Norwegian Spirit Reviews

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Four friends of 40 years rendezvoused in JFK from NYC, Boston, Maryland, and California. We arrived in Barcelona with 2 nights reservations at Hotel Espana, a beautifully restored landmark a block from Las Ramblas and two blocks from La Boqueria, the historic market. The hotel was an excellent value, safe, with a lovely roof garden and attentive staff. We enjoyed a two hour "Free Walking Tour" of the oldest part of the city. We were only asked to tip at the end and felt it well worth 10 plus euros apiece. Embarcation was a breeze and we had immediate access to our cabin and met our steward. He unlocked the connecting door between our cabins, although the balconies could not be connected. After an excellent sitdown lunch in Windows we unpacked (plenty of room) and toured the ship. On that first day I noticed something that persisted throughout the cruise: the crew and staff were upbeat, happy, helpful, and generally a pleasure to encounter. Also persistent was the high quality of the food and the speedy service in Windows, a far cry from our NCL cruise of 2010. NCL has been listening to cusomer feedback: the beds were quite comfortable and there were extra pillows in the room. We always had ice in our room and each towel animal exceeded the previous one. Room service with coffee and rolls was always early. I didn't lose much in the casino. My soda card ALWAYS got me a smile with my soda. I went to 3 shows and felt the quality was higher than it used to be. One featured light opera, another a former Australian child star and singer. The piano/champagne bar had good music. There was less conspicuous consumption, that is fewer "sales" of souvenirs than in the past. I will review the ports separately. I booked independent tours for 6 ports and was highly satisfied with the quality and the cost, compared to the ship's tours. All were in Mercedes minivans. I knew before we left that we would be in some ports on Mayday weekend, which is "bigger" than Christmas in Europe, and verified with the tour companies alternatives to the sights that were closed. We also chose not to stand in line for hours to see a building, so even though St. Peter's was open, we went to the Basilica of the Popes. One port is not listed in the available ports to review: Toulon, the gateway to Provence. We used Franck of Revelations Tours who was marvelous. He stayed with us all day, accompanying us into the Sunday market in Aix, and lunching with us in Castellet. He really knows the area and we thoroughly enjoyed him. This is the second time I have used Revelations, previous Michel LeGrand took us through the French Riviera. An excellent company that focuses on the history and legends. We arrived in Venice at 2 pm in the afternoon and had a lovely evening in the city, returning via ship's water taxi to sleep. Quite pleased that the ship only charged us one way for the taxi. Disembarcation was very easy, and getting ourselves to our hotel in Venice was only slightly less easy. I do not recommend hauling a 29 inch suitcase to the People mover, but once at the Vaporetto stop, the crew was very helpful with the luggage. Our hotel was the Hotel Ala, a Best Western 1 stop on Line 1 from St. Mark's Square (s. Guglio) Our room had a canal view and gondoliers and was on a quiet square, 3 blocks from St. Marks. Excellent rate. My second time to stay there. Any negatives? Well, the shower didn't drain well every time but they fixed it. Yes, the ship was sometimes late into port, but not very. We had a storm to sail through the first night, and this was this ship's first Med cruise,so I imagine the captain was extra cautious. All in all, a wonderful cruise, and my opinion of NCL has grown immensely.

