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Live from Spirit - 12/27-1/6

notes21

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notes21

notes21

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I tried to start this review last night, but unfortunately when I pressed submit, it got lost in cyberspace. This is my first time trying to write a review; so, I hope it is helpful to someone. A little about me and who I am traveling with…. My name is Nancy, and I am from Tampa, Florida. I am a music professor at a small college there, and I also teach online for several other colleges. The online teaching helps pay for my trips, but also requires that I always have internet…hence, this review. I have been traveling a lot lately, because I have been trying to cross off many places on my “living” list after having been diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer 4 ½ years ago. Thankfully I’ve been in remission the last 43 months, but I am actually waiting on the results of a biopsy to find out if that will be staying the case. This cruise is crossing a number of places off my living list: Spain, Canary Islands, Morocco, and “touching my feet to the African continent”. (This will make the last of the continents that are feasible to get to….I was in a boat south of Tasmania 3 years touching water that touched Antartica; so, that was good enough for me on that one.)

 

I’m single which makes finding travel companions for all of my different adventures a little more difficult, but thankfully my parents have been willing and able to come on many of them with me. My parents (let’s just call them Mom & Dad) also live in Florida though they were originally from Tennessee. They are both also music professors which gives them a similar schedule of breaks as me to travel. They are in their mid-60’s and have slowed down a little due to a knee replacement and some other health issues, but do generally well on most types of trips. None of us are drinkers or gamblers; so, I won’t be able to help much with those areas, but hopefully, someone will still find this review helpful. We do tend to book excursions and things through the ship b/c it really alleviates my mom’s mind about getting left. It is worth the difference in price for her piece of mind. This trip we also booked our air, hotel, and transfers through NCL b/c we liked the idea of them making sure that we made the ship if there were any problems. (We also always book travel insurance through a website that gives you several options, not sure if I can post the name or not)

 

PRE-CRUISE

We flew out from Tampa on Christmas Day through JFK to Barcelona on Delta. Other than Delta not liking our self-chosen aisles for each of us which they managed to fix upon check-in, the flight was thankfully uneventful and easy. We landed on time at 10, and our transfer was there with our names on a sign right as we came out of the baggage/customs area. Our hotel , Hotel Montblanc, had the room ready when we got there, and we took a nap for a couple of hours before eating a sandwich snack at the hotel bar.

 

I had booked a 4 hour city tour through Barcelona Day Tours at 3:30 followed by a dinner and flamenco show at Tablao Cordobes 7:30/9 pm. Our guide/driver was Christian from Germany, and he did a wonderful job of giving us information and tailoring the tour to more time where we wanted, less where we didn’t ,etc. We got tickets to Park Guell to the monumental section, and that was fabulous! We saw the Unfinished church, several Gaudi buildings, some fabulous views of the city, and had a good overview of the city before getting dropped off at the dinner/flamenco show. The dinner was a buffet, and it was very good with many examples of traditional cooking. What we saw of the flamenco show was wonderful as well, but we were so tired at this point that we all kept dozing off. Thank goodness we were in a dark corner where we hopefully couldn’t be seen too well. We caught a taxi and fell into bed as soon as we were back at the hotel.

 

DAY 1 – EMBARKATION

Our transfer to the cruise ship was at noon; so, we could sleep in a bit this morning. We caught breakfast at the hotel buffet which was included. It was a traditional European continental breakfast with pastries, bread, ham, cheese, yogurt, etc. along with scrambled eggs and hot breakfast meats. It suited us well, and we went back upstairs to finish packing before the transfer. The transfer was on time, took us straight to the port, bags were unloaded and taken, and we were checking in very quickly. Check-in had little wait, and we were on the ship by around 1:15.

 

Rooms were ready when we got on; so, we went straight to the room and enjoyed the balcony for about 30 minutes before heading to the Windows dining room for lunch around 2. I was impressed with the service and food. My meal was a chicken salad sandwich; mom had fried chicken, and dad had a cheeseburger. I can’t remember my dessert, but my parents had an orange chocolate mousse that they enjoyed.

 

After lunch, we walked around the ship some, and I tried to buy a soda card. This was a frustrating exercise as I was sent 3 places before actually being able to purchase one. I know I should have purchased it ahead of time, but I hadn’t been sure I was going to want it. Lesson learned…buy ahead of time. The dining room said I had to go to guest services to purchase it. I went to guest services at first (also seeing about putting all of my excursions on dad’s account as I had paid for all of the Barcelona tour stuff and it would even out which went fine) and was told I had to go to the bar, but could go to Henry’s Pub right next door…..they said no have to go to Tivoli on deck 12. So, up we went….. at this point, Dad bailed to go back to the room. I was able to purchase it there, but I was told I had to go back to guest services to have it put on my room card. Okay, seriously….why couldn’t I just purchase it at guest services to start with. It is a minor complaint, but seems sort of like a wonky system. I then booked my spa services, and we went back to the room.

