Cruise from Hell
So you are thinking of traveling on NCL, you may want to think again if you are a seasoned cruiser. From the time we arrived at the Port of Seattle, we could tell that NCL was very unorganized and not passenger friendly. The lines to check in where completely unfriendly to manage, but after an hour and half we made it on-board. So time for lunch, we made our way to one of the so called free style lunch halls, they where clueless on what was being served and by the time we got done our staterooms where ready (2 1/2 hours WOW!. So let me set the picture before I describe the stateroom, we booked a family stateroom like we have done on 8 other cruise-lines. We also had 2 other rooms booked for other individuals we were traveling with us, an inside cabin, and balcony. So in our cabin we had 4 adults booked, when we arrived at the cabin we were shocked to find that the cabin was very small for what they advertised as a family stateroom that sleeps four. It had 2 small beds, and one bunk that was attached overhead. I called the front desk immediately and said there was no way this stateroom could accommodate four adults, they advised they would send an attendant down to set it up. We waited for over an hour, before someone showed up. When the room steward showed up he pulled out a pop up bed from underneath, he tried several ways to get the bed to pop up, but it couldn’t because the other 2 beds where in the way. He moved things around, but still couldn't set the room up for 4. He called a supervisor down, (that we had to wait another hour for) and when he arrived they spoke in a foreign language and pointed around for awhile and left. After about 45 minutes, I called the front desk and asked what was going on, I was told me they were aware of the situation but could not do anything because there was not any more cabins. I told them they advertised this as a family stateroom and that it sleeps 4, she said it does and that the pop up bed has to go in the middle. I told her that they tried that and it did not fit, and that even if it did there were no way 3 separate adults of different sex would sleep side by side with no way to get out of the bed with rolling on each another. Not only was this ridiculous, but a huge safety issue. Plus the person in the bunk bed could not get down without stepping on someone in the beds below. I was told that should have booked a bigger room, (Nice Customer Service and it gets better). and it was not their responsibility to accommodate miss booking, I told them it was not a miss booking and they advertise it as family stateroom that sleeps four, she hung up on me. So after another hour of calling and getting placed on hold I got fed up with waiting and took matters into my own hands. I moved all of the tables into the hall, moved both side beds down to one end and placed the pop up bed (which by the way we still could not pop up) at the end of them to form an H. Luckily the pop up bed was lower so no one had to smell each other’s feet. Of course we had to move the tables back into the room, which made using the room completely useless except for sleeping. When we wanted to get dressed one adult stayed, while the other went to friends rooms. After several more complaints and a lot of run around from the staff, we decided to make the best of what we had. (Oh you will love this, when I told them what I did, they said I shouldn’t have moved things by myself for Safety reason. ARE YOU KIDDING ME). So this went on for several days, when my daughter came down with a bad stomach virus that was going around, it hit very quickly and with force. She tried to make it to the toilet, but could only make it to the bathroom where she lost everything in her stomach. We called housekeeping several times, along with the front desk to get help with cleaning. After an Hour and a Half still no one came, so with the smell being bad I ended up spraying down the bath room with the shower head and cleaning the bathroom myself. Luckily as a veteran cruiser, we travel with anti-bacterial wipes. When I saw our room steward 3 hours later, he said he was not told anyone had gotten sick. So to top things off I ended up catching the 24 hr virus and missed a port of call, YA me. As far as the ship goes it is beautiful, great call of ports, but if you are used to getting to know the staff and having someone know your likes and dislikes don't cruise NCL, we have our own travel sites and will never cruise them or recommend them. I have never not left tips, but I had them remove their service fee because the staff was so incompetent. I did tip our room steward and a Bartender who we came to know. Oh ya, we came to know her because the ship had several community rooms. I.E. Card room closed the entire cruise for a specific group. NCL does not think of safety first, the only call we got after filing a complaint with the front desk after the sick insistent was them wanting to send the nurse, and of course they explained the charges. We will never cruise NCL, and in today's economy I am saddened to see they can take people's money and provide service like this with a good conscious.
