The Spirit class is easily Carnival's best class of ships

[Roz]

51 minutes ago, NCTribeFan said:

I've always been a big fan of the Spirit-class ships.  Sailed Miracle twice when she was in Florida and sailed Pride once.  Am booked on the B2B Venice-Barcelona + TA in October 2020.

 

I believe I read a long time ago that the ships were not originally intended for Carnival but were supposed to go to one of their other lines.  If that's true, that's probably why the layout is so different from what I refer to as Carnival's "floating shoe box" design.  The space ratio is much better and the layout just flows so much better since there's no MDR in the middle of the ship.

 

It's one of the reasons I've enjoyed my HAL sailings so much - the ships are much more like the Spirit class (without the hideous Farcus "bad-acid-trip" decor)!

 

Folks, all you have to do is Google "Carnival ship classes" and you'll get plenty of info.  

 

I'm booked on my first X cruise for March 2021 and I've already read every review I could find, looked at the deck plans and tons of photos.  Yeah, I do a lot of pre-cruise research! 😄

 

If I'm not mistaken, the Noordam, Oosterdam, Westerdam, and Zuiderdam (sailed them all) were built on the Spirt-class platform.  All great ships.  Loved the bad acid trip comment, given it's the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. I like the Farcus décor.  After all, they're the fun ships.

 

Roz

[Stick93]

5 hours ago, shof515 said:

my first cruise was on the miracle, i loved that ship. i wish they brought it back to NYC. Lucky, they have a sister ship, legend doing a few NY cruises

Same here.

 

Our first ship and loved it. It was so easy to navigate. It’s a bit old and the decor is outdated but was a great ship and well designed. 

[Jerseygirl1416]

Do all the Spirit class ships have the same vibration problem that the Pride has?

[desiree741]

5 hours ago, teknoge3k said:

 

https://help.carnival.com/ci/fattach/get/4358798/1551907450/redirect/1/filename/Ship Class Guide 030619.pdf

 

Now ya know 🙂

That’s awesome! Thanks!

[sanmarcosman]

14 minutes ago, Jerseygirl1416 said:

Do all the Spirit class ships have the same vibration problem that the Pride has?

The Miracle does and it's most noticeable in the MDR near the stern. At Miracle's last drydock in SF the bushings in the Azipods were replaced and thought to be the solution to the vibration. Nope, that didn't work, it was still shaking up a storm last cruise post-drydock. Still like the deck plans and spaciousness of the class.

Edited August 18, 2019 by sanmarcosman

[Jerseygirl1416]

7 minutes ago, sanmarcosman said:

The Miracle does and it's most noticeable in the MDR near the stern. At Miracle's last drydock in SF the bushings in the Azipods were replaced and thought to be the solution to the vibration. Nope, that didn't work, it was still shaking up a storm last cruise post-drydock. Still like the deck plans and spaciousness of the class.

That’s too bad because I also liked everything about the Pride but can’t get past the vibration. I guess it bothers some people more than others and it really bothered me.

[mumofsons]

My favorite class by far - hubs prefers the bigger ones - the only one I haven't sailed from is the Pride. Miracle, Legend and Spirit at least twice.

 

[Knights on the Beach]

It's funny because we've only been on one Spirit class ship so far and the Legend was by far our least favorite ship.  The layout just made the ship seem dead most of the time and I thought the decor was depressing.  That being said, we'll be on Spirit next April for 10 days so we'll have plenty of time for her to change my mind about the layout.  🙂 

[Rawswife]

6 hours ago, Dicecatt said:

This post makes me very excited to experience the Miracle in Long Beach!

Me too! 

 

We will be sailing on November 9th to Mexico. Our only other ship was a Fantasy class ship. 

[Dicecatt]

31 minutes ago, Rawswife said:

Me too! 

 

We will be sailing on November 9th to Mexico. Our only other ship was a Fantasy class ship. 

same sailing! 

[Frank12]

9 hours ago, Jamman54 said:

I agree 1000%  

Me too!

