cavok

Many ferries to the Balearic islands (most truck traffic runs via here as the distances are short). 

https://www.gnv.it/en/ports/spain/barcelona

We also got on board, in "Steerage" a few classes and decks below... Still a family balcony, though. 

Agree that this Haven room looks awesome and modern! Our upgrade bid unfortunately didn't get called upon 😂

Sadly, our impression of the ship so far is more so/so from an average level paying customer's point of view... 

And we don't even dislike the often critizized shower/wc/sink setup in the room. That's different, but we like it. 

The room is rather dusty/not very thoroughly cleaned, has little and stupidly thought out storage and in general feels cramped over what we are used to (Mainly TUI Mein Schiff and Celebrity). 

Let's see how our impression evolves over the next few days. 

Balcony showing rust everywhere, balcony door handle almost falls off and more wear and tear can be seen around ship. Also, IT/infoscreens are not up to today's standard, stateroom TV is small and slow, big screen with info about officers near guest services is not touch etc... 

Then the whole VAT story is in full swing. "Dear valued customer" letter at checkin, and bartenders are keen to tell you that you only pay tax, while presenting a slip over big and bold $36 or whatever (which you don't have to sign) just to show the VAT. quite confusing. As a Swiss and not part of the E. U. we might even try to reclaim just for the fun of it and principle 😜

Gotta read up on that, they even mention it in the letter. 

Checkin was a relative breeze around 11ish, but we saw queues get much longer, later in the afternoon.

Overall, generally pleasant experience.

Also parking is close to perfect and quite affordable for the length of the cruise. 

Cruise director and assistant cruise director are somewhat hard to understand, and this from a non-native speaker with a lot of leniency towards less than perfect pronounciation... 

Guess they give them somewhere a chance to try out *LOL*

Also, lots of french speakers / canadian french pax. And rather unusual, even french announcements on board, at least for the safety stuff (from a guy who actually speaks perfect French) ...

Initial impression of crew otherwise is quite positive.

Upcharge stuff is generally very expensive, not limited to shore excursions. Got for instance stuck with the kids in the arcade hall (didn't spend any but they wouldn't leave and mistreat the buttons for a bit), nothing much below 2$, a "pass" for the cruise going for something like 175$ and not even applicable to all machines?! Yeah right. 

Starbucks much the same, not even the basic of the basics coffe is "free at sea" *lol*

Expected it to be much that way, but considering NCL isn't exactly cheap in the first place, either customers are just very happy to spend big time or they are really trying to squeeze... 

And what they consider "premium" and what not really comes down to the fine print and less to common sense 🤣

But it's nice to be on another ship and we'll sure enjoy the next almost two weeks! 

@graphicguy

Since you took great care to hide any personal information in your email excerpts, you may want to remove the tiny "Print Luggage Tags Here" Link as it gives away the stateroom #...

Have a great trip!

Just checked in our family of four 🙂

What a disaster that NCL checkin website is for our group!

Had to watch the same youtube movie 4 times, before it let me set the tickbox each time.

Had to enter the exact same full address details etc... 4 times separately (no function to copy the primary address)

Had to prepare pictures of the faces (NCL really lets you do the work...) of which, all 3 other than the lead person got a "could not be validated" and so on...

As if a 3year old is going to watch that movie *LOL*

The only aspect which went easy was the credit card, go figure...

Not impressed.

Different cultures, you bet 😉

Kids club doesn't quite cut it for this use case. Little one will be 2 weeks short of 3yrs, which often is the magic cut-off age being applied to the exact day. Let's see how NCL policy turns out.

Then they typically close at like 2100.

And last but not least, it would imply both kids wanting to spend time there, something we'll only see once we are onboard. Add in some potential language barriers. I'm sure we'll enjoy ourselves, irrespective of how we can organize.

On all the cruises with our german friends (AIDA, TUI) we had the possibility to reserve a babyphone for free, or at a small flat rate.

That worked awesome. Via a dedicated part of the ship WIFI. Essentially a camera that could be set up in the stateroom and a paired mobile device which gave audio and limited video access to it.

Now, our kids are 6 and 3, so not exactly babies any more. Nonetheless, we always enjoy taking them to the buffet at like 6p.m., after which they go to bed, listening to fairy tales etc... while they let us go for a nice and relaxed dinner for two. Works perfectly well 🙂

Now, we're obviously wondering whether NCL offers something similar?

I read about the cruise norwegian app offering a flat messenger and phone package? However, i can't find any info about the cost and its limitations? Has someone used this the way we imagine? Will it allow to setup a permanent call between a device in the cabin and a mobile device? Or will that call drop real easily?

We'll be in port overnight at 3 locations, where landside mobile access might work, however would prefer a local to the ship solution of course...

Thanks for further information.

We'll be following as we're going to be on the same cruise... 

Fare was really good compared to similar cruises in the same timeframe and it fits perfectly within our fall school holidays. 

Another big bonus was that we can drive to Marseilles from Switzerland and park the car for the duration in a secure parking right at the port. Flying for a family of 4 this summer in Europe can otherwise be unreasonably expensive.

We know our way around all ports and the region, in case you need any local knowledge... 

regards

cavok

Interesting review from another perspective, thank you! 

