I just returned from a Caribbean cruise on the Norwegian Majesty. I went with my husband, daughter (4 years), mother and father-in-law and two very close friends. This was my 4th cruise. The other cruises I have been on are Dolphin, Carnival Fascination, and Carnival Destiny.

The Food:

Freestyle cruising is up for debate. In most circumstances, we ate dinner around 6:30 every night. We enjoyed the flexibility of eating when we wanted, and we never had to wait for a dinner table on this ship. But, you can tell that you don’t quite get the same service you would by seating at the same table every night. You don’t get to know your waiter, and we missed that. But, even when we dined the same table every night on the Carnival Destiny, I thought our service was lousy—so we were stuck the entire cruise. I think most of our crew would opt for freestyle cruising if we had a choice. But, I don’t know. It’s going to be a hard decision for our next cruise. I think the worse part about the way Norwegian does it is by charging your tips directly on your bill. I like determining this amount myself, but it is very hard when you have different people serving you every night. I would have deducted our tip amounts, but I never made it to the purser’s desk.

I must say I was very nervous about this ship as I read very few positive reviews in a sea of many negative reviews. The biggest complaint I read about this ship was the quality of food. For the most part, I found the food to be very acceptable, and in some instances found it to be outstanding. I enjoyed the meals in the dining rooms, particularly their lobster, and cowboy steak. The prime-rib was a little disappointing though. The deserts were a hit or miss with me.

We ate at “Le Bistro” one night for my friend’s birthday—the food was delicious. I was completely stuffed, uncomfortable, and very happy with the whole meal and experience. I can’t say enough about the difference in the quality of food and service. Not that service in the dining rooms were bad, they just weren’t “suck up to you” like the bistro. It is a true shame that we had to pay $10 per person to eat there. I’d like to think that you should get that kind of service and quality without having to pay extra for it. But, truthfully, I did not feel I got any better service or quality on the Carnival Destiny. I can’t really remember the fascination. Service on Dolphin was next to none—though they did not serve food 24 hours a day like the bigger cruise lines.

I thought the pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, and steak burgers were very acceptable and good for lunch. I did not like the strange luncheon buffets at the supposedly “24 hour” buffets. They usually offered concoctions, like some kind of fish, mixed with vegetables, and rice, or some strange salad. I did not like this, but there were obviously those that did, as there were always people going through and getting this stuff. They also always served some dessert at lunch and dinner in the 24 buffet. They weren’t too bad. I really enjoyed the tartlets, and their chocolate pies/cakes.

We ate in the dining room 5 nights, la bistro 1 night, and ate “Bar-B-Q Ribs” night out on the deck. The ribs on Deck were disappointing. It tasted ok, but there of course was no service, some of the servers did not understand English, and the rest of the stuff that was offered with the ribs was not great. I would recommend that you try the ribs as a snack or appetizer, and then go to the dining room.

I think the most disappointing thing about the Majesty is that there are NO mid-night buffets. There is only one—the chocoholic buffet. It is quite good, but they don’t serve you coffee during the buffet, and they act like they’d rather you take the desserts back to your room. Oh, also, once breakfast if over, so are the drink options. I know on carnival, you could have lemonade or apple juice for lunch & dinner. Not so on the Majesty. They offered juices at breakfast, but after that you had to pay for it.

Our Room:

We enjoyed our room. We had a room for three--oceanview superior room, it was big and roomy (comparable to a standard size room on Carnival.) I really loved this room. I sat in the window many times, looking out to the ocean or port mesmerized by it. This was the first time I had a window, and if I can afford it, I think I would definitely like to have another one. Our room steward was okay, he was not outstanding, but acceptable. (However, he was getting over a bad cold, and gave it to me. I got it about 2 days after getting home. I was very upset by this!) The best room service I’ve ever had was on dolphin. Every time—I mean every time we stepped foot out of our room, the steward was on top of it. It was perfect every time we returned—I don’t know how he did it! Now, with that kind of service, everything else is just doesn’t even come close. So, room service on the Majesty was no different than carnival. They made up the room twice--once in the morning, then once at night.

I had no complaints about my room, but the people I was traveling with did not like their rooms. They got standard oceanview rooms. They were very very small. They were also in a part of the ship were a peculiar smell (like a mild sewage smell) emanated from. We were all on the same deck (Caribbean), but their section of the hall definitely had some kind of plumbing problem. They complained about it, but nothing came of it. The purser’s desk just told them that they were “looking into it.”