 

Once in the room, I was very happy to see that our bags had come and been brought in by dad. It is always a very happy time when I am sure that I really have my bags for the trip. We went to work trying to unpack which was harder on this ship than most. I forgot to mention earlier, but we have a forward balcony room on deck 9. This is by far the smallest balcony room we’ve had on a cruise. These rooms are really lacking in storage space. Unlike most rooms that have a sofa with a table across from it that includes shelving, this is truly just a little table. The closet has lots of hanging space but only these tiny triangle shelves in the corner to put anything that is folded, etc. The other thing about this room is the sofa. Most balcony rooms I’ve been in have a full 5-6 foot sofa and it pulls out sideways so most of the bed is against the wall. This one is more of a 3 foot chair and pulls out long wise so that when it is pulled out you can not access the balcony or pull the chair out from under the table. This has made the room a bit challenging, but we will not let that mess with our vacation.

 

Dinner was at the Garden dining room. I had beef meatballs with mashed potatoes, mom had beef lasagna al forno, and dad had striploin. Dad & I were pleased, and mom thought her’s was okay; it had very little cheese which isn’t how she prefers lasagna to be. I don’t remember our desserts; so, they obviously were okay but not phenomenal, lol. We attended the welcome show which was the regular mix of the entertainment for the cruise – production show, Barricade Boys quartet, Ivan and Mei- magicians, and Duo Perris – comedy/acrobats, etc. Of the ones seen, I’m not sure that I have any desire to see Duo Perris, but the rest were good. As a musician, it is always a bit hard to turn my critical music ears off, and I always wish there was a better balance between the band and singers so that one is not overpowering the other. That tends to be a very common problem with cruise ship shows. We were still tired; so, off to bed we went. Well, the parents went to bed, I attempted to write the review that did a disappearing act and then fell asleep, lol.

 

DAY 2 – SEA DAY

Today, Dad got up and went to exercise while Mom & I attended the meet & greet and gift exchange. It was very nice to meet others on the cruise, and we left with a bag full of goodies from England. We met back up with Dad after and looked around the ship and shops a little bit before eating lunch at Blue Lagoon. Dad had a cheeseburger, and Mom and I had the fish and chips with spinach & artichoke dip for a starter. I had seen the complaints about Blue Lagoon and/or O’Sheehans, but I was pleasantly surprised and would order either item again. The rest of the day was spent sleeping, reading on the balcony, and getting a massage. Just a wonderful lazy day! I had purchased the 3 specialty dining package as a treat for my parents, and I booked places for each of the sea days. Dinner tonight was at La Trattoria at 6. I had the caesar salad, chicken parmesan, and chocolate torte. Mom had some other salad (?), chicken parm, and lemon curd cheesecake, and Dad had the soup, some Italian sausage pasta dish, and the chocolate torte. All of my food was delicious especially the chocolate torte. We all enjoyed the meal and thought it was well worth it. After dinner, we attended the Soul Rocking Nights show at 7:30. For a production show, it was pretty good. The balance was much better tonight. My only complaint would be that I wish NCL would let the singers sing more and dance less. They have them doing so many of the dance moves that it really impacts their voices. They wouldn’t have to stand still, but when they were dancing less, you could really tell a big difference in their voice quality. (sorry, for the music professor nerd moment). We have an early excursion tomorrow, so it was off to the room and now hopefully…..sleep.

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notes21

notes21

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DAY 3 – CASABLANCA, MOROCCO

As I said before we decided to do ship tours, and boy am I glad we did! For the first time ever for me, my excursion was late getting back to the ship, but more on that later. After time on CC, I decided that going to Rabat would be the best way to see the most in a good atmosphere; so, we chose the Imperial Rabat and Casablance Overview excursion. This was a full day excursion, and we had to be meeting the tour at 8 so we decided to do room service. We paid the $7.95 to get hot food, because reviews of the cruise indicated that the lunch was often closer to 2pm, and we wanted to make sure that breakfast stayed with us. Dad and I wanted scrambled eggs with sausage and breakfast potatoes, and mom was getting hard boiled eggs with ham and oatmeal. Well, we got 3 plates with all of that on it for everyone. Also, the menu says that the breads are 2 pieces per person/order, and we’d each ordered one order. Ignore what the menu card says as they only brought one piece per person. We had plenty of food; so, it was not an issue, but I just wanted to make people aware that if you want 2 blueberry muffins or chocolate croissants you should definitely put 2 rather than relying on them bringing it. Overall, I thought breakfast was quite tasty, and will probably order it again on some of our other early excursion days.

