Norwegian Cruise Lines NCL.com Underwhelming Cruise on "Pride of America" Miami Florida

We recently booked an inter-island cruise through Norwegian Cruise lines.

First, I should point out, this cruise was just my second cruise and I haven’t cruised since COVID-19 struck. So I don’t have a good basis for determining whether or not Norwegian is the only cruise line having issues.

My first cruise was very well organized, while this cruise on Norwegian seemed to be somewhat haphazard. The cafeteria food was not good. Some of the “restaurant” food was very good, but the wait time for seating and the service was super slow. Waiting to be seated was as long as 1 ½ hours. Once seated it usually took close to 3 hours to finish dinner.  

In one instance, the salmon entree was described as white fish… When I asked if that was a type-o the waiter had no clue, but asked me what color salmon was. It did end up being salmon, and quite good.

Another thing we found unusual, was their tendency to close all eateries. We would go ashore for an excursion booked through Norwegian, and return to learn the cafeteria was closed from 4:00 to 5:30. Most cruises keep a pizza place ad burger place open at all times. There was one small cafeteria that we were told stayed open, but we never confirmed that. And it was so small, if a ¼ of the folks went there after an excursion, they would have been swamped.

We had the drink package but found getting a drink at most bars was difficult. If you were lucky enough to place an order, you could wait another 10-15 minutes to receive the drink, which was usually quite weak. After waiting a good 15 minutes at one bar, I order a vodka-tonic. After another 10 minutes, I was handed the drink.  I think they used regular water to make the drink. It was nasty. I returned the drink to the bar and told them to toss it. Usually, I wouldn’t have done that, but after several days of receiving poor bar service, and weak drinks I was done.

The next day, we sat down at another bar. After 20 minutes, the bartender looked up and said he’d be right with us. Then we watched him leave to take his lunch break.

Most cruises assign PORTERS to your room who generally identify themselves and make themselves available to help. Not Norwegian. We had no clue who our porter was - it saved us a tip, as we weren’t going to tip a ghost.

The night before debarkation, we inquired whether or not the elevators would be operating. We were assured they would be, and we were free to carry our own luggage if we chose to. Which we did, rather than set our luggage out the night before. What they didn’t tell us, is several passageways would be blocked. So, to get to the debarking level we had to take an elevator down below the debarking level, then switch elevators to go back up. This clearly caught many by surprise, as many passengers had to do the same thing as we were.

Oh, and the entertainment… That was painful. They had a singer who had an OK voice, but she was not an entertainer.  She basically stood there and sang.  The advertising said she would cover Celine Deon, as well as others. But, she didn’t sing a Celine song. She covered a song that Celine sang in her Vegas show.  So, she covered, a cover…?! The comedian wasn’t funny, at all. Her timing was off, her storytelling was iffy and there really weren't any punch lines.  We figured we’d give her the benefit of the doubt, as she was offering a raunchy comedy show, as well. So, we figured maybe she was used to that and had tried to tone down her first show. Eh, the raunchy show sucked too.  

I was traveling with several people who have substantial cruise experience with other cruise lines and they were all complaining about how poorly organized Norwegian was. My wife and a couple of others on this trip will be taking another cruise in March, so we’ll see if the staffing issues may be the underlying cause. Though we did hear several of the crew complain about how poorly Norwegian treats their crew. And we did run into several crew members with 30 days or less experience on a cruise.

My only recommendation is, for Norwegian to have their management staff take cruises on other cruise lines to learn how to organize a cruise. By the way, this was not an inexpensive cruise. Though Norwegian was definitely cutting corners. Again, the food, drinks, accommodations, staffing, and entertainment was all underwhelming!