Norwegian Pearl

I know there has been quite a bit of pro and con discussion about NCL on
this newsgroup, but has anyone had any recent experience on or about the
Norwegian Pearl?
TIA,

--Jean

Jean O'Boyle wrote:
I know there has been quite a bit of pro and con discussion about NCL on
this newsgroup, but has anyone had any recent experience on or about the
Norwegian Pearl?
TIA,

--Jean


I seem to recall that Peg and Derek loved that ship.

Ermalee wrote in message
...
Jean O'Boyle wrote:
I know there has been quite a bit of pro and con discussion about NCL on
this newsgroup, but has anyone had any recent experience on or about the
Norwegian Pearl?
TIA,

--Jean
I seem to recall that Peg and Derek loved that ship.

I'm not sure, Erm...I think that was the Norwegian Spirit...the one you and
I liked so much.

--Jean

We now cruise with NCL exclusively, and love all of the ships that we
have been on--Gem, Spirit and the Dawn. We have never sailed on the
Pearl, but we have had very good reports about her. Lori Cunningham
(Cruise TA extraordinaire) was on her just recently, so she might be a
good one to ask:

Bestest,

PegNDerek



On Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:54:25 -0400, Ermalee Ermalee wrote:

Jean O'Boyle wrote:
I know there has been quite a bit of pro and con discussion about NCL on
this newsgroup, but has anyone had any recent experience on or about the
Norwegian Pearl?
TIA,

--Jean


I seem to recall that Peg and Derek loved that ship.

In article , Peg
Caldwell-Ott wrote:

We now cruise with NCL exclusively, and love all of the ships that we
have been on--Gem, Spirit and the Dawn.

Don't know why anyone would go on one line exclusively, that would be
boring. I was on the Dawn. Not much to love about the Dawn. It is
passable, but nothing to love. The food was the worst I ever had on a
cruise line.

--
Charles

On Sep 28, 12:50 pm, "Jean O'Boyle"
wrote:
I know there has been quite a bit of pro and con discussion about NCL on
this newsgroup, but has anyone had any recent experience on or about the
Norwegian Pearl?
TIA,

--Jean

I don't know if you consider it recent but we sailed on her in
December 2007. I thought it was an attractive ship, and I liked it
although it's a lot bigger than we like. - we just like the smaller
ships.

This is what I wrote at the time-somewhat edited

The ship was beautiful. The theatre was nice, with comfortable seats,
and you could see the stage well from them. The shows were good.
The internet cafe was efficiently managed and the directions for use
were excellent, although the internet was a little more pricey than it
was on GOTS (our previous cruise). They had free washers and dryers
right down the hall from us, but you had to buy soap if you hadn't
brought any.

We had almost exactly the same type of inside room as we had on GOTS
(inside midships) but this one had MUCH more storage space and was
much nicer. For one thing, the bed had enough space under it for the
suitcases so we didn't have to put them in the closet. We had a small
fridge, a safe that opened with a combination instead of a credit
card, a coffee maker, a table, a small desk with a hairdryer and a
mirror and two stools. We could do internet in the cabin with a local
area network cable. There were two 110 outlets, and they had
available a two prong outlet so I could plug in my computer in the
public areas. There wasn't room for a couch, but there was plenty of
closet space. The bathroom was much more spacious and the shower had
sliding glass doors instead of a circular curtain like on GOTS. Our
room was about halfway between the forward and midships elevators and
we rarely heard any noise there. It was a cozy little nest for us,
and we liked it very well.

However, either the stewards were overworked or they were inefficient,
because sometimes the room would not be made up in the morning before
we got back from breakfast and sometimes the beds were not turned down
at night before we were ready to retire. Not a real problem, but a
bit disappointing. We had no problems with the TV like we did on
GOTS. The only problem was that there was an iron bar down the middle
of the beds when they were pushed together, and if you wanted to be
together in the middle, one or both of you were made uncomfortable by
this bar, which was not covered by the mattress.

