Norweigan Cruise Line Review
norweigan cruise line
Did you know that Norwegian Cruise Line, also known as NCL, began its journey in 1966? Since then, they have grown their fleet to 17 ships, making them one of the largest cruise line companies in the world. NCL’s ships are registered in various countries, including the Bahamas, Bermuda, and Panama, allowing them to visit an array of unique and exotic destinations around the globe. From the sunny beaches of the Caribbean to the breathtaking fjords of Alaska, Africa to Antarctica, and so many more – NCL offers a variety of itineraries to suit every type of traveler.
One of the things that sets Norwegian Cruise Line apart is their innovative onboard offerings, including Freestyle Cruising concept. This allows guests to enjoy a more flexible dining experience, with no set dining times or formal dress codes. In addition, NCL’s ships feature incredible entertainment options, many dining options, and attentive service to ensure every guest has a truly memorable experience. Typically, NCL attracts a diverse range of guests, from families with young children to couples celebrating special occasions. Whether you’re looking to relax on a tropical beach, explore ancient ruins, or simply enjoy a luxurious getaway at sea, Norwegian Cruise Line has something for everyone.
norweigan cruise ships
Looking to set sail on a Norwegian Cruise Line voyage? Here’s a list of 19 ships in their fleet and the dates they set sail:
- Norwegian Spirit in 1998
- Norwegian Sky (1999)
- Norwegian Star which set sail in 2001
- Norwegian Sun debuting in 2001
- NCL Dawn (2002)
- Norwegian Jewel beginning in 2005
- Pride of America from 2005
- NCL Jade (2006)
- Norwegian Pearl starting in 2006
- Norwegian Gem from 2007 onward
- NCL Epic (2010)
- Norwegian Breakaway began in 2013
- Norwegian Getaway sailing starting in 2014
- NCL Escape (2015)
- Norwegian Joy hit the water in 2017
- Norwegian Bliss sailed in 2018
- NCL Encore (2019)
- Norwegian Prima joined the fleet in 2022
- Norweigan Aqua will be coming soon – in 2025
norweigan cruise review
To get an idea of the size, and offerings of Norweigans ships:
- The oldest ship, the Norweigan Spirit offers a capacity of 2,032 passengers at double occupency with a crew of 904. It is 121 feet wide and 880 feet long. The ship was refurbished in 2022. Passenger decks are from deck 4 to deck 13 for a total of 9 decks with two main dining rooms, buffet, several specialty restaurants ($), main theatre shows, daily activities, gym, outdoor basketball court, golf driving nets, a jogging track, and pool.
- The largest NCL ship is the Norweigan Breakaway which debuted in 2019 with a capacity of 3958 passengers at double occupency and a crew of 1735. She is 136 feet wide and 1094 feet long. Passenger decks are from deck 5 to deck 20 for a total of 16 guest decks. There are 20 dinning locations to choose from including three main dining rooms, the buffet, several casual cafes that are included plus lots of specialty restaurants ($). Activities onboard include waterslides to NCL Speedway – aka go carts, laser tag, and a virtual-reality area with family style arcade games
norweigan cruise Line ships
The ships offerings vary widely based on ship, so you will want to read carefully about the ship you are sailing on and see if it meets with your needs and expectations. Some of the newere ships off go karts where you can race around the world’s first three-level race track at sea. Some ships have waterslides and an aqua park, while others only offer one main pool. While all offer a sports court and shuffle board, some offer mini-golf, pickle ball, and foosball options. So as you see the offerings vary greatly. All the ships will have a casino, pool, spa, walking path, gym, photo opportunities, and amazing views.
The offerings vary greatly between ships is pretty consistent cruise industry wide. The older ships are smaller with less bells and whistles. I would say more of NCL ships are simpler than that majority of Royal Carribean Crusieline for example. But that is not necessarily a bad thing, mega ships are not for everyone.
norwegian cruise line freestyle
The dining is touted as freestyle which gives the impression of freedom to eat when you want, wherever you want at a whim. We did not find this to be true. We found it not only a good idea, but essential to make reservations for dinner by the first night of the cruise or options were not available. We saw so many upset guests that they tried to dine at 5pm and there were no tables until 9pm at the 2 main dining rooms. The lines to get in the dinning area were so long, with no seperation between those with timed reservations and those hoping to just be seated on a whim. We’d get in line at 5pm for a 5:30 reservation and get to the front by 5:45 at times.
