Norwegian Cruise Line
reviews and complaints

Hello

First let me say that the Bliss is a beautiful ship and overall, it was a beautiful experience. We have also enjoyed our pervious cruises with Norwegian. That said here are few things that may have us rethink any further cruises with Norwegian.

As you know this was first scheduled as a Scotland/Ireland tour of 14 days for May of 2020 to celebrate our anniversary. Due to covid all of this changed. Over the next 2 years the cruise was cancelled changed to a 10 Day cruise and we were told we could only receive a credit toward another cruise. We had so many questions on how to handle this. At one-point Norwegian Personal Cruise Consultant Charlie Rivero told us on 14-Apr-2022 that our best option was to cancel the cruise which we did and then we received an email that we had cruise credits and had till the end of 2022 to rebooked a cruise or lose our money. After many back and froths with Charlie we finally booked the Dec 2 Panama Canal cruise on the Bliss our final price was $9999.10. During this time, we had to track down and find answers to so many questions about how credits could be used and were given so many different answers. In the end one of your people on the chat line was a great help found almost $1000 in credits that no one else had helped us with and helped us use them for upgrades and such wish I could remember her name. There was one point during all of this we understand Norwegian had offered refunds something no one had told us. So, in the end we had to settle for the Panama Canal.

Now for the cruise. We flew into Lax on a flight and had paid for a transfer to the cruise terminal. When we arrived at terminal 7 at 1145 and found the baggage claim area, we encountered at least another 100 other people waiting for a transfer to the ship. Some of these people had been there since 730 that morning. There were two very confused Norwegian members there with absolutely no idea what was going on. During the next 3 hours myself and I am sure many others contacted your customer service. I called 3 times myself and the last time at about 230pm I was told there were buses coming and there was nothing else they could do and to please stop calling. I did ask before they hung up if we could take a cab and be reimbursed and was told no just wait. About 245pm the one poor crew Member there shouted out that we were all going to walk to the cab stand and just follow her. It was over a mile we were required to push and pull our bags through major construction zones and across 4 major intersections. Some people were in wheel chairs and many were using canes and walkers. In short it was dangerous and Norwegian is very lucky the no one was injured or hit by a car. This was so disrespectful! At the cab stand we realized we were just a few of the many stranded at the airport.

The next day I went to the service desk on the Bliss. I had a $92.08 receipt from my cab ride and expected to get a refund issued the young lady at the counter seemed surprised to her of the issue and I spent the next 15 minutes as she typed down what happened and then was told they would send this to corporate headquarters and they would contact me with a response. Next day I went to the service desk again and this time was told a nonrefundable credit of $92.08 had been issued for use on the ship. I told them this was not acceptable as I had already paid the $50 transfer fee and this was out of pocket and I would require a refund. Again the young man spent about 15 minutes typing this request into his computer and informed me it was being sent to corporate and I would be informed when they received a response. Well it took 8 days before I was called to the service desk and was told it had been issued as a refund and could be cashed at the end of the cruise. I should have had the option to receive it at that time as it was my money not the ships.

One of the next issues was we had paid for use of the Vibe. It was a very nice area the staff were extremely attentive and helpful. But not once during the cruise was the jacuzzi working properly. Was informed it had been reported many times but never fixed.

We also upgraded to a spa balcony and loved the thermal spa which we used every day. Again, the staff was very attentive and helpful. But there were two issues never resolved during the cruise. In the steam room only one of the steam generators worked and at times it was intermittent and the other unit never worked. In the main sauna the valve and spray head for the rocks at times leaked and never had enough pressure to properly spray the rocks and give use an even heat. That said it was a beautiful spa which would have been exceptional with just a few tweaks.

We are so accustomed to staff being on top of everything. Probably due to covid and huge crew turnover some of the staff especially in the dining rooms were prone making mistakes with our orders nothing huge and usually quickly corrected.

Lastly, we were green baggage tags last ones to leave the ship. Our time was 9am we sat on the deck 8 until almost 1pm before leaving the ship.

To this day we have not received any apology for all the trouble we were made to endure at the airport waiting for the transfer. We were basically lied to from 10am till 230pm being told repeatedly buses were on the way. Carnival had people arriving at the same terminal but were able to get their guests out.

Not sure about how other travelers felt. But what happened at the airport and how it was handled will give me pause before I will think about booking with Norwegian again!

Michael and Belinda Altringer

[protected]@gmail.com

I booked a Christmas cruise for myself and my 3 young adult children. After discussing what I wanted from the cruise the agent assisted in booking 2 separate rooms that are beside each other (myself and daughter in one and my 2 boys beside us in the other). To reduce the stress over the holiday I asked for the fight to be one day early at the start and 1 day later at the end.

