TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums Afloat Norwegian Pearl

Sis wants wife and I to go on a cruise on the Pearl, anyone been on this ship? Food casino ???

We did an 18 day Panama Canal Cruise from New Orleans to Van Couver, BC in 2007 on the Pearl. We have also been on 5 other NCL Ships total 14 Cruises on NCL. We prefer them over the Carnival Cruises. We have Mardi Gras 2018 booked on the Pearl, which will be in New Orleans then. We find the food is better on NCL than Carnival, but not as good as on Royal Caribbean (sp?), but RCCL won't come back to New Orleans, so we stick with NCL.
The Casino is much like other ships, seems the first day of the Cruise, everyone does pretty well, then towards the end, no one is winning (on slots, we don't do the table games). Also, a non-smoker really notices the heavy smoke in the Casino, which is the only indoor place that smoking is permitted. Smoke in a Casino is the norm, these days I suppose.
Make sure you get the Ultimate Beverage Package as your promotion, if you can. It is now being offered if you book before March 31. Otherwise it costs about $600 per person, and everyone over 21 in that cabin has to purchase it.

Been on NCL Dawn and Spirit in recent years. I would say NCL was a good cruise. I'd have to Princess and Carnival above them, but casino/food were good enough if the price, itinerary are what you want.

We always set expectations low before every boat for cabin, food, service so we aren't disappointed. While they can rank between cruise to cruise, we have never had a bad cruise, just different or less than other cruises, sometimes even on the same ship.

We have never sailed on Princess. We really don't care to fly- that just adds $$$. We live 30 minutes from the Cruise Terminal in New Orleans, so we choose to sail from our "home port". That limits our Cruise lines to NCL and Carnival. We found a much younger crowd on Carnival, and we prefer the food on NCL. Prices are very close between the two, but NCL just fits our style of Cruising better.

We live 1 hr from Galveston termanil and was wondering, any real good deals for last min.travel?? Our first cruise was out of Miami and one couple at our table had been on a bunch of cruises and always got a good deal. That line is no longer around but wife and I were wondering?

Always hear about last minute deals, but have never had any. We are retired, and can go on just 8 hours notice and have spoken to several travel agents and told them to call if any last minute bookings were available. Never been called.

Bob77346, just a follow-up to my previous post. We book our Cruises early (we just booked Mardi Gras 2019 on the NCL Gem out of New Orleans). We already booked Mardi Gras 2018 on the NCL Pearl out of New Orleans. Our Travel Agent books "blocks" of cabins on the Cruises, so we get a group rate, plus the Cruise lines offer incentives on their Cruises booked that far in advance (Ultimate Bev Package, onboard credit, etc). If the price goes down in the meantime as the Cruise Line tries to fill the Ship, we get to take advantage of the cheaper price and our price is adjusted, plus whatever Incentive we got when we originally booked. It seems as the Cruise date gets closer, and the Ship is almost full, the price gets higher, so I am not sure if there really is a "Last Minute Super Deal" anymore. I have never actually heard of anyone getting one. If you are interested in a Cruise, check the price and incentives, and ask your Travel Agent if their Agency also offers and on-board Credit, mine always does, at least $50 per cabin. If you book directly with the Cruise Line, you might get an on-board Credit as an incentive, but if you book with a Travel Agent, you can also get THEIR on-board Credit too.
If you PM me, I will provide the name and # of my Travel Agent we have been using for almost 30 years, or check the Sponsors of TTOL at the top of the page, I think there are several Cruise Specialists there.

I don't know about other cruise lines, but we do get relatively last minute deals from Princess in our email. They are much cheaper than rack rates, but not literally last minute, usually about a month or six weeks out...

We did a two week Mediterranean cruise on Norwegian's Pearl in fall of 2015. We were surprised by how great the food was! We did eat mostly in the specialty restaurants; our favorite was the french restaurant. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />

Sorry, we were on the Spirit; senior moment <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

We did an alaskan cruise this past august on the pearl.

We found the food and the staff to be very good.

We ate at the specialty restaurants as well as the main restuarants but we avoid the buffet like the plague.

We have sailed on Princess, royal Caribbean and disney and honestly i would rank NCL right up there with Disney