The ship:

I enjoyed the overall smallness of the ship. I did read some being disappointed with it, but knowing what to expect kept me from being disappointed. I liked the fact that there was a small amount of people. I simply hated the Carnival Destiny because you were always fighting a crowd and it seemed we were always standing in line. But, there were practically NO lines whatsoever in the Majesty. The counter point, though, was that when one major thing was going on, most people were there, and nowhere else. For instance, when most people were dining or at the show, there were only a few scattered about in other places. It was a little boring. We called it “the lull time.” There was nothing, and I mean “nothing” going on anywhere else. So, you either had to be doing what everyone else was doing, or you’d just have to sit and wait it out.

There were also a large majority of senior cruisers. Not that this is a real bad thing. It’s just that for the younger crowd (like myself and the friends we were traveling with) we would have liked a little bit more of a “party” atmosphere. But, in truth we did get a lot more sleep on this cruise than the others.

The décor of the ship was plain, though there were some glitzy places, but I did not care about this. Truthfully, we spent half, if not slightly more than half of our time away from the ship. I don’t go cruising for the décor. I also noticed many spots in carpeted areas that needed to be fixed.

The kids activity center is the pits. Don’t take this cruise if you want to accommodate your kids. Like I said, this is a mostly senior crowd, and they don’t have kids. So there were almost no kids in the kids place. Plus, they only had one time of day when your kids could stay there for free—which was dinner time. Our daughter always has dinner with us in the dining room. This was the first year that we felt okay to take and leave her in the kid’s corner. After our mornings at the beach, we liked to go shopping, but she did not like to go. We had to pay $5/hour for her to be watched, plus we had to arrange for it the night before. We were truly disappointed with this.

The Islands:

We were at sea the first day. It was incredibly windy. There were not very many people out on deck, but again, seniors don’t normally lay out in the sun.

Tuesday, we docked at Martinique—a nice little island. First, let me recommend if I may—Don’t take ANY shore excursions if you don’t have to. They are expensive, and in many cases, you can coordinate your own trip for less. Spend some time surfing the internet, and booking a rental car in advance for the islands that you are going to. For example, the ships shore tour that goes to St. Pierre (the town were the tragic volcanic eruption occurred in 1902, burying the town.) is $60/ person. We rented a car and went there ourselves. We got to tour the town (a French train ride that costs about $7/person), and check out the Depaz rum distillery (for free). The point is, that if there are at least two people in your group. You could rent a car and be on your own, going to some beaches and exploring the island for much cheaper than using the ships excursion. However, be careful of where the car rental place is. We booked through Avis. It was at the airport, a 20-30 minute taxi ride for my husband, and he had trouble with Avis itself. We booked through the internet and they were trying to charge more than what the agree price on the internet was. My husband called Avis to complain, and they are going to take care of it. They also said that they may be pulling their license to that car rental place. But, even with the hassles that we encountered, it still turned out to be a nice thing to do, and cheaper in the end.

All the rest of the time, we did beaches in the morning and shopping in the afternoon. With the exception of Tortola, we simply got a taxi and went to a beach. Then we taxied back to the ship, changed and went out shopping. It was nice, and is mainly what we were interested in doing. There are some excursions that take you to beaches, but I really think those are a waste of money.

Tortola:

We had heard of “the Baths” on Virgin Gorda, and we wanted to go. Again, we did not take the ship excursion ($47/person—and did not include lunch), but we arranged for our own excursion. I did some looking on the Internet before we left and found Smith’s Ferry Service: http://www.islandsonline.com/smithsferry/

Smith’s Ferry Service offers some island package tours of Virgin Gorda. Their round-trip ferry ride is $25 (comparable to the other ferry services.). But, they have a $35 lunch package that includes round trip ferry service, and taxi to the Baths and lunch. I must say it was truly a great experience. The ferry service is about a 10 minutes walk from the dock and Smith’s ferry was waiting for us a little outside of the docks. They had my name written down and had someone escort us to the ferry dock. I had 2 or 3 other ferry services circling me like vultures, trying to get us to change to their ferry service. But, I felt so pleased with Smith’s I was not listening. I just kept saying, “I’m going with Smith’s Ferry.” The ferry ride was 30 minutes, and then we had a bus take us to the Baths (about 2-5minutes). Lunch was at fishers Cove and it was very delicious. We each got one entrée and one drink. There were about 7-8 entrées to choose from. I highly recommend this package. It is definitely worth the money.

Review:

In sum, I will probably never take the Majesty again, but then, I don’t think I’d want to take any of the others I’ve taken before either. With so many ships out there, I don’t see why I would repeat if I did not have to. I had fun on the Majesty, and I enjoyed many parts of the cruise. I had some complaints, but I’ve had complaints on every ship I’ve been on. I don’t think it is possible to get everything out of a ship that you want. I just don’t see how that could be. Everyone has likes and dislikes. What I like, is not what someone else will like. What is important to me is not necessarily what’s important to others. So, if you are going on a cruise on this ship, keep in mind that there may be things you like and things you don’t like about it, but it is up to you to enjoy your cruise.