Dining rooms were beautiful and filled with gracious table servers. The wait staff is severealy overworked so the service is slow and inaccurate. We laughed because in the 14 days we were on the ship not one meal did they get everything right. Didn’t matter the restaurant or time of day, someones order was really wrong every single time. Because your table changed from night to night, so did your server. We missed the repoire with the same wait staff. No one got to know our prefernces, made small talk, anticpiated our needs, or even did magic tricks like other lines.
The food was okay, nothing exciting. The main dining rooms menu did very nightly, but some things like french onion soup were on the menu almost every single night – I guess they had lots of leftovers. The food was presented beautifully, but lacked interesting flavors or uniqueness. The buffets were cramped and frustrating to navigate. But we did appreciate the free juice options, crepe station, and sandwich stations. The desserts were limited, with only about 4 choices and they all tended to taste similar.
We did enjoy O’Sheehan’s Bar & Grill which allowed us to catch life music and offered yummy nachos and pub type food. We also enjoyed Ginza where we got to eat yummy Chinese food in the perfect atmosphere. But the line to get in here was alwasy way down the hallway even before they opened this small venue.
Signature dining was very mixed bag. First there is the matter of cost. I will point out that at some restaurants kids are allowed to eat at the specialty dining free if they order off the kids menu.
We really enjoyed Moderno Churrascaria where they offered a wonderful, huge salad bar in addition to skewers of wonderfully flavorful meat brought to your table. It was a real treat and a fun place to eat. Tepanyaki where the food was prepared on the griddle in front of us with some songs and lots of humor in addition to a delicious dinner. But not all of them were good. At La Cucina the food was mediocre at best. The bread was good, not great. There is better bread service at the standard dining room on the Disney cruise ships. The salad was a blue cheese wedge and it was well prepared and good. But the 8 layers of lasagna noodles were mush and the sauce between them seemed to be poured from a can without any seasoning. The steak was well prepared, juicy and deliciuos. But then the tiramisu made an appearance and once again disspointed. It was heavy, not light. It appeared to be a marshmallow layer??! Super dissapointing and I do not recommend. Don’t get me wrong, the ones that were good were really good, but for $70/person at La Cucina I expected the food to be good.
norweigan cruise line entertainment
Daytime entertainment tends to consist of lazy days on the sundeck, a couple of activities from the cruise team, wonderful live music that I think beats any other crusie line in terms of variety and availability, and ammenties (ie waterslide mini golf, etc.) that very dramatically by ship.
There are no pay-per-view or on demand entertainment in your staterooms and not pool side movies which our family missed.
If you have kids and are use to RCL or Disney, you will be dissapointed. Their program is organized and has caring councelors, but it has very limited hours and is is very rigid with expectations each kid participate in the planned activity. So keep that in mind if it is a deciding factor.
Pools tend to be overly crowded and lounge chairs hard to snag. Pool towels are vailable, but need to be checked out with your stateroom key.
During the evening that shows are more vegas than broadway. They are all high energy, high caliber, and professional. But I would not say that they are all family friendly.
NCL offers more themed parties than any other ship we’ve been on. So if late night dancing and parties is your thing – you will love the various themed nights available througout your voyage.
norwegian cruise line Staterooms
One thing I really liked about NCL staterooms is the wide variety of room options. The cheapst, budget rooms are nice enough as long as you only have 2-3 per staterooms. Adding a 4th passenger really makes it super cramped. But the rooms were nicely maintained and well layed out. I appreiated little touches like a way to communicate with your stateroom steward if you needed privacy or if your room was ready to be made up.
