Norwegian Spirit Review
It's All About the Ports on the NCL Spirit
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Although we never sailed on Norwegian before, we decided to try them on our second Mediterranean cruise (the first on Princess) due to the ports that the ship was visiting. This decision was made despite the average reviews of the ship and the horrible reviews of the food. We departed on the Norwegian Spirit on June 12th out of Barcelona. We were a group of eight and had a total of four cabins. We arrived a day in advance and stayed at the wonderfully located Renaissance Barcelona (see my review on Trip Advisor). Embarking on the Spirit was a breeze at about 1:45 PM in anticipation of the 7 PM departure. We did not wait in line at all, and we were surprised at how fast the bags were delivered.
For lunch, the main dining room, Windows, was open. After trying the Caesar salad (tasted solely like anchovies) and the meatball sub, we decided the horrible food reviews could be correct. Speaking of food, let me at this time review the food on the ship. Raffles is the buffet area. Blue Lagoon is the 24 hour snack-like venue. On sea days, there is "local" food (skip any kind of steak as it's like leather) and burgers & hot dogs served via BBQ around the pool. There are three dining rooms on the ship that one does not pay a premium...Gardens, Windows, and Shogun. The Gardens and Windows serve identical menus every night, and Shogun obviously serves Asian food. Gardens is a smaller venue than Windows; however, Gardens does not impose a dress code like Windows. So if you want to stay in shorts, Gardens is your place.
FREE FOOD VENUES:
Cabin Review
Family Inside
CABINS:
My husband and I were in 10611. This cabin had an interior location, but was slightly larger, and it was marketed as a "family, interior cabin". It was perfect for our needs. We could walk up the two stories to the pool and buffet, or down three stories to the restaurants. Level 8 featured our favorite bar. We were right by the mid-ship stairway, and we did not have rooms on either sides of us. The closet was fine. HINT: When we were in Barcelona, we purchased two dozen plastic hangers, and I'm glad we did as there were only 12 in the room. We had enough room to hang our clothes along with the shelf in the closet. You do not have the dreaded shower curtain on the Spirit. There is a glass shower door and we were surprised how large the shower really was. HINT: NCL provides liquid soap in the shower...no bar soap. If you like bar soap that lathers, bring your own. Also, the cabin did not have amenities such as shower cap, Q-Tips and body lotion. The TV is an issue as the remote does not work very well. If you wanted to watch TV in bed, you had to swing around the remote above your head to catch the signal. There was a poor selection of channels...if you wanted to watch the news, you had Sky News or the BBC. They both looped the same story every few minutes. Connie was our steward, and the room was always clean with the extra towels that we requested. In the bathroom, there is an antique hair dryer that features an old-fashioned flexible hose. The 110 outlet in the cabin had a sign "No Hair Dryers". As one who likes to use a modern hairdryer with attached brush, I tried the outlet. It blew a fuse immediately. Thank goodness my dryer had a switch for 220. I used my adapter in the 220 outlet and the dryer worked fine. The toilet in the room had to be flushed numerous times for the paper to go down and at one point stopped working outright. I must also make mention of what happened in my niece's cabin, 10129. She came back one day to find her carpet soaked, one of the drawers fell apart and her TV did not work. Her safe also locked shut and it took security one hour to arrive to open the safe. My brother in 10127 had a broken phone.
Port Reviews
Barcelona
We stayed at the very nice Renaissance Barcelona hotel for one night before our cruise. The location was fabulous. We could walk everywhere including the unbelievable Sagrada Famillia (buy tickets to see the interior online in advance as the line for tickets was an hour long), and the Plaza Catalanes where you can board the Bus Turistic...the hop on, hop off bus. They have three routes that can take you to every important sight in Barcelona and offer a wonderful description of the sights. Take the Bus Turistic, and not the City Tour line as the reviews are better for that line. Barcelona is a wonderful city. Take time to see as much as you can.