NCL - Norwegian Cruise Line
Norwegian Majesty Cruise Review
Western Caribbean

Second Timer
Age: 40
Occupation: Computer Professional
Number of Cruises: 2
Sailing Date: March 11th, 2006

My wife has returned to college, so we picked NCL’s Norwegian Majesty to cruise the western Caribbean during her spring break. Sure, lots of other colleges are on spring break, too, but how many of those students will want to take a cruise?

ALL OF THEM.

Unbeknownst to us, NCL allows 18-20 year olds to drink while aboard. And drink they did. Constantly. The ship was out of Corona by the second day. About half the ship’s compliment were drunk teenagers – I’d hate to have to pay their bar bills! We tried to get them to stop singing and running up and down the hallways at 3am, only to be ignored by them and told by the meager security staff that there was “nothing that could be done” about it.

The Norwegian Majesty is showing its age: small, with no balcony cabins, broken and opaque Plexiglas, and rusting badly in spots. The ship was late leaving Charleston and never made up the time in route. Two days later, we were late getting into Grand Cayman, but they insisted on leaving on schedule, "shorting" us on the port-of-call. The decks were usually messy, with food residue frequently scattered around the buffets, and left for what seemed like an unacceptable amount of time.

Our shore excursion at Cozumel seemed rushed, and although the all-you-can-drink bar consisted of only low-quality beer and even lower-quality bottled margarita mix, our collegiate friends rose to the occasion and consumed enough of it that they had to 'give it back' to the ocean before we'd even returned to the ship.

The “Freestyle” dining concept was a plus. Usually we’d ask to share a table, and were seated with new individuals. We found this preferable to assigned seating times and partners. The food in the restaurants was usually passable, but often the desserts were items that were passed over from yesterday’s buffet. Food quality overall was disappointing. The midnight chocolate buffet, held once during the cruise, was well done, but not enough to balance the rest of the experience.

We picked NCL and the Norwegian Majesty because we thought it would be better than the Carnival Paradise we’d been on two years ago. We were wrong. NCL’s cabin staff and wait staff were good, but so many other aspects of this cruise were so far off-the-mark that I seriously doubt we will ever choose NCL again.

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