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Norwegian Cruise Line

SS Norway

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Reviewed by: Tilman Piedmont
# previous cruises: 8
Date of Trip: March 10, 2002
Itinerary: Caribbean - Eastern

I would recommend this cruise without hesitation to anyone who would like to experience a genuine ocean liner. It is appropriate for singles, couples, families, friends, and seniors without mobility issues. You don't have to be a history nut or ship buff to enjoy this cruise, but an interest in these areas certainly enhanced my enjoyment, as did a little research into the ship before sailing. If you are cruising because you want to experience an ocean voyage, this ship is for you. After all, you can probably visit a multi-level shopping mall, ice-rink, or water slide closer to home. If you must have these things on your cruise ship, go with Carnival or Royal Caribbean.

The SS Norway is a magnificent ocean liner. She looks like a ship should look from the moment you set eyes on her. Her exterior areas belie the fact that she is over 40 years old. One thing that sets the Norway apart from the newer ships out there is the variety of outdoor spaces. There is a great outside promenade all the way around the ship on the Olympic deck. This is a super place to get a morning workout in by jogging or walking around the ship (3.66 laps/mile). Romantic strolls by moonlight after dinners are also recommended here. Additional outdoor areas include vast surfaces for sun worshipers on the sky and sun decks, two outdoor pools, a large outdoor restaurant, and a regulation basketball court. It was always possible to find a private outdoor nook to hang-out in during our cruise, though the ship was fully booked.

SS Norway's interior public spaces are well organized, and seemed well kept and clean. Some areas, like the Club Internationale and the Windward dining room, capture the grandeur of the Norway's past as the transatlantic liner SS France. Others, like the casino and Checkers Sports Bar, are more typical of the types of public rooms you would find on any modern cruise ship. We particularly enjoyed the indoor promenades on the International deck. They extended the length of both sides of the ship, with excellent ocean views all along their outboard sides, and an array of shops and lounges on their inboard sides. On the Norway, it is difficult to forget the fact that you are on a ship. The ocean seems a constant focus, which we felt was as it should be on a cruise.

We thought the food onboard was good, but not excellent. You will not go hungry on this ship, as there is always an ample selection of food served over multiple courses at each meal. My wife was pleased with the "Cooking Light" menu selections. There was a "Cooking Light" choice for every course of every meal. I enjoyed the variety of interesting meats served, including duck, pheasant, lamb, caviar, and escargot. Of course beef, pork, fish, and chicken dishes were also available at every meal, as were vegetarian selections. While the breads and pastries were truly excellent, I'd rate most of the rest of the food as just fairly good. The presentation of the food in the restaurants was attractive, and the ingredients seemed fresh and of high quality, but the flavor had a certain institutional blandness that pervaded from meal to meal.

What made the dining experience superb for us was the attentive wait staff. On past cruises, we have felt somewhat neglected when seated at tables for two. This was not the case on the Norway, where our waiter, busboy, and maitre d' all took the time to get to know us, and then to cater to our every whim, during the cruise. The dining room service was excellent.

Three daily meals, plus ongoing snacks, were available at the Great Outdoors restaurant on the International Deck, aft. We avoided this area during regular meals, as it was always crowded and we liked eating in the dining rooms. It was a handy place to pick-up the ocassional snack, however; and was never too crowded between mealtimes. We especially enjoyed the Macademia-Nut Cookies available here.

Our cabin itself was very nice. Plenty of room to walk around the (very comfy) king-sized bed, floor to ceiling windows making up the entire outside wall, and a small sitting area with a loveseat, were some of the features of the main area. There was also a desk, a fridge, small safe for valuables, and plenty of closet and drawer space to unpack all of our excessive baggage. The bathroom was very roomy (plenty of room for two), with a full-sized marble-lined bathtub, a sink set into a spacious counter, and a handy medicine cabinet. A nice selection of toiletries, including four different kinds of soap, was replenished daily by our steward. The room was simply decorated in a blue motif, with a marvelous framed old liner advertisement above the bed. The cabin was tastefully lit from a variety of dimable light sources that enabled us to tailor the nighttime atmosphere according to our mood.

We were on the ship early and had a chance to snoop around some other cabins before they were occupied. I would advise against booking any lower category cabin on this ship, unless you are a serious ship-buff and want to experience the uniqueness of some of the original cabins. Most of the lower category cabins we saw were (comparatively) cramped and dingy-looking. Many people say that one should book the cheapest cabin available because "you never spend any time in your cabin except to sleep, anyway". I think that this would turn out to be true if you booked a cheap cabin on this ship, but... why not book a nice cabin and then enjoy the luxury of having a very pleasant, completely private space to hang-out in? Economically, for what you would pay for a lower mid-range cabin on Carnival, you can get a "suite" on the Norway. We really loved our cabin!

Another important note on the subject of cabins: if you book category AF or better, you get access to "concierge service". Among numerous minor pleasantries our concierge favored us with were major helpers like getting us a table for two at dinner, putting us on the first tender ashore at every stop, and coming to our room to set-up our onboard credit. She also invited us to a cocktail party in the Captain's quarters, where we met not only the Norway's master, but the heads of all of the ship's departments. It was a highly informative event! Put another way, concierge service eliminated for us 90% of the waiting in line all of the other passengers had to do, and made us feel very special. I highly recommend it!