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========= The good: ========= - Check-in and check-out was easy. - Great ports of call : Barcelona, Spain Provence (Toulon), France Florence/Pisa (Livorno), Italy Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy Naples, Italy Mykonos, Greece Istanbul, Turkey Ephesus (Izmir), Turkey Athens (Piraeus), Greece Venice, Italy - The acrobatic performance of "Massimo & Alesia", a married couple that performs and amazing dance and gymnastic routine. They were stunning. - The food was very good. We could always find something to our taste. There were some small glitches like sometimes spaghetti would be serve really hot but the next night it was just warm, but overall we were very satisfied. The selection at the 24/7 lunch stop (Blue Lagoon) was also good. ========= The bad: ========= - The stateroom is small and being 2 adults and 2 kids in the room isn't very comfortable. - No chocolate on the pillows ;) - Not enough pool chairs and nobody enforce the "no reservation" rule. - The expensive "Soft drink card" that you have to purchase for the whole cruise. They say that it cost a certain amount per day (around 7$), but you cannot buy it after the second day of the cruise and they do not advertise this. I learned it when I decided to buy the soft drink card around day #5 and was then told that it was too late. - The location of the Blue Lagoon (snack restaurant). There is not way to go from deck 7 aft to mid ship without passing directly in the Blue Lagoon. And if you want to picture the disposition of the Blue Lagoon, imagine a bus where you would have replace the left seats with the kitchen area, and replace the right seats with small tables. Ok I am exaggerating a little, but it really felt that we were eating in a hallway and there is a constant flow of passengers that walk less than one foot of your table so it is not really the best arrangement. I definitely do not understand why they decided to configure that area that way. - The ship was always getting into port at the last minute, so most of the time we could not get off at the time that was announced because they did not get the authorizations that they needed for disembarkation. We lost precious excursion time because of they were never on time as expected. - The attention to details from the stateroom attendant. When we got on the ship and went to our stateroom we had the unpleasant surprise to find an old soap and an old shampoo bottle in the shower! Makes you ask yourself what else haven't they clean up correctly? We reported that and ask for someone to come cleanup the bathroom again but this was disturbing. And there were a couple of other things that bothered us during the cruise. We had to call two days in a row to specify that we were four persons in the stateroom so we needed four set of towels and not just the two they left us. Sometime they tissue box was left empty, sometime the "extra roll" of toilet paper was not replace, another time the old beach towels were picked up but no new towels were provided. - NCL planning a stop in Rome on May 1st which is a national holiday and almost everything is closed. We could not visit the Coliseum, the Vatican Museum, etc... They should have plan accordingly and made sure that May 1st was an "at see" day. - Poor knowledge of the staff about things they should know. For example, when we got off of the ship in Mykonos we asked an officer and a staff person that were just outside the ship where were the shuttle provided to get to town and we were answered that there were no shuttle and we had to call a taxi. But less than ten feet further, another staff member told us that the shuttle to town would be departing in less than 10 minutes and then he showed us where to go to board those shuttle! - On board stateroom credit that could not be applied on "service charges". We got two onboard credits per stateroom. One credit offered by "cruise.com" which we used to book the cruise, and one credit directly offered by NCL. But we learned they last day of the cruise that the "NCL credit" could not be applied to service charges and it could only be apply toward things we bought on the ship (souvenir, drinks, specialty restaurant meals, etc...). We did not have this restriction with the "cruise.com" credit and there was nothing indicating such a restriction on the credit notification that we got in the room at the beginning of the cruise. NCL should have mentioned this to us because learning it at the end of the cruise we had no choice but to rush to buy stuff if we did not want to lose the credit. ========= The ugly: ========= - The entertainment was very bad in my opinion. The best night was the night of "Massimo & Alesia" and they also were a part of the last show of the cruise, which made it good too. There were maybe two other nights that I would qualify as "mediocre/good", but the rest of the time we were stuck with really boring shows. And this was easily confirmed by the number of people left in the theatre at the end! - Smoking in non-smoking area (kids pool for example). I reported smokers to the cruise staff but sometime did just answer that they would report this to their supervisor instead of telling the smokers to go somewhere else. Some other time they would apply the non-smoking policy but they should be more proactive about this. - Service charge that are automatically added to the bill and we have no idea who gets what. I would like to be able to choose to whom I give what part of my tip and this was not possible. Moreover, it reflects on the service we get, particularly in the restaurants. We did encounter a couple of nice waiters and we mentioned them as our "star" of the ship because most of them were just "grumpy" and never smiled. We had the impression we were bothering them all the time and it really showed that they did not care much... And why should they, they would get the exact same tip as the server that makes an effort to give us a great experience, without making the effort. - Wake up call in the middle of the night. On the fourth night of the cruise we got an automatic wake up call around 2:00AM for no reason (we did not set this). We just went back to sleep to get another one around 2:45AM. This time I called the front desk and they tried to tell us is must have been an error from us setting our wake up call. But when we got another one around 3:30AM we definitely were mad and I called front desk again and told them this was unacceptable. They put us on hold for a moment and then told us that the phone must be defective and that they would send a technician the next day. What is strange is that after that last call, we weren't bother again with automatic wake up call in the middle of the night. I don't know if they solve the problem from the front desk of if they did in fact send a technician the next day but if they did we could not see any trace of him being in our stateroom. ========= In brief this was my first experience with NCL and I must say that I had better experiences with Disney and Celebrity. We did enjoyed this cruise but only because we had great ports of call and we did not planned to spend much time on the ship itself. I would not avoid NCL if the ports of call were interesting and the price was right, but I would not necessarily recommend it either.

