WakeView4Us

On 4/1/2024 at 5:13 PM, blackwing said:

Or have they always been, on the whole, like this?  Some of our early cruising experiences were on Carnival.  When we went on our first NCL 10 years ago, I had thought at the time that the Norwegian passenger on the whole was a bit more refined than the stereotype of the Carnival passenger.  There were formal nights, and passengers dressing up in suits and gowns was the norm and not the exception.  I know that NCL bills itself as a cruise line for families.  But I still want to believe that the passengers overall are very classy.

 

And then there were some incidents I witnessed last week on Getaway:

 

At the Mixx bar, an older lady turns to a middle aged man of Asian descent standing next to her.  He is waiting to order his drink.  She says to him very slowly and loudly, "EXCUSE ME".  He says "Yes, hello?"  She says "Oh good, you DO speak English.  I was worried."

 

Man walking in late to an art auction, making a beeline to a waitress at the front of room collecting empty champagne (prosecco) glasses.  Auctioneer is talking but the man just loudly says the the waitress "WHERE IS THE CHAMPAGNE".  I'm assuming he didn't have the bar package!

 

I walked into an elevator, where a man in his early 20s is chatting with a man of about 40 who is wearing a turban.  20 year old says "what country are you from".  40 year old (who did have a thick accent) says without missing a beat "United States of America".  20 year old gives this dumbfounded look and says "oh.  I meant..."  40 year old says "oh you mean originally?  India."  20 year old says "How is it?"  40 year old says "I wouldn't know.  I've only been there 4 times in the past 20 years."  Meanwhile, the 40 year old's 7-ish year old daughter just keeps repeating "it's crazy there, it's crazy".  I left the elevator before hearing the resolution of this conversation.

 

The best was the last night when I thought I was going to witness a fistfight.  There was a long line of people without reservations trying to get into the Tropicana.  The popular piano player Louis Razon was playing there all night.  One man was waiting in line and I think some little kids who were running around all over the crowded space must have bumped him.  He must have said something because the next thing I know, I hear shouting.  A woman is in his face yelling something like "Excuse me?  You do not get to talk to me like that."  There's some back and forth and she says "You are not allowed to tell me how I should parent my children."  Then her husband gets up and gets in the guys face and says to him something like "You need to back away.  You need to leave and sit down".  The parents go and sit on some bench.  The man (who wasn't talking loudly) must have been talking to the people he was in line with because all of a sudden I hear the woman yelling "excuse me!  I can hear you talking."  I went to the bathroom and when I came back, the parents were gone.  I don't know if they got seated or left.

 

I should not be surprised at all by any of these incidents, I think perhaps the answer is that NCL passengers are a slice of America, just like everybody else.

I don't think is anywhere limited to NCL, my mom and I were on the Carnival Magic last year where the guy hit a passenger over the head with his bar glass because the other guy asked him to be quiet during the show in the theater.

Quite honestly we have been cruising for a while and I noticed a big change in passenger attitudes when cruiselines started offering unlimited drink packages..

We fly in the day before boarding the Sprit and are staying in Waikiki. Looking for excursion ideas for a tour with the lighthouse, points of interest and maybe a round-trip of the island. 

We won't have a car. 

Most things I have seen get us back at 6pm when our boarding is 430. 

Any help appreciated.  

13 hours ago, zqvol said:

Best to ask this in the Hawaii port of call board

 

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/37-hawaii/

Tried previously but will try again

We are flying in the day before boarding the spirit in Honolulu and am looking for any recommendations for a private island tour.

We see some online but most get back around 6 pm or so and our boarding is at 430. 

Neither of us have been to Hawaii before (This is state 50 for me) and would like to see as much of the island as we can while making our check-in time. 

I have heard the traffic is bad and want to leave the driving to a  local.

Any ideas appreciated!

I was on the Magic in mid October and never got a post cruise survey. Does Carnival not send these any more?

27 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

To clarify, @basktchic is not cancelling based on my experiences. If you read the entire thread, which this poster initiated, they had their own experiences on the Star.  

Correct,  we cancelled Viva because of the continued decline in quality and service with the Star being the final straw.

On 7/29/2023 at 10:53 AM, YVRteacher said:

@basktchic

I want to apologize for doubting you and how bad things are on the Star.

 

I’m on board now (day 7/23) and things aren’t as bad as you wrote…

 

They are much, much worse!

 

Nothing could have prepared me for the awful food and dining experiences, the overcrowding, the lack of decent activities and the overall shipboard experience. 
 

Iceland was spectacular. We arrive in Longyearbyen tomorrow. Normally I love sea days. Now I’m counting the seconds until we arrive at the next port and I can get off the ship.