Please note that AIDA, as you experienced, is really quite different on many levels. For some reason (i believe cleverly placed tv "documentaries" and other PR) they have managed to occupy the term cruising = AIDA in the german market, despite many other interesting choices... In reality, german, or rather german speaking (which includes austria, switzerland and reaches even further into italy, netherlands, luxemburg and so on) cruising is maybe 50% AIDA at most... 

For instance their buffet-heavy dining concept is absolutely not every germans' cup of tea. And there is also a slight tendency away from buffet-only on their newer ships compared to the older ones. 

As commented above by @CruiseMH the passenger to space, as well as the crew to passenger ratio is notoriously on the poor side. (Admittedly, they also seem to have somewhat more "german" staff and crew with likely corresponding salaries) compared to other lines. 

Combined with discount marketing through sometimes weird sales channels like ALDI supermarkets, they seem to attract somewhat less affluent and obnoxiously pennywise folks, too... 

When looking for more traditional service like waited tables for dinner etc... please give TUI "Mein Schiff" a good lookin'... 

AIDA does have some positive reputations as well: Interesting routes, younger demographics, more party / fun factor, very family friendly with uncomplicated baby/kids services including babysitting for example... 

and each ship has one of the few, if not last, nude sunbathing areas at sea... 

cheers, 

cavok

p.s. not taken an aida cruise myself yet... this is the essence from a lot of research and quite a few firsthand accounts... the buffet thing mostly ended up steering us other ways, whenever we had considered AIDA... 

p. s. 2

they are just now going through somewhat of a train wreck with the intro of a refurbished costa ship (former costa neo riviera) under the name of AIDAmira, but that's a whole separate story... 

@german_navy

I totally share your view and background in reference to not only wanting to spend time with your german countrymen and preferring some more "international" interactions ;-)

Nonetheless, I would highly recommend to have a second look at the TUI "Mein Schiff" fleet.

We have found a (temporary? for longer?) home there, after X has significantly raised prices while doing cuts and no longer offers the 12+ day itineraries and very uninspired 7-day routes.

To date, the S class are still our favourite ships, but closely followed by the late Mein Schiff's (all new-builds MS 3-6 and now the "Neue 1" / "Neue 2" are more or less identical, save for details).

Some of the advantages:

- Very little nickle-and-dimeing going on, and if, then in a very non-pushy fashion. Truly relaxing.

- Really great value with very few upcharges. Food not quite like on X, but very close.

- Port times are awesome. No casinos that need to open and waste public space ;-) (well, there is a very small one which doubles as a smokers lounge *G*)

- Ship has a good size, somewhere between M and S class, does not quite reach S class in terms of "uncrowded feel" but still plenty big. Nothing out of this world fancy, but modern and with some nice features like the huge pool and the deck 5 promenade going all around the ship.

- May not matter to you, but the line is extremely family friendly and all the kids/baby programs seem a lot more relaxed than on U.S. lines. They even still offer great babysitter service on request/availability. Also, free babyphones with video and things like that :-)

- The areas in the back outside (think sunset bar) aren't as perfect as on S class, but it's still a ship where a regular passenger can roam from front (front lounge) all the way to the back ("aussenalster" bar) and not half of the ship is blocked by some VIP scheme.

- Great ice cream is free all day. No $4 scoops for coconut and shenanigans like that. ;-)

- The ship is really well designed, e.g. almost no such thing as a "bad" balcony with restricted views.

obviously, there were many things we liked better on X (and even some on NCL), but it's always somewhat of a mixed bag and a compromise which in the end also needs to fit the budget... That's why they have our business at the moment, despite some of your countrymen *LOL*

Belonging to the often touted, supposedly new target demographic of "affluent millenial", or at least "on the edge of millenial" with me age 39 and my wife age 34 , I'm following the Edge threads with a lot of interest and some serious head scratching, if not banging... 

What is X thinking? They definitely don't get this generation, in my opinion! Also, within that age group, there are some things that I find are fairly "universal", therefore easy, like the preference for digitalisation, apps and easy online checkin (some things, which X seems to migrate to now), but there are other aspects where the group is extremely diverse, with strong pointed/particular interests. And for the diversity part (party, entertainment, food, luxury vs value, "traditional" cruising vs modern/"freestyle" they seem to try some of everything, but nothing consequently. The problem is, this doesn't work and simply does not come across as authentic. 

We are Elite with X after taking quite a few S and M class cruises ten to fiveish years ago, in fact the Solstice was our first love and got us hooked to cruising and to this date remains our favourite ship, ex aequo with the Eclipse. 

Sad thing is, Celebrity started to price us out of value even before Edge, and most definitely with the Edge. The continously rising prices right now are simply hilarious. 

Let's look at what we loved on S class:

- Beautiful public spaces with a high area per passenger ratio

- Being able to enjoy the ship from front (full width observation lounge) to back (sunset bar) 

- Beautiful balconies, especially on the hump (size, view) 

- quality live music that somewhat compensated the lack of party / other entertainment and mediocre shows

- good food without queueing in lines outside the MDR

- "event gastronomy" like q-sine

- free room service, sushi and other "only on cruises" perks.

- many whirlpools and persian gardens

- limited nickle-and-dimeing and many quiet/chill areas on the ship that did not constantly yell $$$. (lawn, library, sunset bar)

- awesome food

- we most definitely would have liked more music/party, but at the same time also liked formal nights. 

now compare that to Edge, about the only areas that seem to hold would be mostly food related.

