Anyone off the Spirit today?

[teacher2cruiser]

I hope we get some more reviews to read!

[kcwingwalker]

It's still early in the day, hopefully by tonight folks will be home and ready to hit the keyboard. We live close to New Orleans and were home by lunch (12/9/07), but with all the requests from kids and cats I didn't have any time for the computer that day. Hope everyone had a great cruise!

[mzmunchken]

Got back today - the weather was sub-optimal most of the time. Engine room fire on Saturday night.. "small fire" according to them. Tired - will post in detail the good the bad and the ugly tomorrow.

[crusingkim]

hi there, we just got home from the spirit........do you want the good, bad or the ugly???? we had a great time.......the weather was beautiful, we went to sand bay in guatemala, loved it. the food was ok, not the best. but that is not why we cruise. the acrobatic family was awesome!!!! the quest was great fun, second city is very funny! the gym is great and the steam room is even better...oh and the sauna has a view of the ocean!!! ok now i told ya about the good....now some bad......our room was .....well....lets just say ....not to clean, mold in shower, carpet had burn holes the chair was stained and dirty. we were very disappointed with the stop in roatan.......we were able to disembark at 2:30...ok it is dark at 5:00. .....ok and last.....the ugly!!!! let me just say (always know where your muster station is!!!!!!!!) you will probably hear more about this but, we had a fire in the engine room!!!!! :eek:

[bethcollins]

Yikes! We leave in two weeks! Or last time on the Spirit we lost power completely for a while--while I was in the elevator!!!

[CorvetteLady]

I hope we get some more reviews to read!

 

I probably won't do a review but if you have any questions just ask.

[luv2cruise123]

I have some friends who canceled after my report on our Thanksgiving Week cruise. Sounds like it wasn't just me, huh?

 

Food was awful when we were on board. I had hope their overall entertainment and food would be improving.

 

I know lots of people who would love to cruise the Spirit for its ports, but when they ask for my opinion, it';s very hard for me to recommend it - especially to any past cruisers!

 

Food DOES matter to me. That's probably unfortunate for me -ha!

[bamaboi1999]

I just got home and had an awesome time. I will post a review later on this week. The engine fire was kinda scary but at least we were almost home. Was kinda worried about the passengers leaving out today. Hope they got everything fixed. Great ship and wonderful staff!

[CorvetteLady]

I have some friends who canceled after my report on our Thanksgiving Week cruise. Sounds like it wasn't just me, huh?

 

Food was awful when we were on board. I had hope their overall entertainment and food would be improving.

 

I know lots of people who would love to cruise the Spirit for its ports, but when they ask for my opinion, it';s very hard for me to recommend it - especially to any past cruisers!

 

Food DOES matter to me. That's probably unfortunate for me -ha!

 

Food matters to me too. On about the third day my husband said the food was just average, not as good as Carnival. A few things were great, a few things were horrible (the turkey choice on Thurs.) but mostly it was just blah. We still had a good cruise but we don't think we'd ever cruise on NCL again.

 

We really did not care for Freestyle, we missed having the same waiter every night. Our room steward was okay, but several nights we got back to the cabin after dinner and the room hadn't been cleaned and he would knock on the door and ask if we needed anything, hand us our mints and be on his way. They just did it different on Carnival and we liked their way better. We thought NCL did better with disembarkation. Hated that we couldn't look up our account on the TV and had to stand in line to get any info. We had asked for his parents service charge to be moved to our account, filled out the papers on Monday, they moved the excursions but not the service charges. Just decided to write his parents a check than to try and get it fixed because the line for accounting was longer than the reception line.

 

I felt really ripped off when it came to the photos. I always buy the embarkation photo. Hated when Carnival started their "special" which meant I had to buy the folio instead of just getting a 5x7, but it was only $20 and it was an 8x10 so okay. But on the Spirit they printed the same picture with 3 different backgrounds and I had to buy all 3 for $30, well they would sell me one for $25. Since all four of us were in the picture there were two poses. Mother-in-law had her eyes closed in one, and my husband had his eyes closed in the other, but we couldn't buy a package with one of each pose so she had to spend $30 too. I really don't need 3 photos, who else would want one? I was walking thru there and a woman asked me what I had paid for photos, said she couldn't get a price list, had gotten different prices from the people who worked there and was not happy. It was the first cruise were I did not go look for all the gangway pictures and never posed for any others. Wasn't giving them a second chance to rip me off.

