We have just returned from the Carnival Spirit trip that departed 10 December 2014 from Sydney. I will be honest; I was not looking forward to going on a cruise. I was worried about sea sickness, a rough ocean, other sickness, too many people etc etc. Also I will say that it was just my husband and I cruising with no kids, finally at a stage where we can leave the kids at home.

My husband was absolutely obsessed with getting a good price for this cruise and spent months keeping an eye on the prices and the availability of rooms. Eventually about 3 months before cruising, we booked and paid about $900.00 each for a balcony stateroom. I think the starting price was around $1800.00 per person for that cabin so we got a good deal. Some people say you are hardly in your room and you don’t need a balcony or window but we wanted one and I’m glad we had one. This amount also included tipping so there was no obligation to tip staff on board – although we did tip a couple of staff who provided exceptional customer service.

There were 2600 passengers on our ship + 900 staff. The ship had 3 pools – 2 up the front for all passengers and one at the back of the ship for adults only – the Serenity bar. This is where we spent all our time because (for us) it was a blessing to be away from kids. The ship also had 2 water slides, a yellow one and a green one. When it got too windy, the green one got shutdown for safety reasons which is understandable. Read more