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Executive Summary We (my adult daughter and I) were on the last sailing of the Spirit out of New Orleans in 2012. Before you start reading, you should know a little about us and cruising. First, we pick cruises based on the itinerary. Previously, I had cruised with Princess and we both had cruised with RCI. This time, we chose the NCL Spirit because we wanted to go to Belize, Roatan, and Costa Maya. Second, we prefer to cruise less often and enjoy all the amenities. Before we boarded, I knew what the costs would be for what we wanted to do and budgeted accordingly. That being said, the weather was fabulous, our excursions were interesting and fun, and the ship amenities worked for us. While there were a few glitches (see entire review in following posts), we had such a good time that we booked the same itinerary on the Star next April. Embarkation and Cabin We left Memphis, TN, at 4:30 am on Easter Sunday morning, breaking the unbreakable rule of cruising: get to the port a day ahead. But there was no traffic and we arrived in New Orleans just before 11 am. We had prepaid at the Fulton Street Garage, which took charge of our luggage as soon as we pulled in and had us at the terminal before 11:30. Checking in was a breeze, but we had to wait about 45 minutes for boarding to start and another 15 for our turn to board. But once on board, we were seated in the Windows dining room within about 5 minutes and, when lunch was over, we were able to go to our cabin. We dumped our carry-ons and set out to explore the ship. When we returned, our luggage was waiting. We had unpacked by muster. The cabin, Category BC 10668, as expected was small, but plenty big enough for the two of us. Our stuff fit into the drawers, closets, and cubbyholes. I don't see how a third person would fit in the room. The balcony held two chairs and a small table. We missed the lounges we had in our aft balcony on RCI during our last cruise. The best part of the cabin was the shower that was easy to control and had good flow. The two cons of the cabin were the thin walls (we could hear our neighbors and their tv set, which they left on well into the night) and the unpleasant odor in the toilet on the first two days and last two days of the trip. Food As has been said many times before on these reviews, what you hate I love and vice-versa. That being said, after reading all the discussions about food on this site, we decided to avoid the main dining rooms for the most part. After eating in Windows for lunch the first day, our opinion was reinforced. The service was excellent; the choices were limited and what we ordered tasted just ok to us. We ate at the Gardens one night and felt the same way. The room was loud, the menu was limited to food we don't love, and the service was hurried. We used the buffet for breakfast and lunch most days and liked the food, particularly the fresh-cooked omlettes. We liked Le Bistro and La Trattoria so much we went there twice. We also went to Cagneys, which we also liked. The service in the specialty restaurants was excellent and the choices were to our liking. I liked the wings and tomato soup in Blue Lagoon and both the soft serve and hard ice cream in the buffet. The room service pizza was delivered hot and tasted good. I am now a fan of freestyle dining. I liked being able to eat whenever from a choice of venues. I also loved not having to carry dress-up clothes. Itinerary and Excursions We chose the cruise for the ports and selected excursions early, mostly through Shoretrips.com. We were extremely pleased with our choices. I have reviewed each in the Western Caribbean Ports section of the site. Crew As many have said before, the crew was remarkable for being attentive and friendly. Our cabin steward greeted us the first day, brought us extra towels as requested, exchanged our wet beach towels for clean ones sometimes twice a day, and kept our ice bucket filled. Our waiters and other restaurant staff were attentive to our requests and frequently checked to see if we needed anything. Our questions were answered with a smile and whenever we encountered a crew member as we were wandering the ship, he or she smiled and greeted us. Entertainment The two shows we attended were the Broadway Production and Elements. The Broadway Production was my kind of show. I love Broadway musicals. Both my daughter and I found Elements that focused on magic and acrobatics not as entertaining. However, the hotel director explained that Elements was created for a European audience that speaks a variety of languages. We loved the spa. The spa is always a treat when I go on a cruise. We attended a spa raffle the first night in the hopes of winning a spa treatment. We didn't win, but someone pointed us toward the art auction gift bag, which included a 20% coupon for a spa treatment. We used it for