I would not call us picky travelers or difficult to please. We’ve had wonderful cruises on Carnival, Princess, of course Disney and even Royal. We decided to try NCL Encore for the first time over Thanksgiving and we are never cruising with them again.
I’ll start with the good. The ship was nice and it was clean. There were some fun activities like the VR arcade and Lazer Tag for kids. The MDR food was pretty good, and the Indian on the buffet was also good. The paid French restaurant was pretty good.
Now for the bad. Oh boy.
First, all three of my children (11,8,4) HATED the kids club. They said it was boring, very little supervision, kids just running around everywhere, little organization. My 4 year old refused to go after the second day. He would panic when we just walked by the kids area. We were so concerned we talked to the directors and asked if anything had happened as he has never acted this way about any kids camp ever, and they just shrugged and said they weren’t aware of anything. Obviously this meant my husband and I weren’t able to enjoy the adult activities on the ship, which was a huge bummer.
If you weren’t lining up for the kids club 15-20 minutes before 7pm, there wouldn’t be space for your child. My older two kids said they would give the kids camp another chance, but were not able to because by the time we showed up just 5-10 minutes after it opened, it was full and we were number 100 something in a virtual queue to get in. Never experienced anything like this on any other cruise line.
The ship was extremely overcrowded for what they offered. Getting into shows was near impossible, MDR reservations were booked out days in advance unless you wanted to eat at 9:30pm. Impossible to finds seats for buffet, no chairs available on the pool deck, etc.
Our balcony stateroom was TINY, the closet could not fit our suitcase at all. We booked two balcony staterooms next to each other, and they refused to open the dividers between the two rooms for us. They said it was a “safety issue” And that this was a rule across the entire NCL fleet.
They only clean the rooms once per day. This wouldn’t be so bad if they would allow you to choose the time like morning or dinner, but they said they only clean the rooms until 4pm and then after that they only provide towels, or clean for an emergency. This meant that by the time we got back from an excursion at the beach, everything was covered in sand and we had sand in our bed from walking in our room covered in sand until the next day when they would come to clean again. I did request a bed change once after 4pm when my youngest accidentally knocked an entire cup of soda onto my bed, soaking the sheets and pillow. They were very rude about having to come and change the sheets.
No self service laundry and the laundry offered by the ship was extremely expensive. 5 or 6 dollars for each single shirt, 7 or 8 dollars for each pant. With 5 of us that would obviously add up to a lot of money.
No soda machines. If you wanted a soda outside of meal times, you had to go to bar and ask for a cup.
No free room service. Even continental breakfast cost extra, and if you wanted a soda from room service you were charged even if you had the soda package.
No included food on the pool decks. We went to the pool around 11am, thinking we would swim for an hour or so, grab some lunch on the deck and keep swimming. Nope. There was a bar but the only food available was at the diner which is not free and ended up tasting terribly.
There was never any seating at the buffet. We ended up having to walk from the buffet to the pool because that was the only seating we could ever find. Extremely long lines.
No bedrails for my 4 year old who slept on the converted sofa. He fell off the bed twice in the middle of the night
TERRIBLE internet. We paid extra for us to have high speed internet, thinking that since they had Starlink it would be worth it. It was the worst internet on any cruise I’ve been on, even ones that did not have Starlink. It simply would not work 50% of the time. Not slow, but just flat out would not work. There was an over 12 hour window where my husband and I could not even load our emails, and with one of our dogs sick with the dog sitter this was really stressful.
I feel like *everything* cost extra. Even really old movies in the stateroom cost money to watch. The only free movies were ones they played on loop at certain times.
My kids all said this was their least favorite cruise they’ve ever been on. My husband and I completely agreed. I had such high hopes for NCL but it just wasn’t for us. I would much rather cruise Carnival or Princess or of course Disney. Celebrity is the next line I really want to try.
Anyway, I know a lot of people really enjoy NCL and some of this may have been ship specific, but just figured I would share my experience.
). Apparently an entire block of cabins were malfunctioning and they never did get them all back and working. The whole cruise was a disaster.
.)