Sorry to hear your experience was as bad if not worse than ours. It's just disappointing to see how far NCL has fallen since lifting restrictions from Covid. We have seen a steady decline to the point that we cancelled our February cruise in Viva. 

On 6/23/2023 at 9:31 PM, JustAllie said:

I sailed on the Star May 31-June 12 from Southampton to Tomsø. Overall we had a great experience. Our only significant issues were:

 

• Tender ports were increased from 1 to 5 with no warning before the cruise. They MUST have known about this well before sailing. This substantially affected my disabled friends' experience, because they could not disembark at some ports.  
• The shore excursion descriptions were messed up and clearly wrong sometimes. Again this made it difficult for my disabled friends to pick excursions that worked for them, because the details about walking distance etc. were not correct. 
• We had one bad experience with a server in one of the main dining rooms. We spoke to the server's superiors and the issue was addressed to our satisfaction. We never saw that server again, so he may have been reassigned after multiple complaints. 
• We ran out of hand soap in our cabin and the room steward said they didn't have any to replace it. After we complained, he found a suitable substitute from somewhere and we no longer had to wash our hands in shampoo. 🙂 

 

Everything else was great as far as we were concerned. We barely had the energy to attend the evening entertainment, we only had one sea day so who knows what the daytime activities were, and we don't expect much of the shops, art shows, etc.

 

We especially enjoyed the Platinum behind-the-scenes tour, as this was our first cruise as Platinum members where it was actually offered. Our tour ran quite long, so we missed the Platinum wine tasting, but it was worth it to see the rest of the tour of the backstage theater, laundry, and galley areas. 

 

We had some lovely meals at Cagney's, Le Bistro, La Cucina, Ginza, and the Sushi Bar. We also very much enjoyed our meals at Versailles main dining room and at O'Sheehans. I had a few long waits at some of the bars -- you have to be assertive sometimes to get the attention of the bartenders. My absolute favorite bar was Proof Whiskey Bar, which also treated me well even when they were busy. I also had good service at Spice H2O, but that bar was never really busy on this cruise. 

 

Anyway we had no issues with food or general quality of service with rare exceptions. The Shore Excursions desk needed to up their game, and the communication about docked vs. tender ports has to improve. Scotland and Norway are beautiful, definitely get the fish soup wherever you eat in Norway. Have a great time on your cruises, everyone! 

Glad you were able to get some perks

 Even as Sapphire, we couldn't get into the tour or the dinner with officers because there were , "a lot of ambassador level guests" inboard is what we were told. 

On 6/23/2023 at 4:41 PM, milolii said:

Thanks for your review.  We are looking at a similar cruise for 2024.  So we are kinda following some of this years cruises. Did you visit all the planned ports?   Were any of the ports cancelled?  Princess(also looking at them) had several ports cancelled, some before; and some during the cruise. 

We made all ports and most early arrival!

10 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

I’ll be on the Star for 23 days in July and August this year for a B2B and will be writing a live review. We are scheduled to go to Longyearbyen and I have two amazing excursions booked through Hurtigruten. I will NOT be writing about what I heard other people say

Fair enough. 90% of what I posted was our experience. I would rather make people aware than not. 

14 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Fun fact, we just booked a RT out of Reykjavik to Tromso and back today on the Star starting the end of May 2025, as we really want to see Longyearbyen and cruise around Svalbard. If I might ask, how was your visit to Longyearbyen and cruising around up there? Did you see any wildlife? 

We saw lots of reindeer n Longyearbyen. I highly recommend just hiring a taxi there for a tour of the seed library location and the area. Note that you cannot go outside the main town area without a tour or a rifle because of Polar bears. 

If you want a more active excursions, try https://hurtigrutensvalbard.com/no/aktiviteter

They had a lot of excursions that were relatively inexpensive and offered a good variety!

Crusing.to and from Svalbard was smoothe as glass...no rocking at all!

42 minutes ago, FLAHAM said:

Darn right.  I had a thoroughly enjoyable Caribbean cruise on the Prima in February.

You can see this thread on more folks who weren't happy with Prima

1 hour ago, DCGuy64 said:

Thank you! I really appreciate the tips on Tromsø. Greetings from Burke, VA, just a bit east of Front Royal (where I have many good friends!). 

Used to live off Pohick, so hello neighbor!

31 minutes ago, FLAHAM said:

Darn right.  I had a thoroughly enjoyable Caribbean cruise on the Prima in February.

I'm glad you did, we did not on Stat and even Epic in December was downhill from prior NCL experience. We had more than one person on Star relay stories of poor prima experiences. 

2 hours ago, Agent999 said:

 

Good that you mentioned the above. It is important on Cruise Critic to point out that other people agree with your complaint. It lets people know your complaint is legit.

