Pros and cons aboard the Norwegian Prima

Pros and cons aboard the Norwegian Prima

[Wild]

Excellent video. In 10 minutes you point out the best and not so great areas of the ship

[janefehrs]

Thank you for this review. Mostly, I only eat at cruises ship buffets for breakfast when I'm tight on time before an excursion.

[mikemohan]

Thanks for the video, getting on the Prima in Galveston in two weeks. I normally use Carnival but thought I would try a new experience this year. The video helped me with the food questions I had

[jplinjon]

We were on the prima, 5/7. Never again for me. The indulge food area had different, better than good food, and the local bar (adobo on the menu so my wife was happy ) both had good menu, but no seating/severely restricted seating. They have these tight booths with ?obstructions/rails at your feet which made it difficult for me to get in/out. They had the gokart, etc, which is ok. They have 1 large area, no secondary spinnaker- lounge-large area like on all the other ncl ships Ive been on, So only 1 large show a night. Fortunately, they only had 1 "broadway" type show, A Donna summer tribute- standard cruise fair, and 2 comedians. Thats it. I believe they were going to do "something like crazy? boots" but it was canceled early on. Maybe from injury. I wouldn't blame ncl if it was injury related.
The killer is the small rooms, syds, improv. We had the rumours band, but at 8:15 you could not even stick your head in the room to see. At 8:30 there was a 100 person line, i counted, to get into the 10:30 show. There are only 60 seats/chairs in the rooms, I counted, and maybe room for another 100 or so bodies, so the people at the back half line are gonna be standing for 3 hours to see a cover band.uh-huh
The mid ship atrium has an 6th floor stage, but it has roof over it?, so you can't see the stage from deck 7 or 8, and it has a wall of surrounding the stage so you can't hardly see the stage while sitting on 6th floor.
So, no show at night (once you've seen the one show available), and you cannot reasonably expect to get into the smaller rooms unless you wait 2 hours in line, what does ncl want you to do?
Drink?. I don't drink..
I'm going on escape tomorrow, to Canada, looking forward to it

[rainnydays]

Pretty sure that anyone who has cruised on NCL knows about these things with the drink package and love the changes with catering to the upgrade golf option and virgin style food hall. The problem is, they are catering less and less to family however still allow bookings to go over 100% so there is space crunch

[wc]

nice review, we have been on both Prima and Viva... and you have summed this up very well. Missed a couple of the watering holes though.... Wiskey bar!! The Haven experience is a major upgrade and we have done this on both Viva and Prima and you did not cover that, or the Beach Club adult only areas....

[BJ-cybx]

We sailed on the Prima in September out of Iceland. This ship is not made for cold weather. No one used the outdoor seating areas, so the inside spaces were very busy. The go cart track only ran once over the 11 days. We feel the buffet was too small, as on Port days when everyone is in a hurry for their excursions, the buffet can’t handle the crowds. And on Sea days the buffet closed too early. People like to sleep in on Sea days, but the buffet closed at 930 am. And the Indulge Hall was only open for two hours at lunch time, with little seating. No more NCL for us.

[jmwtripleb]

How much was the extra stuff, like the go carts, escape room etc?

[rgruenhaus]

NCL Should have declared this an adult cruise ship and not waste space on an unimaginative "kids" area.

[toddreaker]

Thanks for your honest opinion. Based on that, I don’t think I would sail on her.

[jamesschroder]

My wife and I took a cruise on the Prima last year and I was not impressed.

[crystalnieves]

If you have the premium plus beverage, does it include a Starbucks frappe?

[harrisonjonesRVA]

When did you all sail? We are booked on the Prima in February, and we have had great NCL past experiences

[alliepettola]

Does NCL have a bottled water package you can order? Royal does that

[skylineuk]

Cruised the NCL Viva Nov 2024. We will be on Prima in May 25 so hope they have the problems sorted. Nearly all is spot on with the review as Viva is the Prima’s sister ship. BUT the Indulge food hall was a disaster for us on the Viva. NCL for some stupid reason only offer scones, pizza, burger and chips between 3pm and 5pm when the buffet and the Indulge food hall all close!! Of course these are the times when everyone comes back from day trips so we spent a week eating burgers for lunch 😢. Never have we been on a ship that did this and this was our 5th cruise with NCL and 16th overall in the last decade. This needs to change as Indulge had dirty tables with dirty plates, overworked staff, we got undercooked chicken in a korma and people all around us were losing it with mixed up orders, cold food or no food arriving. NCL have a lot to fix with this class of ship or else they are going to lose loyal cruisers.

[nute]

Nice video! (I want to one day sail on this ship). Note: I did hear that NCL built this one too "small" (144k) tonnes, trying to go for a "smaller" but nicer more refined look + vibe. However I think they admitted their mistakes and will build its next ships 10%, and then 20% larger (going more back the original size of about 170K tonnage - like the bliss, and encore are). Can't wait for those too! (I do wish they would build one or two "mega ships" to add variety into their fleet: Perhaps 200k + tonnes.

[beachsidebob]

We were on Prima very early on our of Port Canaveral. It was a good looking ship and our cabin was great, BUT functionally we thought the Prima sucked. Pretty much all venues were too small to accomodate the number of passengers who wanted to enjoy them. The Local bar that is shown in this video was always packed 2 people deep trying to get drinks. It was nearly impossible to get a drink there. Don't be fooled by people who say you can watch sports at the Local bar. It's a super tiny space and in the middle of a very busy hallway. For sports fans, there is no place for the crowds to watch sports. They completely missed the boat on the sports bar thing. The Whiskey bar (no TVs) seemed to be the best place on the ship to get a drink (beer and wine for us) and it did have a nice view of the water out the large windows. The outside upper deck area available to us steerage passengers who were not Haven or lucky enough to get a Vibe area pass was tiny. Ridiculously tiny for a cruise ship. Between the go cart track, the Haven and Vibe Beach Club (limited paid access), there wasn't much upper deck space left. As mentioned in the video, one side of the ship is also typically in the shade which only leaves one side of the Boulevard in the sun. Sun worshippers may find this ship frustrating.

We lined up 1 hr and 15 minutes ahead of time for Sid Normans and manged to get a seat off to the side. I spoke to a bandmember and they agreed that the venue was way too small and felt they should be playing in the theater instead so everyone could see them. A good portion of the passengers will never have the chance to see them due to the limited size of the venue. While I sat there during the show and looked around at all the people standing shoulder to shoulder, I just kept thinking what a fire trap it was. Again, great "looking" ship, but we felt let down after the cruise because functionally the ship was so frustrating in comparison to other lines, and even other NCL ships.

[trstquint]

Heading out to sea in a barge with more than 3, 000 others. You spend half your time standing in line for something you get at home, but cheaper. And the other half of the time you are kept awake by the question that is not answered: why do I want this?

[melissacolon]

the drinking package is clear about Starbucks and water not being included-people don't read !

[keeperzero]

I went on the ship and I tried to get into the CID Norman's I thought I was going to be okay by waiting an hour and a half before the show started and sure enough the line was out the door I'm probably 150 deep