Here is a review of our cruise on the Norwegian Spirit from 5/19 to 5/27. This was an 8-day cruise sailing from New York City to Bermuda, Tortola, and St. Thomas. This was the 9th cruise overall and 5th cruise on NCL for my DW and I (50 years old). We have also sailed with Carnival and Royal Caribbean.

Embarkation Day (5/19)

It was a cold raw rainy day to start our cruise. This was the first cruise we have been on that did not have a sunny day to start our trip. We are from Connecticut and live only an hour and a half from mid-town Manhattan. We drove to the city and arrived at the port at 12:30 pm. We were greeted by the sight of three cruise ships; the Spirit, the Dawn, and the Carnival Miracle along with the rush of passengers for all three ships. We drove up to the parking lot above the piers, paid $180 (by credit card), and rode the elevator down to our pier with our luggage. As we walked into the lobby for the Spirit after giving our luggage to a porter, we were directed to a row of seats to wait to be called through security screening and then wait to be checked in and given our keycards before boarding. They did not have a Latitudes waiting area, instead there was a separate line after the security screening area that was much shorter than the general passenger line. We were on board the Spirit by 1:00 pm. We had brought two 12-packs of Diet Coke with us and the screener did not ask us to open our carry-on bag as we went through the x-ray machines. Read more