SKY Review with lots of pics - an experienced Carnival and RCCLer give NCL a try.

[ebandive]

Yeah, that was pretty funny! When I first read it, I actually thought you wrote "months" on purpose ... you know, as in it "feels" like I've been pregnant 22 months ... :D

 

:D

 

Thanks for sharing.. Cute couple and cute baby!! enjoyed your review. ;)

 

Thanks!

[searoses]

your passport tiff cracked me up. i've been married for 42 yrs to a wonderful man. i still can not explain the boneheaded things he does sometimes. does he not remember what i'm like when i'm right and i know it?? that part of marriage never ends!! lovely pics. too bad it was too rough for fish.

[scorp111]

Thanks for the excellent review and pictures!

 

Sorry to hear of the toilet issues, and how it was not handled effectively. Luckily, I have not experienced any issue of magnitude on NCL, Carnival, or Disney during my cruises.

 

We are doing the Sky 4 day in two weeks, so this really has me excited. I just realized (or remembered) due to your pictures that I have been to GSC before, way back on the SS Norway.

[Medtech2]

So... we eat dinner. Head back to the room. Bathroom still does not work. It has now been about 6 hours. DH goes up to the desk this time. Still the same answer. "We know. Just wait." Ok... Hmmm... they tell us to use the bathroom on deck 7 aft. (Our room is deck 8 aft). Alright, that will work. We go there. The bathroom is out of order and the toilets near overflowing. Ummm... so nope, that won't work.

 

We take a break and watch the sunset. Which was stunning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

DH goes this time to the desk. They advise us to use either the bathroom on Deck 11 FWD or Deck 6 Mid. So that works... for now. We are both kind of annoyed at this point. It has now been close to 8 hours without a bathroom. We understood that they were working on it. But a simple "We are so sorry for the inconvenience - here are a couple drink coupons, or complimentary reservation to a specialty restaurant, or SOMETHING" would have gone a long way for us. We are easy to please and don't often to complain... which is perhaps why they turned us away again and again. We've never had something like this happen on another cruiseline... so not sure how they would have handled it. I know at a recent hotel stay our room was not ready on time... so without our even asking we received a $50 certificate to dine in their restaurant. A working bathroom is sort of a basic expectation of a payed for room. I understand it was likely not their fault and that some silly passenger probably flushed something they weren't supposed to... but really. The fact that they offered nothing and weren't even all that concerned just resonated poorly with us.

 

So we picked a spot in the atrium and read for a good long while. We had been going to bed by 10pm or so this entire trip, but didn't want to go to bed with a still not-working bathroom, so we waited it out until 11:00. Still the toilet would not flush. At this point I started crying. Without a doubt, I will have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. And I was expected to truck across the ship. Just, really, not acceptable. So, together, DH and I went up to the customer service desk. It's now been close to 11 hours with a stinky, not working toilet. And again, we were turned away with an optimistic "the bathroom on deck 11 Fwd will be available for you to use." Really. You want me to go up 3 decks and all the way from Aft to Fwd just to pee in the middle of the night? And quite honestly, if I have digestive issues, I will not make it that far. So then DH got mad. and explained the Crohn's - and that it was just unacceptable that they thought that a reasonable solution. So they got the manager. And offered us to use the bathroom of an empty room about 8 doors down from ours. And we were instructed 3 separate times that we were to ONLY use the toilet in that room. Fine. It worked. But still... really... DH could have used a drink, and I definitely could have used a decent steak dinner lol. So that was that. We used the other stateroom's bathroom that night. And, no, it wasn't the end of the world. But, being our first experience with NCL, we were NOT impressed. And, really, we are easy to please, and a little compensation would have gone a long ways.

 

That's it. Rant over. But for this reason, we will not sail again on the Sky. We may try a newer, larger NCL ship. But it will not be our first choice. Or our second.

 

Deciding not to go to bed angry, we headed up to the white hot party and ended up staying up past midnight. We just watched, but it was a great party!

I have not finished reading yet but I cannot understand why they would not move you to the empty stateroom that had a working bathroom!

