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Dels
Casual Cruiser
| Joined: | Mon Feb 19th, 2007 |
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Posted: Sat Mar 24th, 2007 03:50 pm | 1st Post |
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The boarding for this ship was easy. We drove in from Montreal and parked our car in their parking lott on top of the pier. This was very handy. Because we were international, our line up was very short, one person in front of us………we were on the ship in no time looking at our room and then having a deli lunch in the main dinning room. We got a very friendly greeting from the cabin steward who was a gem through out the cruise.
We enjoyed the cruise but on one hand they didn’t handle well the college kids, it was full of them from UCON, and they kept serving them alcohol even when dead drunk, they became quite out of control, and made it difficult for other passengers, but had that not happened it would have been lovely. At one point a group of kids were so drunk in the show room and I said to the barman why do you keep serving them, they cant even stand up, he just laughed and served any ways. They even handed the drinks to the younger kid, but took the card to swipe from the older kids, and knew what was happening as the younger kid gave the cash right away to the over 21 kid. They serve beer and wine to 18 and up, hard drinks to over 21. But as I say, they would get around that rule by swiping the older kids card.
It was obvious they were making money on the drinks. Kids were finally removed from the ship, and more security added. It was poor security the first few days. Carnival much stricter when we were on her with regard to alcohol. I was surprised that NCL offered my kid. The bar manager said it was no problem, when they swipe his card they wont give it, they didn't seem to grasp the concept it is illegal to offer alcohol to a minor. Yes, he is tall, but no where looks 18 let alone 21. I know they were holding meeting after our cruise and before the next left because of the enormous amounts of complaints, but NCL is to blame because they were the ones pushing alcohol and continuing to serve when they were drunk, and even offered to my 16 year old! The staff blamed the kids, but they served the booze, and should stop when they are drunk. Poor security as well. They boarded more security in Miami. It should have been there all along.
Hopefully they have learned from this cruise and will manage the next better. Carnival seemed to deal with spring breakers much better.
The ship is beautiful, for sure, very beautiful. The open large atriums and information desks, bright and airy. The cabins are small, but better laid out that carnival and hence more moving around room. The cabin steward was simply the best. The room was always clean and anything we requested was brought right away. On spirit, the beds are a bit to hard, but foam egg crate mattresses were brought right away. The shows were so so compared to carnival, but two of them were very good. The food was fine, runny eggs in buffet but that seems to be every where. Dinning rooms are lovely, and I found the food good, but after a few days with free style the service is far less attentive than first two nights. For example the last three nights, two of them the waiter was gone and we had to coffee or tea, and the third night, after half an hour we got some one to bring us some. They just seemed short staffed and running all over the place. You should make reservations to avoid really long line ups. There was a lot of that. We would just look at our plans for the day and then made a reservation in the morning. This ensured we rarely waited more than ten minutes and that was in times others waited over an hour and were given beepers . I did like that they have hand sanitizer stations all over the place, will help with preventing the spread of infections. The stops were great. Would not do these stops again as two are in Florida, but we saw The space centre and spent the day at the beach in Miami and it was nice.
The cruise director was not good at all, for example during a contest, a college kid dropped his bathing suit three times to show his butt, and while she did say "oh no", she didn't kick him off the game, and there were many young kids present as it was day time. Her name was Julie. She was a supreme Ditz., Her specialty was a bar crawl…………they need better entertainment at 10 PM other than a bar crawl!
The Internet room is really really nice on this ship. The staff was helpful. If the connection was to slow the minutes were credited, the room is bright, windows, beautiful desks, and friendly staff.
The photos are done OK, but all is gloss. Carnival does gloss and Matte, I like Carnivals pics better and they are better priced. But we are happy with the ones that we have.
