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just returned from 11days tokyo korea ncl cruise entertainment 2shows out of 4 were a pass so didnt bother with anymore museo,s on ship were great bar acouple of glitch shows food was good because i only chose to eat in the cattle cart once chose to have room done every 3rd day just changed towels every day helping staff one ship excursion otherwise organised my own travelled on same era ship in australia last year and the $ 100,000000 spent on the spirit was well worthit
We just completed 10 nights on Norwegian, sky Canada and New England. We had a fantastic time. Knowing it was an older smaller ship I guess our expectations were not that high. We had an accessible inside cabin. that was absolutely massive. Our room steward , and every other crewmember we encountered were extremely helpful, friendly, and showed no signs of being overworked. They do work very hard. This was only our second cruise and we will be back. We really appreciate your videos and learn a lot from them.
This is so sad! We fell in love with NCL in 2018 on the Dawn, we then sailed in 2019 on the Bliss- amazing time. We had another booked when on March 13, 2020, when the world stopped! After covid, we sailed again in 2022 and we noticed a change in number of workers, the up selling, quality of entertainment. But we sailed again in 2023, yeah the love affair is over. It is just not what it used to be in addition to being so very expensive. They are just way over the top now. We sailed on Celebrity this past June and LOVED it; we will see if they cheat on us again and we have to break it off too. lol.
First cruise in 20 years was Never Cost Less,not again. Highest paid CEO? Says so much about the culture and shareholders might want to know what is being done to value. As far as increasing gratuity I wanted to demand release of liability from all crew as the payment makes them contractor/ employees that could make you liable for Workmans Compensation, Unemployment and a host of other benefits
Thanks for the warning. I've heard so many negatives about this company I'm going to stay away from them. I'll stick with Princess or even (gasp!) Carnival!! LOL
Yes - you did not say don't travel with NCL - but you provided facts that do not let anybody with an open mind and common sense make that decision. I can be tolerant of many things - when it comes to hygienic conditions and a CEO bragging about his ability to cut costs and replace humans with AI - the party is over. Bye bye NCL.
I totally disagree with your comments. I sail with Norwegian since 2012 and you selected for your comments a ship 14 years old. Come on, take a newer ship (Encore, Viva) and your will be less negative or goto MSC.
I'm scared! I am booked for my first NCL next year. I've cruised other lines before and picked NCL specifically for the Azores itinerary. Final payment is not due until July 2025. Not sure if I should keep it or lose my deposit.
While I have limited experience and have only experienced NCL post COVID…. I truly don’t think it’s actually as bad as this video says. Maybe if you spend the money for the extras and bells and whistles and then upset when they reorganize everything you could be upset… the boats I’ve been on have been clean and variety and we have always had our rooms organized and we have never had anyone trying to sell us anything while at dinner etc. I have yet to see royal or others be affordable without being a party cruise line like carnival… vacation is vacation and you don’t need every fancy thing to enjoy it… if it is truly that bad then cruise somewhere else. If it’s that bad they will see many people leave. For now I will continue to cruise NCL.
They changed so many things after we made final payment on our last NCL cruise. Shady, shady. And while the Viva style was lovely, we hated it for reasons mentioned. Venues are way too small. We were in The Haven and were disappointed the menu in The Haven restaurant never changed. Gets boring after a few days. Also, we’ve never encountered a more rude bartender on any cruise we’ve been on. We’ve cruised NCL for many years but we’re going back to Celebrity. Better ships, better food and all around nicer experience.
That’s sad about the Epic as we have been on it multiple times and it’s a great ship even with the weird bathroom setup. We are sailing Viva in 4 weeks and then Prima in May 2025 so happy we didn’t book the smaller ships now. NCL were really amazing recently when we had an emergency cancellation 5 days from sailing where normally most cruise lines you would lose the money NCL gave us future cruise credit, for me it says those running the company at that level are still fantastic but often new CEOs mess up in the first few years trying to shake things up too much. It’s not just NCL either as our last RCCL one swore us off RCCL again even though we cruise multiple times in the past, our drink were taking nearly 40 mins too with a constant “we don’t have that at the moment” going on. They are all based heavily on having the money to do things right and Covid hit that hard followed by massive rises in the price of food/fuel etc and seasoned staff not returning to the cruise lines 😞
I was afraid of this downgrade. I have done 50+ cruises. Prior to covid. Most were NCL. I thought NCL was better than Royal. Now all have cut back. However Royal is now better. Platinum with NCL. Diamond with Royal. Have a Royal cruise for Halloween. Then another first week of December.
Many Thanks. I was hours away from booking a post Christmas family cruise on NCL for around $12k. I will now save my money and make other plans. I had a bad experience on NCL years ago and said Never Again. In recent years I have thought I needed to give them another chance. After seeing this video and looking at hundreds of negative reviews, I have changed my plans. Clearly, their senior executives are cost cutting to put their salaries first. That never works. Customer's will not pay the exorbitant inflated prices for a substandard product and lousy service. Thanks or saving me $12+ and a lot of headaches and drama.
Just returned from a trans Atlantic cruise with NCL, absolutely awful uncaring cruise line, absolute chaos at Port of Lisbon, queues over 4 hours long, people were fighting in the queue due to people pushing in, never again
We've booked another trip with Norwegian and will be on board Norwegian Spirit for the Expo 2025 Osaka in May. We travel a lot on cruises and we have a strange feeling - regardless of the ship and shipping company, there is currently only one answer to all of this: Virgin Voyages. The impression is that this is about the product. At Norwegian you get the impression that it's about increasing the price by lowering the product. Definitely not a good idea in the long term.