Pictures of the ship

http://www.photoworks.com/photo-shar... lb_pml&cb=PW

These pictures were not taken with a view to beautiful art, but they
do show what the laundry room looks like and places like that.

On the Pearl, there are about 6 NON-extra price restaurants, and I
think we ate in most of them.

We did not eat in any of the extra price restaurants. There was
Cagneys (steak $20 - seats 160), La Bistro (French $15 seats 129),
Teppanyaki (Japanese - seats 32), Sushi Bar (seats 50 - sushi, sashimi
and Shabu-Shabu) and Lotus Garden (Asian - seats 100). I think the
Italian restaurant may also be extra price now.

This is a link to the pictures of the breakfast menus (main dining
room and Blue Lagoon) and food, and the lunch food. I thought lunch
was a better meal than dinner.

http://www.photoworks.com/photo-shar... lb_pml&cb=PW

There were two main dining rooms - Indigo (seats 304) and Winter
Palace (seats 558). We ate most of the time in those restaurants and
I thought the food was good. No need for reservations. The food in
the two places was identical. We were on the ship for 14 days, and
they did repeat the menus on about a 9 day cycle.

There was one main buffet - Garden Cafe - seats 390. We ate there,
but I found it difficult to manage the food and drink without a tray.
I can't speak to the quality of the food as we didn't eat there that
often. Bob preferred breakfast there, but there was no cranberry
juice or V8 juice and we don't care for orange juice.

The Blue Lagoon was an extremely under-utilized 24 hour restaurant
which did have a breakfast menu (with cranberry juice) in addition to
the regular lunch and dinner food. We ate there a couple of times. No
reservations necessary. Seats 94. On the Jade the same restaurant was
not as good because the service was not good.

I ate breakfast once at the buffet out by the pool after I went for an
early swim. They had rolls but no butter. One of the waiters went
across to the Garden Cafe and brought butter back for me.

We ate at the Italian restaurant (La Cucina - seats 92) once, and I
wasn't that impressed with the food. They wouldn't do pizza unless
there were several people ordering it, and that's what I really
wanted. You had to have a reservation for that restaurant although
you didn't pay extra at that time. I think you do now The service
was pretty good, and the waiter took our picture with my camera - he
also took the camera out on the back deck to take a picture of the
moon for me and one of the pictures came out heart shaped.

We ate at Mambo, the Tex-Mex restaurant - reservation also required.
Seats 96 I really liked the food here. Bob had the Nachos Grande
which was an appetizer, but he said it would be enough for a whole
meal, and it was.

We didn't eat at the Great Outdoors - an outdoor restaurant behind the
Italian and Tex-Mex restaurant.

Dinner on NCL Pearl

http://www.photoworks.com/photo-shar... lb_pml&cb=PW

The Indigo was much easier to get to - it was on deck 6 right next to
the midship elevators. The disadvantage was that they had velvet type
benches in the tables for four, and it was almost impossible for women
to slide across to the inside seat in a dress because your clothes
stick to the seat. Even men had problems. Also the ceiling was lower
and as a result it was noisier.

I liked eating in the Summer Palace (the aft dining room) which is in
the stern between deck 6 and 7. But you can't walk forward on deck 6
because the kitchen and crew spaces are in the way. So you have to
take the elevator to 7 and walk back to the stern and then go down
half a flight to the seating desk person, and then go down another
half flight to deck 6 to eat. Definitely NOT handicapped accessible.
I think the visual staircase thing is the unnecessary part. They
could let you enter on deck 6 without the stairs and it would still be
a nice dining room. If you had an aft cabin on one of the higher
decks, it was much more accessible. The elevators only go UP from
deck 6 and not down.

On Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:39:31 -0400, Charles wrote:

Don't know why anyone would go on one line exclusively, that would be
boring. I was on the Dawn. Not much to love about the Dawn. It is
passable, but nothing to love. The food was the worst I ever had on a
cruise line.

Of course, if you make food th center of your cruise, *that* would be
boring.

