quote:

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Originally posted by Green:
- please - don't penalize all of us because Malcolm is in a snit

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Way more like Branson than say, Biarritz; more Opryland than Ocean Voyage...unending announcements for art auctions, drink specials, T-shirt specials, casino specials, scratch tickets, big-buck bingo, formal portraits, Haagen-Daz bars for $4, all on the "legendary SS NORWAY." They never say "NORWAY" on the PA system (real loud, right over wherever you 're standing, all day) without first saying "legendary." Spooky but real: "buy something." Right Now. I found it easy to resist.

Ships condition: fair; they try hard but hard use takes a toll.

Staffing: short; real hardworking people, though. Never met a staffer who wasn't working all day, every day, somewhere. Credit due staff to be as pleasant as they are considering the workload. Tim the wine steward (Leeward) excellent.

Food: Breakfast and lunch always better than dinner, Lido (Great Outdoor) unpleasant, Le Bistro acceptable but never filled, room service minimally OK, Windward Dining Room (ex-Chambord) gorgeous, crowded. If they could dim the lighting it'd be something even more special. The wines we had were mostly good value for money but avoid the Argentine "Vina Evita" merlot - this wine, like it's namesake, died young.

Cabin: Big, old, barely touched "A" grade on Norway deck: kinda tatty but all original, OK by me. Good cabin steward.

Passengers: overwhelmingly mid-everything US, then Canadians, Brits, smattering of everyone else. Not many kids or teens, ages 20's to 80's; heavy on 40-50's and 70's. No visible Aussies. More drinking than I'm used to but I lead a pretty sheltered life; no violence. Baseball caps in the dining room at dinner, though.

Captain good. A/C very good. Weather was perfect. Calm seas, so-so sunsets. NCL's
Private Island really hokey. Tendering is OK but disorganized after they call your card.

Finished two good books and napped a lot - well-rested as there's little organized activity aside from drinking and gambling.

As for the baseball caps - very little else annoys me more - what's with these hokey people - not just on ships but everywhere - are they all bald or just ignorant?

Not to be harsh, but the baseball caps weren't the half of it. I know it makes me sound like a snob, but jeez, I mean, a lot of the passengers were challenged by elevator ettiquette, by even the minimal dress codes, by the smoking rules (completely disregarded - smoke anywhere, "the world is my ashtray" mentality) or the simplest good manners, like holding a door or forming a line.

There was sex graffiti (from a month ago) on a mens room stall wall. The rest rooms were, um, pretty gamey as a rule despite what seemed like around-the-clock efforts by the cleaning team.

I got an offer climbing the stairs to the Sky Deck one morning from a young woman who literally fell into the stairwell with her dress tucked into her panties - I politely declined, assuming anyone who finds me wildly attractive at 6:30 in the morning has to be very, very drunk.

Formal nights meant less than half the male pax in tuxes or even suits; young women ran the gamut from the Brittney Spears "do I have great abs or what" dirty dancing/auto-parts-pinup-calendar-model/"I'm not really a hooker but I sure dress like one" look to clean blue jeans; Mom's reusing the Mother of the Bride dress nobody's seen in years and their mothers in sweatpants for dinner -not much style (if sometimes way too much flesh) on display. Lotsa K-Mart, not much from Saks Fifth Avenue, I think.

The only passenger in a kilt was stopped for pictures by other passengers all night; they thought he was, I dunno, part of the entertainment; like the people who dress up as pirates or cartoon characters.

When we ordered champagne and caviar in the Club Internationale one night a woman picked up the menu and in a voice we could hear two tables away read her friends the prices then stopped by as she was leaving to ask if it was worth it. The caviar service came shrink-wrapped with Melba Toast for toast points and "creme fraiche" that tasted suspiciously like Dream Whip, so she unwittingly had a legitimate question, but I've never had a stranger come up to me and ask before.

The guy behind us at dinner who referred to the busboy, repeatedly and to his face, as the "waterboy" or the lush at the next table who spent a good bit of each evening verbally abusing his wife in front of their friends. Or the guy who walked out of the Leeward Dining Room into the stair lobby, belched loudly, scratched his crotch and (pleasantly enough, considering) asked his wife "OK, what the f*** we doin next?" Or the several people who picked their teeth with their fingers after a meal.

The watch sales, the gold by the inch, the Matrushkas and the Palekh, the Krakit Instant Win scratch cards, the yard long drink cups (w/a shoulder holster, no less!) moved it down a notch too. Every inch of public space seems utilized for revenue generation rather than comfort or passenger convenience. The "art" at the "auction" was a joke: nothing you'll ever see at Christies now or in the future.

It was sooooo tacky. NORWAY? No way.

Sounds like the people were a large part of the problem - I experienced the same thing on my last trip on Norway.

If you were on board with a different class of folks - Transatlantic for example - how do you think that would have affected your experience?

Good question and one I have to answer soon: I'm booked for the September transat.

To be sure, this time of year is highly discounted (reason we went) and thus drew a different cast of characters than it otherwise might.

But the menu is the same every week, the entertainment is the same very week, and I presume the emphasis on parting you from your money's the same every week as well.

I'm not blind: NCL's been filling it week after week for 20 years now and I'm guessing 90% of the passengers had the time of their life. They're making most of the people happy most of the time.

The lack of specialness and old "France" you note I did not. I found the ship full of a "spirit of place" especially the stair near our cabin-each deck had a different voyage...the Pilgrims, the Acadians, the Odessey. This is made even rosier by hind sight. I just came back from the round the Horn on the Norwegian Dream. I mean no offense (well, maybe I do) but it was like the Marriot went to sea.