Our cruise on the Spirit was a last-minute getaway. We love Freestyle, so we limited our cruise search to the NCL fleet out of NYC or Boston. Since this was a trip to eat, sleep and relax, we chose the 6-day Florida/Bahamas itinerary for its convenient length and 2 sea days rather than for the ports of call. We had fabulous weather (except for the last afternoon on the way back to NYC), which surprised me because I figured that September could be pretty iffy down south. Because we were using points, we were obliged to book through the credit card company's travel agent, although we had found better deals online. It took forever to receive our e-tickets through them, so I contacted my NCL rep and she sent them directly to me in about 5 minutes flat.

We drove from Montreal to NYC (Manhattan) and parked at the pier, on top of the passenger terminals - it's about a 6-1/2 hour drive. Easy as pie. It didn't seem worth all the airport & taxi hassles for such a short flight. The parking cost us $160 USD.

We found the Atlantic to be rough going and the ship was rolling quite a bit even when the waves weren't very high. We don't know if it was the ship's design or our speed that caused the rolling. Some movement is normal, but my husband was nauseous a couple of times which is unusual for him. Since it takes a day and a half to get into warm waters from NYC, we would only consider leaving from this port again for an 11 or 12 day cruise leaving in spring or fall. Too cold in the winter and too many kids in the summer! Read more