Looking at the Edge media hype but also CC posts & review in contrast and forming this millenial's opinion, the appeal is quite a bit lower and certainly not justifying a premium price other than some "newness" factor. 

The app control of your staterom is cool, but hey that's nothing that could not be retrofitted and certainly not what makes or breaks a cruise. 

on the other hand, my list of dislikes just keeps growing, starting with the "infinite veranda" tunnel-vision-deluxe-oceanview cabins... 

glad there are alternatives in the market. We've found a new home for now on the German TUI cruises "Mein Schiff" fleet (highly recommended, though less glitzy, but great value). And definitely following Virgin (they get the generation IMHO, problem is, will be strictly no kids).

Re the Edge, i wish Celebrity hurts its head really bad really quickly (so it doesn't come extra costly over time) with all the Edonist weirdness, IV cabins, exclusive and roped off areas and so on, so they can make adjustments to the new builds and re-focus on their former strenghts. Maybe with some "younger" music and entertainment. 

We have to say it's not just Europe pricing that puts us off Celebrity at the moment, but also pretty much everywhere else. Looking at the Caribbean for early 2019 right now...

I constantly check whether one of their offerings could fit us. Latest when looking at the pricing (plus factoring in what you end up paying on top on board etc...) some other option turns out to be more attractive.

And for us, Celebrity clearly isn't THAT much better to justify the, at this time, sometimes huge price difference. Not even talking about the insane rates for Edge.

(By the way: both comparing pricing through U.S. travel agencies as well as through European sales offices, where by the way the historically huge price differences have lessened quite a bit)

We became Elite with Celebrity after having sailed just this line in the 2000's/early 2010's numerous times and would certainly go back. But we somewhat "got used" to the (great at the time) product, great food etc... but wanted to test some alternatives, mainly for a more vibrant atmosphere, better and more modern entertainment & music (something we felt always lacking) etc...

So we tested NCL (vibrant and good entertainment, but poor crowd flows and so-so food).

For now have started to settle at TUI / Mein Schiff.

Great itineraries, long time in ports, much less commercial pressures on board like bingo, casinos etc... and great value with few upcharges on board.

Ships aren't quite as spectacular but very modern and with a great layout.

Going a second time on MS5 (Mein Schiff 5) this year, and they're already in progress of making our shortlist for 2019, too.

So another vote for this option, has already been mentioned by in this thread by @ronbe65. It certainly helps to know a bit of German, but then again, i think one could certainly get by fine with English only.

Just have to accept the fact that most pax are Germans and some will take one or two days to mentally stop "working" and finally arrive on holidays to chill ;-)

On the other hand, the ambiance feels much less stiff and "structured" than on U.S. ships, as there is not a constant worry to get sued for millions in damages over everything and there are a lot less "demanding and feeling entitled" pax on board. This shows in a lot of details and we felt was also reflected by the crew (and confirmed by a higher-up).

It's certainly great to have options and choices :-)

rgds cavok

in the meantime, we are back home in switzerland...

here is our update on week 2 (2/7/16 - 2/14/16) on the getaway, including the B2B turnaround and superbowl...

review from the first week here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2312067

in many ways, our observations from the first week apply. but there were also a surprising number of differences. (besides missing grand cayman due to winds and rescheduling shows due to rolling waves).

there was a very large organized group of chinese guests onboard this second week. other than for very few public announcements in mandarin and sometimes having to revert to clumsy sign language in the buffet, this was mostly a very welcome "relief"! they were on their own schedule (early, i guess) and are just a very different crop of travelers, who value other aspects in cruising than us. this in turn took away significant "pressure" from all things we are into, ranging from whirlpools, bars, sunbeds, late dinner to late night comedy. we never hit the casino, so can't really tell how it looked there.

the B2B experience wasn't bad, but also has room for improvement. really nice was, that we could leave all our stuff in the cabin and got the keycard for the second week without any further paperwork. we were only 16 B2B cruisers, who were to meet at the sunset bar inside at 10:15. communication/planning in advance was really good. we even received a call from guest services a day or two before, whether we had gotten the B2B info letter and if there were any open questions. the bad thing was that once on the actual day, there was quite a lot of sitting and waiting. first on the ship in the bar, then at the exit to the gangway, and again for quite a while in the terminal. certainly far from walking off, getting the passports checked and right back on to the ship... the process took closer to 2.5+ hrs. we also had to sit in for another boat drill (which, compared to celebrity, the airlines and even ferries BTW is a lightweight alibi exercise in my opinion). you basically waste 40min to see one crew acting like a prison guard during the whole drill (constant "no food, no drinks, no electronics or we will reschedule you/delay everybody" threats...) and get to see a 10s demo how an obviously very motivated philippino dons the simple lifevest. no movie or anything. and after it's over, you get to enjoy the already mentioned poor pax flow. (particularly poor on deck 7 in the casino and between the rear elevator banks)

the many small "orifices" make walking past even a group of 3 hesitating chinese impossible. we already mentioned the issue in the review for week 1.

now on to the good stuff:

+ the second week, we liked better overall than the first. an observation we have already made in the past, which leads us to attempt to only cruise on the same ship for a minimum of two weeks. no matter whether it being a 14-nighter, a B2B, or double the same ports. in fact, if we had time and money, a B2B2B2B would suit us just fine *G* you get to know preferred crew, know which spots to avoid and where to enjoy.

