It depends. I’ve been on NCL cruises in the Mediterranean and the Baltic. The former was much better, a bit of a larger ship and so more amenities. I got the impression the cruise staff on the latter ship was not as good, and they were trying to cut costs even more.
My first crossing was in 1980 on the QE2, New York to France. Things were very different back then - dining classes, assigned seats, much posher. We met people who did crossings in the heyday of ships. Just like on airlines, cutting corners to offer lower fares hurts the experience.
If you’re booked, they are not likely to voluntarily rebate any part of it. But you’ve got a pretty good lever to call, threaten to cancel and take what they offer (probably more online credit and comps).
Although if you’re booked on a megaship, you might want to just cancel altogether… so awful, even when the toilets work.
If there is anything good about the giant ships, I can’t think of it. They are every bad trope about cruising, multiplied, and sometimes for a premium price if you just haveta-haveta sail on the ship’s first season.
We’ve cruised on a middling-small NCL ship, a middling-large NCL ship, and an RCCL mega. The first two were sheer dream vacations, not a complaint or a downcheck in three full weeks.
The mega was like being crammed in a giant gift-shoppe mall inside a cheap knockoff of Disneyland in hurricane weather on a two-for-one ticket deal weekend. I can’t think of one positive or pleasurable moment on that overcrowded meat transport. Seriously.
Obviously, the ship was supposed to sink, and this is all Final Destination-like machinations of Fate to keep them from ever getting home. Eventually, there will be a fleet of cabs full of the last few aged passengers. Then, the meteor will hit.
I’ve actually had a trip that seemed like that before. In the course of a single day of travel, I encountered bus trouble, an abandoned train, a plane malfunction, a missing (!) flight crew, and a locked-up airport. All of that just happened to me, though–not a whole swarm of fellow travelers. The scale of the mishaps in this case is a little mind-boggling. On the plus side, if any of them happen to do stand-up, it ought to make for great comedy fodder. I’ve reduced people to tears of laughter with the full saga of my trip, and theirs has been much worse. (Plus, it has a pooship. Comedy gold.)
Doomed ship of poo and the bus ride from hell.