massages, which were heavenly. I was offered the opportunity to buy other products once, but no more was said when I refused. DD had bought a $25 coupon that provided $50 worth of slot play. She ended up walking away with about $30 more than she had paid. If you like to play slots and don't like smoke, go to the casino early in the day. It is not as smoky then. We didn't spend much time there because we both have low tolerance for smoke. On Friday, we went to a talk by the hotel director, chief engineer, and captain on "How to Run A Floating Hotel." It was fascinating. Our Meet and Greet was also entertaining. There were about 30 people there. About a dozen of us participated in the gift exchange and most of us went on the cabin crawl, which showed us the inside of five different types of cabin from an inside to a suite. Ship We both thought the ship was great. We liked the Asian art that was all over. We found it easy to navigate and had no trouble finding the different activities. The Grand Centrum is impressive and truly the focal point of the ship. We liked and used the Deck 7 Promenade often and loved the jogging track, which I used as a walking track every morning. Even though there were 2300 people on the ship, we were always able to find a quiet place to hang out. We did avoid the pool area on sea days and only went to the hot tubs at late hours. When we wanted to hang, we generally used our balcony. Overall A day of vacation is better than a day of work. Each of our days on the Spirit was worth several days of vacation in relaxation and fun.

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Save your money..... Experienced the following on the cruise: 1. On the 1st evening we returned to our room after dinner to find a note stating that contraband had been found in our luggage and we would have to go to theater to meet with security and retrieve our luggage. Immediately I know that it is for the wine that I had brought with me. I had full intentions on paying the corkage fee.... However, I wish that we would have been informed so that we didn't have to go through this process. After waiting for over an hour for our turn to meet with security and were able to return to our room with luggage in tote. 2. Returning to our room on the 2nd day we discovered that our electrical outlet was not working. I called down to guest services to report the issue and they said that they would send a housekeeping supervisor. After waiting 30 minutes I called back and inquired if someone would be coming soon because I needed to utilize the outlet to get ready for our dinner reservations. The agent at the desk said that the outlets do not accommodate European plugs and they do not offer convertors. Clearly by my voice you can tell that I am from the United States so there is very little chance that I am trying to plug in a European flat iron. After talking to the desk agent I am more than frustrated. I felt like I had to argue with her to get her to understand that the standard outlet is not functioning and we need someone to come fix it. Finally after the 2nd call and a wait of 50 minutes a gentleman from the maintenance came and was able to access the panel in the hallway to rectify the issue. 3. One of the evenings I had gotten up around 3:00am to utilize the restroom and upon flushing the commode it made a very loud noise. I certainly didn't think anything of it because they are loud to begin with. However, when washing my hand the water turned brown and some sort of black substance came up in the commode. I immediately went to the closest public restroom to wash my hands only to discover that the water in the restroom was also brown. I returned to my room and used the bottle of water available for purchase at the price of $4.50 to wash my hands. I called down to the desk to report the issue and got no answer. With the uncertainty of what I just had on my hands I thought I better just go to the desk. The gentleman at the desk said that they were changing filters in the filtration system and he thought that it was just rust. He said not to worry that we could start using the restroom in about 10-15 minutes. Well I certainly hope that it was rust. The thought of having waste come out of the sink is disgusting. Maybe in the future the guest should receive a notice this process is going to take place with a time frame. I can't imagine being in the shower during this time. 4. One of the mornings we woke to an announcement being made from the Captain. Apparently overnight the ship had faced some electrical difficulties and the generators had been used for back-up. I have never really felt unsafe on a NCL ship. However, I think with all of the paperwork and notes that are placed in your stateroom this was definitely an occasion that deserved a written explanation. I had asked several employees and they seemed like they didn't know what I was talking about or were not allowed to discuss the issue. 