Honeymoon nightmare.
Written: Feb 25 '02 (Updated Feb 26 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It beats working....barely!
Cons: Terrible service, sewage smell, overcrowded.
The Bottom Line: I would not let NCL rescue me from a deserted island!
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| gliner's Full Review: Norwegian Wind |
We took a cruise on the NCL Wind on 10-17 March 2001. It was our honeymoon and we had signed up for the honeymoon package. Now we had cruised before, so we knew what to expect. We both scuba dive and that was what we planned to do at each stop. Boarding went ok, we were shown our cabin. But was our honeymoon package there? No. We were supposed to have a basket of fruit and a bottle of champaign (sp) waiting for us. I went to the "information" desk and the smartass girl there suggested that we must have just overlooked it as they could not have possibly made such a mistake. Now anyone who has ever taken a cruise knows that the cabins are not so large that one could not stumble across a basket of brightly colored fruit and a bottle of wine in an ice bucket. So I invited her to come look for herself. Only then did it get across to her that I was not lying. So we were offered a $100 bar tab in lieu of what I had planned as a plesant surprise. With that done, we decided to go have some lunch before the ship departed. We were seated, and waited, and waited for a waiter. Finally we were seen to after a 20 minute wait. Then it took another 30 minutes for our food to arrive, and it was luke warm at best. We knew we had made a mistake at that point. So with lunch finally done, we headed up to the main deck to watch Miami fade away. I thought it might be a good idea to get a drink and ordered a corona for myself and my wifes usual vodka and grapefruit. Surprise! There was no corona available yet, nor was there any grapefruit juice. We had already set sail and the bars had not been stocked yet. Such lousy service became the norm for the remainder of our week.
Dinner was a joke for the whole week. NCL might advertise their "freestyle" dining as eating when and where you want. Nothing could be further from the truth. You either need a reservation, or you wait in line for up to an hour for a table, any table. The food was very poorly cooked, I have never seen such limp calamari in my life, it was soggy and had so much grease dripping from it, we sent it back 3 times before finally giving up on an appitizer. Yes we could have had something else, but we found that the menu was the same for the whole week with the exception of one (1) entree nightly. A waiter suggested we try Le Bistro, with it's $10 per person surcharge. Whats the deal with that? I should pay extra to get the food and service I should already be getting?
Our diving did go well at Roatan, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. I got some awesome pictures with my underwater camera. However, in Belize the conditions were too dangerous to dive on the day we were there. I could see that from the ship. 4-6 foot waves are too intense for diving. Not that they affect you underwater, but try climing into a boat wearing 80 pounds of equipment while the ladder you are trying to climb is swinging in a 12 foot arch. The excursion operator insisted that the conditions were much better where we were going to dive. He assured us that he had called the "resort" we were going to and the conditions were good for diving. So off we went, about 20 of us in his boat. With the waves so high we were all soaked in just a few minutes. It took over an hour in that boat to get to the "resort." Blackbird Caye resort is where they took us, I noticed right away that the conditions were just as bad, plus I saw that there were no tanks or other equipment prepared for a days diving. We got out of the boat, the operator went to the main building and the staff came out and they talked for awhile. Then they all came over, introduced themselves and stated that conditions were too bad and that we should wait a couple of hours to see if they improve enough to get at least one dive in. So we waited....and waited. Three hours later, conditions were still too bad. Lunch was served. Very bland chicken and some sort of rice dish that I suspect was peppered with ants for protien. I refused to eat anything, as did several others. We wanted to be taken back to the ship to try to salvage something of the day, but the excursion operator did not want to return us early as that would "mess up the schedule." Whose schedule? Ours? So we were invited to check out the "resort" as long as we were not too loud. People pay up to $1500 a week to come and dive there. Well, I would certainly not spend anything near that price to stay at that dump. The island is about 1 1/2 miles square. It was covered with trash, everything from old hot water heaters, to bathtubs, to washing machines were piled up behind the cabanas. There was a mountain of garbage that was complete with the stray looking dogs and cats, complete with litters of pups and kittens. When it was FINALLY time to leave the excursion operator said he was calling ahead to tell the excursion desk that we had not gotten to dive. So off we went on our way back, soaked again in no time. We arrived back at the ship, went to the excursion desk and reported about being held hostage. Imagine our anger when we were told that the excursion operator reported that we had gotten our two dives in ok!!! Needless to say, there was a lot of loud, colorful language to be heard for quite a distance! We had to prove to NCL that we had not done a dive at all. It is nearly impossible to prove a negative, so more loud language ensued. Finally we were asked to write a report about what had happened. So 20 or so people are sitting around writing out reports to prove what should have been obvious. We did get our money back, but were not offered anything to compensate us for the wasted day we spent on that dump of a "resort."
Overall, we were most unimpressed with NCL. Most of the wait staff were from Romainia, and they looked like they had escaped from Dracula's forest. They spoke little to no english and just had an attitude that they did not care about their jobs. NCL's system of tipping probably has a lot to do with that. No more incentive since they will get the tips anyway. Well, that did not work with us, we cancelled that and tipped the only person on the ship who actually did anything for us, our cabin steward. Never again will I set foot on an NCL ship. Some have suggested that we write in and state our case. Since it has been nearly a year since we took this cruise, I would not expect anything. So we do like all consumers and vote with our feet. We are cruising on Carnival in June and RCCL again in Nov. Both of those lines offer a much better product than NCL at a comparable price. We just won't ever give NCL the chance to abuse us again.
Recommended:
No
Best Suited For: Couples
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Epinions.com ID:
gliner
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Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 0 members
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