Norwegian Sky Review
Nice cruise, love the refurbished areas and that New Ship Smell!
Rating by category
Additional details
We were the first cruise after dry dock, and although there were a few hiccups, it was nothing really terrible. The main issue was a delayed embarkation (they did not start loading until about 1:30), and the port personnel kept trying to keep everyone in one of the departure areas, problem being that people kept coming, and no one was leaving, and it got to be overcrowded. Eventually they opened up another room - but none of that was really NCL's fault.
Once on board, all of the public areas had a fresh coat of paint, new carpet, and if not new furniture, it was at least reupholstered. The cabins didn't appear to have anything new, except that the reading lights on the beds now have USB ports - I don't think I'd heard they were there before? The TV channels were squirrelly for the first day, with only over-air channels coming through at first.
We did have an issue with our air conditioner, in that it didn't work. It was somewhat cool the first couple of nights, so we figured maybe it just wasn't a very good a/c. Apparently our steward realized it was actually broken, and called in a maintenance request for us, so we came back from a tour to find a maintenance guy in our bathroom. We made ourselves scarce for the next two hours, and then asked for an estimate to complete, and the best he could say was "bedtime" - he'd been in there since we got back at 2:15! We went down to guest services to complain about the lack of ability to use our room (it was HOT in Havana, and I would have loved a shower, but there were parts all over the bathroom floor, not to mention a man) for what was sounding like maybe 8 hours out of a 5-day cruise. They said he'd be done in an hour, and we decided to head back out for an early dinner. He was done by the time we came back, and the hotel manager sent chocolate covered strawberries to our room, as well as a random $76 credit (not clear what that was based on), and 10 internet minutes that we happened to notice were added. So, they tried to make it right, and I was satisfied (and very happy to have working AC that night)!
Cabin Review
Balcony
It was sort of small, and the balcony wasn't huge, and our AC was broken for the first two days (see review above), and the bathroom smelled like a cruise ship bathroom, but overall it was reasonably comfortable and worked for our needs. We didn't have a huge issue with noise, although one evening the couple across the hall got into a screaming fight loud enough to be heard in our room, but that was definitely the exception, and he was clearly not making any effort to keep it down! The bed was reasonably comfortable, and I really appreciated the USB ports in the reading lights next to the bed - makes phone charging easy at night for those of us who use our phones as alarm clocks!