10 Nights Italy, France, Spain & Malta from Barcelona Cruise

Because it was so much better than our last…

First off, the two of us used NCL bogo air from Philadelphia to Venice and the cruise line booked us the same flights we would have on our own. We stayed the night before embarkation in Trieste, took a cab to the port at noon the next day, and were whisked right through the boarding by a luggage porter and the NCL reps at the Latitudes Platinum line. The ship is in pretty good shape, though there were some signs of wear in our club balcony cabin. Public spaces seemed refreshed nicely though. The dry dock did seem to prioritize revenue producing over cabin upgrades. We didn’t do the Silver Screen and the new top deck open space is a bit of a joke…just AstroTurf and bean bag chairs! That was it for criticism. The really pleasant aspects were the obvious increase in staffing since what we saw on the Pearl in Feb. and the improved food quality in the specialty AND main dining venues. Still somewhat limited selections but we tried Palomar, Cagney’s, La Cucina, and Le Bistro, as well as all three mdr’s. Service and food excellent in all. Since we chose this cruise for the itinerary we had NCL excursions 9 of the 10 days so we weren’t on the ship looking for games or activities and can’t comment on those. One thing that we were really happy about, at Barcelona on disembarkation we had a very early flight. The ship had excellent plans to get us off, in our transfer, and to the airport with plenty of time. Overall an excellent vacation!

Staying in the Haven

Very good getting on and off the ship. Food was good especially at Tepanyaki. The bartenders at the Haven bar, Sergio and Luka were great. Our cabin was very large but needed a few repairs which were done swiftly. The weather was definitely on the cooler side but it was March. Omar and Victor his assistant were great Concierge’s. The entire staff were amazing as well as Dian our butler and Jeffrey our room steward. The hot tubs and pool were good and we never had a problem finding an empty one. There was a special added to the Haven restaurant menu almost every day. The entertainment as far as comedians go needs to be newer seeing the same comedian doing the same jokes 11 months ago isn’t appealing. One thing that was missing was the captain at his cocktail party. This is something that I think he should at least spend some time at. The Behind the Scenes tour was interesting.

NCL is amazing

NCL is still my favorite. Their staff are absolutely amazing. Awesome cruise director. Fantastic staff all over the ship. Only one bartender (seemed like he was a manager) in the theater wasn't friendly. Not bad for a 9 day cruise to only find 1 person. Cabin attendant was amazing. The ship was showing signs of age but it went to dry dock right after our trip so I'm sure that will be resolved. It is a great ship though, albeit small balconies. The food was great....of course better in the specialty restaurants. The Noodle place was amazing, and free. Service in all of the dining places was amazing. Main dining rooms were all great and the staff couldn't be more attentive and helpful. On sea days, trying to find a lounge chair on any of the upper decks was impossible after 9AM. Finally on the last day of the cruise, they started red tagging the chairs with times. If it was over 30 minutes, we just took them. The NCL beach excursions were extremely disappointing. (As a side note, a cruise I took on Encore last year, had an equally disappointing beach excursion in St Thomas). I was very much looking forward to Barbados and going to a beach, which was my favorite island until now. I got the Copacabana beach day excursion. The place was in a very run down area. The beach was too small for the number of ships that were in port that day. The "beach club" was a small room with 6 chairs. They claim there's a shower, but it wasn't indoors, so not sure where that was. They claimed there were changing facilities....well that ended up being 2 toilet stalls with no counter or hooks to place your belongings. It was either on the toilet or on the floor. The staff there weren't that friendly and when someone that was on our bus didn't want to sit on the beach where we were told we had to sit, they got combative with her. The woman just ignored them and I think they just gave up. Not customer service friendly at all. We were jammed on the beach like sardines and it wasn't much better in the water. I think there were 4 ships in port that day. But NCL should know that information when they are selling excursions. After that terrible day, we were looking forward to the afternoon beach break in Antigua. We went to the zone where our tickets said to meet. They took our tickets, counted us off about 9 times, put wrist bands on us and off we went. After an hour in a very uncomfortable shuttle bus, we began wondering how far it was to the beach. Then we started to suspect that we were on the wrong excursion. After 1.5 hours we stopped and were given 15 minutes to use the bathroom. We went up to the woman who was our "tour guide" and said we aren't going to the beach, are we? She said no, you're on a 3 hour tour of Antigua. Well needless to say, there were 4 of us in bathing suits that were not happy at all that day. After these disappointments, I am no longer going to purchase NCL excursions. I will be researching and buying my own excursions, based on reviews and info received on cruise critic. I did do a tour of San Juan through NCL and that was a great tour. Great tour guide and nice comfortable transportation. In spite of the excursion problems, I am still all in on NCL. Love this cruise line and its amazing staff. Looking forward to my next one.