Free-Style is NOT free and NOT style either !
Written: Jul 31 '04 (Updated Mar 03 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy check-in/out. Beautiful ship, very clean. Nice day at private island.
Cons: Long lines, poor service, sales pitches, average food, built in charges for tipping. Fanning Island.
The Bottom Line: Not recommending Free-style. NCL getting worse.
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| glenhamilton's Full Review: Norwegian Star |
Free-Style is NOT free and NOT style either !
Unfortunaltely, this is a negative review for NCL. Yes, there are a lot of good things about any cruise. The "STAR" was a beautiful ship and we really enjoyed sailing on it. This review is just to point out the negative things you are probably not going to like about "Free-Style Cruising". It has a good sales ring to it, but in practice, it is a failure.
Things we did not like:
We used to love NCL (Norwegian Cruise Lines) many years ago because it was the best cruising experience that one could have. Being 55 years old and having been on 21 cruises over the past 30 years, I know a little bit about cruising and how it has changed, especially with NCL. We aren’t going to be taking any more NCL cruises until they clean up their act. They were taken over by new management in the last 90's and it has certainly gone down hill since that time.
We took one of those “free-style” cruises to Hawaii. In my opinion. “free-style” is a cruising experiment from hell. Here is a few of our complaints:
The tip is built in to the fare. Yup, the customer lets NCL decide about the tip rate and who gets it. What ever happened to the day when a tip meant that you were rewarding someone for superior service? Now a tip is expected, however, I give a tip according to the service. Sometimes, that means NOTHING, and sometimes it means 20%. We are really annoyed by companies like NCL that are arrogant enough to think every waiter gets a 15% tip which helps to subsidize the fact that the company pays them poorly and wants the general public to make up for it.
You have probably noticed some restaurants now charge 15% automatically for groups of 6 or more. I don’t go to those restaurants. I go to ones that don’t have those policies. If the service is immaculate, they get a bigger tip than 15%. I never understood the mentality as to why it is necessary to automatically charge a 15% tip for a group of people. Some restaurants call it a “surcharge”. Duh, it is actually easier and faster to serve a group at one table than 6 different people at 6 different tables. So much for restaurants; you get my point about tipping. Back to NCL…
We went down to the purser’s office to decline the automatic charge for “Gratuities”. They tell you this is available, and yes they honor it, but they sure make you feel like a bum for coming to the counter to do it. As it turned out, we gave direct tips to our cabin steward, and several other people at the end of the cruise with a bigger tip than NCL would have given them. The point is that it should be the choice of the customer, not NCL. Stop that policy.
Second biggest complain is related to the first. Because the tip is automatically built-in to the fare, the attitude and service goes down hill dramatically because they know they are going to get a fixed amount anyway. A few of them are a bit smarter than that and know if they do a superb job, they get something extra.
As for dining, that was a disaster to get seated. There were huge crowds at some of the dining areas on the ship and NCL was not coordinated on handling the crowds and seating people. Often it took an hour of waiting in line. It is much more organized on the “Non free-style” cruises. The best experience we had was on a Disney cruise where they moved you to a new dining area each night, yet you had the same waiters. It was fabulous. Every person got to eat at every dining area to have a different experience, yet the waiters knew you and what you liked.
There is something that annoys a lot of people, but NCL never seemed to do anything about it in the last couple of years. They have gotten really cheap on food items. Example, no midnight buffet. We always enjoyed those lavish settings on all of the cruise lines. Most disgusting are the Ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise packs. Yea you know, the kind they give you at junk food joints. Come on NCL. If I want to try and tear open a ketchup pack with my teeth, I’ll go to a fast food place. This is a “luxurious cruise” as you state. Even the local Mexican hole-in-the-wall restaurants will at least put ketchup bottles on the table. What ever happened to those little bowls of ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise? There were lots of older people on the ship that struggled trying to tear open those packets.
Hi Internet access fees. We didn’t use them because the price was so high.
Shameless sales pitches to sell you most everything, especially alcohol at dinner.
And lastly is something I think no cruise line is ever going to change… to nickel and dime you for soft drinks. Gee, just build it into the price. It doesn’t cost that much. People should not have to be annoyed with pulling out their card to be charged for a soft drink on a cruise.
Some good points:
The check through process was very smooth and efficient. No hassles getting luggage to or from the room, and it was fast. This is sometimes a problem area with most cruises.
