Here are our postings that make up the review of our cruise on the Norwegian Star in June 2003. Bob Swanson rds swansongrp com -------------------------------------- posted 06-10-03 07:13 PM There will be more to come, have to get the photos together this weekend, I hope. This was a great cruise! Have been on a bad one and a good one in the past, and can now add an excellent cruise experience to our travel history. The NCL staff was overall excellent. We had only one bad service experience, so that rather stands out for an entire week of excellent service. The staff was really working hard to make things enjoyable, and pulled it off the great majority of the time. In particular, I wish to commend two people: James Deering, hotel director, who was generous with both his time and NCL resources. His talk on Fanning Island was a very valuable introduction to this most fascinating stop on the trip. Anthony Lockett, food director, who was a joy to talk with, and was also generous with his time and resources. ---------------------------------------- Unrelated to NCL, the weather in Hawaii and all the way to Fanning was amazing, clear skies, sunny, sea like a bathtub a lot of the time. Meeting the other cruisecritic travellers was fun. Hopefully, we helped the other cruisers with our advice on visiting Maui (our home). Bob Swanson -------------------------------------- posted 06-15-03 10:47 PM Checking in, as I'm working on the longer "review". Never know when to quit writing. Anyway, we enjoyed Aqua for the more consistent service. Versailles had uneven service, and our one bad experience was caused by "lack of adult supervision" more than anything else. We spoke with the manager a day or two later, after voicing our complaint, and he said that we had to escalate a problem right at the time of difficulty. Interesting approach, since the comment card had no names written on it, and we could get NO ONE's attention during the bad experience, labor or management. The Aqua manager came over and talked wish us during one dinner and we complimented him on the excellent service there. All this with no prompting. I comment in detail about the buffet in the longer review. We found it to be remarkably good, considering the challenge of maintaining a fresh, interesting buffet with the volume they deal with. BUT we mostly ate in Aqua/Versailles, due to the excess child noise in the buffet area at major meals (not necessarily because of the food). Snacks, some lunches, desserts, additional nibbles at buffet were just fine. We were a bit disappointed with the BBQ, but with all the great places to eat, we did not feel deprived by avoiding that after the first night. The tapas were great and they had 2/1 drink specials at the Spanish place. You could make a meal of them! Blue Lagoon had killer hot wings, once Sandi convinced the cook to make them HOT HOT HOT. Yes, the pacific rim staff were very good with such things as hot sauce (sambal, we think) and the food in Ginza. Blue Lagoon was especially useful to us when we wanted to get water, ice tea, quick glass of ice, etc at any time. We ate at Soho and Ginza (shamelessly comp'ed both times, by the way). Service at Soho was strange, but efficient. Ginza was wonderful, both the food and service. We would have eaten there many nights, had we only known (our neighbor here at home says that this has something to do with the noise we make, something like: "cheap, cheap, cheap") More later, but all these comments about the food are getting me hungry again. Bob ---------------------------- posted 06-22-03 11:06 PM Fanning Island section will follow. Also, we are putting the finishing touches on the photos on our website. In the meantime.... ---------------------------- Review of Norwegian Star June 1 to 8, 2003 Bob Swanson rds...[at]....swansongrp...[dot]....com See images/narrative at (original wrong http://www219.pair.com/swansonr/thingies..... ) corrected to: http://www219.pair.com/swansonr/star_trip/documents.html GENERAL [Before our trip, we read a long posting of the July 14, 2002 cruise written by stargazerm31. It was posted on August 1st last year. It is interesting that our experiences on this cruise are not far off from his. Certainly our points of view and crusing attitudes are different (that's why these boards are so great!), but observations and gut feel are very similar. Be sure to read his review as part of this review experience.] We really enjoyed this cruise. Frankly, we started out a bit skeptical, as we had previously experienced one terrible, and one good cruise. This turned out to be an exceptional cruise for us! Service was of very high quality (only one bad experience) and the staff really tried to get things right. It is not a perfect world, however, and no one could expect a mass-market cruise (2,200 passengers often on this ship) to achieve perfection. Food was very good. We love to eat, but are not gourmets. The biggest food surprise was the buffet, uniformly high quality and fresh. Both food service people and consumers (that's us) will tell you that consistently setting up a good fresh buffet is very hard to do! Of the sit-down places, we liked Aqua the best. We had uniformly excellent service there. Versailles service was uneven, and our only really bad service experience happened there. We got upgraded and became instantly addicted to a balcony cabin. My research seems to show that this is only a small price