Review of Spirit February 26-March 5, 2008

[MommaOML]

Day 0: Why you should always fly in the day before your cruise

 

This was the second cruise for us. Our party consists of DH & I (aged 30-ish) and our son, who was 19.5 months. We booked a balcony guarantee, and ended up being assigned a category 8F on deck 7, port side, mid-ship. We were quite happy with our room assignment. I thought I would have liked to have a bigger balcony, but we didn’t spend quite as much time out there as I thought we would. It was a bit too cool and windy on our sea days to sit on the balcony in the evenings. On another itinerary, or with 4 in a cabin, a larger balcony would be a good idea.

 

Since we live in the middle of nowhere, Canada, we (wisely) opted to fly in the day before our cruise. This was a smart idea. We were delayed 2 hours at our home airport because of freezing rain and fog at MSP (Minneapolis/St Paul airport). The powers-that-be at Northwest determined it was safer to be on the ground in central Canada than circling over MSP. Can’t say I disagree, but I was a bit annoyed nonetheless. How do kill 2 hours at an airport with a toddler? You eat breakfast, you walk around, you look out the windows, repeat. Meanwhile, you eavesdrop on the conversations of the NWA employees, trying to glean any information you can about the situation. I should mention that our home airport has basically no amenities (one coffee shop, and 2 sets of bathrooms after you clear security). Anyway, we were finally off the ground 2 hours late, but we missed our connecting flight, which meant a further 5 hour delay at MSP.

 

How do you kill 5 hours at an airport with a toddler? More of the same! You eat lunch, you walk more, you look out the windows, you discover that there is a kids play area 2 concourses over, then you walk and walk and walk until they finally have a nap. Our flight from MSP to SAN was uneventful, arriving “on time”.

 

We had a friend pick us up from the airport, take us to the 7-11 in the Gaslamp for some munchies, then we crashed at our hotel (Best Western Bayside Inn on Ash St). Perfectly serviceable hotel; elevators were a bit slow (one was down due to repairs), and the continental breakfast was good enough for us.

[MommaOML]

Day 1: Embarkation

We had time in the morning to walk down to the cruise terminal and got lots of photos of us with the Spirit, and some tourist-y photos of the area in general. We caught the 11:20 am shuttle from the hotel to the terminal, the porters took our (many) bags, and we headed inside to begin the process. Our only other terminal experience was Tampa; the San Diego terminal feels a lot more like a warehouse. We walked right up and checked in easily, having already completed the FunPass online. We got embarkation #10, and headed to the holding area to await our turn. At about noon they let on a wedding party (lucky them!), and they started calling numbers pretty soon thereafter. I’d say we were called and on board well before 1 pm. We immediately headed up to Lido to get some lunch. Our cabin wasn’t ready until about 1:45 (which was a pain because we needed to do a diaper change!). Prasit was our cabin steward (he did a great job, by the way).

A note about the weather: it was a gorgeous 20 C (sorry, don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit) today, which was a bit above average from what I understand. I wore jeans, but wish I’d worn shorts instead. I’d recommend consulting the forecast more carefully.

We spent the afternoon checking out the sites on the ship, and trying to convince our son to nap in the stroller (since our luggage hadn’t yet arrived, we had no play pen for him). He did nap for a bit, then we headed for dinner (main seating; upper level right by the railing, which was really cool!). It turned out to be just the 3 of us, which disappointed me a little. I was rather looking forward to having tablemates other than my HB & son. However, I think that since we were travelling with a toddler, they specifically put us at our own table, in case we had “one of those kids.” Kwame was our head waiter, and Noel was our assistant waiter. They were absolutely fantastic. We miss them.

We thought Camp Carnival was supposed to be open tonight, but it was locked up tight when we got there. We weren’t the only ones who thought this, as we passed another family in the hall going there as we were leaving. Other than that, we didn’t do anything tonight. Sounds like we missed a good show, and I would have liked to have seen Mrs Hughes’ regular show, having caught her R-rated show on Day 2.