+ superbowl 50. o'sheehan's/the atrium lend themselves perfectly to this kind of event. the crew did a fantastic job and provided special food baskets and beer buckets (even for us with the UBP). great ambiance, really nice first evening!

+ vibe beach club. was easy to get as B2B. very nice place, never felt even half full. great way to getaway from the crowded feel. friendly bartenders (caution, drinks poured much stronger! ;-). we very much appreciated the double sunbeds. we would probably book vibe again, but not at all cost. at basically 198$ extra for two, it's not exactly a bargain. decided against taking a cabana and didn't regret (too isolated for us). that being said, the week before without vibe, we also were quite ok with just spice H2O and always found a decent spot. further downsides of vibe besides the cost: sometimes the sun would set invisibly on the port side of the ship. and on the last seaday, vibe was basically unusable as it was so windy that they had to secure mats away from the loungers.

+ moderno's churrasceria. great service and a really nice salad buffet. excellent meats, but they give you very large chunks of meat at once. we ended up only getting one serving "for one" at a time and then sharing between the two of us. otherwise we would not have managed to even try almost all meats, and the meats didn't get cold too fast. by the way, the lamb chops that were especially hailed by the servers and other guests did not exceed the lamb chops from the MDR (at least in the first week, see further down), the MDR ones were that good.

+ late night comedy was great. all three comedians (one host did a warm-up each night and two main acts put on a 30min show each) were great and their shows were all original in their own way. even though both late night shows showed as fully booked and unavailable on the stateroom tv, there were ample seats available each time. the interactive tv locks up and needs to be restarted after trying to make a reservation nonetheless *g* they did however scan keycards at the door.

+ howl at the moon, we again enjoyed immensely. different cast, save for whitney maxwell. every single time during both weeks, she just rocked the show and was clearly the standout. the changing in the cast from the first week was clearly noticeable as they first had to adjust to each other. the "old" team from week 1 had sensibly a better spirit (and not as much spirits as the "new team" - pun intended) going.

+ stateroom attendant Londi was again great, pleased the mrs with a whole zoo of towel animals and took great care of us. one of the few that really earned a special tip.

+ the ship technical Q&A with the captain and chief engineer was honestly quite good and well done (i always frequent those, have visited Meyer Werft last summer). that is the second, interactive part of the hour or so scheduled in the daily. good mix of fun answers to stupid questions but also beyond the mickey mouse level of detail explanations. And no, i did not ask anything ;-) the first part, a powerpoint presentation however was only given by the car-salesman meets drill instructor type cruise director and there was much less depth and mostly boring, brochure type info.

+ the experience at the entrance of the MDR significantly improved over the week before. for one, i think because of the mentioned chinese group. plus we had backed up with a reservation for every night and they started to know us.

+ Guershwin, a waiter from south africa in MDR (taste) was really good (but one of very few)

+ bar drink service, despite the UBP (and no tipping on top) was again quite good.

+ crew really works hard and tries hard with varying success.

some food and drink items that were specifically memorable to us / fit our tastes and are recommended, in no particular order:

+ chicken pot pie at o'sheehan's

+ warm coco pastry (sweet) at flamingo's

+ bushwacker, rebellious fish and dalé drinks (especially at the vibe bar)

+ pork dumplings at shanghai's

+ norwegian smoked salmon tartar appetizer at MDR

+ every day, they have a different type of warm roll at the breakfast buffet (you have to look hard to find it)

+ herb crusted lamb chops from the MDR menu

+ red wines that are in the package: 1st place: merlot, 2nd place: ncl red blend (surprisingly tasty!), 3rd place: malbec

+ various hot sandwiches at lunchtime in the buffet

+ (buffalo) chicken wings in o'sheehan's. very late at night, there were even more/different flavours on the menu, like BBQ! quite a different menu than during the day (almost better)

now to the negatives:

- tendering process (only at great stirrup key as grand cayman had to be skipped for weather). we thought we are being smart this week and book a tender group number through the stateroom tv. to get less wait times and be off the ship a bit earlier, in a more plannable fashion. that went even worse for us than the open tendering the week before. in the end we simply remained on the ship, up in vibe. we intentionally booked a later group "K" that was sold as 0930 on the tv, so that we didn't have to get up too early, yet get off before noon. by 1130, they hadn't even called "I" yet... we were fully ready to be up next (already two hours past the "advertised" time) that "I,J,K" would be called next, but instead they called on everyone that didn't have any tender number to proceed to the theater for tendering. we seriously felt screwed, what an empty promise. when they continued with calling our group, just after noon, it was just a bad joke. so our lesson learned: book groups A, B or C and do not trust any times put on TV. also, you can start booking the first tender port immediately once on ship. if there is a second tender port, it's a bit trickier as you must catch the right moment sometime in the evening when departing from the first tender port.

