Norwegian Cruise Lines: Reservation, shmeservation

Sure you're not just planning to dump MrsExpendable overboard?

 

If anyone deserves to get thrown overboard, it's me.

 

Norwegian is the Holiday Inn of cruise lines. This surprises me not at all.

Still, they could have at least indicated they made an effort to contact NCL.

 

Sailed on Royal Caribbean last year in the Bahamas and would definitely sail one of their ships again.

 

Forget the floating hotels. Go on a Windjammer Barefoot cruise. I sailed on the Polynesia out of Sint Maarten a few years ago on a singles-only cruise. I was rather surprised to be among the younger passengers even though I was past 35.

I thought it somewhat amusing that the captain, a Scotsman from St. Andrews, was scheduled to start his vacation as soon as we docked the final day. I believe the fact that the next week was an all-nude gay cruise had something to do with it.

And Treadly, did you see just the Dutch side of Sint Maarten? The French side of the island is a totally different vibe, but you probably wouldn't want to take the kids to a nude beach.

 

Yeah, we heard the other side was good but we pretty much got off the ship, saw the beach and stopped. Kids had fun, which was really all that mattered at that point. Mrs. Tread and I were happy to just relax. I think we both agreed that we needed to return sans the Lil' Treads.

 

Lumping all cruise lines together and criticizing them after something like this is like criticizing all hotels because someone broke into the shitty, 25-bucks-a-night place you booked and stole your stuff.

As I said on the other thread, you get what you pay for when it comes to cruises.

Yeah, you can have a good time and do a lot of cool things on a cheaper cruise. But there's also a greater chance that some bad stuff will happen, since you're on a boat that's probably quite a bit older, the reduced price you paid means they're slacking on service and quality and the other passengers ... well, we'll just say a high number of them couldn't pass a DUI test when they boarded the boat.

I also wasn't very impressed with St. Marteen. Loved St. Thomas though. Several absolutely gorgeous beaches there. The one thing I can't understand about these cruise ship stops are the number of jewelry stores. In our four stops, I counted 78 "recommended" jewelry places on the little maps handed out by the cruise line. I understand the shit's "duty free" and all, but are there really that many damn people snapping up jewelry while on vacation?

 

I've heard good things about Barbados. Anyone been?

 

"The illnesses and abductions aren't as bad ... "

Cruises: vaguely appealing !

 

We took a cruise out of New Orleans to Cancun/Cozumel a few years back. On one of our land tours -- to some ruins, I believe -- the bus stopped at a jewelry store to give us the "opportunity" to pick up some bargains. Turns out, the company that owns the tour bus company also owns the store, thus the hour-long shopping spree with nothing else within walking distance. That was the only bad part of our trip.

 

Spent one night there in transit to another island. Seemed like a nice place. Has a very British feel to it.

 

The only negative part of my cruise in 85 was the weight gain. I packed on five pounds in a week. Everything else -- the food, the port calls, the general atmosphere -- was great.