The Dawn is a great ship, didn't think the food was any worse than RCCL,
variety of restaurants was much better.
--
Charles of RTC said: "Like my smoker co-worker who has not worked for
three months now because he has to take oxygen due to diminished
lung capacity from years of smoking. Although I feel bad he is
ill I don't feel bad about taking his job since he put himself
in that situation." Signed Charles The Cold Hearted *******

"grandma Rosalie" wrote in message news:d16d81f8-fced-46c4-a489-

I don't know if you consider it recent but we sailed on her in
December 2007. I thought it was an attractive ship, and I liked it
although it's a lot bigger than we like. - we just like the smaller
ships.

This is what I wrote at the time-somewhat edited

The ship was beautiful. The theatre was nice, with comfortable seats,
and you could see the stage well from them. The shows were good.
The internet cafe was efficiently managed and the directions for use
were excellent, although the internet was a little more pricey than it
was on GOTS (our previous cruise). They had free washers and dryers
right down the hall from us, but you had to buy soap if you hadn't
brought any.



Rosalie..the pictures of the food were scrumptious! They do not seem to be scrimping on their food either.
The ship was quite lovely too, it's too bad NCL is having financial problems.
Sounds as if you really enjoyed this ship...was this the one to South America?
Thanks again.
--Jean

For us, NCL fits the bill VERY nicely indeed.
(1) It sails year-round out of our home port of NYC, so there are no
additional travel arrangements that we have to worry about in terms of
getting back and forth to some other home port city.
(2) We absolutely adore free-style cruising, especially with all of
the fabulous extra restaurants, eating when and where we like each
evening, and not having to dress up for dinner unless we want to. We
have never had a "bad" meal on NCL, although some of the meals are
occasionally better than others.
(3) Freestyle cruising also removes a lot of the pressure to "join in"
various ship board activities that hold no appeal for us. We enjoy a
totally relaxing experience and do not feel that we are being slighted
just because the hairy chest contest and others of such ilk are not
our cup of tea!
(4) We are delighted to see the many friends that we have made among
the officers, staff and crew on board each ship on various vessels,
and they are very happy to see us too. It is a friendly arrangment
and one that we treasure!
That is why we switched to NCL ships, and have no particular wish to
change our pattern for the time being. We have sailed with Celebrity,
HAL, Premier and a variety of the older, now defunct, cruise lines in
the past, and have now found a line that we prefer and genuinely
like--as "boring" as it may seem to others. We work very hard for our
cruise money, and see no reason to spend it trying things that we are
not sure about. Eventually, it would be fun to try Princess or RCI,
but that is something to think about for the future when our cruise
dollars are (perhaps) not so dear!

Peg


On Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:39:31 -0400, Charles
wrote:

In article , Peg
Caldwell-Ott wrote:

We now cruise with NCL exclusively, and love all of the ships that we
have been on--Gem, Spirit and the Dawn.

Don't know why anyone would go on one line exclusively, that would be
boring. I was on the Dawn. Not much to love about the Dawn. It is
passable, but nothing to love. The food was the worst I ever had on a
cruise line.

In article , Peg
Caldwell-Ott wrote:

(2) We absolutely adore free-style cruising, especially with all of
the fabulous extra restaurants, eating when and where we like each
evening, and not having to dress up for dinner unless we want to. We
have never had a "bad" meal on NCL, although some of the meals are
occasionally better than others.

I tried all the extra restaurants but one which I was not able to book,
and they were far from fabulous. The extra restaurants were on par with
the free restaurants on other cruise lines. The buffet food at lunch
was horrible. I did not care for free-style because on the Dawn that
meant booking all the extra restaurants the first day or having to eat
at 5:30 or 9:30 and not in between.

Eventually, it would be fun to try Princess or RCI,
but that is something to think about for the future when our cruise
dollars are (perhaps) not so dear!

Yes, NCL is a budget cruise line so it does fill a niche. I prefer
getting more than NCL offers.

--
Charles