5. On our stop in Cozumel we had booked and paid in advance for a beach break shore excursion. The morning of we had set 2 wake up calls. One if we decide to eat breakfast and the other if we were going to skip breakfast and sleep in. Well we decided to skip the 1st call and sleep later. Unfortunately we never received the 2nd call and we missed our excursion. I called down to the desk and once again and received no answer. After getting ready we went to the desk and informed the Front Desk Supervisor what had happened. She said for us to wait one moment and she would return. She came back with a log and basically argued with us over the wake-up call and stated that we did acknowledge the 1st call so there wasn't much she could do except document it and pass the information on the shore excursion manager. She never apologized or seemed empathetic. I wasn't really expecting a refund, just the acknowledgement and an apology would have been just fine. Upon walking away from the desk a member of management asked if they could help me and finally I felt like someone truly cared. He immediately gave us an adjustment for the excursion and sent us champagne and strawberries. I have to say that he was one of the few employees that deserved the friendliest ship award that everyone had been talking about. 6. On the final day at sea the pool was closed for the entire day due to a child having an accident. On this particular ship there are only 2 pools. One clearly marked for adults and one for children. To prevent the adults not having a place to swim maybe the ADULT only policy should be enforced. 7. The last evening of our cruise we ordered room service. We waited over an hour and it never came. We finally went to bed. 8. Also, on the last evening we had another issue with the commode. It became stuck and was constantly flushing. We reported the issue and someone from the housekeeping team came and fixed the issue.

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First of all, let me explain the timing of this cruise. It all revolved around when my husband was to bowl in the USBC National Bowling Tournament in Baton Rouge rather than when the weather in the ports we would be visiting would be temperate for the heat weenie I am! Our cruise was from April 1-8, 2012. We arrived in NOLA on Friday evening after leaving Seattle at 7:30am with a change of planes in DFW. Boy that was a long travel day! Due to the Final Four weekend, I was not able to book a room on the main side of the river so we ended up on the West Bank. Getting to the West Bank was very confusing due to the many flavors of the 90 hwy the freeway signs pointed to. We finally got there though and had an adequate hotel room at the Clarion (now Quality) Inn in Gretna. We had a fantastic dinner that night at O'Briens Grille nearby. Saturday, we took a couple of walking tours of the FQ and Garden District and had brunch at Commander's Palace in the Garden District. The only real affect we felt of the Final Four weekend in NOLA was that it was impossible to ride any of the streetcars. They were all packed like sardine cans!!! Sunday, we returned the car to the airport and took the NCL shuttle bus to the pier. I figured if there were any road closures, etc due to the Final Four, the NCL shuttle would still be able to get us to the ship. They dropped us off at the door and we got into the security line which is the only line that we encountered during the whole check-in process. Our cabin was a suite so we were walked over to that check-in area and then to the lounge to await our boarding of the ship. Once on board, we were escorted to our suite, where we dropped off our carry-on stuff and then headed to Cagney's for lunch. After lunch we just wandered around and explored the ship and then got settled into our cabin. Our cabin was absolutely wonderful! We had an aft facing penthouse suite and it was huge! Those rooms have been described elsewhere on CC so I will spare you the details, but needless to say, my husband really enjoyed his own private jetted tub throughout the cruise!!! I, on the other hand, enjoyed the huge shower! We ate dinner in the Windows MDR that night. I thought that both sides of the menu provided a good selection to choose from. (The left side of the menu changed daily and the right side remained the same throughout the week) Monday, was our first sea day and our CC M&G which was held in the Pub. We had about 40 or so show up for the M&G as well as a number of the ship's officers. Overall, it was a successful M&G and everyone seemed to have a good time. NCL provided pastries, juice and coffee. We checked out the casino after the M&G but didn't win, drats! In the afternoon, my husband enjoyed an international Beer tasting in the Pub. That night we ate in the Buffet which was fine. Tuesday, was our first port of