Entertainment:
This one is little harder to score. As we were on the Sun, rather than one of NCL’s larger ships, the entertainment options were limited. Yes, they had the typical bingo, trivia, game shows that most cruise lines have but those really don’t interest us much, so I won’t even attempt to compare. One thing that NCL did that we really enjoyed was they had two different Q & A sessions with ship officers, even the Captain at the technical one, where guests could ask them questions. It was really, really interesting. I’ve never seen that on Disney, but could have missed it.
There wasn’t a lot on the pool deck except the pool and some hot tubs. There was no funnel vision type screen for watching movies. While we have never actually sat and watched an entire movie at the pool on Disney, I did miss it on the Sun. We never swim in the Disney pools, not even our son - kid soup is not our cup of tea - and we didn’t take an Alaskan cruise to swim on NCL, so I can’t really compare them. The NCL one did seem larger, but there was only one of them, but then it’s smaller ship. I’m not much help if you are looking for insider pool info, sorry.
As for the evening shows, I think that most of us will agree that Disney does this extremely well. Their musical shows are so well produced, and we have always really enjoyed the variety acts as well. But if I’m being honest, I’m kind of tired of them. After just five cruises, they all seem to run together. I couldn't even begin to tell you the plot differences of Believe / Dreams / Wishes anymore as they all run together after awhile. Well done, for sure, but we usually skip them now. One exception was Tangled on the Magic. We loved that! The lantern scene (I don’t want to give it away) made me teary-eyed and I’m not ashamed to admit it. You aren't going to find anything like that on the NCL Sun. I know that NCL’s larger ships do have Broadway-type shows, but as I haven’t seen them I can’t compare them to Disney except to say they exist. The Sun’s musical / dance acts weren’t in a class with Disney from a production standpoint, but we were pleasantly surprised at the talent level of the performers. We also really enjoyed that they were not all similarly themed and were, well, different than the ones we’ve experienced on Disney. Now, if we sailed on NCL a ton, we’d probably get bored with their shows as well. So it’s hard to judge. But we enjoyed all of the shows that we chose to attend on the Sun. Were they as well done as Disney - nope. But they were still fun.
The Sun had variety acts which were basically like Disney’s. One difference was the comedian. We have always laughed at Disney’s “adult” version of their shows. There really is nothing remotely offensive to them and I would have gladly taken my teenager to see any one of them had it been allowed. It wasn’t, so we didn’t, but there was nothing in those shows that he hadn't heard on the school bus (and then some!!). Now, on NCL, when they say adult they mean it. We went to one adult comedian show and while it certainly wasn’t raunchy or terribly offensive, it was adult themed. We loved it (our son - he’s 19, remember) especially did!
There were two things that I really missed on the Sun that we have made great use of on Disney. One was a dedicated movie theater. They did show a movie most afternoons in the theater, but that was it. We love watching movies on Disney and usually catch at least a couple on each cruise. We missed this. A lot.
The other thing we missed was the enrichment lectures that we’ve seen on Disney. We loved the naturalist talks in Alaska on the Wonder and found the political/historical talks on the Norway/Iceland cruise to be terrific. Even our son (17 at the time) loved them. He missed a couple of them, but planned out a time when he could watch the replay on the stateroom TV. They are that good. NCL doesn’t really have anything to compare to that. They did have a National Park ranger on board for Glacier Bay and she gave commentary throughout our time there. There was also one lecture listed in the Daily (NCL”s version of the Navigator) about glaciers, though we didn’t go. I think we were still in our “mesmerized by the aft balcony” state. Seriously. We hardly left that thing! One day our son fell asleep out there and got sunburned.
NCL had liquor tastings, just like Disney. We went to one of the wine tastings, and while their approach was different than Disney’s we enjoyed it just as much. But then we pretty much enjoy anything that includes wine.
It’s hard for me to score this, as we don’t take part in a lot of the entertainment on board either cruise line. I’d say Disney wins for family friendly activities, but we really, really enjoyed everything we did do on NCL.
Score: DCL 10 NCL Sun 6.5
The score aside, I'll just say that for most folks still awake and reading this thing, you’ll probably prefer Disney’s entertainment to that on one of NCL’s smaller ships - especially if you have small children or crave a bit of the Mouse in your shows. But you won’t get bored on NCL either. If you do and we are on board, give us a call and we will let you hang out on our aft balcony. You'll love it. I promise.
