jmknife

I am off the boar now and had a very pleasant cruise. For about half the price of Celebrity, I had a cruise that was about half as luxurious as Celebrity. All in all, a good value and perfectly acceptable when the ports are the focus and not the ship. I would not take NCL over Celebrity for a transpacific cruise with lots of sea days, but I would cruise on NCL again if the itinerary was correct.

The Garden Cafe had the basics like bread, but maybe only one or two kinds instead of several. For instance, they only had plain bagels. I didn’t see any selection of cheeses other than some slices for sandwiches. They had several hot food options, but they tended to be casserole type options (beef stew) and we’re generally unappealing. There was plenty to eat, but your options within a food type were limited. In my opinion, which is probably wrong, if it was expensive or hard to prepare, it wasn’t on the buffet.

Sorry about the cruise director and other personnel, I haven’t been onboard enough to tell. With a different island every day, the boat is more like a hotel for us than a cruise ship. cabin stewards and wait people in the restaurant have been wonderful. My preference is to not have a different waiter each night, but that is just me. I like developing a little bit of a relationship with them. Food has been fine, but the garden restaurant choices have been a little limited. To be fair, I am comparing NCL to my last cruise on Oceania - completely different classes. one negative. We were brusquely TOLD to leave our table in the Garden restaurant because they needed to clean it. We were close to closing time for the morning, but I think it would have been better if they had brought a couple of trays over and offered to move us to the stern of the ship. overall, for the money, I am very pleased. Since the ship isn’t really the destination on this cruise, it was great.

Not complaining, but Does anyone know if Jade sailed with a partial load of passengers? Restaurant was empty last night at 8:00. Breakfast crowd was also absent this morning. Eating breakfast in the Sun on the stern of the ship at 8:30 with a 10 AM arrival time and empty seats outnumber filled ones by a large margin. I on a ghost cruise? Has everyone need isolated?