call, Costa Maya. We didn't have any specific plans per say. Just took a bus into the town and hung out at one of the beach resorts for lunch. Picked up a couple of souvenirs along the way and then headed back to the ship. The weather was extremely hot and humid so it was nice to get back to the AC. We had dinner that night in Le Bistro. It was wonderful! Wednesday found us in Belize. We had canceled the shore excursion we had booked as I had gotten too much sun the day before and it was even hotter here! We did get off the ship (tender port) and wandered around the pier shops for a while. We had lunch at the Wet Lizard which was nice and cool with the breeze blowing through the second story, open sided veranda. The food and beer were very tasty and well worth the visit. After lunch, we visited the chocolate shop next door and bought a couple of truffles for dessert but didn't buy any other chocolates as we figured they would be totally melted by the time we got back to the ship!!! We headed back to the ship then as I was wimping out again from the heat and humidity! (We're from the Seattle area so we aren't used to the heat and humidity!) We decided to do something different for dinner this night and had in-room dining from the Italian restaurant. Our Butler, Akhmed got everything set up for us and served us in our suite. It was so nice and relaxing! Thursday we arrived in Roatan (tender port) where we took an NCL shore ex to the Maya Key Private Island Retreat. It was not quite as hot in Roatan as it had been in Belize and being able to get into the water helped a lot. They served us a very tasty buffet lunch of salad, BBQ chicken, fried fish and fried plantains. After lunch, we wandered around the island and looked at the rehabilitating animals and the museum. We also had a nice time watching the sea lions carrying on with each other like a bunch of 2 year olds! When we had our fill, we were tendered back to the pier where we looked at the shops and picked up some wonderful ice cream to cool off with. After returning to the ship, we cooled off in our cabin and then had dinner in the Garden MDR. I found that I preferred the Windows MDR over the Garden room. I found the Garden room to be so dark that I had a hard time reading the menu. Friday was a day in Cozumel. Once again it was hotter than blue blazes! We took a horse drawn carriage ride around the port city and then had lunch at Poncho's Backyard. Excellent food and very strong margaritas! We did a bit of souvenir shopping in the Los Cinco Soles shop in front of Poncho's before heading back to the ship. We had dinner again in Windows that night and then enjoyed the Chocolate Buffet for dessert! Saturday was our second sea day. I hung out in the casino all morning and then we went to Cagney's for lunch. We spent the rest of the day in our cabin packing and then relaxing before having dinner at Windows again. After dinner, we went back to the casino where my husband won a $1000 Royal Flush playing video poker!!! He was one happy camper, let me tell you! He has already started drooling over new bowling equipment to buy with his winnings!!! Sunday we had another NCL shore ex this time a "Grey-line" type bus tour of NOLA. It was a very interesting tour and the tour guide passed around photos of some of the Katrina damage his family home sustained. It really brought the tragedy home to me! The tour dropped us off at the airport where we picked up a rental car and headed up I-10 to Baton Rouge so that my husband could bowl in the tournament mentioned above. Wednesday, we headed to the NOLA airport again for our long trip home to Seattle. All in all, we had a very slow paced and relaxing cruise which is exactly what we wanted out of the trip. We ate more meals in the main dining rooms on this cruise than on our last but we were perfectly happy with the selections. We saw 2 of the shows in the main Stardust Theater, the acrobats and the Elements show. Both were excellent! We did not participate in any of the Cruise Director generated shows preferring to relax in our cabin instead. Since the weather was so hot/humid, I was not able to spend very much time on our balcony but I adjusted by bringing the deck chairs inside the cabin, opening up the drapes, and enjoying the view in air conditioned comfort! My husband's only concern was that he might still be weaving a bit on his sea legs when he was trying to bowl! He didn't seem to have any problems so it all worked out well. I will say that the next cruise that we take that goes farther south than San Diego will be happening in December or January at the latest!!! I know, I'm a heat/humidity wimp and I'm proud of it! My husband didn't nickname me Nanook of the North for nothing!!! During our cruise, we were pampered royally by our Butler Akhmed, the concierge Bylkies, and our Steward Armando.

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