My husband and I took our first cruise for our honeymoon. We had heard many stories of wonderful cruising experiences and thought it would be a great get-away. Our experience wasn’t anything to brag about nor would we recommend it to anyone. We definitely wouldn’t recommend it for any younger people because this ship was 90% elderly and all of the events and activities were catered to that age group. For any younger people that didn’t want to sit in the sun all day, Bingo, Bridge and various arts and crafts was the only thing available. The majority of these activities were early in the morning leaving the rest of the day to sit in the room. The casino that NCL advertised for was replaced by an art auction.

To make matters worse, the ship was experiencing engine trouble and made us late for the entire trip. After being at sea for 2 days, we were supposed to stop at the Fanning Islands, but because of the engine trouble, we missed the island completely. We had two more days at sea, totaling 5 days straight at sea before stopping at Kona. Once again we were late and didn’t arrive until after noon. By the time the tender ships were able to get everyone off of this ship, it was 3pm. This allowed us 2 hours on land before we had to stand in another 2-hour line in the rain to get back on the ship. After that, we were a minimum of 2 hours late to every port.

On top of all of that, the food wasn’t even that good. We expected much more of a variety of meals. Although there are various restaurants to choose from, they all serve the same menu. What’s the point of having different restaurants? For breakfast they served runny scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, and fruit. For lunch, the served hot dogs, hamburgers, ribs, various pastas, and fruit. Each night dinner was different, however, each restaurant served the same exact menu. Not what we would consider fine dining.

The best part of this trip was the service. The service was outstanding… it’s too bad everything else wasn’t as good. All in all we enjoyed Hawaii, but no thanks to NCL.