- dinner service in MDR was really hit or miss, depending on waiters. sometimes it was hilarious. one night we had seriously 5! different guys show up in short order "hi, my name is XYZ and i will be taking care of your table tonight". alright, we tip, but not that much *G*...

another night, we were just being served our main course, having wine and soft drinks, another waitress came by "coffee or tea, madam?" like for desserts... really?

one time, our wine glasses got removed without any comment or explanation before even taking the food order. trivial service blunders like that. many nights, we were neither handed a wine/drink menu nor asked whether we wanted something other than the water they automatically poured. food courses between us two were always hot and in sync, however, drink service was severely lacking and out of whack. it also appeared to be organized overly complicated (waiter having to walk from N.Y. to L.A. to get the drinks, then to scan the card etc... maybe contributing to the lackluster result.

- crew appears, in significant numbers, unhappy and overworked. grinding with little joy or pride.

- inconsistency in food quality and preparation. some food items that were great the week before both in buffet and MDR were lacking in the second week. makes us wonder what fine tastes we may have missed because we obviously skipped things that did not impress during week 1?

- very hard to know what to expect in terms of serving size from the menu. some items sound like small appetizers and end up being almost full courses and the opposite. had to ask the waiter and snoop the neighbours every night to get an idea. unlike others, we aim to not produce much food waste.

- we know salt is a hot topic and i won't go too much into detail. there tended to be a few items with too much and more often, too little salt / bland taste. if you use less salt, then more herbs&spices are needed to offset that!

and the biggest salty-sin of all: linguini (pasta) in the MDR cooked in unsalted water. a very big NO-NO. Olive Garden tried that once and it fired back big time. and no, the salt can't be just added later, not the same pasta!

- pillows (apparently had just been refurbished) were way too thick hence uncomfortable for us. our stateroom attendant tried his best but could only find some comforfoam pillows with about the same height/thickness. we tried, not much difference.

- more often than we would have liked, did we get a "not possible" as an answer to really simple requests. felt like a number in the process and not individual guests. trying to make a reservation for a specialty restaurant at the end of the first week for the second week? "not possible". well, the system probably doesn't allow it straightforwardly. yet people from home can access it over the internet? so maybe NCL should do it also through the web (if not otherwise possible). but at their internet cost. or for a hostess it shouldn't be too much effort to write down one cabin number/two cruisers out of only 16 B2B cruisers and promise to call back or handle it. you know, we are flexible and patient, but more often than not was there not even an attempt made to find a solution to the guests problem. a "go help yourself later" attitude.

one night we wanted to cancel a reservation for the MDR by phone. called from the cabin, dialing the key "restaurant reservations". "unable. you have to walk down to the hostess and tell her." no offer of taking over the issue or maybe a direct phone number to the maitre'd etc... no wonder there are so many no-shows everywhere, when you cannot even cancel anything in an easy way.

one last example: wanted to grab a few delicious pork dumplings on a plate from shanghai's as a snack to the room before getting ready for dinner. (ambiance, noise and smoke prevented us from really going back to shanghai's again for real). but we knew from the week before that they have them dumplings ready-made sitting, waiting to go and aplenty. there were also enough waiters around, that were not hurried at all. initial answer was: "we do not do take away". fine, i mean, we're not talking a fried rice menu or noodle soup here. well, then let's quickly sit down, grab the plate and take off with it... but hold on, wait time is: 82! minutes, all seats taken!!! no effort whatsoever was undertaken to make them dumplings happen. totally inflexible. no wonder you probably need to book the Haven - with a butler!

so all in all, a good cruise, with a few highlights and a few lowlights.

came away rather unimpressed by NCL and "frestyle". the value, all things added at the bottom line, was also just ok. there definitely had been firesale pricing in the week(s) leading up to the cruise. to us it felt more like a 4 star hotel experience with good entertainment and good options for families with kids (plus good booze for the grownups). not so much the 5-star extra levels of service and food (compared to e.g. resort vacations) we have gotten accustomed to from cruising.

if cruising as a whole goes in that direction, then it's really not good!

so, until we might eventually be crusing with kids, we're unlikely to go back to NCL.

just off the getaway,

we only had an outlet on one side of the bed. we always bring an extension cord or two.

no discrete usb ports.

saw legally blonde on getaway a week ago.

the production was extremely well done, good cast/singers.

but the story is more than cheesy and full of boring stereotypes.

the scene where the role, played by a male african american singer, gets asked/is debated about whether he were "gay or european" just about sums it up *lol* - and that was the funny part! yawn...

not much of a loss to getaway, IMHO.

while not much into pitbull, we find the tune catchy and the commercial well done...

parts of that clip were also on the stateroom tv, on some ncl channel, during our recent 2 weeks on the getaway. the song grows on you, which is always a good sign. and the clip has some nice helicopter shots of the ship. never mind some ladies, too ;-)

Short background: we are a somewhat experienced cruising couple from Switzerland. very easy-going and married in our 30's. all cruises so far were on Celebrity, albeit on different ships. Solstice and Eclipse being our favourites (and that certainly won't change after these cruises)

We are right now in the turnaround at Miami on a 2-week B2B on NCL Getaway, just returned from Week 1 with Ocho Rios, Grand Cayman, Cozumel and GSC (Great Stirrup Cay, NCL's private island) as stops.

We wanted to try out a different line, looking for slightly younger demographics, a few more entertainment options, more contemporary music and a ship that doesn't roll up the boardwalk past 11p.m.