 

 

Not sure if this is a complaint. When a venue is crowded it is because a lot of people WANT to be there, and people tend not to crowd bad things.

 

 

Hmmm. I don't suppose that you have a Freestyle Daily from one of the sea days? I'd like to personally see one that only lists 4 trivia competitions and nothing else.

 

 

As an aside, I notice that you use "they and them" when talking about NCL. As a stockholder, you are an owner of the company, doesn't matter if you own 80% or 1/80th of a percent, you are still an owner. You should be using "we" when referring to NCL instead of "they".

Venues were crowded, it seemed every time,because there were only a few venues open. When it is dinnertime and you only have 1 MDR open, the buffet and other MDR are going to be crowded. We also noticed that the specialty restaurants were empty most nights. 

I don't consider a pay for it wine and chocolate tasting, and a walking better  "seminar" where the spa tries to sell you expensive shoe inserts to be viable options for keeping occupied on sea days. It was either those options or endless trivia. I didn't keep any of the dailies and quite honestly we hardly looked at them because while paid wifi didn't seem to work well, the NCL app did for the lost part. 

Amd yes, i say they and them versus we because while I own stock, I do not make decisions on how the ships are run. The best I can do is provide feedback, which was not solicited on this cruse. The ever present vacation hero forms were nowhere on this ship and they never mentioned a post cruise survey. 

I am merely pointing out our experience and what others told is of their experience on the same cruise. 

1 hour ago, Asawi said:

I cannot comment on the ship stuff since I haven't been on Star yet. But I'd like to comment on land prices: Iceland and Norway are EXPENSIVE countries! Yes, NCL makes them even more expensive, but still... I live in Sweden, near the Norwegian border, and you wouldn't believe the number of Norwegians we have coming over just to shop food and what have you whenever there's a long weekend or something like that. And it's not like Sweden is a particularly "budget friendly" country either.

I do agree that som "excursions" are kind of, for lack of a better word, ridicilous. You do need to read up and use common sense (as it seems like you did when NOT doing the NCL "walking tours").

Entertainment... Did you see Band on the run? If so, how was it?

We saw band on the run...it was OK but not something o would see again. It was either see the show or listen to the 3 violins in the atrium for the 3rd or 4th time. 

1 hour ago, DCGuy64 said:

Thanks for your review. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy your cruise. I have had so-so experiences at O'Sheehan's for breakfast sometimes. I've had blah scrambled eggs but also pretty good breakfast sandwiches. Question: did you speak with your steward about the bathroom and overall cleaning issues? If you did, and he didn't improve, I'd mention it on your post-cruise survey. Otherwise, the steward can't fix things if you don't mention them. We've ALWAYS (on every cruise line, not just NCL) spoken up to the steward if things weren't right and they were ALWAYS fixed. Other food issues are hard to gauge since food is such a subjective thing. Curious about Teppanyaki, our beef (well, I should say mine, since my wife doesn't eat meat) was very good on our December Epic cruise. Finally, you probably know that Iceland is extremely expensive. It's one of the reasons a number of Icelandic airlines offer cheap flights from the US, because prices are so high. Still, I am sorry you didn't enjoy the cruise. How was Tromso, BTW? I'm thinking of booking an NCL cruise to Norway.

We love Tromsø!  This was our second time. I highly recommend Blue Puffin's Tromsø tour

 They also do Honningsvag which we have done with them as well. Always a great time with Monika or Sebastian!

The excursions through NCL for Norway were also much more expensive than Italy and Spain for even walking tours you could do on your own.

We had spoken up several times about food and the room to no avail. 

Just off the Star after an 11 day from Tromso to Reykjavik and this has to be the worst NCL experience in over 20 with the line.

Food in MDR amd buffet - mediocre at best, cold and off tasting at times as well

Food in specialty- teppanyaki no longer uses filet mignon but a cheaper cut of beef, cagneys was OK but we heard many other folks who got steak that was overcooked, my husband ands tuna tartare was of very low quality. Osheehans was also quite bad...eggs were powdered, bacon was either almost raw or so overdone it crumbled immediately and you would only receive about 5 small pieces of potato cubes with breakfast and every time we ordered toast or a bagel, they were burned

Entertainment - the violinist was good and Paradis was decent, everything else was high school quality

Shopping on board - very little selection and the usual effy sales were just meh

Venues- from Food to entertainment to shopping were all crowded all the time. The MDR was always asking for people to share tables and they even had a lomg queue just to get to the hostess one day at lunch. 

