International Travel News: Pluses, minuses on Norwegian Crown cruise

We took Norwegian Cruise Line's "30-day Southern Discovery," Nov. 1-30, '03, departing from Miami and going through the Panama Canal, down the west coast of South America and around the Horn to Buenos Aires, where we took post-trip tours and had four days at the Marriott Plaza Hotel.

All of this cost $4,680 plus $300 "tip" each, and it was booked for us by Vantage Deluxe World Travel (Boston, MA; phone 800/322-6677 or visit www.vantagetravel.com).

The Norwegian Crown called at 16 ports (including, inexplicably, two in Jamaica). Except for one day, seas were reasonably calm, and cruising Cape Horn on a sunny day with ocean spray on deck was a major kick, as was the canal, the ancient Peruvian city of Chan Chan (the world's largest when conquered by the Inca), homey Falkland Islands, the awesome Atacama Desert and solo jaunts to several excellent antique flea markets,

A user-friendly combination charge card, room key and computer-displayable I.D. (used when going ashore) was new to me.

We found food quality and wait and cabin staff service very good. The cabin size, in the 12th-lowest category, was large. Entertainment featured a few very talented entertainers but in unimpressive 45-minute productions.

Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) is pushing "Freestyle Cruising," i.e., open seating in the main dining room and the cafeteria for all meals. Passengers in favor of this concept felt they avoided being stuck with unpleasant companions, while others missed continuing daily chats and the exchange of onshore experiences. I missed the personal interaction with the same wait staff and a choice of regional drinks (i.e., pisco sour).

There also were three theme restaurants with essentially unchanged menus for dinner and which required reservations. We found the French menu ($12.50 per person extra) limited and the food unremarkable.

Downers of this cruise included lugging bags through the Miami airport, standing in line an hour preboarding (since improved), a prepaid $10-per-day tip, numerous petty charges (free coffee available in only one area), a glut of daily paper advertising and, on bills for drinks and things, a space for tips (after 15% was already added).

Also, we were shocked when two flutes of (presumed) complimentary champagne offered at the Chockaholic Extravaganza--a really neat event!--resulted in a bill for $11!

Several people who bought rum in Jamaica were asked to surrender the bottles, which were kept in a locker and not returned to the owners until the end of the cruise. I have never seen this happen before in more than 15 cruises.

We sailed overnight in the Beagle Channel from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia and at 7 a.m., when many people were asleep, passed a series of glaciers. By going a little slower of stopping the ship longer, more people who were still asleep and did not know about the glaciers (the only ones we saw) would have been able to see them. As it was, we arrived in Ushuaia at noon two hours early for no apparent purpose.

We had prebooked eight of 10 shore excursions from Jamaica to Chile and put them on a credit card. The tickets were misdelivered to passengers in another cabin. During the cruise we happened to meet those people, whose name was similar, and found out what had happened. They had returned the tickets to the shore excursion office, but the office had canceled them and so there was no record of our prebooking. Fortunately, there was still space on the excursions and we were able to rebook.

We learned late in the cruise from one of the staff that there was a Lonely Planet guidebook with street maps of many of our port stops "in the back room," there for the use of independent travelers. We had asked the port information director about the maps and he finally made us a photocopy, but he never volunteered to make any for other passengers. It seemed he made little or no effort to provide information on anything but the rather expensive shore tours.

The cancellations of certain events (trivia games and an on-deck barbecue) were not announced.

Limited time and space were allocated for art trivia and educational South America lectures. This added to the impression that pushing the casino, Bingo, shops and excursion sales was an uppermost priority.

I may do another NCL trip but probably only if there is a price advantage over other lines I have tried in the past.

NORM LOEFFLER

Wichita Falls, TX