This cruise turned out to be one of the best ones I have ever sailed on out of the 12 ships I have been on. I didn't have much expectations prior to the cruise mainly because I had a very poor experience on Norwegian Epic 2 years ago and decided I would never sail on NCL ever again. However I got a very good deal for the NCL spirit and it was sailing in the area I had never been to. Hence I decided to give it a try and give NCL one more chance. I couldn't have made a better decision.

We were a party of 3 and sailed from London to Barcelona on the morning of the cruise. This was a gamble I took in order to save some money staying in a hotel the night before. However I would definitely recommend going the night before especially if you are booking your cruise and flights separately. There was risk of snow and high winds the day before we flew and a few flights did get cancelled. However luckily on the day we were flying, most of the flights were leaving on time. We got to Barcelona by 11am and took a taxi to the port and got there by 11.30 just in time for boarding.

Check in was a breeze and we were on the ship before mid day. The welcome was excellent and we were allowed to go straight to our cabins. We had 2 balcony cabins on deck 11 towards the aft of the ship but not too far away from the centre either. According to me this was the best location of the ship as it was easy to get to the most visited parts of the ship I.e. buffet at Raffles for breakfast and lunch, dinner at Windows ( the best complimentary dining venue of the ship), stardust theatre (where most of the evening entertainment was) and to the upper decks for lounging in the sun. Read more