When I actually received the flight confirmation it was correct on my son's reservation but my daughter and I had a 2 day variation pre and post cruise. I called to get this fixed and was told someone would call back the next week. That did not happen so I called again and spent over an hour of them telling me it cannot be fixed because it was within the 74 days of the cruise. (The flight was booked at 59 days by them.) Once they were able to confirm through looking through transcripts that the error was theirs they were finally willing to assist. However, I would have to wait at least 3 weeks before they could start working on my case. I waited those 3 weeks and had to call again to follow up. A few days later I received a change of flight. However, I and my daughter are still not flying with my sons. We fly out is 1 hour apart on the way there and will join them for the connecting flight which is ok but on the way back our flights are 12 hours apart and require multiple trips to the airport on New Years Day or a 14 hour wait at the airport. When I called one person says they will fix it and the next person says they can't. Why have a process that makes you have multiple reservations for one family and a policy that says they don't have to book flights together? If I knew that I would have gotten a larger cabin and had the 4 of us stay together! or if they had resolved the issue weeks ago when I called, there would have been flights for all of us. But they waited and now it impacts my very needed and very expensive cruise in a negative way. Their mistake, my problem. Not good customer service in my mind.

Good morning On November 16, 2022, I called the agent Brandon to cancel my reservation. my friends changed their mind, so i canceled. He was going to put through the cancelation. I made numerous calls, and he finally answers and tell me he was on a cruise and did not put the cancellation through. I finally get a cancellation email on December 7, 2022, tell me I will receive a refund.in 10-21 days. $500 of my money i worked for, seems it only important to me, that might be true, but respect is something we all deserve. I feel i was disrespected.

Reservation # [protected]

This is our very first cruise. The booking consultant told me if I put a 250 deposit down that Norwegian would match it. I booked 2 rooms so it should have been 500 for each room off our balance. The consultant gets back to me and said it wont apply to my cruise because its under 7 days. so she asked me to do another deposit for 100 dollars for each room, which I did. I asked since she already charged my card the 500 can she apply it to my payment and I was told no. I asked her to credit my card back and she told me it would take 7 days. well 7 days came and went with no credit back to my card. I called again and I was told 10 days. Nothing. 3rd call I was told 30 days. so now their tying uo 500 dollars of my money that im going to have to pay intrest on. is Norwegian going to reimburse me the intrest. Now the consultant wont answer my calls. I find it funny that there are 5 families going on this cruise all with different booking consultants and the same thing happen to all of us. ive tried to get a number to Norwegians corprate office and no employee can give it to me

We are cruising in New Zealand and Australia on Norwegian Spirit. There are 26 of us going on this trip so we are considered a group booking. We all booked the air portion for the trip as well because of the great deal. At the time of booking everyone thought we would be traveling together with no information to the contrary until about 70 days out. By chance the lead of our group was booking dinner reservations and the concierge told her that we would not be able to fly together most likely. At this point our group contact through NCL was consulted and he told us that most likely we would be traveling in small groups together but no more than 8 to a group flying together. My husband and I are traveling two days early with my parents whom we paid for their deposit and my husband gets all of their emails, since our reservations were made together. The other 22 are flying in just in time for the cruise and then staying two days after the cruise. We did not worry about the four of us going two days early being it is only four people, and we get the emails for both cabins, so we very wrongly assumed we were linked together. After my husband and I received our flights, and my parents did not I contacted NCL. I was told at that time not to worry they were not actual reservations yet merely place holders. We would not get our actual tickets until later and nothing was "set in stone" until 30 before our trip. Well, my parents have now gotten their flights and of course they are not at the same times or even on the same airlines. We have all called (as have members of the larger group) and have been told many different things from different people we have talked to over the last few weeks. We have been told there is nothing they can do or will do. We have been told that emphatically and repeatedly. We have been told that had we paid an extra $100 a person 75 days prior we could have been together but since we did not do that we were stuck. We explained that was never an option given to us to which we were told that is our fault for not know their policy. Sadly, their own people to don't know the policy either since the only person who seemed to know that was a supervisor who tried not to speak with my husband but had to because my husband insisted, he speak with him.

This has been a very bad experience and a trip that we were all excited about has truly lost its appeal. As someone who just opened a travel agency within the last month (after we booked this trip) I am so sad and frustrated by the lack of customer service and the utter lack of even pretending to care! Not one person we have spoken to has even asked what they can do to help us. It really wouldn't take much for us to feel better about the situation, but NCL doesn't seem to care.