[MommaOML]

Day 2: A fun day at sea; first formal night

 

Our whole purpose of this trip was to relax and escape the cold of home. We accomplished that today! Grabbed some breakfast on Lido, walked around the ship, met up with a few folks from our Cruise Critic roll call, and then went to the dining room for lunch. After lunch, we went to Camp Carnival for their “family time (under 2 year olds)”. My son LOVED this. He LOVED all their toys (they had a lot of trucks and cars, which he insisted on pulling off the shelf and bringing to me). I know that in a year or two from now, when we take our next cruise and he will finally be old enough to participate in Camp Carnival that we will have to drag him out of there. Anyway, those 2 hours tuckered him right out, so we headed back to our cabin for nap-time. It was a bit too cool and windy to sit out on the balcony, so we quietly sat in the cabin until he fell asleep, then took turns leaving the cabin to go exploring and bring back snacks. It was formal night tonight, so I headed to the launderette to iron my dress and my son’s suit (they got a little wrinkled in the long journey). I met a lovely young lady from Edmonton, Canada (there did seem to be a lot of Canadians on ship this time) in there; there was another man ahead of me. If you’ve got ironing to do, you might have to be prepared for a bit of a wait. My HB had arranged to rent a tux on-board.

 

Both DH & I got the lobster. In the past, I haven’t been a fan of lobster because I find it to be really rich. However, I did enjoy this lobster, so perhaps I will order it more often now. That’s one thing about cruising; you do get to open up your culinary horizons! We took advantage of the photographers and got some family portraits done. I also got a solo-photo because my dress was awesome and I wanted a photo.

 

We put our son to bed at his regular 8 pm bedtime, and then woke him at 10 pm to take him to Camp Carnival. In hindsight, this was a mistake. He was a grouch and didn’t fall back to sleep like I expected him to at Camp. Anyway, our whole purpose of taking him to Camp Carnival was to take in the show (Spirit of Carnival, which was weird and odd and gets a rating of “meh”). Since we were sans-baby we also saw Mrs Hughes’ midnight show, which was very funny. It barely deserved an R-rating, in my opinion.

 

One note: tonight we did a time change – turned our clocks forward one hour.

[MommaOML]

Day 3: Another fun day at sea

Really, we aren’t that exciting. We walked around the ship some more, and had breakfast & lunch on lido. My son & I had a long afternoon nap. Both DH & I had the teriyaki ribs for dinner, which were fantastic as always. I think this is my most favourite Carnival dish. I wish I had the recipe for their teriyaki sauce!

I noticed that there was an elderly couple seated near us that missed the time change. They showed up for dinner at 7 pm (instead of 6 pm). Kwame & Noel did a great job of serving them quickly and got them pushed through fast. I think they even reset the time on their watches!

[MommaOML]

Day 4: Port day in Acapulco

We went for breakfast on Lido, and then I started packing up for our day in Acapulco.

Taxis at port were very confusing. I now wish I’d taken the time to fill out a comment card in the cruise terminal to address this issue, because it shouldn’t have been this complicated. I knew from Cruise Critic that we wanted to get a cab from inside the fence. The first couple of cab drivers I talked to said I had to go outside the fence to get a cab, that they had no where to park inside due to the traffic. Uh, OK. So we go outside, where we’re accosted by all kinds of cab drivers who want $20 each way to go to Cici Waterpark. I know that rate is too high, because I did my research on Cruise Critic. I eventually turned around and went back inside the fenced area, and caught up with a cab driver who was taking a couple to the airport. Cici was on the way, so this worked out well for us. We paid $35 for the round trip, which I think might have been a bit high, but at that point, I didn’t care. I do wonder why that couple was getting off the ship, though. I asked them if they were leaving, and their reply was “Yes.” They didn’t elaborate any further. I do hope they were leaving because they simply weren’t enjoying their vacation, and not because they had an emergency back home.

Cici was good. They have a kid’s pool which is about 2’ deep which was great for my son. He got a lot of looks – pale white Canadian kid in a UPF suit, life jacket & UPF hat. We didn’t see many other non-Mexican families there. We didn’t try very hard to see the dolphin show, so I don’t know if there was one that day or not. We walked to the back of the complex so that we could be in the ocean for just a few minutes, where we were asked if we wanted to go parasailing, get braids and have a massage.

Anyway, we arranged to have our cab driver pick us up at Cici after 3 hours, and he was there, as promised. I was less than impressed with the availability of English-speaking people and English-signage at Cici. I meant to bring my Spanish phrase book, but forgot it on the kitchen table. That would have helped me out a lot! The cab driver spoke good English; he offered to take us shopping a few times (no thanks), and gave us a bit of a tour as we went down the main drag. There are a million and a half people in Acapulco, and not one of them uses their signal lights, and obeying traffic signals seems to be optional.