Here's our impressions after Week 1 so far:

in general we are rather underwhelmed unfortunately, the ship feels extremely crowded compared to the S-class and there is constant queueing with a lot of pushing and shoving. service and food are very hit and miss.

despite this, we are enjoying ourselves and are still having a good time. it's not a bad cruise by any means, just not on the level we've gotten used to.

but what we confirmed again in any case is that we love cruising as a vacation!

but we're very unlikely to "jump ship" towards NCL. deals at the time would have to be extremely favourable.

first to the highlights/upsides:

+ O'sheehan's 24h food/sports-bar/pub/beer joint is really nicely executed, good food, decent service, always open.

+ the coffee machine/maker in the stateroom is really nice and my wife is loving it! (Hamilton Beach brand with individual sachets/portions). Definitely something celebrity should have! daily replenished by the room steward. and - as somewhat of a suprise on NCL - no extra charge!

+ Howl at the Moon duelling piano show is awesome. Three musicians that entertain for 4 hours non-stop by playing requests, alone or together, mixed in with some funny jokes. Also, no extra charge!

+ Burn the floor production show really good (though a bit "more-of-the-same" after 20min or so)

+ the Great Stirrup Cay private island concept is awesome (walk a few yards further than most lazy people and you are almost by yourself ;-)

+ younger demographics and more families as expected, which we think is good and makes us feel less out of place ;-)

+ enough whirlpools between the pool deck and spice H2O

+ spice H2O adult/party area

+ plenty of activities like the ropes course, climbing wall and water slides. though they're kind of one-time things and their thrill factor wears off really fast.

+ ship doesn't go dead at 11pm

+ drink service at bars relatively quick despite a lot of bev. packages (freebie for many at time of booking). also proactive info about the tax having to be paid in port at miami. that does not mean happy service, see below...

+ we got really lucky when we booked around the time they released holds on handicapped cabins, so we got quite some extra space over a "regular" balcony cabin, and the balcony can be called that which is normally barely the case, as they are extremely narrow.

+ ship is in really good shape

+ a few single individual crew we found very friendly, motivated and providing excellent service (stateroom attendant, one MDR server, one bar server). this is one of the reasons why we prefer sailing for 2 weeks on the same ship. one needs to find the go-to crew first.

+ some of the food is quite good and absolutely comparable to celebrity.

generally red meats and desserts are really good. we will only go for specialty dining once next week. garden buffet, breakfast and the sides on the MDR items are more hit and miss. shanghai noodle bar has excellent food but terrible ambiance.

+ whole-ship "bingo"-type announcements less annyoing and less frequent than expected

now to the underperforming aspects:

- ship feels crowded, lots of queueing going on for lots of things, we joked whether we should record the time spent in queues this vacation :-(

- port/checkin agent wasn't on top of things and demotivated (first impression counts?!)

- cruise started with a really slow and chaotic boarding, barely any "productive" information/announcements at all.

- boarding group numbers were used multiple times in cycles without further explanation #22,24 and then #4,6 etc... creating anxiousness among some.

- we are sorry, but the average fellow passenger can only be described as "less classy", littering, pushing and shoving, smoking where not allowed etc... quite common :-( and no, not because of the younger demographics or the kids!

- the public areas of the ship have critical "orifices" that hinder easy flow, clearly to maximize revenue space like slot machines, more specialty restaurants etc... also, pax flow around the elevators or in the buffet area is way worse. very visible after the safety drill. we have been walking stairs all week, but not just for our fitness ;-)

- the iconcierge app, while really an excellent idea/concept, works somewhat on my wife's iphone but is a total failure on my android. on the iphone, the functionality is not even up to par with the stateroom tv, while on android the app constantly crashed with some obscure language code error (despite trying to switch the phone to U.S. english). the reply of the internet manager was only "we know, it's been reported a while ago". the idea is super, execution really weak.

- "freestyle" is merely an advertising slogan and doesn't work at all. another total failure. we've experienced so many inconsistencies. first, the ship is fully booked/reserved for just about everything! from shows to all the dining (including MDR's) and even tendering (in the entertainment section on the stateroom tv's by the way?!). then, because of that, there are always a ton of no shows (like 50% e.g. for late night comedy), so you eventually get in, but with second choice seats only, standing in yet another queue, late notice etc... we intentionally tried to be passive and see how things go in the first week, not wanting to run around with an agenda / schedule on vacation and really enjoying "freestyle". after this first week, we'll absolutely try to reserve everything and anything that we possibly can for the second week. also, we will try out vibe as we should be among the first back on the ship, last week was absolutely no chance for that with boarding group #20.

