentive and quick with her service tho.
Our room steward never came by to introduce himself like most stewards do on embarkation day so I thought that was kind of unusual. I heard from other guests that we were sailing at 40% capacity which means that they were probably so under staffed that they couldn’t sail with more people. We never got any chocolates on our pillows or towel animals either.
Ship Quality
2 out of 5
I thought that removing the swimming fish carpet in the halls was a bad idea. NCL is known for it and you got rid of it, why?
I didn’t see much workers cleaning like they would if they had a full staff.
There was no “washy, washy” singers before you walk into the buffet so a lot of people were just walking in without washing their hands and grabbing plates and tongs and everything.
A LOT of the dishes were dirty. We would grab a stack of plates (six in our group) and every one would have some kind of old food stuck to it but washed & dried. My son had a cup that had something that looked like blueberry jam on the outside of his cup.smeared down the outside that he didn’t see until he was done drinking his cup of milk.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
We never stayed in a cabin with no balcony so I wasn’t sure how this was going to work out. I was happy with the space of it and would consider staying in another ocean view room in the future.
Ship tip
I would say wait til they have more staff onboard to have more restaurants and entertainment available.
We spent a few days in Waikiki after the cruise. It was Labor Day weekend so not everything was open. I was mostly bummed about the Ice Palace being closed. We didn’t do any shore excursions through the ship since there wasn’t many affordable options.
On our first day in Maui we drove to Lahaina to get on the ferry to Lanai. I do think that the ship should offer more excursions to really explore all of what Hawaii has to offer.
Everything was fine the only issue I had was that we couldn’t get wheelchair assistance for my mother in law for getting off of the ship. The NCL workers can’t help us off of the ship, only onboard.
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