increase from "any outside room". It sure made a difference, being able to see the sunrise over the ocean just a few steps from the bed. Yes, rail-riding is fun, and we enjoyed lots of scenery from deck 7, but NOTHING beats having your own slider door to the Pacific Ocean! [Advice to camera owners. When you see that great sunrise, take the camera out on the balcony and wait a little bit, maybe even take some lens tissue with you. The lens will fog over due to the high humidity and cool air conditioning. Some of our shots were fogged by the condensation on the lens.] We are from Maui, so the island visits were of little interest to us. It is fun to see the ports on the islands, that you otherwise won't see, and the vistas from the ocean are wonderful. Fanning Island was really the land-based highlight for us. Bottom line is that we enjoyed the open ocean cruising. This is a style of cruising that will not appeal to everyone, especially those folks who want to hit the shore and see the sights. For example, by the 4th day on the open ocean, the kids on board were bouncing off the walls. Cabin fever, I expect. We liked Freestyle cruising, as we are pretty casual folks. We know a couple here on Maui who took one of the first Star cruises. They like the traditional dress-up, with the same people, same waiter system. They were rather disappointed with Freestyle, and strongly disliked the lines and nickel/diming. Based on their problems, we planned to deal with those issues in our own way. The pleasant surprise was that NCL has addressed many of the issues our friends so disliked. In addition, we carefully followed James Deering's advice: when you see a line and crowd, walk in the opposite direction! Note that there were two special groups on this cruise: a Star Trek "convention" and a "nerd cruise" for techies like us. One tech group was doing Mac work, and another was learning object Perl. We interacted with some of these folks over the cruise. In particular, the trekkies were a delight. George Takai, along with some other actors we don't know, was on the cruise, and showed himself to be a true gentleman. We saw him dining with the trekkies in the buffet on a regular basis, talking with them in his down-to-earth style. We first spotted him from his voice only, a beautiful, rich, baritone. And, no, we are not trekkies, but we met a lot of them during that week! Oh yes, the TV on the ship showed 24/7 Star Trek on a particular channel. We did manage to catch up on some of the movies we haven't seen. SEAMANSHIP/SAFETY The seamanship shown by the crew and officers on this ship was the best. We are former members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary and are well aware of boating safety. We've seen and read about some Carribean cruises that are operated dangerously and improperly. During our 1997 trip on the Star Clipper, we were happy to observe a very high degree of professional training, and so wondered about the level maintained on this ship. Well, our concerns were easily soothed, by the demonstrations of the crew's skills. Getting that ship in and out of Nawiliwili (Kauai) was an amazing feat of seamanship. For those not aware of it, the entry to the harbor is an S curve that is just about the size of the Norwegian Star. We were told that the harbor pilots said that the Star could never enter the harbor. Well now the pilots just stand around and the crew brings in the ship (with a little assist from a tug). The officers and crew also showed that they understood the risks and were always taking the most conservative course of action with the ship and its inhabitants. We see the Star go by every Friday, but sometimes it does not show up, or is late. These delays are not the result of incompetence, but rather of prudence, when faced with the inevitable challenges of running a $400 million ship in sometimes blustery waters. In recent history, there have been engine problems. Rather than try to risk a full-blown rush to reach some objective, the officers are very careful to only achieve what they reasonably can. While some passengers may complain of a missed port, we feel that it is far more important to get to your destination safely and comfortably. The Titanic was lost partly due to someone being in a tearing hurry in dangerous waters. As for safety, when we chatted with some of the staff, we quickly saw the commitment of NCL. One busboy in the buffet explained that all the crew are trained regularly in emergency operations, including handling the lifeboats. This is not done on a lot of cruise ships. NCL is to be commended. This subject doesn't come up often for most cruisers. A lot of people who take sea voyages, just go to their lifeboat station on the first day, and that is that. We are rather critical about this issue, and felt very comfortable with NCL's operations. FOOD (of course) Uniformly high quality throughout. Other cruisers will probably be much more critical than we are. This is definitely not your Crystal Cruise, but given the demands of such a large operation, they do a great job. We have been in hotels and other large complexes that cope with this volume of food service, and NCL beats them all. One example is their baking of fresh rolls every day (I think that the video said 19,000 daily). The breads were wonderful. There are few hotels, or even fancy restaurants, that do this level of quality of breads, both sweet and savory. Other foodstuffs