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Lauri Cameron

Age: 31 to 40
Occupation: Project Manager
Number of Cruises: First Cruise
Ship: Norwegian Sky
Sailing Date: February 4th, 2001
Itinerary: Eastern Caribbean

Overall I think that Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) did a great job of pampering me on my cruise to Nassau, San Juan, St. Thomas and the Great Stirrup Island. 

There were very positive moments such as our waiter (Hasan) in the Seven Seas Restaurant who recognized us after the first night and made recommendations, always smiled and shared great bits of helpful information to say the very least!  A truly wonderful experience!!!

Some things we learned early on in the cruise were that we could put in a reservation each night for the same waiter and table with the front desk at the restaurant.  Do it quickly because once you find a good waiter everyone else will want to sit in his area too!!

The food in the Seven Seas restaurant was excellent.  Most of the steak or lamb choices were perfectly prepared.  I don't think there was one meal that I didn't like and I would say most of them surpassed my expectations which were very high!!  The Seven Seas restaurant was the best of the two because fewer people actually went that far on the ship.  The Garden cafe (outside area at the very back of the ship) was a perfect place to sit over a morning coffee and watch the day begin!! 

A major drawback at NCL was that every excursion was behind schedule and sometimes ended up causing anxiety as we raced back to the ship late..... The San Juan Rainforest Hike was a very big disappointment because the 2 hour bus ride was interspersed with shopping stops which left little to no time actually hiking in the rainforest.  The trail is far too crowded with people and we weren't told that the stopping point was a nice waterfall where we could swim.  So wear your swimsuit if you take the hike..... and expect to be very late coming back from the rainforest.  We were 2 hours late getting back to the ship and got very little cooperation from NCL about the whole excursion.

We learned to not do excursions through NCL and just strike out on our own because you can sign up independently and it sometimes works out to be cheaper.

We loved Megan's Bay on St. Thomas.  If you want to spend a great day just relaxing at a beach you definitely want to get a taxi to Megan's Bay.  If you get the right taxi driver you'll even get a great tour along the way.  Our driver took us to the best places to take pictures and also told us little bits of helpful information along the way!

We found that by going shopping first thing in the morning at St. Thomas you actually miss a lot of the crowds and from shopping we ate lunch at Herve's restaurant that sits higher up and overlooks the harbor.  A Beautiful view for lunch.

NCL does need to work on getting their front desk staff better training in customer service and friendliness as we found them to be highly uncooperative or informative.  They never offered  any helpful information nor did they try and rectify problems that occurred.

I did come home very pleased with the cruise and the eastern caribbean.

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