 

It took a while to get the ship cleared, and our 8 am meeting time became an 8:45 actually leaving the Stardust Theater time. We met up with the bus, and our guide was very nice though I can’t remember his name. He shared a lot of information as we made the 1 ½-2 hr trip to Rabat some I heard and some I slept through, lol. (I get car sick so I always have to take anti-nausea meds before a bus trip like that and they put me out pretty quick if we are just riding) He was very knowledgeable and tried to keep it as entertaining as possible. The first stop in Rabat was the King’s Palace for some quick pictures then off to Chellah to see the Roman ruins from the 2nd century and mosque ruins from the 13th century. This was a gorgeous location by the river, but there were a good number of steps down with a steep incline back up. Completely worth doing, but my mom did have to take the hill up fairly slow. Of course, some of that is from being in flat Florida and never having to climb hills; our bodies don’t know what they are, lol! After Chellah, we went to the Mohammed V cemetary and Hassan tower/ Half Finished Mosque which were interesting to see, and you could go into the building that was were the royals were buried with its Moroccan details everywhere.

 

Normally, the tour would have gone from there to the Kasbah and then to lunch, but since there were so many buses this trip, we went to lunch first which made it a bit earlier. Lunch was a Moroccan salad, chicken with saffron, lemon, and other spices, fresh fruit and bread finishing with mint tea. The restaurant didn’t look very enticing from outside, but inside it was decorated beautifully. From there, we were on the Kasbah where we were served more mint tea, giving a chance to buy cookies, saw the houses and the Andalusian garden. The negative to this stop was all of the women trying to paint you with henna and men selling belts, etc. that would not take no for an answer. From there we drove back to Casablanca to see the Hassan 2 mosque. We had about 20 minutes to take pictures here, and then we went to United Nations square to the market. We only had about 20 minutes there which made it feel very rushed. I would have liked to stroll and browse a bit more, but I guess we didn’t really need the time since we were finished and back on the bus before the scheduled time to go. Traffic was very bad in the afternoon, and it was 5:30 when we pulled up to the port. There was some crazy security thing we had to do for the port where we all got off the bus, put our bags on a security belt and got right back on the bus…..but we were told to leave anything we purchased, etc on the bus. I have no idea what purpose this served, but we were finally driven as close as the bus could go, and we were walking up the gangplank at 5:45.

 

My parents were hoping to stream the University of South Florida bowl game, and it was close to start time when we got back to the room; so, we just ordered room service for dinner. We did pizzas which were okay, but not good enough that I’ll be craving having them again. My parents had found an audio stream that was working intermittently, and I left them to the game to wander the ship. There were still areas in the upper decks that I hadn’t seen yet. So, I explored and then got some dessert from Raffles Court which I ate with a soda in the Raffles bar area while finishing a book on my kindle. I put a little piece of Russian Honey cake and sour cream chocolate cake on my plate, and the Russian honey cake was SO GOOD. It won the taste test hands down which is a lot from me since I love chocolate. Around 8:45, I went back to the room to see if the parents had any desire to go see the 9:30 Duo Perris show with me. Their stream was never very good; so, we all went to the show. I really was not impressed with this show. I don’t know if it was the time when we’d gotten up so early, but I kept dozing through it. It was a lot of hula hooping, acrobatics on little sticks or rolling logs, tables, etc. with his feet, and little comedic gags during a song. It was just slow for me. Others might love it. I pretty much collapsed into bed once we got back into the room. I figure just when I’ve fully adjusted to the time change it will be time to go back.

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notes21

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DAY 4 – SEA DAY

Today, we all slept in. I think it was 10:45 before my mom & I started stirring, and dad had just recently gone to exercise by then. We read and lazily got ready before leaving for lunch at the Biergarten around 12:15. We all had burgers, fries, and some cantaloupe, and then we went to raffles & got some dessert. The strawberry napoleon was delicious. I then grabbed a lounger that was down from Raffles bar for some reading & napping. My parents went to see a movie in the stardust theater. We all met back in the room around 5pm as we had dinner reservations at Cagneys at 6.

 

At Cagneys, we all started with the baked potato soup, and Mom had the arugula salad. Dad had the shrimp cocktail. We all ordered the filet mignon with mom & I getting 5 oz/ dad getting 10 oz. I am not normally a big steak person, but this was cooked with garlic butter and had béarnaise sauce on the side. I was wishing I’d ordered a bigger steak though I couldn’t have eaten any sides if I had. My sides were mac n’cheese and onion rings; Dad got mac ‘n cheese and green beans, and Mom had the au gratin potatos with cream corn. It was all tasty, and we all agreed that Cagneys would definitely get a return visit on our next cruise. For dessert, I had the oreo cheesecake (yes, the Spirit still has it!) while mom & dad had apple crisp and raspberry crème brulee. We left stuffed and happy!