- where celebrity puts the most experienced Maitre'd's at the entrance of the dining rooms, here it seems like the most novice, inexperienced, language-challenged and shortsighted people get the job. this is probably our biggest gripe in terms of service/dropped balls so far. borderline to stupid. the night of embarkation was particularly messy but not only. the "freestyle" wait at 9:00p.m. was still 40min on either MDR?! that was bad enough, but the lady also could not assure us whether we would still be served, despite being on the waitlist! only comment was "this is the first night, so people don't know how things work yet". totally not helpful for us, and a sign of more to come. so we ended up eating at shanghai's with no wait but fast-food ambiance. the next night we intentionally showed up late/in an explicitly "green" period as is displayed on various screens around the MDRs, at around 9:15pm. another lady, barely able to speak english, mentioned that there was still a waitlist of appx 30min (how can the screen be green in that case?) and that they also closed at 10p.m., again unable to explain to us what this now meant for us (we later learned and confirmed that closing at 10 in fact means latest sitting down at 10) and couldn't tell us whether we would still be served at the expected 9:45p.m. or not. at the same time she also didn't think about checking whether one of the other MDRs had space. sure enough, one of them had no wait (and technically would have closed 9:30p.m. already). another night, we got in after yet another waitlist (starting to get the 'hang), yet there were plenty of empty tables and also waiters sitting idle (reservations but no-shows maybe?). the next night, another similar scenario, but this time after all that mess, we had made reservations for 9:30p.m. and we also mentioned not minding sharing a table. us 2 were seated at a table for six! yet we saw the "entrance lady" turn down 2 couples before we even had the menus/seen our waiters yet. we later chatted with one of those couples and they were never offered nor would have minded sharing a table with us and had ended up eating at the buffet. Long story short - seriously broken table management at the MDRs.

- crew in general seem overworked and not in the best mood, with very few exceptions unfortunately. staff a bit more cheery.

- officers much less visible and if, then in a quite unsympathetic "not getting the hands dirty - commanding the crew around" type fashion. maybe related to the unhappy crew?

- "cold" smoke from the casino and casino noise reaches almost everywhere on 678 ocean place. kills the ambiance for the shanghai noodle bar as well as the sushi and oyster bar. poor design.

- UBP drink package (which we opted for as one of the perks at time of booking, looked like the most value up front) is a really terrible value, which we would never book regularly. way too expensive considering what all is not included. water is not included (irrespective of basic water or premium water, unlike on celebrity). yet also, a regular 1l bottle of water at a bar is charged with $5.50 plus 18% gratuity, what a ripoff! We bought a 24pack of water in jamaica and hauled it onboard. similar story with premium coffees, somewhat offset by the in-room coffee machine. also, while all the "hard alcohol" is quite nice and good, the selection of beers and wines is really quite limited and e.g. no port wines for dessert available.

- service is very much so-so. sometimes really good, sometimes really bad. drinks at dinner are a good example. unless you order drinks upfront (without ever being handed a drink menu, and if, then incomplete), you can be sure to get to the main course without either wine or soft drinks, possibly not even being inquired about it! very similar situation at the buffet. no anticipation of anything by crew at all :-(

- ship feels extremely "anonymous", since everyone is on a totally different schedule/location/server every night. the only place where we "met" people really was in the hot tubs! and we hit it off with one waiter from south africa. but the "freestyle" system is unable to seat us with him every night.

- great stirrup cay tendering was quite annoying. whereas celebrity keeps things flowing with an almost hop on hop off method and many tenders including some of the larger lifeboats, here, there was again lots of waiting and queueing both ways to fill a total of two smaller boats and one 450pax tender ship coming from shoreside, no lifeboats in use.

- also, once on GSC, ginger ale was already out by noon (the time we got there after tendering without previous reservation) and the bar shut by 2p.m. (the one by the lagoon), so the drink package hardly could be used at all.

now we're looking forward to the second week :-) really glad not having to leave the ship yet... and let us know if you have any questions!

cavok

i wouldn't sweat any of this...

my background: native (swiss) german speaker, well travelled, lived for 1 year in the states as an exchange student, now permanently living in switzerland

from our experience, you pay it somehow, somewhere, in another form... in general, there's nothing as low and competitive as american cruise fares, enjoy! (you just have to add everything up and know what you're getting into. we book via the u.s. since about our second cruise and after somewhat figuring out how all of this works and which fees and gratuities and charges have to be summed up and budgeted)

likely those "german fares" are just going to be higher by a comparable amount at the base. to me, this appears to be mainly psychology and maybe somewhat tipping related.

"germans" or western europeans (us included) in general simply don't enjoy to spend valuable time and thoughts on holidays figuring out all the tipping and what not. at least not in that excessive, integral-part-of-the-economy/wages U.S. style. it's just a chore, which you have to get used to. so any product offering this "flat" is going to have a very nice appeal to travellers here.

also, the public image of cruising in the german speaking region is mainly defined by products MeinSchiff1-4 by travel giant TUI (which are freshly painted second hand celebrity ships) and AIDA, which is an all inclusive subsidiary of carnival corp, with a really strong brand and marketing.

though we've not sailed on either line yet (too expensive, not in the "we speak german" faction), the prices to me appear in general quite high for what you get compared to other mainstream lines. AIDA: only buffet food (other than in upcharge) restaurants, fewer balcony cabins vs insides and oceanview, lower crew/pax ratio, higher pax/BRT ratio etc... and them just plain taking advantage of being one of the few "we speak german" offerings in the market, both what crew and what fellow pax are concerned.

you would not believe by how much and to how many people, the language barrier still is a huge issue. they would be completely lost if noone spoke any german around them... while we always get annoyed when the lines try to give us the "german rub", with poorly translated dailies etc... simply based on our nationality ;-)...

what AIDA does really well is media presence. they practically "own" german television. with behind-the-scenes documentaries all over, giveaways in game shows etc... that's really why the brand is so strong and allowed it to become the "hoover" of cruising in germany.