The stateroom attendants were friendly and did a great job of keeping everything super clean and communicating constantly. We were sad that towel animals are no longer standard on NCL. The furnishings don’t hold a candle to those on any stateroom on Disney Cruise Line
The suites are wonderful. There are lots of choices to fit a variety of options. Suites come with more perks like upgraded dining rooms for breakfast and lunch, expedited on/off the ship, reserved area for seeing shows, etc. See Norweigan Cruise Ship Suite Review
Norweigan Cruise Line Destinations
One of Norweigan’s strengths is their wide variety of destinations worldwide. Whether you want to head to the Carribean to their private island Stirup Cay or head down under, visit Africa, cruise the Meditternean, head to exotic Asia, or explore South America – NCL has so many itineraries to choose from. If you are looking for a spring break or summer vacation locally sailing out of Florida I would say there are better options – better food, better entertainment.
But if you are looking for a truly special itinerary – where the ports are the stars, NCL can be a great option to get you there as a moving hotel. No other major cruiseline offers the Africa itinearies that Norweigan Cruise does. My family has been salivating over the South Africa and Madagascar trip, the 16-day Seychelles, Kenya & Tanzania voyage, 18-day Namibia, Cape Verde, Angola & Ivory Coast, and Egypt options (sadly they have been temporarily removed due to unrest in the middle east).
Norweigan Cruise Line Review
Some other things to mention from other cruisers who wanted to share their experiences recently:
The pool and beach towel system was bizarre, signning for each individual towel……. and just to reiterate, the dining was just “ok”.
We waited a long time for food in the dining room to come out. Our server was good and polite but they lacked enough wait staff during peak …. plus the buffet was a complete zoo …. plus there is no where to sit. Service was good but oh, so slow…
Service was friendly, but sooooooo slow, I think they just didn’t have enough help. The internet help desk was amazing…… guest services staff was friendly when you talked to them about an issue, but even though they claimed to look into things, nothing was ever done and they never called us back.
Once previous avid NCL cruisers after a 2024 voyage
Just terrible shows and entertainment …. the free food in restaurants was really awful. No customer service absolutely anywhere on the ship. Even places you want to spend money, like the casino, was terrible – and we are gamblers! Need a drink, you, good luck finding a server – you will nee dto stop what you are doing and head to the bar hourself. We will be headed on another cruise line next time.
This family warns about the smoking sections on the Breakaway, 2024
The smoking section is right in the middle of the ship – adjacent to the kids pool, outdoor walking path, and food – the buffet entrance. We smelled like second hand smoke, plus the fresh outdoor air was always smokey – Yuck! The food was nothing special, I wanted to get in and fix dinner, and I’m not a good cook. The included restaurants serve the exact same thing every single day…. for the whole cruise. Not much in the entertainment department either, which is probably how they get away with not enough seating.
Never Again! from a guest on the Encore in 2024
The ship was completely WAY too crowded. Get ready to feel like a pinball because you will be bumping into people in the hallway, pool, buffet – I mean there were literally more humans than water in the pool. Plus kids and teens were running around and throwing ice at people. At night, there are no seats to see the show. We spent our miserable week on Norweigan in our cramped stateroom – never again!
NCL Personal Review
So, with all that said, would I recommend NCL? It really depends on the ship, if you book a suite, and if the itineary is worth it. The newer ships attract many families which make them even more crowded. If you can book a suite you will have a block of reserved seating for the shows and better food for lunch and dinner, plus space to not feel so crowded. Norweigan Cruise line does offer some of the most unique cruises out there with ones visiting Africa, among other intersting destinations. But I would warn our cruise had its itinerary drastically altered a week before hand with not explanation, causing many to cancel. They have also done this fleet wide recently in the news. So if you are flexible and can snag a great deal (which can be found on NCL) maybe they are a good fit for you.
Borromline. For us, unless we are sailing to a location only offered by Norweigan Cruise Line, we will spend our hard-earned money and sail with another cruise line that offers more consistent offerings with better food. I mean, food is one of the main activities on a cruise vacation.