I made a reservation for a cruise on Norwegian Sky on February 1st, applied coupons, was quoted a price to pay. I entered my credit card info and clicked finish and pay.

I got the error message, "Sorry there was an error, please try again." I tried again and got the same error.

I called customer service and was told that it wasn't possible to get the price I was quoted. Well, here it is.

Upgraded our Penthouse suite to an owner's suite, total cost of cruise $17,889. Our first four nights on the ship we had no sleep due to very loud ceiling noises, no heat or ac, lights not turning off. Concierge, asst. general manager and hotel director spent time in our suite and were appalled at all our issues. Crew tried to repair problems, but nothing got better. Got food poisoning on 4th night. Owner's suite had no vanity, no workstation, no dining room table, bathroom very small with no storage, no towel racks, no bar in shower for women to shave legs. Husband had to live out of shaving kit for 10 days. 65 year old wife had to sit on the bedroom floor to apply makeup, had to unplug coffeemaker in entry way to stand in hallway to curl/style hair. Due to hurricane, we had to miss a port (Bergen) understandable, as the captain wanted to keep us safe. We were supposed to go through a Norwegian fjord during the day so we could see it. Instead, the ship went through the fjord at night while we were sleeping, so when we woke up we were already docked. Left at 10:00 at night, so we never got to see the fjord. Owner's suite was not as advertised: no dining room table, had to eat our meals sitting on the sofa with our plates in our laps. No place to work on the computer. Our coffee/beverage station was so small, no shelf space to make drinks or prepare our coffee. Excursion booked through NCL: supposed to be a tour through a fjord. They put us on a "ferry" boat, we were stuck in the middle of the middle seats with no views for 3 hours. The bathrooms on the boat were broken for 2 1/2 hours of the tour. Last day on the ship, the sun was finally shinning so we decided to stay onboard to use the private Haven infinity pool and sundeck. Infinity pool (which NCL brags about) was half filled, only one bartender working and no servers for food or beverages. The regular balcony cabins were light and bright and more functional at 1/5th the cost of our suite.

Our concierge opened a case with corporate while we were onboard and everyone felt we should be compensated for half of our cruise price. We have contacted NCL Corporate ourselves, including the top 5 executives.

12/2/22 FINALIZED our cruise after several calls to several people. We received wrong info in regard to $99.00 add on 3rd person. My husband is 90 years old; he scheduled this trip as it may be our last. We were told to call back when 3rd person verified, she could in fact join us so she could help me through the trip.

I was told not once but 5 times, by 5 different people that we could add her on as soon as we knew. Then once again I call, they said no mama, sorry for wrong info, but she will have to pay 3000. and that doesn't include, specialty, Wi-Fi, and excursions. I was told reservation was closed and paid in full and couldn't open to add her for 99. But we could open it and add her on for 3000.

So please if you can explain if we booked with in the time frame of the advertising special, then why on earth could we not add her for the promotion which you advertised. I do not understand getting different info from all the different people. and why if we are paying the full price to add her why she doesn't have same amenity's as we do.

We are 70 and 73 years old. Reservation # [protected], upon booking the cruise I tried to make dinner and show reservations, I even called and got one specialized dinner booked, everything else had to be booked on ship. To book another specialized dinner, we had to speak to a supervisor. Went early to get a chair near pool/17th deck, nothing available., and no one to ask or help me.

Children were running through the entire ship bumping into everyone, banging on cabin doors, no parental supervision. Not one of the crew tried to correct the problem. Had 150 free Wi-Fi minutes, was unable to assess, went to downstairs for help, a women handed me a paper with directions, still unable to assess went down again ask for help she told me to follow directions and walked away. Never got WIFI. Bathrooms near buffet were filthy.

Th entire experience was horrible. Probably will not cruise with you again.

When I had booked my cruise and flight package, as soon as I received the email to contact the flight department to arrange the flights I did. I spoke to someone named Michelle, I had asked for a 2 day to arrive prior to the cruise if I did not need to fly out on December 30 as that was the wedding day. She said she did not think I would need to fly so early as the 30th and if so, I should be able to change the flights with the airline. Fast forward now we are on November 29 we received the flights for the 30 to sit in Dallas more than 8 hours and right in the wedding hours. So, since I was told to contact the airline, I did with the information they gave me with Quantas. as now the ncl flight department saying that no changes can be made. Now quantas is saying that they can't do it that ncl has to call there Qantas support agent connections. So I called back NCL flight spoke to Michelle (probably same original person who started this mess for a bad information) now She is saying no airline will change my flight and the contract says it can't be changed. So I either miss wedding or the trip. Is not fair that I can't get help from a original mistake made from giving me the wrong information have I had been told I could not change this with the airline I wouldn't suggested a 2 days early arrival I need help.