showed that they were buying the best they could get, understanding that they are provisioning in Honolulu, where many food items come in by jet from around the world, with many scheduling problems. The Islands produce wonderful fruit, and it was delicious and plentiful on the ship. As noted above, we love to eat, but are not strictly gourmets. We saw people enjoying all levels of food service on the ship. One day I happened upon some folks who had each picked up 3 cheeseburgers (with fries) from the Grill and were settling down to enjoy their lunch at a table with a sea view near the pool. Hard to get that view, even around here on Maui! And they weren't having to dress up, or sit in heavy chairs with starched linens, in order to enjoy their food. As noted above, we liked the sit-down places, not just for the service, but also to keep the child-noise factor down. We aren't kid-friendly, that's simply a fact. We know that NCL is trying to get families to take the cruise and the kids made their presence known. However, we could always find a quietier place to enjoy the ship, so we didn't have to have screaming in our ears 24/7. The buffet in particular was very noisy and crowded at heavy mealtimes. We actually enjoyed it very much during "fringe" hours, especially for dessert after dinner at Aqua or another sit-down restaurant. We weren't always ready for dessert after an early dinner at Aqua, we would much rather watch the sunset (spectacular just out from Fanning Island!) and have something sweet later. Also, some of the fancy restaurant desserts were a bit too fussy for us. Picking what we wanted from the buffet usually fit the bill. You do have to explore a bit to find things in the buffet area. We got good help asking the staff, but other cruisers are always discovering things to help us along. For instance, a fellow cruiser helped us find the toothpicks in the buffet area. They are well hidden! One example of the high quality of the buffet, is that Bob had the "minute steak" one day for lunch. Now, there was a big pile of cooked steaks on a steam table, a certain recipe for disappointment. IT WAS GREAT! As good as in a land-based steakhouse. Of course, the meat at the sit-down restaurants was even better, cooked to the desired doneness, etc. But we take this experience as an indicator of the good quality they achieve at "just a buffet". They have lobster night now throughout the ship. Again, the lobster dish on the buffet was very good. Bob cannot digest lobster, so Sandi has to do all the heavy lifting. She tried the "newburg" and it was full of flavorful big chunks of lobster. She tasted it after she had enjoyed two lobster tails at Aqua. When she raved about them, our Aqua server said "do you want 2 more?". Now that is cruising! Ginza was wonderful. If we had overcome some of our inherent cheapness (a reaction to the "nickel/dime" issue), we might have eaten there every night. We were comp'ed there for Friday night, and really enjoyed the peace and quiet of Maui night. In fact the ship was nearly deserted Friday afternoon and evening. Lovely. We were also comp'ed at Soho. Our desire to eat some good lamb caught the attention of Tony Lockett, the food manager. He set us up, and we had a lovely rack of lamb Monday night. The service was a bit strange, but maybe that is the style at restaurants we can't afford. Now, don't get me wrong, the service was efficient and effortless, but the attitude seemed a little off-putting. It's rather funny really, but the next night (Tuesday), they had rack of lamb at Aqua, and we loved that, too. Seemed that we could have had lamb every day somewhere on the ship. That is not common, certainly not in the midwest where we previously lived, regardless of the price of the restaurant. Wednesday was lobster night, as described above. I think that I had leg of lamb at Aqua Thursday night. Hmm, getting to be a pattern here. Lamb shank for lunch at Versailles one day (forget when). The tapas were wonderful at the tapas bar. Two-for-one drinks from 5-8 PM made it an easy decision. We were there at least two nights right at 5 PM. The tortilla chips are very un-Spanish, but we got the idea that Americans couldn't quite figure out what tapas were (rude joke at this point, as most people thought I was saying "topless bar"). So, the Americans swilled Margaritas and ate chips, when there were wonderful little bites of cheese, lamb (again!), olives, sausage, etc to enjoy. Sandi finally got them to make the hot wings HOT HOT HOT at the Blue Lagoon. This 27/4 cafe was very handy, especially if you needed a quick glass of water, ice, coffee, iced tea, etc, any time. It was conveniently close to our room, too. Had we been located farther away, we might not have used this facility as much. Again, this was the Pacific Rim staff showing their best. They used sambal for the fire in the wings, and were happy to increase the dose, if you insisted. To them, it was great, but they understand that most American folks are not fire-food eaters. The Ginza experience was equally enhanced by the staff being much more familiar with Pacific Rim cuisine. The fresh sushi was heavenly. The Peking Duck was worth the price of admission! The dim sum, while limited on the menu to a few items, was terrific. By all means attend the wine tasting. It was well worth the $10 charge. James Deering is UC Davis educated and gives a great talk for both beginners and seasoned