Fantastic cruise with lots of fun

Well, this was our 3rd NCL cruise to the Caribbean, and our friends 1st. We love the freestyle cruising of NCL, so not wanting to oversell it to our friends we wanted them to have that experience, and they weren’t disappointed.

It was a repositioning 11 night cruise from New York to Miami, taking in Dominican Republic, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and Jamaica. Firstly the weather was very nice, quite humid and a bit cloudy at times but ever stopped us going on deck everyday.

We had balcony rooms (9006/9008) which were on the front portside. Good size and very clean with of course the obligatory folded animal towel every night by our attentive steward .

The food overall was good, with nice complimentary restaurants, serving an assortment of themed evenings . We never felt the need to go for the speciality dining as the atmosphere in the other dining rooms made for good dining experiences.

The choice of bars was excellent and we moved through a few from early evening on deck or O’Sheeans to the pre diner cocktail bars Sugar Cane Mojito bar or Cocktail bar. The quality of spirits, beers and cocktails were very good (bit too strong at times!).

Entertainment was lively as we knew what to expect from previous NCL cruises. The poolside games were fun to watch and the cruise director Pochito was very good at getting people involved. The Halloween, and White Parties were such good fun . The other members of the entertainment team were a bit disappointing, they didn’t really get involved and were very poor and wooden when running the trivia quizes and the karaoke, which was a shame.

We didn’t book any NCL excursions and planned our own through prior investigation of the islands visited. You are only on land fro a short time so for us we like to decide what to do rather than have to set alarms!

Overall , we laughed and had fun, good food and the service was excellent. We do like to chat and compliment staff as we go along and it goes a long way and makes them feel appreciated which doesn’t always happen. We really like the freestyle cruising and the format of NCL . Our friends ? They were bowled over by the whole experience and are now hooked, after all we stayed in a fully inclusive 5* hotel for 11 nights!!