NCL Cruises, Norwegian Wind Review

Overall Rating

The good points where we were in Hawaii, how bad can it be right? We had some good service. We met friends that we played friendly poker with every night, which saved us. The bar staff in the coffee lounge were good. His name was Jovas and he made our poker nights fun. The Italian restaurant was wonderful, which was good as the rest of the food was mediocre.

The Service! The tip was automatically added to your bill, so I found that all the staff had the tip already and felt no need to work for it or go that extra mile. The food in the Cafeteria was the same EVERY day with little to no variety. The meals in the dinning room were OK but it took us two hours to eat them. We hardly ever got to see a show, as it took us so long to eat. The MS Norwegian Wind was old and obviously not set up for freestyle cruising as there were not enough restaurant spaces to accommodate the full boat. We waited an hour and a half to be seated for dinner one night, it put a bad taste in my mouth for the word freestyle. Freestyle suggests that you will have freedom to eat where you want, not likely. This was my first freestyle cruise and my last. Friends of ours have cruised freestyle before and said that this boat was the worst experience they have ever had of freestyle cruising. They also don't recommend freestyle, especially if you want to meet people.
The stops were good. The excursions were very highly priced, we found out from a vendor that we went on an excursion with, that the ship doubled the price. If we had of booked the excursion ourselves we would have had it half price. I don't mind spending a little more but double!
Our trip to Fanning island seemed like nonsense, we travelled two days there and two days back for 5 hours on shore, granted it was beautiful but so was Maui and it was closer. The boat, being smaller, was rough and most people were sick or queasy. It made it tough to enjoy our days at sea. According to staff its always rough on the way there, it seems senseless to waste the time travelling there. When we got to Fanning, the beach was so crowded, you had a two foot square space and they charged you $25 to go to the more quiet beach where there was no food or bathrooms.
They are retiring the Norwegian Wind and I say Adios! If this was my first cruise it would have been my last, luckily I love cruising and have gone on many. Thankfully, I know when you get a good one its great.
However, this one was not anywhere near my favorite.

Cruise another line, or stay away from the Norwegian Wind.