Our only complaint about our cabin was with our steward, Sony. A good indication of his lack of effective cabin-stewardship came the first night, as we were unpacking. There, in one of our closet drawers right next to the Giddeon Bible, was the empty packaging from a pair of "edible undies", left by the previous occupants. Sony also seemed to be rather unfriendly to us during the cruise. While it was clear that he didn't really like his job, we did meet many other friendly and personable cabin stewards during our explorations of the ship.

The entertainment aboard was a very mixed bag. We enjoyed the small combos that played in the lounges, on deck, and on the beach at the private island. These were competent musicians who seemed to enjoy what they were doing. The problem was in the Saga Theatre, the main nightly entertainment venue. I have read others describe the shows as "Off-Broadway quality". If you consider "Off-Broadway" to be a midwestern high school show-choir, this would be a fair assessment. Without faulting the performers' energy and effort, the shows were really not at a professional level.

Compounding the problem in the Saga Theatre was the woefully inadequate technical production. I have a professional interest in this area, so I was quick to evaluate the technical gear being used in the space. The theatre is exceedingly well equipped in terms of lighting and audio gear. This makes it all the more inexcusable that the shows looked and sounded so awful. Performers standing in the dark (downstage center), miscued music tracks, moving lights constantly whizzing around for no reason, mics set at the wrong levels (we heard one performer in the bathroom); I could go on. I kept hoping that I had caught the crew on a bad night, but things remained consistent all week long. Even high school show-choirs have better technical production than this, and they certainly do not have the tech budget of the Saga Theatre.

The cruise staff themselves were a little irritating in a cheerfully overbearing sort of way. One member I would like to single out for praise was Devon M. Scott, the ship's historian. He presented several excellent lectures about the ship, and seems to have a genuine passion for the preservation and promotion of the Norway/France. A high point of the cruise for me was a 60's promotional film of the France's maiden voyage, that Devon screened in the Club I one formal night. It was a sublime moment to sip a martini in this glorious space, while watching fellow passengers from the present (on the dancefloor), and the past (on the screen), simultaneously dancing to the jazz combo on stage.

The Norway's ports of call are St. Maarten, St. Thomas/ St. John (US Virgin Islands), and Norwegian's private island in the Bahamas. Of these, we liked St. John the best. The island is mostly a national park, and there are numerous pristine beaches. We took a jitney taxi from the pier, and asked the driver to drop us at a beach where we could have some privacy. We had the = mile beach to ourselves for the first two hours we were there! When we had to leave, we just walked back up to the road, and were picked-up by another jitney passing-by within two minutes. Our one issue with the Norway's stop in the Virgin Islands was that, due to the fact that Norwegian will only let you visit St. John if you use their contracted ferry service, we were forced to take a ferry back from St. John to St. Thomas at 1:00, even though the ship only left St. Thomas at 5:30. There was regular ferry service between St. John and St. Thomas on the half-hour all day, so it should have been no problem to spend an extra three hours or so on the beach, rather than in charmless downtown Charlotte-Amalie, St. Thomas. If we make this stop again, we'll blow-off the ship's return ferry, and make our own way back to St. Thomas later in the afternoon.

Unlike St. Thomas, where you will encounter a congested, four-lane traffic artery waterside; downtown Phillipsburg, St. Maarten has a nice beach backed by pubs and restaurants right where the tender drops you. The main shopping strip is right behind that, so you're never more than 50 feet from the beach when you need a break from shopping. We chose to rent a moped ($40.00) to explore the island. This was a lot of fun, though I would urge anyone considering renting a moped to be aware that the roads are narrow and in mediocre shape. Helmets and the avoidance of alcohol while mopeding are a must, as we saw several young people ignoring this common sense get scraped-up pretty badly.

The private island, "Great Stirrup Cay", was not impressive. There was a very crowded beach where they hawked $7.00 fruity drinks and charged outrageously to rent all manner of personal watercraft and floatation devices. 95% of the passengers never left this area. The kitchen crew came ashore and produced a fairly tasty barbecue lunch. We enjoyed getting away from the crowds by walking along the rocky shoreline. We saw a great variety of multi-colored fish swimming in the clear water, so I imagine the snorkeling is very good some distance from the beach. There was also a small straw market that seemed to be selling mainly trinkets imported from China.

The SS Norway also spends three complete days at sea, which we enjoyed tremendously. We avoided most of the organized activities in favor of exploring the ship and laying-out in the sun. There are so many interesting vestiges of the SS France to be discovered. An especially nifty one is the former courtyard in which the sky deck swimming pool was placed during one of the ship's conversions. The courtyard is still accessible, and you can walk around the pool and peer-in through large glass portholes set into its sides, watching people swimming from below.

Since we were cruising in mid-March, we expected some spring-breakers on board. We hoped that they wouldn't obnoxious to the point of disturbing us... and they really weren't. Yes, there was some drunken stupidity in evidence, but we never had a problem avoiding that when it started getting out of hand. The cruise director told me that they set an all-time Norway record for bar-sales on our first day at sea, so I would caution people who are easilly irritated by drunken behavior to avoid this ship during spring break. Bottom line, though: the ship is big enough to avoid any person or group you may wish.