Be aware, what NCL advertises is not what you get on your cruise with the Pearl. Some rather surprising mess-ups included:

1. Tendering back to the ship in Astoria was a 2 hour wait, as only 4 boats were in service to transport the ~2,000 passengers waiting in line to return to the vessel. Later the captain would announce the "distance" from the ship to the shore was "out of their control", but the number of boats they opted to deploy for tendering certainly was a decision they failed to make correctly.

2. A 5:15am ship-wide (i.e. direct-to-cabin) announcement of "code bravo", repeated three times, which we later learnt was code for fire (albeit a small one quickly put out). Again the captain deflected fault (time time to an over-eager crew member), but it was the captain who announced this un-welcomed wake-up call. Read more