Chil's Point of View….

This should really have been titled ‘Norwegian Cruise Line’ (NCL) vs ‘Carnival Cruise Line’ (CCL).
The Alaska trip was fun – when we were not dealing with NCL.

Nelly and I had our first cruise experience last December, when we took the Carnival Pride to Mexico. It was such a fun, and relaxing cruise, that we constantly told all our friends to go on a cruise – because it was an experience worth it. But after our Alaska cruise on the Norwegian Pearl, we have adjusted our recommendation – go on a cruise, but go with Carnival (I will add more if we find another cruise line which we try, test, and love). I would never pay my own money to travel on NCL again! The experience just could not compare with our first cruise experience last December.

Prior to cruise:
We should have known from the first phone experience that this company service was going to suck. After calling, I could not ask the cruise to put my beds together. When the cruise was booked, it was for a double room.The room I got was with two single beds, and I had wanted a room with a bed for two people. The beds were tagged as being able to be put together. I called NCL so that they can put them together before we got on cruise. NCL customer service was rude, and could not entertain me. They directed me back to my agent to make that change (it is a simple bed change request). My agent got it changed (3 weeks prior to cruise), but day of cruise, beds were no

Website was down a big chunk of the time when I was trying to do research on cruise. It was frustrating. I am not making this up at all!!!
I could not finish my online profile as site kept giving an error with an error code. I called customer service, and they were able to remove the error – reason was that my address was entered twice in the system: the site had one address option, so how the heck can a user enter 2 addresses? And if so, why could the error not be descriptive. And customer service suggested that there is no way a user would have removed the duplicate address, because it was not exposed (so only way is to call into NCL). Ridiculous! Am I the only person who hit into this? By how fast the person figured the issue, it seemed that many other people hit into this. So why can’t they just update or fix this error?

A few days before the cruise, I was not able to book excursions. I called NCL, and they said it was closed because you can not make excursion choices 5 days before cruise. This was not documented at all in all the correspondence I had with NCL – it was not even in the booklet which was sent to me with ticket information. Why can’t they communicate! It just seemed simple. I don;t remember having these kind of communication issues with Carnival Cruise.

On cruise:
Freestyle dining sucked! Actually, freestyle dinning failed!
I could never get in the restaurant I wanted (not the specialty restaurants) the first few nights. All of them had long waits (which I never had to do on previous cruises), and I had to resort to eating at the summer palace buffet. The buffet was a decent experience the first day, but it became a dull option since the same food was repeated every day! The whole time I was on the cruise, I had never eaten at theone of the restuarants covered, called Indigigo – it always had a ridiculous long wait; it was also usually closed for private events ; why? Closing down a ship restaurant to cover for a private party? Why would they not reserve one of the speciality restaurants so that guests can continue with their selected choices.
Freestyle dining failed! I know I said that already, but it is true.
Because of the long waits, I felt NCL was pushing people to go to their specialty restaurants which had an additional cover. I did not want that option because I was on an all-inclusive vacation. Why would it need to provide me with poor options. I have always been happy with other all inclusive options; NCL was the first terrible one for me.

Staff unhappy!
I think there is some communication/training options NCL can do for their staff. Their wait-staff was not friendly (I remember only two who stand out as being friendly and courteous). Their staff would also often talk in their own language amongst themselves while I was there talking to them – I don’t expect everyone to speak English, but I think it is rude to talk among yourselves knowing that a customer can not understand.
NCL staff need training: When I could not get into the restaurants I wanted, I decided to go to front desk so that I can make a reservation to a restaurant so that I am at least guranteed a decent meal instead of the buttet option which seemed to be stuck on repeat. But the guys at customer service desk suggested that dinner for two did not need a reservation; only a larger party. I was shocked because at the restaurant, they had suggested we needed to have made a reservation to get gurranteed seating at the time slot we wanted. I complained and insisted that the customer service guy was wrong, and he harshly directed us to the desk where specialty restaurants make their reservations. Over there, the staff member said all restaurants take reservations for all numbers, and did not know what the previous guy was talking about – a complete disconnect amongst the staff members! Unbelievable.

Observation: Freestyle dining means you miss shows.
Because we always had to wait, and one time had to wait for our food for over and hour, we missed one of the main shows – I was really pissed! If there are preferred dining times, then everyone can plan accordingly so that they can get to the shows. Poor planning.

Staff members are always trying to upsell.
I hate when I feel like I am in a town where people are trying to sell  me timeshares after every turn I make. I felt the same about NCL Pearl staff – even on my quiet reading times, someone would always bug me trying to sell me their special even when I insisted that I would not be drinking alcohol in the morning. Every 2 minutes, someone or same person, would constantly bug me with their upsell. I did not feel relaxed at all when I was not in the stateroom (our room) or on shore at one of the stops.

What is up with the drink options in the all inclusive package?
Water (specifiy not bottled water), and unsweet ice-tea were the only drink options which were free. What the hell? What about other juices? I don’t care if sodas are extra, but why try to force people to shell up more? Orange juice for breakfast was some price not in the package; the same with Apple juice; crap – any juice for that matter.

What NCL did right.

After such a crappy experience, it was hard trying to pick some positives. One think that stood out though that was better than Carnival was that NCL did a really good job with embarkation, and debarkation. I would give this cruise the high marks for those options. During the Carnival experience last year, I spoke about how I thought Carnival scored low on the Embarkation process which made them seem disorganized – see my Carnival commentary (http://www.mubweb.com/blog/index.php/archives/203) on the last day of the cruise last december.

Like an analyst, you hear horror stories after the fact:

After we shared some of our NCL experience, people started finally opening up and asking us why we went on that cruise. We remember doing research, and doing some web searches – there were no warning signs. But this time, when I do web searches, I am now seeing people who are having issues with NCL. Shame.

Final Verdict:
Nelly and I may try another cruise line just for comparison purposes. But if we want to have an experience which we are some-what familiar with, we will definately go back on Carnival. As for NCL, we are not going to jump on it again, and we will definately not recommend anyone to try and have that experience – unless you know for certain that they have improved (but then, you will be taking a risk).
Nelly and I now now what to say/suggest to our friends looking for a cruise option.