THE Ships food breakfast and lunch in the buffet and market cafe was cold. The ship it self-did a lot of rocking and made a lot of people seasick. When we got on the ship, we did not get our room till 3.30 and our luggage toll 7'30 pm. The bar tender in the margarita bar was not very nice to my daughter. There was no adult pool as it was full of children not happy with that at all. The staff for the most was very good. Housekeeping was excellent and Trevor. It was the first time I have been on a cruise and it will be my last I was very disappointed

I booked a cruise for 8 people in October 2022 for a cruise in January 2023.

two of my guests were flying in from the UK. After being the nicest most pleasant company when they were taking my money they turned into the most awful disgusting company when we ran into a problem.

We found out after making the booking that UK residents would need to be vaccinated to enter the USA. This was something we overlooked as we thought all restrictions had been lifted and we took responsibility fro this as we should have done more homework, but we were so exited about seeing each other after this horrendous two years that we just went ahead and booked the cruise.

After realizing that they would not be able to enter the country we called NCL to explain what had happened my friend was in tears in the UK and of course I was the one that booked it, I felt terrible.

I was hoping to resolve this and make something that was awful for my friends into a positive for the future.

I asked for a cruise credit for a future cruise that I could enjoy with my friends when the restriction was lifted NO

I asked if we could switch the names and take friends from the US so we wouldn't loose the money NO..

All they wanted to do was take the cancelation Fee.

To top it all of the price of the cruise went down on Cyber Monday with a difference of $500 but they would not take that into consideration when it came to canceling the cruise they took a % of the original cost which was about $2000 of a $3300 cruise.

Everyone I spoke to was cold. They must have been trained to stick to the rules and thats it.

I will never EVER book another cruise with this company and the worse thing is I have to spend 7 days on this ship in January and so do my other guest knowing how this situation was handled.

Im sure they will re book the room and hope they enjoy the $2000 they took from me.

Im sure there was a better way to resolve this.

As a side note I was dealing with a cruise consultant Ryan Rodriguez.

He refused to return my calls when this problem arose.

He returned my calls in 5 to 10 min when he wanted my money and his commission.

I can quite honestly say in all my years I have never been treated like this by any company that was offering a FUN as their business model.

We bought transportation from MCO to Port Orlando thru NCL after waiting for almost two hours for the bus to arrive the bus then dropped us off in the middle of a long line which we had to make our way to the end of. The driver had offloaded our bags and asked all us passengers for tips and as we were wrangling our luggage to the end of a huge line, it was a friendly passenger that pointed across the street to the baggage handlers where our luggage could eventually be loaded on the ship. I have never had such a ridiculous situation on any other transportation on any other cruise line before. Not even Carnival does things this ratched. Evidently, the guy either was incompetent or just wanted a tip and figured he wouldn’t get one if he took us to the correct place. On the way back to the airport, no driver made mention of a tip so it was clearly just this driver. BTW, embarkation day - 11/19/2022 in Port Orlando for the Escape was horrible in every way!

Our cruise on NCL Pearl leaving 11/29/22 booking # [protected] 's price appears to of gone down from what we paid earlier in the year.

My travel agent contacted you all and was told that NCL does not make price adjustments 15 days and less when the price goes down. I find this to be very unfair and poor business to try and keep customers loyal. After all how often to people check to see if their price has changed? I was only looking to see if there were upgrades available and noticed the price went down.

Cruise ref [protected]. We had an excellent cruise over 7 days. We booked a tour of Beverly Hills and beaches when we left the ship. All was well to start then the coach developed a fault which lead us to being stood on the hard shoulder of a freeway for 45 mins with cars flashing past at high speed on either side. This then cut short the time we had at 1 beach(not beaches) before we had to rush to the airport for someone's early flight. This spoiled what could have been an excellent end to the holiday.

Re Norwegian Star

Embarkment: Copenhagen Denmark Sept 26,2022

I believe we are Silver NCL level

The travel experience was horrific.

We were 28 hrs to our destination/Denmark.

At Toronto airport we were required to take the Go Train 6 times from one terminal to another.

West Jet and KLM were unable to decide who needed to fix our itinerary and reschedule flights. Therefore we were directed back and forth between the two airline. Twice with all luggage. We needed to obtain our luggage that was checked in from KLM luggage hold ourselves.

We had at least 4 boarding passes each that we could not use and needed rescheduling. Very hesitant in booking future NCL Cruises. Spouse has health issues. This experience was very stressful physically and emotionally!