 

If I was at customer service and saw a pregnant woman with Crohn's That would have been my first thought!

 

I am SO sorry you had to deal with this but so far it sounds like y'all were coping really well...

[Partyatsea]

Nice review, thanks for taking the time to post. The desk should have remedied your problem sooner. We loved the Sky but unfortunately the rising airfare has made it a non bargain for us lately.

 

Congrats on the soon to be. It's great cruisin with the kids, awesome memories you'll never forget.

[DevCruise]

[quote name='P&Lcruising'][SIZE=3][COLOR=blue]Nice review, thanks for taking the time to post. The desk should have remedied your problem sooner. We loved the Sky but unfortunately the rising airfare has made it a non bargain for us lately.[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[/quote]

Not sure where you're coming from or how many people, but from Norfolk, Virginia, I got tickets at the end of August for January for $521 for two people.

Looking forward to meeting the Sky..:)

[weltek]

Thanks for sharing. I feel bad about your toilet issue! You should've received compensation of some sort for the inconvenience. I don't always feel like it must be given for any little inconvenience, but this was pretty major. You showed great grace in your dealing with it.

FWIW, the Sky has had my least favorite food of all NCL ships I've sailed. The execution just wasn't great. The service was also pretty average compared to our longer sailings on other NCL ships.

[Cubechick]

[quote name='Medtech2']I have not finished reading yet but I cannot understand why they would not move you to the empty stateroom that had a working bathroom!

If I was at customer service and saw a pregnant woman with Crohn's That would have been my first thought!

I am SO sorry you had to deal with this but so far it sounds like y'all were coping really well...[/quote]

My thought exactly!

Thank you for sharing your experience. I thought our cruise on the Sky was "okay", but I think, for whatever reason, they don't give the attention to detail on the short cruises that they do the longer ones.

We're very much looking forward to our 7-day on the Epic next month!

[ebandive]

Thanks for the continued responses everyone! I'm glad to share my experience. The toilet issue has been pretty much forgotten by now... so now my thoughts keep being drawn to a future cruise with two little boys. Hope they start releasing the itineraries for January 2015 soon so I can seriously start planning! :D

[Nalagh]

[quote name='ebandive']Thanks for the continued responses everyone! I'm glad to share my experience. The toilet issue has been pretty much forgotten by now... so now my thoughts keep being drawn to a future cruise with two little boys. Hope they start releasing the itineraries for January 2015 soon so I can seriously start planning! :D[/quote]

What a great attitude! At 22 weeks along and I did not have a bathroom to use, I may not have showed as much class you did! I may even would have stalked the HD until he gave us a fully functional cabin like the one I had paid for.:p

I loved looking at you pictures, and reading your well written review. Thanks for taking the time to share your adventure with us.

BTW, you have a beautiful little boy! All the best to you and your 3rd trimester!

Cherie

[ebandive]

[quote name='Nalagh']What a great attitude! At 22 weeks along and I did not have a bathroom to use, I may not have showed as much class you did! I may even would have stalked the HD until he gave us a fully functional cabin like the one I had paid for.:p

I loved looking at you pictures, and reading your well written review. Thanks for taking the time to share your adventure with us.

BTW, you have a beautiful little boy! All the best to you and your 3rd trimester!

Cherie[/QUOTE]

Thanks so much! :)

[my_crib_too]

Great review and pictures.

The toilet issue would certainly turn me off to NCL. Doesn't sound like the food was to your liking either. :( Hope you can find a cruise line more to your liking.

bruce...

[petesweet]

[quote name='SuiteCruiser']I'm sorry you went through this, it would be incredibly frustrating!

I know you are aware that they were doing what they could, and under the circumstances it sounds like there wasn't anything they could do about it other than the repairs they were working on. [/quote]

[SIZE=4]Indeed they could have done something! If the bathroom worked a few doors down, they could have moved the couple to that room--not made them walk down there to use the bathroom (and ONLY the bathroom!).[/SIZE]
[SIZE=4][/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]I am very easy to please also, and hardly ever complain about anything, but this is totally unacceptable when another cabin is available.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=4][/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]Kathy[/SIZE]

[ebandive]

[quote name='my_crib_too']Great review and pictures.

