I booked this cruise in January 2014 as we did exactly the same cruise in April 2013 in reverse (Barcelona to Venice) and it was absolutely fantastic. Big mistake to expect to repeat the experience.
It was also a mistake to book so early in the year, and after accidentally ending up on the US NCL website I was furious to find that the prices were more than £100 pp less and that penalty free cancellation is allowed for quite a long time. I queried this with NCL customer services and their reply was that the US is a much more competitive market. Really? I would imagine that these days the cruise market should be seen as global. However in May I phoned NCL to ask the price of an upgrade from outside to balcony, and was amazed to find that it was just £64 for the whole stateroom!
Pre-cruise we stayed once again for 2 nights at the lovely hotel Ca` Formenta in Via Garibaldi, Venice.
Onboard we were keen to see our stateroom 9520 as we`d previously had a balcony stateroom on the Costa Serena which was wonderful. Our stateroom on the Spirit was the tiniest that we`ve ever had. There was only room for one person to pass between the wall and the bottom of the bed, and with the 3rd bed opened up at night it was impossible to reach the curtains or balcony. The bathroom has a good layout, but was rather grubby and frequently had a bad drain smell. Our stateroom attendant was great though, and spent a lot of time showing my son how to make towel animals with great patience.