wine drinkers. He and I had some nice wine conversations, since I had spent a lot of my younger days visiting the wineries in Northern California, and we had some mutual acquaintenance in the wine business in California. Ice cream at the outside window was very good. Given that this is tropics, it melted very rapidly. I usually like mine in a cup, but never seemed to be able to get it that way, and ended up wearing a lot of melted ice cream. But it was good! ENTERTAINMENT We are not night owls. When you look at the photographs, you will see lots of sunrises! We attended the "Music of the Night", arriving well into the program. Our sightlines were impossible, but we could listen to the music with no problem, and enjoyed the show tunes very much. In fact, we probably would have avoided some of the shows, because the sound system was WAY TOO LOUD (this with our failing hearing taken into account). Everyone was raving about the theatre shows, so we assume that all the nights were as good as the Broadway night we heard. We saw the Polynesian dance show at the nightclub and enjoyed it. We are spoiled on the islands, given the dance and music shows we see regularly. So we viewed this as a typical commercial show, what you would get at a "touristy" luau. The dancers were very good, young, athletic, and talented. While some of their dances may have not been purely authentic, they did a credible job with the New Zealand dance, and there was plenty of Tahitian dance to satisfy the audience. It seemed like everyone was running a video camera during the show. We are spoiled, as I said. It is a uniquely island experience to see a musical group and hula company who are uniformly over 60 years of age and many pounds over the standard, who dance and play with both incredible grace, as well as deep and abiding love. It is a totally different experience. I hope that all tourists get a chance to see the "real thing" some time during their visits to the islands. My point, by the way, about age and weight just shows that these things don't matter out here. What matters is what "comes from the heart". In keeping with this, June did a wonderful job as Hawaiian "ambassador" on board the ship. She truly cared and her abundance of Aloha is evident. There were movies every day, but we are not usually movie people. (we also do not own a TV). Anyway, I was shocked to find out that I had missed the showing of the Lord of the Rings movie, due to not paying any attention to the daily listing. My fault! We did not visit the karaoke bar. We don't like smoky or over-amped interiors, so also gave a pass to some of the night-club venues. I am sure that they were loud enough for folks who like disco. We heard the piano man for two nights, as our dining locations were open to the atrium where he was playing. He is very talented and puts on a great show. The other musicians on board were more than adequate, but some were over-amplified, as usual. It looks like there was plenty of entertainment on the ship. But, we usually like to curl up with a good book. MANAGEMENT/SERVICE It was very important that we made the connection with James Deering and Tony Lockett. Mr. Deering is just great to work with, and does his job well. He signed us all up for VIP treatment, and it was a very nice (and unexpected) addition to the excellent service we received on the ship. Tony Lockett is a great guy and a lot of fun to talk with. Both are thoroughly professional managers, and we mean that in a positive light. ----------------------- Well, I've said that word "professional". Note that the environment on this ship (and perhaps NCL in general) is corporate. Those of use with corporate experience see the pattern at once. In this case, they are in the service business and take it seriously. For instance, in contrast to historical cruise ships, the service folks don't live completely off of tips provided by passengers on the last day of the cruise. It is a drag juggling in our pockets for the right amount of currency. Instead, they receive money from a pool generated by docking passengers $10 per day per person. Some cruisers would ask how this is any motivation to give good service. In the bad old days, you could get indifferent service from a steward, for instance, who knew that he wouldn't get a tip anyway, so why bother. These folks will get compensation, but they are judged by "corporate" performance standards and job ratings. It appears that those standards have a positive effect. Everyone did their best to make our trip enjoyable. With one exception... We had one bad experience at Versailles. We were seated for breakfast near the stern windows, but directly in the pathway from the serving area to all the back tables. While there seemed to be lots of action going on, many servers just pushed past us to deliver and pick up. Our servers were mostly among the missing. I had to grab someone to get some coffee, and they put regular in the decaf cup. Typical problems, in a way. We looked at the service card on the table and there were no names filled in. Everywhere else, the servers put their names on the card. Behind Sandi, some servers were working the station with water, cutlery, etc. They were loudly commenting on the customers, not very flatteringly. In fact, some were using profanity to describe the passengers. While this can happen behind the swinging doors of a restaurant kitchen, it should not happen within earshot