[surfone]

Just got off the Pride today.(our 5th time on her) Looking forward to the Miracle next month.  We had a 4k cabin and it was great! Have one on Miracle, too.  We did not notice any vibration.  We ate each night in the MDR and was smooth sailing. Spirit ships never seems crowded.  We like the Serenity area the best.  Wish the newer ships were like the Spirit class Serenity area. Nice pool, and large sitting area in the shade.  Legend was our first Carnival cruise.  Liberty was the 2nd.  Vista was just "ok" but definitely not our favorite. 

[evandbob]

6 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

 

I understand decor is very subjective, but I love the the Joe Farcus designed ships. I think Carnival’s newer ships beginning with Breeze are very bland/boring decor wise. I like how unique and different every ship is decor wise from the Joe Farcus days. I also don’t understand why people worry about rust. The ships are in salt water 24/7 365 days a year. Every ship is going to have its fair share of rust due to this.  

 

And that's why there is a ship built to float anyone's boat.  Rust is just unsightly, and can be alleviated with proper maintenance.  It thrives when left unattended. Some lines (not Carnival) do an excellent job in sanding and priming it whenever it appears.

 

But ship likes and dislikes are personal, subjective, and sometimes  even illogical.  One person's zodiac can be another person's yacht.

[Kdeet6906]

  I've only been on Carnival cruises, Fantasy which I don't remember much, 3x on the Ecstacy an older Fantasy class ship that I enjoy and can feel crowded or comfortable depending on capacity, Vista a new ship which was cool but almost too much stuff and gave a crowded feeling. 

        Then I cruised on The Pride and fell in love with the ship. I hate crowding and the ratio of public area to staterooms really governs the public areas to never be crowded. The three level auditorium is really unique as most seem to be two levels. Really liked the atrium with the three elevators and going up into the red glassed windows of the whale tail, not to mention the violin trio that plays in there. It has Guy's burger, Blue Iguana Cantina, Red Frog Pub, waterworks and slides. Just altogether a wonderful ship!

     Foolishly after that I cruised the Sunshine and it is a Destiny class ship that during an extensive dry-dock had public areas removed in exchange for more cabins, couple that with some fairly narrow areas on Lido that are hallway/food line with not enough room and the ship is horrible to navigate yourself around.

    A while ago I read about the Sunrise and how they were doing the same thing to another Destiny class ship and thought how awful, now I read reviews and its the same overcrowded type of feeling.

     I worry that one day they will cannabalize a Spirit class ship and remove the 3rd level of the auditorium and possibly other areas in exchange for more staterooms, and imbalance what currently is a perfect ratio in my personal opinion.

     I'm booked on the Pride for September 22nd to the 29th 2019, five weeks away and it can't come soon enough!

      

Edited August 19, 2019 by Kdeet6906

[Hunter69]

We here In Australia have been so so lucky, having a Spirit designed ship down here all year round (The Spirit) for the last 7 years & also have another Spirit designed ship (The Legend) for 7 months a year. have done 17 cruises on these ship's & will be back on in 6 days. sailing out of Sydney again. 

They are spacey, great having Serenity at the back out of the wind. One large dining room & Main Showroom also.

Going to miss having the Legend not coming here anymore, as we will have The Splendor & bigger ship (To have more passengers cruise & increase revenue). From December..

 

[Retired_to_Cruise]

20 hours ago, desiree741 said:

I still have not figured out the different classes of ship lol.

I have only been on Elation, Triumph, and will be on the  Valor in December 

Google Carnival Ship Class Guide. Good printable PDF.

[NCTribeFan]

My 2nd HAL cruise was on Zuiderdam and I loved it.  It is very much like the Spirit-class ships.

