Norwegian Cruise Line question...?

Question

I was wondering about the "freestyle" dining that Norwegian offers. I know that it means you can eat whenever and wherever you want and that you will not have a set time/table/waiter. One of my questions is: Do you need formal wear? I do not mind formal...I am just wondering what is expected with NCL.

I love traditional cruising and dining...but unfortunately I found a cruise through Norwegian that I am considering. I have never cruised with NCL (and am, therefore, unfamiliar with what exactly "freestyle" is....so please elaborate on any info that might be of help to me!

Also, I know of people who were unimpressed with NCL...so please tell me some pros and cons from your personal experience.

Thanks!

Answer 1

NCL is WICKED HORRIBLE.  DO NOT take them.  I have heard nothing but horror stories from people who took them because they thought freestyle cruising was better.

One family said their whole ship was infested with bed bugs.

Another told me that when they tried them they had to wait till 11pm to eat because all the resteraunts were booked and if you didn't book your dinner time right away thats when you would be eating.

Another person said when they were finally able to go to their room after checking in, the room was still dirty from the last people that were in that room on the cruise before them.  They had blood stains on the sheets.

Try going Celebrity, Carnival, or Royal they are good ones.

Celebrity I went on this past March for 2 weeks and had a blast.

NCL commercials are wicked misleading and they make you think non freestyle cruising is bad but it isn't.

Sorry to say but I have heard nothing but cons from them no pros.

People call it the Dollar store of cruise lines.

Answer 2

Have never sailed Norwegian and never will, due to the negative comments I've read and heard from others.  Supposedly, the quality of food, service and cabins is lower than the other mass-market lines.

I know someone who sailed several Carnival cruises [and Carnival is detested by some people - some call it the "WalMart" of cruising].  She decided to try NCL for a change and didn't much like it.  She said, "If Carnival is WalMart, then Norwegian is the Dollar Store!"

You could go to CruiseCritic.com and click on "Boards" and/or "Reviews" and see what hundreds of others think.  If you check the reviews, be sure and click on "Member Reviews".

Answer 3

hey i went on a norweigen cruise before!! as to your question, they have more than one restaurant aboard the ship, and they vary in fanciness. if i remember correctly, there was an upscale restaurant, a more family-oriented one, and a bar area. there might have been more, and im sure that it depends on the ship, but you can dine however fancily you want! hope this helps!

Answer 4

I have sailed with Norwegian many times & Love their Freestyle Cruising & Ships Layouts. As for dressing up I feel it as alot to do with where you are going & age of guests. Some did dress up & some did not. I was one who did not. It is your Vacation so dress how you want. Keep in mind some airlines are now charging for luggage. Like any cruise you may be next to someone worth millions or ten dollars but, it not does not matter because they are all friendly & there for the same reasons you are. They all paid to be on the ship so DO what makes you comfortable and you will see others doing the same. A cruise is a wonderful vacation.

ENJOY.

Answer 5

I just went on a 7 day NCL cruise in Hawaii in Feb. with 15 family members. Hawaii was absolutely gorgeous, however I figured out that I am not a big fan of NCL...which was a bummber.

I have also cruised on Royal Caribbean and Carnival which were both wonderful trips.

With the freestyle cruising wit it nice to be able to eat when you want, but I didn't think that the food was all that great. There were a lot of places to chose from for dinner, but some you had to pay extra for. Nothing that I had gotten was extraordinary, but it was alright.

The buffet was the largest I had ever seen and it had incredible food with tons of fresh fruit.

As for the formal wear, NCL does not have any "formal nights" where you have to dress up extra nice. The way you dress does depend on where you eat. I was a little bothered when people came into the nicer places in a t-shirt and jeans or shorts because eventhough it's freestyle I still think everyone should look nice. I wore a couple summer dresses to dinner, skirts, black bermuda shorts, and dressy shirts with jeans and heels. It's not necessary to bring exravagent clothing for NCL dining.

I felt that although they call it "freestyle cruising" there was not much to do. On all the other cruises I have been on there were midnight chocolate buffets and parties, but on NCL I was very dissapointed that there was niether. I'm not sure if you like going to the clubs on ship, but on the NCL cruise I took there was not a club or many planned activities. The dinner shows were also not as entertaining as on other cruise lines.

NCL had good pools and the interior state rooms are slightly larger than other ships rooms I think.

The only reason I would ever go on a NCL cruise again is for the staff, the rooms, and the destinations. And I think the only thing "freestyle" about NCL is that you can eat where ever and whenever you want. Which is very nice, don't get me wrong. But I really don't think it would be worth it to go on the ship for that reason.

I'm sure that no matter where you go you will have fun though because you will see so many beautiful places!

I hope I could be of some help to you! Have fun and be safe!

Answer 6

I have been on many Norwegian ships (about 7 or 8 cruises with them) and at one time NCL was my favorite cruise line.   But I just do not care for them any more.  The cruise that we took last Nov with them will be my last with them ever.  The NCL TV commercial about freestyle cruising is very misleading because a NCL cruise is no different from any other except with respect to dinner.  AND, other cruise lines now have the go anytime options.  Princess calls it's "personal Choice" cruising.  Holland America calls it's "AS You Wish" and Royal Caribbean even has its own name for the dine anytime option; I think its called "your way".

As you have read, freestyle cruising means that you do not have to specify a dining option when you book your cruise and thus don't have a table and waiter assigned to you. "FREESTYLE" means you can go to dinner in the main dining room, or any other alternative restaurant, any time of the evening after 5:30 to 6:00 PM.. But you will have to reserve a time in the alternate restaurants.  We found that you can also reserve a time in the main dining room, but you can only do 2 days at a time.  So its kinda a hassle to remember to reserve a dinner time.  

Freestyle also means that you don't have to "dress up" for dinner, but just go "sports casual".   One big problem I had with it was that you may be standing in line awaiting a table on some days (like we had to do a couple times); not what I want on a cruise. Since you go when you want, you rarely get the same waiter and so never really get to know your waiter and he/she never learns what you prefer as is done on “traditional” cruise lines.  And then when you leave the gratuities they go into a big pot that all of the waiters and assistants share in.

The option to traditional dining on NCL is their optional dining restaurants. However, these dining options can cost $5 to $20 a person for dinner each night. The optional restaurants are very nice, including French, Chinese/Sushi, Tex-Mex, Italian, and steak house restaurants. We always skipped the optional restaurants and just got to the main dining early. That worked fine, except on "at sea" days when everyone wanted to go eat early. We later found that we could reserve a time in the main dining room, but we still got a different table and waiter for dinner each night.

On our last NCL cruise the informal dress was stressed and on the formal nights they called it "dress up if you want to night"  And, only about 20% of the people dressed up.  We do like the formal nights and so kinda missed seeing everyone dressed.

So if you have cruised before and enjoyed interacting for a week or so with your wait staff, you may not like NCL's dining option.  But otherwise the cruise is the same as about any other line.  On our last cruise, in addition to not liking the freestyle, we had some other service issues which pretty much sealed it for NCL with us.

Answer 7

NCL has one formal night.. you can get pitures taken and dine out all dressed up. But it is absolutely up to you if you want to or not. When I was on it there was a lot of people that dressed up that day.