Norwegian Spirit Review - long!

[cruiser123103]

This review is a little late, but better than never! I sailed on the Norwegian Spirit to Florida and the Bahamas on 3/19. This was a Spring Break trip, and I traveled with 5 guys (I was the only girl). We are all juniors in college and not your typical spring-breakers. Overall we had an AMAZING week. Instead of writing everything out I will hit on some important parts of the cruise:

 

Embarkation - We arrived at the New York pier around 12pm, and were on the ship and in Raffles by 1:30pm! It was a BREEZE! The line seemed really long when we got there, but the staff is really efficient and the system is completely painless.

 

Staterooms - I shared a room with my boyfriend (9069) and the 4 other guys were in 5065. The staterooms were smaller than on my last cruise (Celebrity Millenium) but perfect for my boyfriend and I. We had more than enough room. The other 4 guys were a little crammed in their room, but mostly because the fourth bed pulls out from under one of the beds on the floor. It seemed strange that Norwegian would do this instead of having two come out of the wall. I had read on the boards that the beds were extremely uncomfortable...I disagree. I got the best night's sleep in these beds, they didn't feel hard to me at all.

 

Public Areas - I thought that the Spirit was beautiful, and I loved that it had a story behind it, formerly being the SuperStar Leo. (We had a lot of fun looking for the cages that used to hold the lions). The atrium with the glass elevators was beautiful. We loved Galaxy of the Stars both for the view and the staff. Henry's Pub is not to be missed - we were in there every night to listen to the singer Scott Allman. He is great and very personable. The pool area is nice, but departing from NY, we didn't spend much time here, as our days at sea were too chilly (although I saw some brave souls "sunbathing" on our second day!) and our days in port were spent off the ship. The Maharini's Nightclub is great, although it gets crowded around 1am, so my boyfriend and I would go to bed while the other four boys danced the night away!

 

Food - I was nervous after reading some poor reviews, but all in all the food was excellent. I am very picky about what I eat, even though I'm in college, because my mom is in the food business. This was delicious! The main dining rooms had a lot of variety and was always great. Cagney's is really wonderful, completely worth the $20 cover. One thing we did notice in the dining rooms - if you order your dessert with your meal, they will prepare the dessert with your entree and then it will sit out, resulting in the ice cream turning to soup. As for Raffles, the food is sub-standard, that is the only place that we didn't enjoy our meals, so we only ate there twice.

 

Drinks - A little expensive, but a great variety! Two of the guys did the soda card, and it was definitely worth the money. I have never seen two people consume so much soda in a week.

 

Ports - We loved every port and did shore excursions in both Port Canaveral and Miami (both excursions were the ones to the beach.) We were pleasantly surprised with the quality of the excursions. We were able to get right off the ship and right onto the bus to head to the beach. One tip - book your excursions before you get on board. There was always a long line at the shore excursion desk, and the good times sold out fast. Nassau was alright - this was my third time there, but we have always just gone right over to the Atlantis instead of staying in Nassau. Wish we had done that again. Our favorite day was Great Stirrup Cay - so relaxing!!!

 

Staff - This was one thing I was disappointed about. The staff is not as friendly as on other ships. I do have to give them credit though, there were A LOT of complainers on our sailing. I have NEVER heard people whine so much while on vacation. Although the staff was a little cold in some areas, I never heard them be rude to the passengers, even when someone was yelling at them. There were some great staff members - Ronaldo from Galaxy of the Stars was GREAT! The cruise director was never really around, although we did hear her a lot! We weren't impressed with the waiters in the main dining room.

 

Debarkation - So easy! We enjoyed our last morning aboard and then got off the ship when our luggage tag was called. We grabbed our bags and then waited for our van to pick us up. I have never seen debarkation go so smoothly.

 

We give the Spirit two thumbs up! It was very affordable for our budgets, and we couldn't have had a nicer time. The ship is truly impressive and the itinerary is wonderful. Freestyle cruising is the way to go! We are already looking into NCL for next spring break, this time on the Jewel! If you have any specific questions, don't hesitate to ask!

[electricron]

Another mostly postive review of the Spirit.

 

The :eek: DRAGON:eek: is smiling!

[Glamourgal]

Thanks for the review. I am happy to hear that you enjoyed your cruise. My husband and I will be traveling in June with our 3 adult kids, 24,22 and 19. It's good to know that someone their age liked the ship!!

 

Hopefully the staff were just a little irritable due to all of the complaining. From other posts, for the most part, there have been raves about the staff.

[Hikini]

We also loved the Spirit - I would sail on her again in a heartbeat. The negative reviews leave me scratching my head. Better than something else!:p

 

Have fun trying to figure out where and when you're going to cruise next!

