Norwegian Prima

In October 2023, we took a repositioning cruise onboard the Norwegian Prima cruise ship and whilst we enjoyed lots about the ship, there were also several issues that we, and the others we sailed with, found to be not quite up what is the usual standard.

As a modern ship that has been built around the line’s freedom at sea style of cruising and has taken the lines popular boardwalk area to a whole new level, just how would the ship match up to the others we have sailed on with the line.

In the decade before cruising on the NCL Prima, we had sailed on the Norwegian Bliss and on the Norwegian Spirit, pre its rebuild, so we had a good idea of what it is like to sail with the line.

In this review, we bring you what we liked about the ship, what we didn’t like and an overall guide to the Norwegian Prima cruise ship.

Norwegian Prima Current Location

Our sailing on the Prima took us from the port of Southampton on England’s south coast to the port of Barcelona in the Mediterranean.

In what was a very port intensive cruise, we visited Le Havre and Le Verdon in France, La Coruna and Vigo in the north of Spain, Lisbon in Portugal, Cadiz and Motril in the south of Spain, Ibiza and Palma in the Balearic Islands before heading back to the Spanish mainland and calling into Valencia.

With only 1 day at sea, the itinerary was ideal for those who love to keep busy on holiday and really pack in as many ports as possible.

Just as is the case with all NCL’s cruise ship, the onboard experience is relaxed and whilst it is billed as a ship where you can do what you want, when you want, it is a ship where you need to plan and pre-book to be able to do that.

Unfortunately, the experience wasn’t always what you would hope from a holiday that you have spend a lot of money to enjoy.

Its difficult to know if some staff were overworked, ill or a bit of both, but several seemed to be struggling to focus on the job at hand.

Unfortunately, plenty of things onboard were unorganised and quite major mistakes were made throughout the trip, so we spent far too much time out of holiday queuing to speak to people at desks to get problems sorted.

We also had a unique experience onboard a cruise ship, where when trying to sort out an billing issue, where the line had doubled charged for an excursion, the staff member at the desk simply refused to help as seemingly they had just had enough for the day.

Another issue we had was the lack of preparedness when arriving at port, with a few of them seemingly not expecting us.

This led to waiting on the ship and then everybody heading for the gangway at the same time but for some reason, the ship decided to have the fewest desks to scan yourself off with.

One other big issue we faced was with the room attendant who it seemed simply had to many rooms to dela with and just couldn’t keep up.

We couldn’t fault their effort but unfortunately things such as no spare toilet paper added to the bathroom led us to running out, there was food left in the room from the previous cruise and on one day, our room never got cleaned at all.

On the plus side, the staff in the bars and restaurants were generally friendly but we still ran into issues including one waiter clearing away my wife’s empty dishes and bringing her main to the table whilst I still ate my starter.

The extended boardwalk is a great upgrade on the breakaway plus class ships and was one of our favourite places to spend time onboard.

NCL offers a relaxed cruising style, with no formal nights and for our journey which was incredibly port intensive, it was a holiday full of late nights and early starts.

If you like to eat when you want, bar hop and leave your planning to spur of the moment thoughts, Norwegian like to think that they are the line for you and that is what this ship has been built with in mind and what the onboard style is designed around.

In reality, when there are 3,000 other people all trying to do what they want to do when they want to do it, somebody will miss out so it still pays to plan in advance.

As is the case for most cruise lines, there was plenty included in the base price of our trip including food, drinks and entertainment.

That included meals in the ships main dining rooms, in the indulge food hall and in the buffet and in those places, you also can get included drinks such as fruit juices, water as well as tea and coffee.

Entertainment wise, there are several places around the ship that feature bands playing sets but most of the entertainment is focused on the theatre and the Syd Normans Pour House.

During the day activities such as bingo and Deal or No Deal took place in the theatre whilst Syd Normans Pour House for the place where activities and game stook place.

On an evening, the theatre is split between been a stage for showcase acts such as comedians and shows such as the Donner Summer Musical and then it also turns into a nightclub thanks to an innovative design where the seats can be removed from the floor.

