NCL Sun 11/17 to 11/24 Review

[bpilsner]

Just returned from 11/17 Cruise on NCL Sun. My wife and three children (13,14, & 14) were on board. We were in inside cabins 7311 & 7312.

 

Arrived at pier at 12:45 pm. Plenty of folks available to grap luggage. Probably about 60-70 people in line when we got inside. However, plenty of help, things moved quickly. We were in the ship within 20 minutes.

 

Initial lunch. Had lunch in one of main dining rooms. Folks in dining room encouraged you to eat buffet, indicated had more food choices. We said we preferred dining room and they seated us. Nice enjoyable meal with only about 50 people in dining room.

 

Luggage was at our room by 3pm.

 

Food On Sun: Food was similar in quality to Carnival and Princess. Our first time with NCL Free Style. However, NCL in our opinion has pulled off items from their regular dinner menu and put them in their "Speciality Restaruants. No shrimp cocktail, no shrimp pasta, or shrimp entries. Much more limited traditional steak options. You had chicken pastas, different beef entries, and a good selection of fish entries. Desserts were good, breads were good. The first formal night did have beef wellington which was excellent and carribean lobster (whole tails). Daughter ordered two tails, I ordered tail and beef wellington (very good). One other night they had traditional New York strip. It was good, but it was a very thin cut (1/2 inch thick). We did not do special restaraunts. We tried to get the half price special in some of these restaraunts (Steakhouse, Italian, and French Restaraunts which was a early bird special 5:30 to 6:30 PM reservations), but we were never fast enough. You could book it 1 day ahead of time. This means as soon as reservation desk opens on Tuesday for Wednesday reservation. We prefer Carnival and Princess since these pulled items reduced the choices for us, especially our kids who love shrimp and steak. Regarding the buffet, we had no issues with it, we went to the outside buffet for breakfast in back of ship. Quality typical of cruise buffet, went to Rambas for Omelets. Service in dining room was good overall, but slow at times. Also enjoyed pizzas at lunch.

 

Entertainment was better than Carnival and Princess (Broadway type shows). The entertainers were much deeper than on Princess and Carnival. Lots of excellent singers and dancers. They also have a pair of dancers from the Ulkraine which were incrediable.

 

Kids preferred Carnivals and Princesses kids program more, but they were 13,14 and with range of 13-17, it put them on young end of scale which I think was a factor. Younger kids programs seemed more engaged in their programs. Our room was was only 50 feet from kids areas, not an issue for us regarding nose, but allowed us to see some of the engagement of younger children.

 

Rooms were organized well but smaller than Carnivals and Princess. One thing we didn't like like was that the extra third bed was on floor, this made it crowded in the kids room. We prefer the bunk bed up that we had in Carnival and Princess. This third bed also was very hard. The two regular beds were firm, but great. Excellent service by the room stewards.

 

Shore Excursions

We loved Roatan (did Boden Tours). I will post under Roatan later in week. We did Coral Breeze in Belize (Good not great). Will post under belize. We did a fishing/snorkel trip in cozumel which was average, will post in Cozumel. We snorkeled on their private island and were surprised to find some nice coral and fish here. Much better than we expected.

 

Tendering

We had to tender in Belize, Cozumel, and their private island. Most organizated tendering that I have been associated with. If you did not have a shore excursion with cruise ship, you got a tender number. One person from each family could get it for whole family. I got in line at 7:50 AM for Belize and Cozumel. Got tickets at 7:55 AM. We were at Belize dock at 8:45 AM (longer tender ride), and at Cozumel dock at 8:35 AM.

 

Getting off the ship. We did the carry your oun luggage off the ship on Saturday morning and were through customs and waiting for transportation by 8:00 AM Saturday morning. We had plans in Sarasota later that day.

 

Overall, a very good cruise. We choice it because of iterary and good price. We wanted to go back to Roatan and liked 8AM to 5PM docking time for Roatan, Belize, and Cozumel. All things equal prefer Princess or Carnival due to food choices, but would do NCL again if iterary was better like this one was.

[MonaCK]

Thank you for the fair review. :)

[JerseyGem]

Thanks for the great review- I'm looking forward to your posts about your shore excursions! DH & I are seriously considering the Sun for 2/2/08 (sailed her three years ago), so we're reading everything we can about her- almost everything is positive. I don't worry too much about food reviews, since I know how subjective that is! I do agree with you about Carnival- our one trip with them had the best food we've had on any cruise (includes several on NCL, HAL, Princess, Disney & RCI)!

 

And how did you like the whole concept of Freestyle?