The toilet issue would certainly turn me off to NCL. Doesn't sound like the food was to your liking either. :( Hope you can find a cruise line more to your liking.

bruce...[/QUOTE]

[quote name='petesweet'][SIZE=4]Indeed they could have done something! If the bathroom worked a few doors down, they could have moved the couple to that room--not made them walk down there to use the bathroom (and ONLY the bathroom!).[/SIZE]
[SIZE=4][/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]I am very easy to please also, and hardly ever complain about anything, but this is totally unacceptable when another cabin is available.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=4][/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]Kathy[/SIZE][/QUOTE]

Thanks for the comments. We were very happy cruising with Carnival and also Royal. I really do think we'd be happy with NCL too as long as it is on a newer ship with hopefully better service and entertainment.

Just talked to DH about it, and we may take a pp's advise and write NCL a letter anyway... just to see what comes of it. Maybe they can do something to convince us to give NCL another try. :p

[Nalagh]

[quote name='ebandive']Thanks for the comments. We were very happy cruising with Carnival and also Royal. I really do think we'd be happy with NCL too as long as it is on a newer ship with hopefully better service and entertainment.

Just talked to DH about it, and we may take a pp's advise and write NCL a letter anyway... just to see what comes of it. Maybe they can do something to convince us to give NCL another try. :p[/quote]

I have a lot of faith in NCL that they will make it right. You paid for a full cabin, not 3/4. They had a room that you could have moved to, but refused to do so. That seems unfair to me. To expext you at 22 weeks pregnant to keep walking long distances to use a bathroom is ludicrious. Like I said earlier, I would have acted with a bit less class and said, "Hello people...baby sitting on my bladder here!"

Seriously though, I believe in NCL. I love NCL, but I have never sailed on the Sky. I think you will be much happier on a Jewel class ship or the Epic. We have never experienced anything like that, and if we had I am sure any of the HD's on any other ship would have delt with it in a much better way.

Best of luck to you, and I am proud of you for pursuing the issue further! You just might change the way the situation is handled in the future with another pax.

Cherie

Cherie

[petesweet]

[quote name='ebandive']Thanks for the comments. We were very happy cruising with Carnival and also Royal. I really do think we'd be happy with NCL too as long as it is on a newer ship with hopefully better service and entertainment.

Just talked to DH about it, and we may take a pp's advise and write NCL a letter anyway... just to see what comes of it. Maybe they can do something to convince us to give NCL another try. :p[/quote]
[SIZE=4]Good idea. Now we're ALL mad at NCL. Come back and let us know what happens. Surely they will appreciate your lovely attitude.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=4]Happy sails.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=4]Kathy[/SIZE]

[Susie51]

Thank you for posting so many pics.

[chel2thec]

Ahh. I loved your review so much that I'm now going back and reading your other reviews!! NCL is my favorite - I am scared to try any other cruise lines because I've had such great experiences with NCL, but can't say I'd ever want to cruise with them again if I'd had your experience. Customer service is so important to me. We're taking a small cruise (4 days - we really like 7-10) in November to celebrate my graduation of graduate school (if all goes as planned, of course ;)). I related to a lot of what you wrote. I wish you the best of luck with the rest of your pregnancy!

[Jaylasmom]

[SIZE="4"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Verdana"][COLOR="Indigo"]Thanks so much for posting this review. It was great to read and I loved looking at all your pics. I'm very sorry about the bathroom problem too. I would've been so upset too! We are going on the Norwegian sky in November so I'm super excited. Just hope we have no issues with the toilet and hope the food is decent! I've only been on Holland America before this and loved it so am nervous to try another cruise line.[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/SIZE]

[ebandive]

Thanks for the nice comments! Hope you all have great future cruises! :)

[BettyPC]

Thanks for posting a great review - congrats on your new arrival & you cute little guy!!