One of the things we really liked about the ship was ‘The Stadium’, an sports area located at the top of the ship where you could paly plenty of free games including table tennis, mini-golf, pickleball, shuffleboard and lots of other options.

Also on the upper decks is a waterslide, swimming pool, hot tubs, and dry slides that go from the top of the ship down to the boardwalk on deck 8.

On that deck you will find plenty of places to sit and relax, several hot tubs and infinity pools, an art walk, the Oceanwalk glass floor as well as acting as a full ship wrap around promenade deck.

Other things included is a large gym, kids and teen clubs and a kids splash zone area.

We paid the upgrade for the lines ‘Free at Sea’ deal which for a one of fee of £179 we received a drinks package, 2 speciality dining meals, limited internet and a $50 per room discount on shore excursions.

There is a darts area in the Stadium complex that comes at an extra cost as the 3 level Go-Kart track.

There is an interactive arcade known as the Galaxy Pavilion where you can pay a per hour flat fee to try a number of Virtual Reality machines, or you can pay per go on things such as a golf simulator.

Regular extra costs such as the spa, professional photographs, the casino, barber/hairdresser and shopping are all offered onboard.

For our cruise, the entertainment was hit or miss and not to the level we had enjoyed on our previous cruises with the line.

The bands playing in the atrium were hidden in one corner and under the floor above making it impossible to see them unless you got there early and stood in the middle of people dancing to them.

With such a wide-open space to utilise, why not just put them in the centre of the Atriums floor so that people on all levels can watch them perform?

The entertainment acts were limited and re-used over and over and whilst we did enjoy the rock act, there wasn’t a need to keep seeing them again and again.

The other act was a comedy juggling show, which we didn’t watch so cannot comment on the quality but again, he performed numerous times.

We did see the big production show on the ship and cannot have any complaints on the quality of those performing and if you were a Donner Summer fan, you would have a great time.

Sadly, the lack of live music in the theatre was a depressing reminder of the cutbacks on NCL, even as prices continue to rise.

As mentioned above, on some nights the theatre turned into a night club and had shows aimed at a more mature audience.

On our sailing, we experience a real mixed bag when it came to food and drinks with some meals been great, some poor but in the main they were just there.

We started the cruise eating in the buffet, as we tend to do, especially on port intensive cruises but would soon change as the buffet on the Prima was the worst, we have experienced on a cruise to date.

To start with, the actual buffet itself is just far too small in all aspects as there was never enough seating and with such little space to put food out, the options were limited at best.

They did try to help with the lack of seating by allowing us to use the nearby Food Republic for seating at breakfast but that just led to the Surfside Café itself becoming so crowded, you couldn’t get to any of the buffet stations.

Another big problem is the design of the buffet where some people enter at one end from the pool deck, some enter from a lift bank in the centre, and some enter via the Surfside grill at the other end.

With its design been long and thin, that just led to everybody meeting in the centre and having nowhere to go.

With the food choices been limited and repetitive, it could have been saved if the quality was good, but it was also the worst food of our 3 cruises to date with the line.

As part of our ‘Free at Sea’ deal, we took advantage of our 2 included meals at speciality restaurants by eating at both Le Bistro and Los Lobos.

At Los Lobos, we found the food to be ok at best, but the service was really poor. We had a relatively late booking at it seemed like our waiting was trying to rush us as much as possible to get us out.

That included the aforementioned serving my wife’s main course whilst I was still eating my starter and not bringing us drinks when ordered, although the Maître D did step in there once to top up our waters.

We had a much better experience at Le Bistro, the lines French restaurant, where it was almost the inverse experience as the Maître D was somewhat offish, but our waitress and servers were great.

The food was also much better, in fact my Duck a l’orange was the best meal of the holiday.

In the buffet was a disappointment, the Indulge Food Hall was a great surprise and really added to our getaway.

All the servers were friendly and incredibly fast whilst the food not only tasted great but was always fresh and presented well.

We love the concept Hawker Centres in southeast Asia, with a central seating area and food cooked around you in stalls and this soon became our go to place for a quick bite.