plus it's got a "young and fresh" image, good for party and also features some rather european things like a clothing optional deck and such.

by the way, we as swiss have to be extra careful not to be screwed over since a lot of companies try to charge premium for the same or no extra service/products simply based on nationality and the fact that our economic key figures are and continue to be quite excellent. the problem is, that as middle class, in the end, you get little of that benefit when price-fixing, "geo-fencing" etc... are actively skimming the topping of the cake :-(

globalization must not be a one-way deal...

we have booked mutlitple celebrity and now our first NCL cruise through a U.S. based travel agent successfully, much better deals and perks. links are forbidden on this forum :-( VTG it is...

i always try to post balanced reviews.

obviously you always have to take reviews with a grain of salt, but an undeniable increase in negativity on here can't simply be discarded as an online life of its own.

i would simply caution about shooting the messengers... it's not the reviewers' faults if they complain about some expectation/observation (which was created by celebrity itself in the past/first place nonetheless).

also, if you market yourself to "discerning" etc... passengers and similar messages you get from their marketing, you shouldn't be surprised if they aren't catering to uncritical fanboys.

the ships are great, the crew is great and hard working, the food is great and the whole experience is still 5 star.

but i see it as a battle between corporate and customers... by all accounts they're far away from going broke but are very aggressively trying to improve the bottom line, at the expense of the (repeat) customers experience.

unfortunately, eclipse didn't have any of this this march.

they probably figured there's already perry grant and that should do :-(

saw some of the main stage shows which were actually surprisingly good :-) but nothing late night, the ship was dead past 2300 :-(

q-sine was great, went there twice on this past two-week cruise with a party of 4.

great fun!

food was actually quite good too, a bit hit or miss between dishes maybe more so than in the MDR (which was simply consistently awesome this time) :-).

we actually went for a second night after we couldn't try even half the dishes on the first night. the second time, we got a discount that made the decision a little easier ;-) price/value, as others have noted is not exactly stellar, rather expensive for what you get (considering the great MDR food alternative) but a great experience.

also, service was perfect in our taste, not over the top as in murano but personal, likable and upbeat.

the first time, we went on a previous cruise just the 2 of us and it wasn't nearly as enjoyable. too much food for just 2 persons to try and enjoy the variety.

flavoured chocolates were gone as well on the 03/22 eclipse cruise.

generic belgian chocolate every night.

saw pillow menu in the past, did not ask this time.

the "better" bag is actually even more functional now i think. the old ones used to have that fake leather handle that eventually tore off after a year or two of use. the new one has some quite strong, almost seatbelt type fabric handles. may no longer be as "longchamps"-style copy but more functional.

fewer free items,

many more upcharge items,

and the formerly awesome honey-sesame chicken wings were replaced by dried-out and boring chicken skewers with some bland yoghurt sauce.

there were some nice chicken satay in the buffet, they should have put at least those instead...

my review will follow, just returned from a 2-week cruise on the eclipse.

the sky isn't quite falling but definitely things are in a shallow descent unfortunately...

we're not hugely experienced compared to some others here on the boards, but even us with only a few years frame of reference on celebrity have to agree with some of the negativity.

that is not to say the cruise wasn't still very good overall, but that things definitely have a noticeable downward trend in many areas, which is never good... we will certainly consider other lines/ships in the future whereas we were loyals and always wowed until now. and it's sad to see that apparently short-term shareholder profit thinking seems to reign. thanks to forums like these, they can't get away with that unharmed.

a silver lining to me is how they value feedback in general and that e.g. the main dining room food quality issue, which was all the rage 2 years ago has definitely been fixed! so they are not blind and will have to adjust.

back to topic: some of the best activities this cruise specifically were not done by activities staff. e.g. the cooking demos by the chef or ship lectures by officers. in fact, the activity director seemed mostly concerned about letting others do the grunt work and then showing up and garnering attention/presenting himself in the spotlight and on tv. at the same time, schedules, to put it nicely, were "not very smart". so a reshufflling / reorganizing per se in activities does not need to be a bad thing... will be interesting to follow where this goes...

just back from the 03/22 eclipse 2-week cruise (review will follow).

got the new online feedback form as well. here are my 50cts:

+ no/very long timeout, started in the evening at the hotel, fell asleep, was able to continue the next morning

+ no space issues as before on paper

+ took electronic notes anyway to make sure we wouldn't forget any feedback we wanted to save for the comment card during the cruise and it was relatively easy to transfer them.

+ good change, going with the times

- there is no grand overview about the questions as with the paper comment card. never knew which question was yet to come, had to go "back" several times to reuse a very generic form field for particular feedback.

- the "save the waves" reference has got to be the joke of the day. we got literally spammed as never before by daily shopping, diamonds, art-auction-scam type papers (always in nice envelopes). same applies to the photo gallery printing everything and throwing 99% away due to the inflated pricing.

- based on the passenger demographics this time around, which skewed towards nursing-home, i'm not so sure whether some feedback may be lost.

based on the link, the whole thing is running on a third party website/commercial customer feedback company website (medallia).

would we have been back to back cruisers, first thing i would have clarified is whether the link is exempt from the onboard internet charges as it is definitely not part of the celebrity website.

regards,

cavok