[bearswife]

Thanks for your great review:D

[bearswife]

Thanks for your great review:D

[lala1330]

We have sailed on the Sun twice in the last 1 1/2 years. I love the Sun. The staff is fantastic, always friendly and always available to help answer anyones questions. The food was pretty good, the main dining food was really good. The rooms were not to bad for size. I just got off the Pearl and their rooms are much smaller. Getting you on and off the ship in ports ran pretty smooth. I agree the shows on the Sun are great. Both times they had Broadway type of shows and comedy acts that were wonderful. They do not do Broadway shows on the Pearl and I really missed that last week.

 

I rather sail the Sun than the Pearl anyday!

 

I love the Sun!

[lgfromdg]

We'll be on the Sun in March and it is so nice to see some positive reviews. Thanks for posting.

[MonaCK]

Anyone who's been on the sun recently -- is there a decent sing along piano bar player there? We've often had more fun at the piano bar than at karaoke when the folks have been really good...

[snowcat]

Thanks for the reviews, bpilsner! Sounds like you had a good trip. This will be our first trip on Norwegian, so I appreciated the comparisons to Carnival and Princess which we've also sailed on. Can you tell me a little more about the "carry your own luggage off" option for debarkation? We'd like to get as early a start as possible that day as we have plans for the afternoon.

[momthewriter]

We were on the same cruise (see my review). Had similar experiences, which is rare! Fun cruise.

[travelingfools]

I am looking forward to reading your excursion reviews. We will be there in 3 months and still haven't decided completely what we will be doing. Thanks for sharing!

[Diva Jan]

We were on the same cruise, and had a great time as well!

 

I would add that the specialty restaurants had really great food (we rarely ate at the buffet for dinner) and we were always able to get a decent reservation - even only a couple of hours before opening. For sushi, we once reserved 20 minutes before we sat. :)

 

This was our first cruise, and I felt that the staterooms were plenty adequate for our needs - not as small as I feared they might be! Tendering was always a breeze, regardless of their "warnings" that those not on NCL shore ex would have a more difficult time. In Belize we were off the ship so fast we had actually taken the crew tender! :)

 

The acts were great - the magician JP was my favourite. The "vocal impersonator" has to have been the worst show I have ever seen, though. We missed his actual show, but caught his bit in the farewell concert. Ugh!! All due respect to the man, but it was simply awful.

 

Other than that, ACD Rich and CD Mike made everything very enjoyable!!

[Stillfloatin']

The rooms were not to bad for size. I just got off the Pearl and their rooms are much smaller.

 

What category cabin did you have? Just curious because we've sailed the Pearl and will be going on the Sun next year. Glad to hear you love the ship.

[Lib0007]

preferred Carnivals and Princesses kids program more, but they were 13,14 and with range of 13-17, it put them on young end of scale which I think was a factor. Younger kids programs seemed more engaged in their programs. Our room was was only 50 feet from kids areas, not an issue for us regarding nose, but allowed us to see some of the engagement of younger children.

 

 

We will be sailing on the sun in April for our our son's spring break. He is 8 so I hope the kids program is good for that age. We too are used to Carnival's.

 

Were you on Deck 7? we are in cabin 7003, only a few doors down from the kids club, and I was wondering if the traffic to/from is loud. Otherwise should be very convenient for us!

 

Glad to hear you had a nice cruise.

[bpilsner]

NCL Express Checkout is for those that have their own travel plans and can carry their all of their own luggage off the cruise ship. These folks are cleared for exit on NCL Sun on this cruise between 7:00-8:15 AM. On this cruise the announcement for express checkout was at about 7:20 AM and we were through customs and out on street by 7:45 AM.

 

Clearly this is good deal for early traveler and NCL since it get folks off ship early with their luggage.

 

Down side is that you eat breakfast earlier and end your cruise trip eariler, but it eliminates hazzle of finding luggage.

[bpilsner]

You can customize it the way that you want. If you eat early (before 6:30) or late (after 8:00 pm), you generally walked right in to main dining room. At 7 pm time period we saw lines, but guessed wait at 15-20 minute time frame. If you want same waiter you will have to arrange it. Biggest negative was some of food entries being removed from general dining to speciality restaraunts. I prefer regular dining versus freestyle, but it is a preference, not an issue. We eat early anyway and with 3 kids, speciality restaraunts adds up in hurry. Thanks.

[bpilsner]

Yes, we were located near the kids area (7300 series rooms). We had no significant issues with noise. We had some groups go bye with a little noise before 9 pm, but nothing late. Very nice if you have children that need to be check in and out (12 & under).

[Deadskins]

Has anyone been on a an AD cabin? We are booked in 9002 in May 11 Alaska.