[Midship]

Got back today - the weather was sub-optimal most of the time. Engine room fire on Saturday night.. "small fire" according to them. Tired - will post in detail the good the bad and the ugly tomorrow.

 

 

....are there religious services??? ....do you pay for karaoke???

[awatt]

Regarding Roatoan, why so late off the ship?

 

I have booked an independent tour guide, but am questyoning the wisdom oft his for a shortened stop.

[Rowan555]

Regarding Roatoan, why so late off the ship?

 

I have booked an independent tour guide, but am questyoning the wisdom oft his for a shortened stop.

 

We had the same experience on the 12-2 sailing - I felt like we didn't get our money's worth at ALL. We spent $70 for a driver for the day, thinking we'd get to make several stops, including a visit to the beach for an hour or so. We ended up doing the iguana farm and stopping for ten minutes at the beach so the kids could get their feet wet, then we had to rush back to the ship to get there before dark. I don't feel I got my money's worth at all. People who booked the beach excursion through the ship got to spend ONE HOUR at the beach and then had to return. Our driver said NCL is the only cruise line that comes in so late. It seems they could depart NOLA a few hours earlier and get to Roatan earlier in the day - or rearrange the order of ports - because having 2.5 hours of sunlight at a port stop (particularly one like Roatan) is not acceptable.

[newmexicoNita]

hi there, we just got home from the spirit........do you want the good, bad or the ugly???? we had a great time.......the weather was beautiful, we went to sand bay in guatemala, loved it. the food was ok, not the best. but that is not why we cruise. the acrobatic family was awesome!!!! the quest was great fun, second city is very funny! the gym is great and the steam room is even better...oh and the sauna has a view of the ocean!!! ok now i told ya about the good....now some bad......our room was .....well....lets just say ....not to clean, mold in shower, carpet had burn holes the chair was stained and dirty. we were very disappointed with the stop in roatan.......we were able to disembark at 2:30...ok it is dark at 5:00. .....ok and last.....the ugly!!!! let me just say (always know where your muster station is!!!!!!!!) you will probably hear more about this but, we had a fire in the engine room!!!!! :eek:

Why such a short time in Roatan? That is too bad as it is one of our favorite ports. It does sound like you had a good time anyway.

 

Nita

[newmexicoNita]

I have some friends who canceled after my report on our Thanksgiving Week cruise. Sounds like it wasn't just me, huh?

 

Food was awful when we were on board. I had hope their overall entertainment and food would be improving.

 

I know lots of people who would love to cruise the Spirit for its ports, but when they ask for my opinion, it';s very hard for me to recommend it - especially to any past cruisers!

 

Food DOES matter to me. That's probably unfortunate for me -ha!

What makes you say "things haven't gotten any better?" Are you reading something I am not. Food is subjective and if anyone cruises for the food experience, they better 1-be willing to pay for specialty dining or 2-splurge and cruise lines like Oceana or better. I am not just referring to NCL, but all mass marketed lines. As for the entertainment, I haven't seen any postings on this thread saying anything negative about it. In fact teacher remarked about how good it was.

 

Nita

[Toyz711]

somone (just off) said they tendered, so people were late.

on ours (12/2 - 12/9) i don't know why... but there was a storm with thunder and rain on the island going all the way to the ship.

i couldn't tell if any of the clouds had any rotation, didn't see any lightening, but heard some thunder. this was going on about an hour before we got to dock, we were going very slow. i just thought they were slowing down to see if the weather would pass.

even if we had gotten there on time, the weather would have been awful.

[bamaboi1999]

Roatan was actually one of my favorite stops. Eventhough, we didnt get to get off the ship until 2:30pm. I booked my excursion with Victor Bodden and I feel that it was worth the money. I was having second thoughts about taking a tour so late in the day. We told the driver where we wanted to go and he took us all around the island. The Iguana farm was very different and going to Victors house (we almost got stuck) was awesome as well. The two little monkeys were so cute, I got to hold them and have my picture taken with them. We got to see alot of what the "real life" on the island was about. Eventhough we got off the ship late, I feel that it was definitely a value versus taking an excursion by the cruise company. The driver of the van was nice and told us alot about the island, the van was clean and had a good A/C.

 

The downfall of Roatan was having to wait an hour to get back on the ship. :mad: Seemed like they had to reposition the ship after the RCL ship left port. The tenders NCL used was the lifeboats, which I thought was kinda odd. Would I go to Roatan again? Heck yeah!