of the customers. We decided that this incident was a situation of "no adult supervision". We could not flag anyone down, labor or management. Our order was wrong, and it was replaced grudgingly. No one came to take our rapidly congealing breakfast plates. We left. We took the service card and filled it out, but could only put down the table number and time, since we had no names. A couple of days later, we were in Versailles for breakfast again. We mentioned our poor service to the waitstaff and the manager was at our table in a matter of seconds. He apologized, but blamed us for not getting assistance immediately. He said he could not discipline the people involved because he did not have names. They rotate the people, so you do not see the same servers at the same stations each day. We are well aware of, and do not like, this "reverse" side of the corporate environment. It is far too typical these days, especially in the high tech world, to blame the customer for not following the (unwritten) rules, for not having the correct configuration, or using the wrong operating system, for not writing down the name of each "service" agent you talk with, or not having filled out their warranty card, or not escalating their complaint through proper channels (whatever those are). Again, this was the ONLY incident of bad service, so we have a high regard for the quality maintained on the ship. But words to the wise, if you have a problem, escalate it AT ONCE. Not everyone is a complainer, and poor restaurant service is often ignored, or we vote with our feet. Were this not a relaxing vacation, I can assure you that Sandi would have been firmly in someone's face for an extended (and unpleasant for them) amount of time. [Once we were at a motel in Arkansas and they never made up our room. When we got back from some family activities at 10 PM, we had to force the motel manager to personally make up the room. I expect that he checked more thoroughly from then on, BEFORE the maids went home. The offered alternative was "tough luck", but Sandi would not stand for it, I don't care what Motel 6-7-8-9-10 costs.....] LAYOUT Some folks have commented on the layout of the ship and its use of space. Yes, it is a bit strange. James Deering told us that the ship was built for the gambling trade out of Singapore. The economic troubles in Asia stopped that plan. Thus, it has a huge (by cruise ship standards) karaoke bar, and a very large oriental restaurant complex. Lucky us, that complex is the Ginza and they produce wonderful food there. There is no casino, which suites us just fine. There must have been something there in the original design. The traffic patterns are bad in many places. "stargazerm31" specifically mentioned the drink carts and lines in the buffet. Yes, they are troublesome and it is frustrating trying to get a cup of coffee and dessert, and then try to get out of the buffet area to enjoy them. Just too narrow and too many people congregating at the wrong places. This is made worse by the (delicious!) ice cream and special dessert station placed midway in the buffet area. They use the same place for the omlette maker for breakfast, with the same traffic problems. Kinda reminds me of when a grocery store gives out free samples. All movement stops, bottlenecks form, and the store actually loses business as people stop shopping! On the positive side, some activities that cause crowding, such as customs re-entry on Friday, are run very efficiently. Sandi commented that we were walking a rather round-about pathway, through the theatre, etc., but that worked well for crowd control. (if only they had such good control for the checkin at Aloha Tower....) We could avoid some crowds by reading or listening to our MP3 players in the reading room or library. However, one day, some of the Perl class people walked into the reading room and continued their noisy argument about some issue regarding object Perl. Someone in their group finally figured out that people were READING! What a shock. They actually left. This considerate behavior is in stark contrast to that of some techies I have known. VALUE FOR MONEY Excellent. We ended up with a near-lux vacation in a beautiful area that was in the low range of cruise prices. You can spend a lot more and get the same elsewhere. Sure, those quicky Carribean trips are cheaper, but this is a very special cruise. Compared to the Islands, we found prices on the ship to be reasonable. For instance, beer was usually $3.75. It's hard to get a beer in a restaurant that cheaply in Hawaii. Same, in a way, for food. If we ate out every meal here in the Islands with the quality offered on the ship, we would be quickly broke. I expect that some folks had "sticker shock" with shipboard prices, but we already got over the shock since moving here. CHECKIN/OUT We signed up for the cruise late, and did not get our documents before flying to Honolulu. Due to the lack of documents, we didn't know which line to stand in, and got into the wrong line. So, once we were directed to the baggage checkin line, stood in that, got baggage taken care of, and THEN stood in the checkin line AGAIN, we finally could then join the "happy" throngs trying to complete their checkin and get on the ship. We were frazzled in the extreme, and nearly lost it when we were confronted by the pushy photographer at the gangway. Lucky for all of us, no blows were landed, but you could just