10 Nights Mediterranean: Italy, France & Spain Cruise

79th Birthday cruise

Beautiful cruise except there was no 'wheel of fortune' . good food and lots of activities. I want to give a shoutout to our steward, Dedy (stateroom attendant) who was outstanding. I was traveling with 4 adult grandkids for my 79th birthday and a waiter in the Manhatten room by the name of Maurice Edison Mark Ian was excellent thru out our trip. He was personable, attentive and went beyond his duty to attend to us. Thank you for a memorable birthday ! I will sail with NCL again . My grandkids enjoyed it immensely. The balcony was great and our cabins were great. My grandson could not eat enough; he loved the food! My granddaughter Kyland who lives in Manhatten New York, love the "Burn the floor" performance. I had limited mobility, and the staff provided me with wheelchair assistance throughout the cruise. All and all it was a great experience, the 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.