We only ate in the Main Dining Room once and it was a pleasant experience, with friendly attentive servers and decent food but it should also be said that it was more pub standard than restaurant standard.

We stayed in an inside cabin, 11137 to be precise, which had everything you would expect from a stateroom including a large comfy bed, plenty of storage and it also had the all-important glass door on the shower.

The room was smaller than on other lines we have sailed with, for example Celebrity, just it was perfectly fine, and we would have no issue with booking it again if we were to sail on the ship.

We picked the room as it was close to a life bank and not too far to walk up or down steps to/from the main passenger decks.

Our journey on the Prima took us on a repositioning cruise from the port of Southampton on the south coast of England to the Western Mediterranean port of Barcelona.

Along the way we call into France, Portugal and the Balearic Islands, starting at the ports of Le Havre and Le Verdon in France. In-between the 2 French port, we had our 1 and only day at sea.

We then visited the ports of La Coruna and Vigo in the north of Spain before heading to Lisbon in Portugal.

We were due to visit Porto but shortly before departure it was changed to Vigo and whilst we did enjoy the Spanish port, Leixoes for Porto was one of the big draws of the cruise for use that we were really looking forward to.

After leaving Portugal, we sailed to the southern Atlantic coast of Spain to visit the port of Cadiz (from where we went to Seville) before heading into the Med and the port of Motril (from where we went to Granada).

We then headed to the Balearic ports of Ibiza Town and Palma in Mallorca.

To finish our adventure, we headed back to the mainland and the port of Valencia before arriving in Barcelona where we departed the ship.

The Prima is a great ship for those who like to go with the flow on holiday and aren’t too bothered by top class food and service.

If you are more of a 2-3 star hotel sort of person over 4-5 star ones, you will find the ship perfectly suited for you.

As a modern vessel, there are lots of things to like about the ship and a good variety to keep most happy but due to its design, and the style of cruising with Norwegian, if you like traditional ships where you dress smart on a night to sit at the same table and spend your days sitting next to the pool or in a chair relaxing, this just isn’t the ship for you.

The Prima also has plenty for families to enjoy and had a much younger clientele than many ships we have sailed with and that isn’t too surprising as it is a ship perfect for families and couples.

We have gone through some of the issues to watch out for onboard, included tired and poorly trained staff but those are things that easily have changed or could change soon but there are some issues that seem to be more related to the ship itself.

As mentioned, the buffet is far too small and poorly designed so will likely be an ongoing issue for the ship. The gangway area also needs improving as does the organisation for getting on and off the ship.

We like to be kept up to date with things when on holiday, from the sea conditions to the weather for the next day and from the shows coming up to any special nights onboard but on the Prima you were kept in the dark with most things.

A lot of that could be down to the poor organisation onboard but the captain never spoke to us about anything and the cruise directors only interest was in selling tickets for Deal or No Deal- which just reminded us of flying on a low-cost flight and constantly been asked if we want to buy a scratch card.

The Norwegian Prima is the first of a new class of ships for the Norwegian line that started life using the codename project Leonardo.

She was 1 of 4 ships first ordered from the Fincantieri shipbuilders in Italy in February 2017 and as the first of this new class, she would give her name for the class that would be extended to 6 six in 2018 and would enter service in August 2022.

The NCL Prima is a good-looking ship, with plenty of positives but it is also a ship with plenty of issues and whilst we wouldn’t go as far as to say that we wouldn’t recommend sailing on her, we would only do so for experienced cruisers.

That’s because of the service we experienced and issues that we came across would likely have put us off of crossing if it was our first ever cruise but as experienced cruisers, we know that things can, and tend to be, better.

NCL can certainty do better, and the ships design issues can be fixed but it doesn’t seem like it is important to NCL to fix those issues, so we don’t expect it to happen.

NCL Prima Review and Guide

Thank you for taking the time to read our Norwegian Prima review.

If you are researching whether the ship is right for you or not, we hope that our review of the NCL Prima and our thoughts of our experience of cruising on her is useful for you.

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