aliciag640

No, not a rookie cruiser. Had been on NCL before, and had 4 NCL cruises booked ahead of this one, and expected to at least get ABC and CBS on the ships like other cruise lines have. However, NCL's new corporate leadership is penny pinching and only signed up for NBC, and MSNBC and what they call "channel 60" where they select what sporting events to broadcast. They did broadcast NFL on Thanksgiving day, but missed out on a big business opportunity to charge admission to watch parties on Rivarly weekend. There were hundreds of civilized college grads who would have paid big $ to watch their alma maters play on Nov 26th. Penny wise and pound foolish.

We were on the Norwegian Jade over Thanksgiving 2016. Enjoyed food, fitness center, and ports (although would have liked more time in Belize so there would be time to visit mainland), but last day at sea "jaded" our trip. Why? NCL refuses to pay for NCAA broadcasts, but broadcasts European sports 24/7. Big Problem was that the Saturday after Thanksgiving (Rivalry Weekend) was our sea day and NCL crew harrassed anyone trying to set up private NCAA football viewing parties (Ohio State-Michigan, Alabama-Auburn, Florida-FSU). They would not listen to any arguments that the games were on Broadcast Networks (CBS, ABC). During the last game, the Cruise Director pulled the plug in the middle of the 2nd quarter. The party of 75+ was trying to watch UF-FSU on a tiny laptop screen. He accused a group of passionate and inebriated fans of misappropriating NCL equipment. This resulted in a brawl. NCL could have made piles of money if they charged passengers for "pay per view" for those games. Fans would have paid whatever it cost. There wasn't enough bandwidth on ship for everyone to stream the games, fans had to share.