Cabin service is down to once a say and while our steward was nice and did freshen up every day, our bathroom was barely wiped down and never smelled like it had been cleaned..we did not leave a mess but I would have expected more thorough cleaning

Wifi was patchy at best and when it did work, it was extremely slow

Sea days would have about 4 trivia competitions but nothing else. 

Excursions were beyond expensive...averaging 249 to over 400 pp at each port with a few excursions between 5 to 700

In 3 ports they tried to get people on "shuttles" to town for $20 per.person when were city busses that were free or very inexpensive. In Akureyri, they had a city walking tour for 149pp that went to the city museum, a church (from.the outside) a.d a botanical garden (which was free). We did this on our own and saved $300..these are just a few examples of the price gauging that NCL now does. 

We heard more 2 or 3 families say never NCL again and a stock.holder and NCL fan, I can agree with their sentiment

We were on Epic.last December and noticed a significant decrease in quality and service and I am sad to see this is only getting worse..we have a cruise on Viva booked in February which we are seriously considering canceling. 

We were on this cruise as well. The service was good (with 1 exception in Taste at breakfast) although were heard from more than one group from the haven that their service was less than stellar. Illusionist was meh IMHO but the singer was good (Alex Yost). Chris Bliss (comic) was good but the other comic was just not funny and definitely not prepared to be on stage. 

The few times that were sunny and not too rough for seas would have been good to be by or in the pool but I never saw the pool open and multiple days had crew working on up the tiling and painting the inside of the pool. Spas seemed to be filled with the few little ones on board. 

I think most were a little miffed that Bermuda was cancelled the evening before arrival when the CD indicated they had known for a few hours (and probably much longer). 

For the ship, considering she was just refreshed in 2020, I don't know why there was so much rust on the balconies, a lot of varnished railing in poor condition and no usb charging.  

I was on Epic in 2010 and 2011 and think this latest experience will be my last on her. Jade, Jewel and the newer ships outshine Epic. 

On 9/4/2022 at 5:22 PM, ChiefMateJRK said:

I have no problem with ArriveCan, it's the danged testing that I want to go away.

ArriveCan and preembarkation testing are dropping Sept 30

We are on the Jewel in a few days and looking for pricing for a womens cut and highlights.

Thanks in advance

5 hours ago, Subman738 said:

I got off of the Oasis on the 27th of March and definitely noticed a staffing issue. The Ultimate Abyss, Merry go round, rock wall and other activities seemed to have very limited operating hours so it was hard to take advantage of them. Loved the ship, just thought there seemed to have a bit of staffing issue. 

With almost full passenger capacity and about 60% crew on board it is understandable. The crew currently dont get time off and of course cannot leave the ship even if they did get time off. 

1 hour ago, SWACruising said:

 

When we were on Oasis 3 weeks ago, a performance was delayed due to issues with the moveable platforms on the stage. The large middle stage that pops up, wouldn't retract. That obviously messes with choreography. Could be that, could be Covid, could be other. 

they replaced Cats with the sets on the stage and some of the performers from the show singing their favorite songs...it was meh...we left to go enjoy the rest of the ship. I heard they were able to actually put on one performance later in the cruise and then it was back to "technical issues". Who knows. the rest of the ship was enough to keep us entertained and the ice and water shows were spectacular. the Comics and Magician were also really good. 

7 hours ago, LuCruise said:

Interested in OP's reason for ship preference too.  Thanks for the feedback.  Going on Oasis for the first time in March.

 

SO far we've been on a couple Oasis class ships, Anthem, Freedom and most Voyager class ships.

 

Symphony makes 1st place.

Anthem makes 2nd place.

 

They are very different though and can see one liking one and not the other.

I posted a detail description of why Anthem was a dud for us. 

5 hours ago, lgonquin said:

We were on this sailing and the week prior. It was mentioned during the Captains Q&A that they were short handed. But did not give specifics. 
 

Despite that, service was good. MDR was typical chaos that we’ve seen for several years. Wait staff busting @$$ to get things done.
 

Specialty restaurants were spot on. No issues. 
 

Shows all good. Except for (wait for it…..) 

Cats. They cancelled mid week due to “technical difficulties”. We interpreted that as COVID related. 
 

Escape room was open. 
 

Don’t know about Laser Tag. 
 

Bar staff seemed a bit stressed in some instances, but that was more at the bar. Wait staff was strong and timely. 
 

Great cruise. 

I agree...the dining room staff busted a@@ all week and they announced they have been awarded best in the fleet for 3 months now. I will also say that the windjammer staff and cabin stewards were also working very hard. We heard from more than 1 staff member that they arent getting time off and cannot currently get off the ship either. 

The zip line, flowrider, ultimate abyss and ice rink were all open. 

I agree on Cats as well...i think "technical difficulties" = cast member with covid