 

Hikini:D

[tinker]

Can you tell us more about the beach excursions you booked?

Did you go to Cocoa Beach in Port Canaveral ? How was the beach, what else did you see and would you recommend it?

Thanks.

[vacationalonefirsttime]

I was wondering if anyone could shed any light on Freestyle dining. On our first two cruises with Carnival we ate gourmet in the main dining rooms at night (and sometimes for breakfast and lunch). We love even casual gourmet. My husband and I went with 3 little ones on both cruises and now it is our big first time away...We are just a little peeved that the agent didn't explain to get good food we have to pay additional money. We don't mind paying extra but after paying soooo much for the cruise we were hoping to have a gourmet meal that we wouldn't have to pay everytime we ate. Is the only thing included on the Spirit cafateria style meals????

 

Also, we booked an oceanview cabin-category E and you can not imagine what I went through to know this was an actual picture window. Apparently, we paid a lot more to ensure it was. I guess Norwegian calls oceanview portholes too! I am just hoping we are in a decent cabin. On Carnival we had two bad experiences with service and they were not too friendly and we are fearing this very special time for us that we will be treated badly according to some of the reviews we read. Thanks for any info you can lend us. :)

[cruiser123103]

Can you tell us more about the beach excursions you booked?

Did you go to Cocoa Beach in Port Canaveral ? How was the beach, what else did you see and would you recommend it?

Thanks.

 

We booked the shuttle to Cocoa Beach in Port Canaveral, and the shuttle to South Beach in Miami. Cocoa Beach was nice, not a luxurious beach by any means - very touristy, but the water was great and you could rent cabanas for $10 (which we ended up having to do since it was so windy we were getting showered with sand). There is a pier about a mile up the beach from where the shuttle drops you off, we could see that there were a few shops on it, but never got the chance to walk up there. Ron Jon's surf shop is right down the street, so if you are travelling with people who don't want to stay at the beach all day, there is plenty of shopping within walking distance. There are also some restaurants around - one right on the beach called Sandbars was great, they had everything, it was delicious, and you could eat outside! We got the first shuttle time (10am) which got us there around 10:45am since it was a little late. The shuttle driver was great, he gave us a tour of Port Canaveral on the way, showed us Kennedy Space Center in the distance and talked about it, it was like a mini-tour! Shuttles go back to the ship every half hour, so we were able to leave whenever we wanted. For the $35 per person we paid, I would highly recommend it! We saw taxis leaving from the pier for about $20, but with the excursion we knew that we were guaranteed to get a ride back, as we didn't see a lot of the taxis leaving the beach to go back to the pier.

 

As for Miami - we again took the 10am shuttle and got to the beach around 10:30. The shuttle driver we had was great again, giving us a little tour on our way to the beach. Warning about South Beach - if you are going with kids know that a lot of women sunbathe topless here. The beach was alright, it was a really hot day, so we didn't stay for too long. There are tons of shops and restaurants on the strip right off from the beach, so we spent most of our day walking around. The shuttle was the "Beach and Bayside Hopper," so it takes you to the Bayside Market shopping area on your way back to the pier. We didn't stop, but others who did said that they have your typical mall stores, and some souvenier shops mixed in. Again, the shuttle left every half hour from here as well, so you could leave whenever you wanted. I'm not sure that I would do this excursion again just because there are tons of taxis around so we could have gotten there much cheaper.

 

I hope this helps!

[cruiser123103]

Can you tell us more about the beach excursions you booked?

Did you go to Cocoa Beach in Port Canaveral ? How was the beach, what else did you see and would you recommend it?

Thanks.

We booked the shuttle to Cocoa Beach in Port Canaveral, and the shuttle to South Beach in Miami. Cocoa Beach was nice, not a luxurious beach by any means - very touristy, but the water was great and you could rent cabanas for $10 (which we ended up having to do since it was so windy we were getting showered with sand). There is a pier about a mile up the beach from where the shuttle drops you off, we could see that there were a few shops on it, but never got the chance to walk up there. Ron Jon's surf shop is right down the street, so if you are travelling with people who don't want to stay at the beach all day, there is plenty of shopping within walking distance. There are also some restaurants around - one right on the beach called Sandbars was great, they had everything, it was delicious, and you could eat outside! We got the first shuttle time (10am) which got us there around 10:45am since it was a little late. The shuttle driver was great, he gave us a tour of Port Canaveral on the way, showed us Kennedy Space Center in the distance and talked about it, it was like a mini-tour! Shuttles go back to the ship every half hour, so we were able to leave whenever we wanted. For the $35 per person we paid, I would highly recommend it! We saw taxis leaving from the pier for about $20, but with the excursion we knew that we were guaranteed to get a ride back, as we didn't see a lot of the taxis leaving the beach to go back to the pier.