 

I've only ever had 3 balcony cabins on Carnival, all on my 3 Spirit-class sailings.  First time on Miracle had an extended side cabin.  Thought the extra cost for the couple extra square feet of space wasn't worth it, especially since I like to watch the docking and the lifeboats block the view straight down.  Next time, for my Platinum cruise, I did an aft on Deck 4.  Loved it.  So, on my one Pride sailing, I got a very rare no-solo-supplement so booked the same aft cabin.  Much more vibration on Pride!  In fact, it was so bad on that last night (maybe because of a slower speed returning to B'more?) that I was awakened over and over and over.  It was literally like someone had grabbed me by the shoulder and shaken me awake.  I had about 6 hours to drive home and I was concerned the entire way that I'd fall asleep at the wheel despite lots of caffeine.  Will never again do an aft on Pride - not even anything farther back than midship, just in case.

 

Anyway, love the class ship.  Am terribly disappointed that the 4K French Doors have been removed (apparently on all except Miracle).  I booked one with a great between-the-lifeboats view for the Legend B2B and then found out that the doors were gone and it's a large window.  Personally, if I can't have a balcony, I prefer an inside.  I don't WANT natural light because I wake at the first hint of dawn, which is fine normally, but not when I'm cruising and stay up much later (and drink much more) than normal!! But I'm keeping the cabin because by the time I found this out, the locations of the insides available were not what I wanted.  Oh well!  Should've done my homework!!

[CRocks]

Yup, sailed the Miracle to Hawaii + back, loved the ship. Just got off Legend to Alaska, loved it also. Booked Panorama for Jan +  already dreading the lines. Soooo, booked Pride Panama canal Journey cruise for Jan 2021

[BigDoug]

5 trips on the Legend, 4 trips on the Miracle and 7 on the Pride.  Love the Spirit-class ships.

 

We were in an aft balcony (7351) on our last trip (8/04 - 8/11/19) and we felt no vibrations from the azipods.

[patrice1]

Not to mention cabin 4228. AMAZING suite cabin with wrap balcony. Will be sailing on the Legend in Europe next year and are so looking forward to it.

[dara90210]

21 hours ago, Dicecatt said:

same sailing! 

Same sailing!  We were on the Spirit in 2009 and loved it and the Splendor in 2011 and didn't care for the layout.  Looking forward to the Miracle.

[Retired_to_Cruise]

On 8/18/2019 at 9:58 AM, Djptcp said:

We love the Legend and the Miracle and agree with the OP and have sailed on them a number of times. The Miracle has left Tampa (our hometown port), but the Legend is now sailing from there, so very convenient for us.

The spirit class ships are the largest that can sail out of Tamp because of the undersized bridge if just barely get under to get out of Tampa Bay.

[skiorcruise]

Several have mentioned that the Spirit Class ships seem to have more room per passenger.  You are correct.  Take the ship's tonnage, divide that number by the number of passengers to get a "tons per passenger" number.  When comparing ship classes, the Spirit class has the biggest number.  

 

As you can see by my signature, I love the Spirit class as well.

[Linsuesue]

Spirit class is our absolute favorite. You haven’t lived until you have stayed in a deck 4 Vista View cabin, formerly called aft-wraps. We have done the Spirit twice to Alaska and twice on the Miracle to Mexico. In October we are going on the Miracle one last time before the Panorama takes her place.  I hate any ship layout that plops the dining room and kitchen in the middle of the ship. The Spirit Class are so walkable end to end. Now, if Carnival would add a Thallosotherapy pool, like they have on the Splendor, I would be one thrilled camper!

[PhillyFan33579]

2 hours ago, Linsuesue said:

Spirit class is our absolute favorite. You haven’t lived until you have stayed in a deck 4 Vista View cabin, formerly called aft-wraps. We have done the Spirit twice to Alaska and twice on the Miracle to Mexico. In October we are going on the Miracle one last time before the Panorama takes her place.  I hate any ship layout that plops the dining room and kitchen in the middle of the ship. The Spirit Class are so walkable end to end. Now, if Carnival would add a Thallosotherapy pool, like they have on the Splendor, I would be one thrilled camper!

 

I am a big fan of Spirit class ships. The only reason why I give a slight nod to Dream class ships is the thermal suite and especially the thalassotherapy pool.