NCL "free style Cruising"

[JoeyandDavid]

We have not tried NCL "free style" Cruising..

If you have please join the discussion on what your thoughts about NCL as a cruiseline..

Both Positives and Negative observations are encouraged.

Joey

[JohnG]

We have cruised on NCL Dream, Star, Jewel, and Pride of America.

Freestyle is designed to allow the passenger to essentially do what they want, when they want, how they want.

There is only 1 formal night, and it is optional. But...you can wear formal on any night, and we did do one other night. Even saw a fellow in tux propose to his wife in the French Bistro specialty restaurant onboard.

You can eat at any of up to 10 restaurants on board, open seating, when ever they are open for dinner, 5:30-10pm. Up to 4 of these are specialty restaurants with a cover charge. To take advantage of the specialty restaurants on the night you want and the time you want, you need to make reservations as soon as you get aboard. We like the two conventional main restaurants on board, where we have no trouble getting a table for 2. The menus in the main restaurants have fewer entree selections offered than on some other lines. The specialty restaurants include a steakhouse, Japanese teppanyaki and sushe one, a French Bistro, and sometimes another one with Pacific rim cousine. The Italian restaurant requires reservations but no service charge. These are all in addition to the normal buffet and 1 or 2 other no fee restaurants.

Another nice thing about NCL Freestyle is that you can leave your bags in the cabin the last morning, have a leisurely breakfast, and then when you are ready, just debark. No waiting for your color to be called.

Their newest ship, due out in Nov, will even have a bowling alley and a rock climbing wall.

The interior decor tends to be very colorful, not neutral colors. The walls in our cabins have been wood veneer, and the bathrooms larger than most ships. The AF suite had a door to the commode, and a door to the shower, with the sink in the middle. On all their newer ships, the cabins have a coffee pot with coffee. Many have refrigerators.

The apply an automatice service charge of $10 per person per day, to your account. That replaces a gratuity. If you are unhappy with something they want to hear about it right away so they can fix it, rather than the staff getting "fined" by the customer.

So, if you like conventional dining at the same table in the main dining room, you may not get the same table each night, but you can have conventional dining. If you prefer to eat when you are ready, where you want, a different venue each night, you can do that. If you want formal, you can have it, if you would prefer casual, you have casual.

We enjoy Freestyle very much, but also enjoy very traditional cruising. Variety is the spice of life!!.

[popsec]

I'll let you know after we come back from 11 days on the Spirit (Oct 29-Nov 9) :cool:

[DaCruzNut]

At one time, NCL was my favorite line! The food was very good, occasionally excellent; they had fabulous entertainment; and, the staff was the best at sea. Then, they were taken over by Star Cruise line and things went a little downhill.

Post-Star, I was on the Norwegian Sun and Norwegian Sun, several years' ago, and I haven't been on an NCL ship since.

The entertainment only suffered a little, and the staff still great. But, the food became only good. However, "Freestyle" was a disaster. If you didn't make reservations, you could wait for an hour to have dinner. And, making reservations defeats the whole purpose of eaiting when you wish to without planning it in advance.

In all fairness, "Freestyle" was new when I sailed and they may have gotten it worked out by now.

[KeithnRita]

We tried freestyle and it wasn't our cup of tea. The service varied from poor to good. The staff seemed overly rushed and made a lot of serving mistakes. We never say never, if the right cruise at the right time and price presented itself, we might try it again. We met plenty folks on our NCL Sun that loved it and wouldn't cruise any other way.

On our last cruise, which was on Princess, we could have chosen freestyle, but opted for assigned seating. I guess we are traditionalists by heart!

[Lisa63]

We have sailed three times on NCL since they implemented Freestyle Dining. All were on one of their pre-Freestyle ships, Norwegian Majesty. I had expected to hate Freestyle, but ended up being OK with it. My preference is still the traditional, but Freestyle wasn't that bad -- if you knew how to work with it.

Granted, we were on a small ship, so I don't know how it would work on a newer one. Anway, we opted to go to the dining room by 6:00 or after 8:00 and did not find long lines. Often, we'd be able to walk right in. When you think about it -- and I can't take credit for this one as it was told to me by a maitre d' -- ships that offer only traditional dining typically offer two dining times, 6:00 and 8:30, so this approach wouldn't be much different.

That said, we did have a line once -- when we went at about 7:30 on a formal night along with half the ship. We were told we'd have a 20-minute wait, and sure enough, it was a 20-minute wait.

Another option is to reserve one of the specialty restaurants on nights you think the main dining rooms might be crowded. There are several alternative restaurants that have no additional fee. When we were on Norwegian Majesty again this past summer, we had dinner in the Pasta Cafe two evenings (the first and last nights of the cruise), and once in Le Bistro (extra charge) on one of the sea days.

Another plus to Freestyle is that you don't have to rush back to the ship if you are out enjoying the port. I recall one day last summer when we were on a beach in Bermuda, and people from another ship started packing up their things to head back to the ship for dinner. We lingered.

The negatives? Sure, there are a few. First is the absence of the rapport that develops between passenger and wait team. (Then again, that was absent, as well, on my last two "traditional" cruises -- not at all like in the past.) We also found ourselves watching the clock at dinner as our son really enjoys the shows and didn't want to miss them. With traditional dining, the spacing is pretty much done for you. I don't like wearing a watch on vacation. :)

I'll post more as I think of more...

[PrincessOne]

I can speak from my parent's experience....

My dad hated it...he didn't feel he should wait to eat, lol. He also likes traditional, as he likes the same servers every night, as long as they are good.

My mom, well, she likes the freestyle...although, she loved our waiters in April for our Carnival cruise...

We are on the Star in January and our group chose traditional dining...I think with a group it is best, so everyone can be together.

The wonderful thing about cruising...there is something for every taste and style!

[boba]

:smiley: I was also on the Majesty to Bermuda and I liked the Freestyle although I didn't think I would. No rushing to get dressed or back from port, and I can hit the buffet in the afternoon and just go to dinner a little later. :grin:

[Lisa63]

Another aspect of Freestyle Cruising is the so-called "resort casual" attire, as alluded to by JohnG. I had, and still have, no clue as to what that meant. To me, dressing casually when at a resort means swimwear, lol.

Yet after cruising on NCL a few times, with several other lines in between, I noticed, for the most part, very little difference in how people dress in the evening from one line to the next. True, NCL has optional formal nights... but formal nights appeared to be optional on other lines we sailed recently, although these other lines specifically requested that passengers honor the requested dress. But they don't. My husband and son wore tuxedos on formal night on a HAL cruise a couple of years ago, and were in a very small minority. In fact, few even wore jackets/ties. And once dinner is over, many on other lines tend to change into shorts/Ts.

(One exception was Celebrity, where people tended to stay dressed up throughout the evening.)

Back to NCL, though. This is the only line on which I have seen dining room dress codes enforced. People were routinely turned away from the main dining room if in shorts or blue jeans. I noticed this during each of my last two NCL cruises.

Now -- this is just my experience, all of which were on the same ship from the same port in three different years. I'm sure there are variations throughout the fleet.