The decor is very nice. Showers are hot and plenty of water. There is no juice on board, except breakfast, and you have only very watered down iced tea. We got a water bottle and filled them with juice in the day and used it through out the day! Our next NCL cruise we are going to bring ready mix powder to make our own drinks for the day time as we don’t want to always drink soda. I like juices. As compared to Carnival, I did like that they always had juice available in the buffet.
I liked that we left out of New York. The parking was perfect and organized. The luggage was delivered quickly to the cabin, and taken away quickly at night when they were taking it to be taken off the next day.
This cruise line has the potential to be a great cruise, and better than carnival, but because they are so driven by the sale of drinks, things got out of control. I do believe that had we left in a low season time, things would have been better, but they should have better prepared. There was no activities for adults after 10.30 pm, it was geared to drinks and college kids, such as the college frat party, and two rounds of bar hopping with your cruise director. This was not something most of the people with young families wanted to do. While there were a lot of college kids, there was even more people with families, which we enjoy. NCL needs to remember that while college kids dropped a bomb on booze, the families and older people will be the ones to give repeat business. On carnival there seemed to be more for all types of travelers.
On NCL, in the Atrium they had a group, that sang and played every night and we enjoyed sitting there very much. Actually many in our age group did this at it was not what college kids liked. ( the music) They were really good. The shops on board are nice, a little expensive, not so much variety, but you get what you need. You can buy duty free booze really cheap.
Public washrooms are very clean, hand sanitizers are every where, and staff do spend a lot of time cleaning. It is a clean ship for sure. Way cleaner than Carnival. This is important to me. The kiddie pool is amazing, and the kids seemed to have a lot of fun there. I didn’t send a kid to day care, but when we saw them through the day on the ship, they seemed to have a lot of fun. We did not use specialty restaurants, we don’t believe in paying more for food, others did, and they didn’t give it rave reviews and said food in main dinning room was just as good. We found the food in the main dinning room to be just fine. Was everything perfect, no it was not, but with so many on board, not every bite will be a favorite. You can send back something you do not like, and just try something else.
It was neat seeing the statue of liberty at night as we pulled away with the sun going down behind it. Space Kennedy centre was great, we rented a car there and it was a great thing to do. Went to Ron Johns after. Miami, was wonderful. We used the buss hopper, and went to south beach and bayside market. Private island was great, we went early, thankfully college kids were so drunk the night before they didn’t get up and to the island till later in the day, but as soon as they got there, they went right away to the bar...............and we all can guess the rest. Nassau was simply wonderful. I really enjoyed that. We took our own tour to Atlantis and that was nice. She also took us around the island, it was almost two hours and it was 15 dollars a person. Be prepared to negotiate. It started at 29$ with the first person! It was very pretty after wards walking around Nassau! I got some wonderful photos over there!
Getting off the ship was the opposite of getting on. The people needing to get their passports had to meet in a room, and a long wait and go out ten at a time and it took over two hours just to leave the ship, and another hour to clear customs. That is not really their fault as there were people sick at customs. Then we got the car and drove home!
Upon our return we did complain to NCL who gave us a real run around. The file took weeks and weeks to get any communication going. The girl in the end sent us some credit. She also made a comment they did not believe that alcohol was offered to my son. Well I flipped a lid, and then I finally got a supervisor. She listened to me and for quite some time I might add. She had empathy. I guess it also helped when she heard I had a lot of all of this on the video camera that is if any one knows me glued to my hand, with the digital in the other! Our credits were doubled and we will try them again.
So in short, that one area put a damper on things, but I have heard since then that they have better control. Maybe it is a learning process for them, many young people sailing out of New York now . They are very good in many ways and we will try them again.
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hstrybuf
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| Joined: | Sat Jun 17th, 2006 |
| Location: | Kansas |
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Posted: Tue Mar 27th, 2007 12:05 am | 2nd Post |
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| I certainly hope they DID learn something from this cruise. A person who isn't used to drinking can die from being overserved! Thanks dels!
____________________
Deb
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My pics: http://community.webshots.com/user/hstrycrsr
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