Norwegian Vs Carnival

In my opinion, there is no more effective way for the average person to see the world than on a cruise. Cruise lines are sort of the Golden Corral of travel. They’re relatively cheap and you get to sample a lot of different cultures in one sitting.

…that probably wasn’t the compliment I intended it to be, but you get my point.

I love cruises.

For years, I’ve stuck with Carnival Cruise Line. (My one foray into Royal Caribbean was an unpleasant experience.) But for my most recent trip—- my first time across the ocean— my cruise pals* and I went on the Norwegian Sky.

Our first voyage with NCL was a nine-day voyage on their oldest ship. Despite it’s status in the fleet as the oldest and least given to frills, the Sky was a great vessel with a timeless look, good food and a great staff.

My primary point of reference is obviously going to be Carnival. I’ve sailed on something like ten of their ships, including the first ship in Carnival’s new totally redesigned line, the Mardi Gras. And of course I had the one ship with RCCL, but I only remember the negatives about that ship.

So how did the Sky and Norwegian hold up in comparison to past cruises?

Pretty well, actually.

The Sky’s status as elder statesman of NCL isn’t reflected in it’s design, which is timeless and classy.

As much as I have enjoyed the majority of Carnival’s ships (the Carnival Spirit being a notable exception), there’s no question that the design of their boats lean towards gaudy and loud. For even a touch of class, you have to go to one of their specialty restaurants.

The Norwegian Sky, by contrast, feels like a slightly higher end hotel. Everything feels classy and natural.

Let’s start with the obvious. The food.

That’s what we are all here for. The main dining and buffet was pretty standard. That is to say, good, not amazing. And that’s more than fine. No one expects five star dining on a cruise ship. The buffet food will always just be okay. The main dining will always be a degree or two higher. That's all you need or expect. You are purposely on a cheap vacation.

We also ate at two speciality restaurants, Cagney’s Steakhouse and La Cucina. The strange thing is that I had a filet at both restaurants and I found the steak at the Italian restaurant to be slightly better than the one at the actual steakhouse. That could just be luck of the draw though. We were all very pleased at both eateries.

The ship’s bars and lounges such as the Sugarcane Mojito Bar and the Bliss Ultra Lounge were a cut above. In fact, outside of the options on Carnival’s new Mardi Gras, I don’t think I’ve ever liked ship bars as much as NCL’s.

The Sugarcane has a distinctive “Havana Nights” feel, while still being accessible enough to serve as a general hangout area. Bliss Ultra Lounge is a bit more generic, but still still had a nice bar area if you wanted to have a quiet drink with your friends.

A lot of Carnival’s clubs feel obnoxious… or to use a word I used earlier, loud. Metaphorically. Obviously a nightclub is going to be kind of loud. That’s fine for what it is, but at my age, I’m more interested in spots where I can interact with my friends.

We actually spent most of our time at NCL’s pub, The Local Bar and Grill. Local was a great place to hangout. The food was good and the servers and bartenders were great. Unfortunately, the Local had a tendency to be overcrowded and sometimes we would have to retire to the twelfth floor outdoor bar, Champs.

Champs was usually empty, largely due to the wind. But we liked the bartenders and were largely by ourselves.

I was very happy to see that Locals has far more seating space on our next ship, the Norwegian Prima.

On Carnival ships, the main lobby is meant to be a place to congregate. There’s always a central bar and a band playing. Not so on the Sky. There are seats and the Sky’s seventh floor has a small piano bar, but it isn’t the same thing. We never went to the lobby unless we had to deal with customer service. This isn’t a complaint, but it is a difference.

I appreciated that the ship library wasn’t treated like an afterthought. It was a great space with a decent amount of room for guests who wanted to take advantage of it, whether to read or play a card game/ chess. I wish I had brought a copy of one of my books to leave there.

Entertainment is where Carnival surpasses NCL.

The Sky didn’t have a dedicated comedy club or space. Instead, the “comedian”, a comedy juggler, performed at the main theater. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think the guy was funny at all. My friends did though and I am kind of a comedy snob, so take that for what it’s worth.