 

The Barricade Boys were the performers for the evening. They are group of 4 men who have all been in Les Miserables on the West End, Broadway, etc., and they performed with the back-up band. They sounded the best when they were singing songs from musicals, but their tribute to Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons was good as well. I would definitely go see them again if I had the opportunity. Then, it was back to the room to relax and get more sleep. All of our excursions are fairly early but one (due to some time changes); so, we’re calling it a day fairly early.

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JG&Lcruisingnewbies

JG&Lcruisingnewbies

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Hi,

 

Thank you for the review. Myself and hubby & 4 yr old daughter are off on our 1st ever cruise on the Spirit in may so this is brilliant.

I'll be following :)

 

I wondered, if it were at all possible, could you please post some pictures of the spirit freestyle daily newsletter? I'd love to see what goes in the news letter and get a taste for th cruise ship itinerary. Thank you 😊

 

Leanne

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SeahawkSiren

SeahawkSiren

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Enjoying your review. Thank you for taking the time to do it. My husband and I will be on the Spirit for the first time in May. We are doing a 14 day Mediterranean cruise and really looking forward to it!

 

And your pre-cruise portion reminded me that I need to start looking into flamenco shows in Barcelona. We will be in Barcelona for 2 days pre-cruise and really need to see one of those shows!

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notes21

notes21

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DAY 5 – LAS PALMAS, GRAN CANARIA

We had an 8:30 meet time for our excursion this morning; so, we did room service again. We chose the Best of Gran Canaria excursion, and it was the first one called. The first stop was a banana plantation where we were able to sample the local bananas then just a little bit down the road was the Garden of the Marquise botanical gardens. This spot was very peaceful and beautiful. For drinkers, you were greeted at the entrance with a taste of their banana liquor, and in a pavilion, they had lots of local jams, spreads, rums, etc. set up to taste and buy. There were many peacocks wandering around as well. We had about 30 minutes here which was a just right amount of time for me. From there we traveled to the town of Teror where we got out and were shown the city hall, Basilica de San Juan Baptiste, and had free time to wander around. There was a nice street with many intricate balconies that had some nice shops and things. The last stop was back in Las Palmas at a square where we went to a restaurant for a snack (toasted roll, some tomato based sauce, and potatoes with soda, wine or beer as choices to drink). The snack occurred fairly late; so, if you need to be on a regular eating schedule for medicines or whatever, I’d recommend bringing your own snack as well. Overall, it was a nice excursion, but not anything super exciting.

 

Upon our return, we ate at Raffles for a late lunch, and then went to the room to nap. Well, mom & dad actually fell asleep; I did not (that whole weird pull out bed thing), and so, I went to an aft lounger on deck 11 where there wasn’t another soul and read. It was amazingly relaxing. Around 6, I went back to the room to get ready for the 7:30 show which was World Beat by the production cast. This show was very good, and I would recommend it. After the show, we had dinner reservations at Garden dining room at 9pm. All the dining rooms were a bit crazy with it being New Year’s Eve, but food still came pretty quickly. It was a special menu for the evening, and we all ended up ordering the beef tenderloin chateaubriand which was really delicious. I ordered ceasar salad and some mango & cantaloupe thing with the molten lava cake for dessert. It was all good, but the entrée won the best of the night. I don’t remember the starters that my parents had or desserts, but they liked theirs as well.

 

We ate dinner after the show with the goal of being able to stay up and be in the atrium with the band to watch the balloons drop at midnight. The atrium was filled with balloons and the dining rooms were all decorated for the night. When we got to the atrium, though, there was nowhere to sit as early diners had already taken all of the places (we should have thought about that). We hung around for a while, but I was really tired; so, we were lame and went on to the room and bed. We had another early excursion the next day….or at least that was our excuse. I’m sorry that we weren’t more interesting or that there is not more to report from the parties that were going on that night. Maybe somebody else will be able to share that info.

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notes21

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SeahawkSiren -- The one that we went to at Tablao Cordobes was very good, and they had multiple shows per night.

 

Leanne -- I've taken some pictures of the dailies for you; just working on getting them into a shareable format. I'll post as soon as i do.

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RMS Olympic

RMS Olympic

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I am booked on this same cruise next year sailing Jan 14,2018. I will also fly out of Tampa as I live north of Tampa in Citrus County. I also plan on having NCL handle flights, pre cruise hotel and transfers.

I have three questions I would like to ask.

1. How was the weather...is a light jacket sufficient or is a heavy coat required in Barcelona and at the various ports of call?

2. Did most passengers dress up or down in the evening...NCL seems to run the full spectrum, but Europeans tend to dress up a bit more.....clothing suggestions would be appreciated.

3. Did NCL choose the air line and route through JFK? I was looking at American via Miami. Wondering if the departure time on the return dictates the airline....American being 11:05 and Delta at 12 noon.

Thanks for your insight and overall comments.

Tom

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