 

As for Miami - we again took the 10am shuttle and got to the beach around 10:30. The shuttle driver we had was great again, giving us a little tour on our way to the beach. Warning about South Beach - if you are going with kids know that a lot of women sunbathe topless here. The beach was alright, it was a really hot day, so we didn't stay for too long. There are tons of shops and restaurants on the strip right off from the beach, so we spent most of our day walking around. The shuttle was the "Beach and Bayside Hopper," so it takes you to the Bayside Market shopping area on your way back to the pier. We didn't stop, but others who did said that they have your typical mall stores, and some souvenier shops mixed in. Again, the shuttle left every half hour from here as well, so you could leave whenever you wanted. I'm not sure that I would do this excursion again just because there are tons of taxis around so we could have gotten there much cheaper.

 

I hope this helps!

[cruiser123103]

I was wondering if anyone could shed any light on Freestyle dining. On our first two cruises with Carnival we ate gourmet in the main dining rooms at night (and sometimes for breakfast and lunch). We love even casual gourmet. My husband and I went with 3 little ones on both cruises and now it is our big first time away...We are just a little peeved that the agent didn't explain to get good food we have to pay additional money. We don't mind paying extra but after paying soooo much for the cruise we were hoping to have a gourmet meal that we wouldn't have to pay everytime we ate. Is the only thing included on the Spirit cafateria style meals????

 

Also, we booked an oceanview cabin-category E and you can not imagine what I went through to know this was an actual picture window. Apparently, we paid a lot more to ensure it was. I guess Norwegian calls oceanview portholes too! I am just hoping we are in a decent cabin. On Carnival we had two bad experiences with service and they were not too friendly and we are fearing this very special time for us that we will be treated badly according to some of the reviews we read. Thanks for any info you can lend us. :)

Freestyle dining was great! You don't have to pay extra for gourmet food. Just like Carnival there are two main restaurants - Windows and The Garden Room that serve gourmet fare at no extra charge. The only difference with Freestyle is that you don't eat at the same time or sit at the same table every night. You could request this at the reservations desk at the beginning of your cruise however. We loved Freestyle because depending on what was going on that day - whether we were in port and enjoying the beach, or having fun in the casino, we could just show up for dinner whenever we wanted. We did make reservations a few of the nights, about 2 hours prior to when we wanted to eat, and never had to wait for a table of 6! Norwegian has a computer system set up all around the ship as well that lets you see how full each of the restaurants are, so you can judge what time to go to dinner; it's really helpful! The only thing that we didn't like about Freestlye was that you didn't have the same waiter every night. We liked on Celebrity getting to know our waiter and busboy throughout the week, and that was something we missed on Norwegian. But again, if we had asked at the beginning of the week we could have sat in the same section at the same time every night. The only places where you pay a cover charge are the specialty restaurants - Cagney's, Le Bistro, and Shogun.

 

As for the oceanview, we tried to upgrade our interior room and found out the same thing. Norwegian does call porthole rooms oceanview, so we decided not to do it since it was really expensive for the full window.

 

As for the staff, it could have been the week we were on the Spirit that made some of them a little unfriendly. It was spring break week after all, and we did see some people being very rude to staff members. The staff was never downright rude to us, just a little cold, and this was mostly the reception desk staff and some of the waiters. The bartenders are great, and very personable! Overall, I'm sure you will find some of the friendly staff members who will make up for the whole!

 

Hope this puts you at ease!

[RLP817]

I was wondering if anyone could shed any light on Freestyle dining. On our first two cruises with Carnival we ate gourmet in the main dining rooms at night (and sometimes for breakfast and lunch). We love even casual gourmet. My husband and I went with 3 little ones on both cruises and now it is our big first time away...We are just a little peeved that the agent didn't explain to get good food we have to pay additional money. We don't mind paying extra but after paying soooo much for the cruise we were hoping to have a gourmet meal that we wouldn't have to pay everytime we ate. Is the only thing included on the Spirit cafateria style meals????

 

 

No.. you can eat in the main dining rooms. We were on the Jewel and only ate in the main dining rooms 2 times. Once was lobster night and the other was the last night. The menus were OK. I would say 5 or 6 choices for each course. You can check out the menus when you board and make reservations at the specialty restaurants for nights that the main dining rooms don't appeal to you. We left the cafeteria style dining for breafast and lunches.