NCL had one show that was clearly aimed at Carnival’s Playlist Productions. Women of Rock was a revue of some of the best female American singers of all time. The show was great. The cast was talented. Was it as good as the Playlist Productions that I am used to? No. But then, it wasn’t all that long ago that Carnival’s shows weren’t at the level they are now. It really just comes down to the level of production that the company puts into the shows. I did enjoy the Newlywed/ Married couples show. I thought the Cruise Director did a great job dealing with one guest on stage who was completely incoherent. I also thought the Crew Talent Show was a nice touch.

Lastly, let’s address the rooms. I had a standard indoor room. With exception to the balcony I had on the Carnival Dream, I’ve generally found rooms to be a crap shoot no matter what ship you’re on. I mostly liked my room on the Sky. Mostly. The space was a bit cramped. Particularly the shower, which felt like a coffin for someone big like me. And would it kill cruise lines to have some actual queen sized beds in ships, rather than two twins pushed together? If you sleep in the middle, the beds constantly push apart. Thankfully, my room on the Prima is actually made for solo cruisers and it looks AMAZING.

My room steward Ariel was great as well. I had to call him once to get my laundry order put in on time. He was there immediately.

Where I think Norwegian fails is in the details. There are a lot of things that need to be streamlined or rethought. Take their Cruise Next program, designed to attract guests new to the line to be NCL frequent sailers and get onto their Latitudes Loyalty Rewards program. (This could also use a rebranding.)

We attended the Cruise Next presentation, an hour long slide show that really only served to give you some facts about each ship in their fleet. And while knowing how big the ships are in comparison to the maximum number of guests is important, a stock photo of a ship accompanied by some numbers is neither memorable nor effective sales technique. After an hour, we never got a feel for why we should want to sale on those ships. Even the videos for their magnificent new Prima Class boats, the Aqua and the Luna, were really just commercial teasers we could easily find online.

In fact, here you go…

Despite the lackluster sales pitch, we did go down to the Cruise Next desk and sign up for a sailing in 2027. And while I really liked the young woman who assisted us, everything she said confused the crap out of me. There were a lot of numbers involved. I’m still not sure where the onboard credits I purchased will be applied. I don’t know who is to blame here. The staff member, for not doing a good enough job explaining it, or NCL for not making a simple and easy to digest pitch?

I lean towards Norwegian being at fault.

Another point of contention is their website, which is difficult to navigate. But worse is their app. It sucks. And unfortunately, in the current era, cruise lines require you to use your phone and their apps on cruises. I assume they all do it at this point. But one thing I can say for Carnival is that their app is far more functional and user friendly. The NCL app really only has two advantages. One is that it makes purchasing excursions incredibly easy. This was a great experience as the five of us locked down our plans on embarkation day. But it still took a minute to figure our where it was on the app. I believe it was listed as “on shore”. Does that make sense? Yes. But it would have made far more sense to simply list it as “excursions”. There are no shortage of amazing web designers available. There is no excuse for a sloppily designed web experience.

The second advantage is that if you purchase the Chat internet package, it doesn’t make you use some crappy internal chat like Carnival does. Instead, we were able to use WhatsApp. So I was able to communicate with family on the cruise as well as the Cruise Pals*.

But unfortunately, even that compliment comes with a caveat. My cruise included 150 free minutes of internet. Unfortunately, you had to log off of the wifi or your free internet would be eaten up in the first two and a half hours. So how the hell are we supposed to get messages in the chat if I can’t turn on the wifi? Basically, the 150 minutes ended up being a scam. Not a huge deal, but it was annoying.

For all my complaints, I was very happy with Norwegian. I think they succeed in places where Carnival fails, and vice versa. There’s definite room for improvement. But I had a genuinely great time.

I’ve mentioned Carnival’s Mardi Gras several times. In most ways, that ship is the benchmark for what I would like out of my cruise experience. But it isn’t fair to compare Carnival’s newest line of ships to Norwegian’s oldest. Of course the latter will suffer when stacked against the former. And yet my experience on the Sky ranks very highly.

I look forward to seeing how the Norwegian Prima compares to other ships in general and the Sky and Mardi Gras in particular.

#norwegian #NCL #cruiseline #fleet #ship #carnivalcruiseline #carnival #norwegiansky #mardigras #europe #whatsapp #cruisenext #latitudes

*We’re looking for a cheesy group name. I’m not sure Cruise Pals is going to make the cut.