The rooms and ship was very clean and beautifully decorated. I suggest you take the first several hours to walk around in a methodical order and get your bearings on where things are. Study the ship layout several times in advance of the trip to have it in your mind. This will save you much time trying to figure out where things are located when you get there. Having been in the Navy for 4 years (long ago), I learned a lot of tips about figuring out where you are on a ship and where you are going. You should learn them. Hint (frame numbers and colors regularly spaced on the ceiling edges and floor wall edges.)
We have a 9 year old boy. The children's center was really cool and he loved it. You could place your kid in there for several hours during the day (no fee) and they will take care of the kids with treasure hunting games, touring them around the ship, etc. They assign a pager to you where you can have peace of mind that if anything goes wrong, they will page you. Still, Disney Cruise Line does this better as you might expect.
A well kept secret seems to be the spa in the very aft of the ship. Hardly no one was ever there. I think people got the wrong idea that you had to pay to get in there, but you don't. It has a beautiful aft view of the ship's wake as you travel, and the room is fabulous. Go there a lot and do it the first day. The spa and pool is great.
The private island day with BBQ was really good. Be sure to snorkel there. Relaxing and fun. Take a walk to the other side of the island if it is not a hot day. It is secluded and beautiful.
If you are taking one of the Hawaii cruises, please don't miss out on an active volcano tour and several other tours. If it is within your budget, take a helicopter tour. You will be blown away by everything you see.
So so points:
No Casino. Fine. Thank you. We don’t like gambling. It’s one of the reasons we took the cruise (no casino).
Fanning Island is a waste of time to everyone. There are political/financial reasons why NCL has to go there. I heard lots of complaints about this.
Crew is generally not very friendly (I think it is the free-style approach).
There was a music lounge similar to what you will find in a "Hard Rock Cafe". Lot's of photos from groups of the 60s/70s/80s, gold albums. The problem is getting into the place at night. Get there early to get a seat for seeing some of the performances. My wife was not so impressed with the unflattering long-haired photo of me on the wall. Frankly, I was surprised to see it there. My son thought it was cool. We sat there and had a drink.
Look out husbands... there are some nice one-of-a-kind jewelry shopping on board ;-) My wife came back with $3,000 worth of new jewelry. In her defense, I'd say I was really impressed with it being so unique that everyone who sees it has asked about it. Pretty stuff, but expensive.
In summary, you'd probably think "that wasn't such a bad cruise after all". And it wasn't. My point of the review was mainly that free-style really sucks and makes the cruise much less enjoyable. I'm speaking relative to the many other cruises. All cruise lines will have some minor annoyances, and like any service, someone is always going to have a problem of some sort on every ship, however, in my personal experience I say that NCL was once the cream of the crop about 10 years ago. Now Royal Caribbean is really great. A terrible cruise line is Carnival... better known as K-Mart of the Caribbean. I'm sure someone with a bad experience on those lines won't agree. I'm just speaking from our experience.
The wife and I are going on our second vacation this year. Usually, one of the vacations is a cruise. We think we are going somewhere that we don’t have to tear open food packs with our teeth. That probably means that cruises are now out of our plans. Cruising in general has gone to the dogs and NCL is the ugliest mutt in the lot.
For people that have never been on a cruise or have little experience, they are going to think NCL cruising is good. They need to take other cruises to really enjoy the experience.
Things we suggest if you decide to go on the STAR:
Take plenty of digital FLASH memory cards for your camera. We took over 400 pictures. Take your photos in the early morning before people get up. Bring your camera to dinner. Often some entertaining things happen there.
Don't hesitate to ask a waiter to take back a dinner item or swap it for something else if you don't like it. They are more than happy to do it.
Check out the pool side barbeques that they have most every day. They are great, and convenient.
Get to dinner EARLY because you will be waiting a long time to be seated if you delay. (A problem with free-style).
Study the ship in advance of your trip so you will know the layout and not waste time trying to find your way around the ship once you get there.
Book rooms near the center of the ship if available. Think about the physics. Less movement occurs in the center. Outside veranda staterooms are very nice if you don't might the extra cost.
Cheers and have a good trip on whatever cruise you choose.
Recommended:
No
Best Suited For: Families
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Epinions.com ID:
glenhamilton
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Member: Glen Hamilton
Location: Northern California
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
Engineering Executive (electronics and software)
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