imagine the headline: "non-famous people slugging a paparazzi at dockside"! We don't like that kind of high-pressure behavior. In fact, the photographers were just about the most annoying part of the whole cruise---pushy and in your face all the time. Put simply, the checkin system was frustrating chaos. We had noted that other cruisers checked in very early (1130 starting times have been mentioned on this bulletin board). We were delayed by a long, fun lunch with friends in Honolulu, and so probably hit the checkin at the worse time. We later found out that there were signs for the baggage checkin, but there was only one sign on a standard easel, and the signs were hidden behind large crowds. The only positive thing I can say is that the ground support folks in Honolulu (I think this is a contractor outfit employed by NCL) were wonderful. They were so warm, helpful, and reassuring, that our highly elevated stress was given a welcomed break. I commend these people and suggest that NCL keep them on contract for a very long time. To give one example of the ground assistance, there was one fellow "roving" the area with luggage tags and a master passenger list. He approached us, probably after hearing my wife cursing the day NCL was born, etc, and generally frustrated by the lack of signage and the "official" way to do things. He quickly found our cabin number from the list (remember we didn't have any documentation at all), gave us enough luggage tags, and directed us to the baggage line. The other positive example was one of the baggage handlers at the front of the line. This lady was wonderful, again calm and reassuring in a whirlwind of baggage, stressed passengers, etc. After she handled the baggage paperwork, she took my hands in hers, looked into my eyes, and warmly wished us a wonderful cruise. Service beyond the call of duty. By the time we got near the checkin lines, we were becoming doubters, but fortunately we were soon to have doubts removed. All we had to do was get on the ship. --------------------------------------- Checkout was easy. Very nice. We noticed a huge line for taxi's, no fun in the sun there. Our transfer experience was more interesting and frustrating. Our van driver (not in any way associated with NCL) was the most incompetent, unorganized person I've ever seen. We are amazed that we made it to the airport at all. After all that, we discovered that we had left some luggage in the van, and they had to come back. Would have been easier to wait in line and get a cab. No fault of NCL of course, nor was it their fault that the Interisland terminal at Honolulu airport was a disater area. As other cruisers have mentioned, it took 1 1/4 hours to get through the security line snaked outside the building and nearly back to Aloha Tower (we exaggerate?). Checkin would have added another hour, but we paid a skycap and got checked in right up front. Finally through security into an empty building (the concession people are losing money and going out of business. Most of their potential customers are standing outside in huge lines, and many get into the actual gate area just minutes before the planes leave!) A short plane ride, and oh darn we were back on Maui! (Sorry we can't help rubbing it in, we love living where we are, but it is not a perfect place. That is another review entirely.) Our advice: take a week before and a week after the cruise and see the lovely Hawaiian Islands. Yes, even visit Maui. By doing this, you eliminate the hassle just before and after the cruise, and take the time to get un-jet-lagged and enjoy the islands at a more leisure pace. FANNING ISLAND CHILDREN (and management thereof) There were too many unsupervised out-of-control kids on the boat. As noted, we are not kid-friendly, so we are biased in this regard. By the 4th day on the open sea (Thursday, after the Fanning stop) the kids were bouncing off the walls. The sound of squabbling overtook the already high volume of kid noises. Maui was a welcomed sight. There is a children's pool area, but they took over the adult pool, too. I noticed, however, that most of the jacuzzis, especially in the early morning or evening, were devoid of screaming kids, certainly a welcomed sight for folks who wanted to unwind. Do not take this ship if you expect to swim lots of quiet laps by yourself. CRUISECRITIC We were well taken care of by the staff and management, after identifying ourselves as posters on cruisecritic.com. We were amazed at how many other web-savvy people on the cruise did not know about this very useful resource. NCL is obviously paying attention to the feedback, good and bad from the web. A friend of ours is taking an Alaska cruise this month, and the "other" cruise line showed little interest in the web-heads. They would grudgingly allow the web folks to have their own "affiliation party", but only if they could muster up at least 25 people. Then, all they got was a private club room for a hour and soft drinks. This is in stark contrast to the folks at NCL, who went out of their way to help us and provide VIP service above and beyond their already excellent service. PENTHOUSE SUITES On Sunday, at the end of the cruise, we were offered a tour of the top suites (those that cost $27,000) . James Deering provided the tour, and we were the only folks who could fit it into our schedule, I guess. Now we know how the other half lives! Awesome. Sorry, we didn't get any pictures.