I booked a family cruise needing 4 rooms. NCL allowed me to make all the reservations and make the initial downpayment for all the rooms over the phone. When i went to make the final payment I'm told that I'm not allowed to make the payment and that one of my adult children from each room must now call to make the final payment, but they would be allowed to use my credit card. There are so many issues with this process and it needs to be addressed. First, what if this was a suprise cruise for all my children? (It was, but i have several in the military so they had to be informed in advance). Second, if my kids can call in and use my credit card what is in place to prevent fraud? They are not authorized users of my card and noone on the other end seemed to care they were not listed on the card used.

My cousin booked a family cruise on the Norwegian Star from Buenas Aries Argentina December 18th, 2022 to Santiago Chile through January 1st. He failed to book a balcony room for my wife and myself. As soon as I found out that it was not a balcony room, I knew that my wife would not go due to her condition. She needed a balcony room. I immediately called Norwegian to ask for a balcony room and I was told that there were no balcony rooms available. This was not true and to this Date there are a dozen balcony rooms available. When Norwegian finally admitted that there were balcony rooms available after numerous inquiries, they wanted thousands of dollars more for the cruise than what originally could have been purchased. We find this business practice disturbing and dishonest.

In the early morning hours of October 23, 2022, my husband experienced extreme pain in his abdomen and was rushed to the ship’s hospital for treatment. While I am completely aware that when medical services are given, a payment will need to be collected, I just didn’t expect that bill to be over $2800.00. This was a complete and total shock to us, as this is like buying another cruise.

We inquired how much it would be, but they couldn’t give us an answer that night/A.M. they said a bill would be delivered to our room, it was not delivered until day 3 of our 7 day cruise. This caused a great issue with our account as it was shut down without our knowledge. We weren’t aware of this until day 3 when we tried to purchase a five dollar charm for my Mom and were turned away as declined. I’m sure you can understand how horrible this was to be made to feel like this in front of family and not understand what was going on, we finally received a letter on Day 3 telling us we were shut out of (Pre-Paid) food and beverages. It was so embarrassing for us and Guest Services was beyond understanding. They said “pay your bill and we will turn it back on”. No sympathy for this exorbitant amount of money, that we were in the process of getting the money.

We ended up having to take a loan out against our home to be able to pay for this bill.

Once we paid the bill, we continued to receive letters to our room telling us we can’t use our account. It was exhausting visiting Guest Services. I spoke to the Supervisor, and he offered nothing to make the terrible treatment right, nothing to credit to my account, I was truly floored by the treatment. When I visited the last time to Guest Services, I explained, I didn’t ask for anything, but their repeated harassment of letters to my room, was so upsetting, I went to the desk to ask now for something, they offered chocolate covered strawberries, which I declined! As if that would make up for the treatment we received, it was awful and we weren’t the only passengers receiving this treatment, which was sad.

I’m writing to you to make you aware of these practices, I completely understand the point of paying bills, we paid it, with our bank coming through for us, unfortunately it really ruined our vacation, the stress it caused having to go to guest services daily and worried about getting your company the money was a nightmare!

I hope that this letter allows you to look into the way passengers are being treated by guest services, they do not care about making it right for someone, there should be someone specifically assigned to the passenger with medical bills, there should be someone following up with that passenger to see how they are and walk them through filling out the travel insurance claim, not shut down their account!

I would like a response from your company to tell me what they can do to make this right, I would really like to see a medical claim person assigned to help people through the process, not harass them for an outrageous payment.

My wife and I were all set to fly to LAX where we would board the Bliss for a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. We flew from Detroit to Chicago. on Oct. 25th. Once we landed, we were told they would delay our flight to Los Angeles due to a mechanical issue. In order to board the Bliss, we had to be at the Pier by 1:00. The agents scurried to rebook many passengers. They tried putting us on standby... for a flight that was overbooked. I called Norwegian, and the agent said "Try to get here. I will make a note of your delay." We had no choice but to fly home the next day.

I purchased travel insurance. I hoped they would reimburse us for the $2300 we paid for the cruise.

I filled out claims forms. I attached every document I had to support our claim. A couple of days later, I received a letter of determination from the travel insurance company. They DENIED our claim. Nothing in the policy covered mechanical issues on the aircraft!

We have been loyal NCL cruisers. Now I realize they don't care how loyal we are, they aren't loyal to their clients. This is the second time they have refused us reimbursement for a cruise we didn't take.

NCL arranged for our airline transportation. Had I arranged it myself I would have taken a straight-through flight, not one with a stop. We have two cruises scheduled for 2023, We will cancel both. WE WILL NOT TRAVEL WITH NCL AGAIN.