We did some shopping at the cruise terminal to get our obligatory Del Sol t-shirts. I wish I had realized that there were coupons for free tote bags in the rack of brochures on our way off the ship. They make great shopping bags. We had showers and got ready for dinner. The New York steak was excellent; I shouldn’t have eaten it all, but did anyway! We got a cab ($15 each way) to the cliff divers. I was beginning to wonder if we were being dragged off somewhere, but realized that the cabbies take a short cut through some less traveled streets, which makes for interesting site-seeing. When you get to the cliff divers, there are a lot of kids trying to sell you stuff, which makes me sad. They are so young (some 4 or 5 years old)! We paid $3 per person to get in, and walked all the way to the bottom platform. There are a lot of stairs – I was wearing my son in a front carrier, and that extra 27 lbs meant I was pretty tired by the time I got to the bottom! I can understand why folks will just grab a table at the restaurant.

Acapulco was very smoky and hazy at night. Even still, we sat on our balcony after our son went to bed, which was very nice. We packed it in before we set sail, after a long day like that, who can stay up until 1 am?

There was an announcement at 12:30 am for crew members. I thought it was our wake up call! Oops!! I was far too groggy to remember what the announcement was.

[MommaOML]

Day 5: Port day in Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa

We tendered to Zihautanejo via the lifeboats. We took a water taxi ($10 per person, round trip) to Los Gatas. We got chairs & tables for $10 for the day at Trey Palma. Likely, if we’d looked a bit more, we could have gotten both the water taxi and the chairs for less. I hate bartering, and don’t mind paying what seems to be a fair rate. We ordered lunch from Trey Palma (2 shrimp fried tacos, one plate of fries and 2 Coronas for $27); it was quite good. Our water taxi was there to pick us up at the arranged time, and took us back to the pier. We went shopping a bit in the market; bought some t-shirts and vanilla. I was looking for a nipple ring for my brother, but wasn’t able to find one. I did manage to make the one shop-keeper blush when I asked for that item! Not a request you get everyday, I’m sure.

[MommaOML]

Day 6: Port day in Manzanillo

Yes, everything you’ve read about Manzanillo being an industrial container port is true. It is a HUGE container port. I thought it was really neat, actually, and woke my HB up at 6:30 am to come out and look. He was less than impressed with me, but considering both of us work in transportation-related industries; it is something that interests us.

We took a cab to Las Hadas, which was $15 each way. This is a long cab ride, about half an hour each way. Perhaps it was just what was going on in port that day, but we had to drive around the perimeter of the container port, which did take quite a while. Las Hadas is in the Hotel Zone, which is very hilly with cobblestone streets. It was a very rough ride. When we got to the gate of the resort, we got a “menu” of what they offered. We paid $30 per adult, and in return got $30 worth of coupons to redeem for food, drink and services at the resort.

We grabbed some lounge chairs by the pool in the shade. The pool was quite cold; even the kid’s pool (~2’ deep) was too cold for my son. He really liked the beach, though. We had lunch at the beach bistro (being unable to find the lunch restaurant). I would recommend checking the resort’s website for a map of everything.

I ran into a couple of ladies from Toronto, who had booked their trip to Las Hadas last minute (got a good deal - $1000 per person, including flights for a week!). They said they’d never come back. They said that service was slow (3 hours to get their main course at dinner) and they were always being asked to sign for things (this makes sense since they do allow day-guests). They also said that the staff were always looking for a tip, which is generally not what one looks for at an all-inclusive.

We had to ask the hotel to send a cab for us (which seemed odd, because it’s not like they didn’t know a bunch of us were there off the ship!). The cabbie we got spoke no English – we think he was actually from Santiago, Chile. He got a bit lost inside the container port, which could have been interesting if one of the security guards hadn’t pointed him back in the right direction. We were back on ship for dinner, and I was asleep by 9 pm!

[MommaOML]

Day 7: A warm, fun day at sea; second formal night

We had breakfast in the dining room, and discovered that the ship is out of bananas. It seems that they’ve all been claimed for tonight’s midnight buffet. We walked the ship a bit, and spent some time in the arcade, which my son loved (most of their video games are car-racing games). We picked up some photos and reprints that we got done on the first formal night. DH had blown a button on his tux jacket, so formalities gave him a second one. We had room service send a carton of milk for our son’s pre-nap drink, since we’d forgotten to grab one earlier. We had to wake him from his nap to get ready for the past-guest reception.