If you enjoy fish for dinner, expect nothing better than tilapia or coalfish. Not even one night with salmon. Apparently baked Alaska is too costly also, even though it doesn't seem extravagant. Maybe they can eliminate all fish as another cost cutting with the exception of a scoop of low grade tuna on elegant night.
Ugh! I have so many cruise next vouchers but I likely can't afford to use them with the prices going up and up... We noticed on our last Norwegian cruise the crew seemed unhappy.
First and only time on NCL, they changed the itinerary massively (due to the war in Ukraine) and cut 4 ports, and changed it to a Greece & Turkey cruise. Which is *completely* reasonable, BUT they made the big changes just a few days after demanding final payment. They had already cut the Ukrainian port several months before, so we didn't anticipate further changes at the date of paying the balance. Making changes for safety/insurance reasons is fine, but I seriously doubt they couldn't have foreseen those changes a few days before, when we paid the balance. I would have been happy with an option between taking the new itinerary, or re-booking something else, or keeping credit with them incase they reinstated a similar itinerary the next year. But to make everyone pay in full and then tell them their 6 country trip would only be going to 2 countries a few days later felt really sly. Then we got something like a $29 refund for the changes, but not by bank transfer , only in cash. You had to queue up, on board, wasting like an hour of your vacation time. And then they would only give it in dollars, or would give it in GBP to the nearest note (I think £20). So clearly they were hoping fewer people would bother asking for the refund, and they were cutting $3 off anyone wanting paying in GBP. Their determination to get as much money out of us as possible was really off-putting.
I would love you to rate Saga but you have to be over 50….you’re much too young. We love them as older people. One price everything included, quality food and drink, transport to and from the port and insurance all included. They’re great.
Your ‘Ben and David Cruise’ - channel is one of my favorite RU-vid channels, but this video just puts me off. I previously posted how I love MSC and why. For next year I have 2 cruises booked on celebrity Apex and MSC Grandiosa. With both I decided I wanted to change things like roomtype and add ons (MSC) and repricing to have the all included (Celebrity). For MSC this meant a 5-minute phone call and all my issues where sorted. After 7 phonecalls to 4 different celebrity customer service phone numbers I still didn’t know whether my question was possible, although everyone was friendly they were also clueless. Probably worst customer service I have ever needed to contact. In the end I just cancelled and booked again, loosing my NRD in the process. Just to say, thruth is in the eyes of the beholder.
Think that a cruise line ranking needs to be split into 2 categories to be relevant. You need to consider the age group as well. I am 68yrs old and have no interest in the 5000 to 7000 pob over crowded themed cruise ships. A more traditional a cruise, slowe 0:47 r paced and less densely populated ship suits us better. However the service, cost and food remain of relevance and importance in the ranking.
I'm only recently back from a cruise on msc seaside, it was a beautiful ship, our cabin was perfect, as was our attendant, I found no fault with any of the staff, especially in our allocated dining room, however, the food in the buffet was very poor! The entertainment was also very poor, the themed nights entertainment in the atrium starts at 11pm onwards! That in my opinion is too late I don't know if I'd ever want to do an msc cruise again 17:27
After our Jan 2023 NCL cruise, I think we are done with them. The included food was meh and drink and bar service was appalling. I've never in my life tossed so many cocktails. The bar staff was so slammed they just didn't care how they made a drink. Even the coffee was terrible. It's insane to pay their premium line prices for that level of quality and service. No thanks, I'll take Celebrity or Princess all day long over NCL and for less $$$.
You didn’t mention some negatives about Virgin Voyages. No pool for swimming; they only accommodate socializing. Music was too loud at main pool; we could not relax. Too many cool-looking benches and chairs outside which are uncomfortable to actually use. We could not find a comfortable place to get sun away from the loud music.
Wow! This was enlightening! I booked Joy and was supposed to have Footloose. When we got on the ship it was changed to Elements, which was just HORRIBLE! We saw Six on our previous cruise and expected that quality of show again. Next cruise is coming up and just got an email that Key West was removed from the itinerary; no explanation whatsoever and yes final payment has been made! This video really sheds a light on what's going on and it is truly disheartening. I agree and sure do hope that NCL is listening up - we work hard to earn the money to take these vacations and will not continue to use this cruise line if this continues.
I was in the Epic last year Nov and there were iternery changes after the final payment more so becuse if the situation in Israel but the customer service lines wee pathetic they changed flights and expected me to pay dor the hotel stay of more than 2 days after change of disembarkation port. The food was average repeated over the 10 days. State room maintenance was average the shower would flood up every 2 days😢
We cruised the Breakaway last July getting a Haven room, which was located several floors away fron the main Haven. It looked like they slapped a sign Haven on our cabin as it looked like any balcony cabin. Uncomfortable wicker furniture - how cheap can you get. My wife was fuming when she saw the small balcony - two upright chairs no lounger. She complained the whole week. For the money spent, I felt cheated. The Haven itself and staff though was a nice experience. We are going on RC Symphony of the Seas in July out of New Jersey. Miami was dreadfully hot last summer. The larger ship should haaave better options for food.