Shawn Bussey (cruise director) told us on our way in that our son was the youngest repeat cruiser. Too bad there are no perks for that! We went for dinner, and had some photos taken afterwards. We kept our son awake until 10 pm, and then took him to Camp Carnival. He immediately went to sleep, which is what I expected. We saw tonight’s show, “Standing Room Only”, which was much better than the last show we saw. We also saw Tom McGillen’s R-rated show, which was extremely funny and definitely deserving of an R-rating.

Tonight we had another time change; we turned our clocks back one hour.

[MommaOML]

Day 8: Our last day at sea

After breakfast on the Lido deck, we did some shopping and walked around the ship. We went to the debarkation talk, and were pleased to learn that we didn’t need to report to immigration! Last time, we had to go to immigration at 6:30 am. We learned that rental tuxedos were supposed to be returned by 11 am. So, DH ran up to our cabin to get his. I stayed in formalities, and watched a few other men drop theirs off (now nearly noon). So, it seems that not many people knew when their tuxes were supposed to be back.

My HB went on the galley tour, which he enjoyed. There was actually some food preparation going on, which was interesting to see.

I had the Seafood Neptune for dinner, which is essentially a heart-attack-on-a-plate; a little too deep fried for my liking.

After dinner, we started packing, which took forever. We missed the Legends show, which I did want to see. We set our wake up call for 7:30 am, and prepared to return to real life. Our numbered luggage tags were waiting for us after we returned from dinner - #7.

[MommaOML]

Day 9: Debarkation

It turns out that we didn’t need that wake up call. At 7 am, the back up alarms of all the forklifts taking luggage off the ship and restocking it with food and supplies woke me up. Shawn started calling luggage tag numbers promptly at 8:30 am – our #7 was called just before we managed to get to the Lido for breakfast. After eating, we got off the ship; just as we were entering the terminal building, I heard the “last and final” call, which was at approximately 10 am!

We took a cab to the airport, which was slightly less than $12. We forgot a couple of bags in the front seat of our cab, and the driver was kind enough to find us in line at the Northwest check-in to deliver them to us. Way to go Yellow Cabs!! (I do plan to send them an email thanking them.) Our flight wasn’t until a bit after 2 pm, so we had some time to kill. Knowing what I know, we could have booked the 11:30 am flight with no issues.

[MommaOML]

Random notes:

Shawn Bussey, the cruise director, is ... interesting. I didn’t interact with her one-on-one, but her stage presentation makes her seem like a she’s just too darn happy for her own good. A little too saccharine for my liking, I suppose.

I didn’t notice the Social Director at all. On our last cruise, we saw him a lot. Perhaps we were doing different things, but it was something that stood out in my mind.

The Spirit creaked a lot. I didn’t notice the Inspiration creaking at all, but we were on Riviera deck there, so perhaps that was the difference.

My HB lost about $200 in the casino. I am not a fan of its location on the ship; you MUST walk through it to get to Pharaoh’s Palace if you’re on deck 2. Strategic placement, I’m sure.

The Jungle (deck 3, forward) is really neat. My son liked the animals there, but he liked it because he knew it was the way to get to the arcade!

Our bar waitress in the dining room was non-existent. We didn’t order anything from her the first night, and we never saw her again. Too bad, because I’m sure had she stopped by, my HB would have ordered a drink (or two) on another night.

The bathroom in our cabin was smaller than the bathroom we had on the Inspiration. The shower was about 1/3 smaller, although we had a bit more counter-space. I liked the large mirror in our Spirit cabin, and I did appreciate having a hair dryer in the cabin, even though I only used it twice.

I would have liked for there to be lights in the closets; they are a bit dark.

There were only 125 kids (under 14 on this cruise), which I thought was low considering it was winter break for us. About half of the cruisers were repeat guests. There was one 12 year old girl at the past-guest party who was Platinum – lucky kid!

There was a group of Red Hat Ladies on this cruise; a smaller group than we encountered on the Inspiration. I also noticed that there were fewer scooters on this cruise, which is odd because on the Inspiration we had to tender at both ports!

All in all, the Spirit is a fantastic ship; especially considering she hasn’t been in dry-dock for a few years. I would like to take an Alaskan or Hawaiian cruise on the Spirit in the next few years.