It was on a whim, that I decided to travel to New York to board The Norwegian Spirit on her Christmas 12 day voyage to the E.C. I'm not a huge fan of the modern day Christmas and New Years Festivities, so this was an easy decision for me. Only an hour flight from Toronto, New York made for a very smooth and interesting Port for embarkation. The price was very reasonable and the Ship was very Elegantly decorated, almost understated.  It was a much smaller ship than I have been accustomed to recently travelling, approx. two thousand passengers, which was refreshing, until I realized that 30 percent of my fellow passengers were children. Being a Christmas Cruise, I should have seen that coming. My fault. As I toured around the ship, I noticed her lovely Asian themes and Roman decks, I also noticed only one adult pool, although large for a Cruiseship, not large enough for the amount of kids on this cruise. I was overwhelmed at the amount of pay restaurants on this ship-10 ranging from French to Teppanyaki to Sushi to Steak and everything in between. I fell in love with the decor and ambience of the Windows restaurant, it reminded me of old world dining.I also quickly established my favorite late day cappuccino bar on deck 6. Great Cappuccino!!!The buffets were bountiful, maybe a little repetitive, but good.

I was a little let down when it came to the great entertainment Norwegian Cruise Lines has always been known for. Gone were the lavish production shows and Broadway shows I have always seen with this Cruiseline, in their place were quite boring revues. The highlight of the entertainment were the Comedy Hypnosis shows by Ed Fernandez, he was hilarious, I have never laughed so hard. Also kudos to the Comedian Dave Heenan, He kept us laughing the whole cruise As usual, the Crew were from every conceivable country in the world, some extremely good at their jobs and others not so much....In general, the Crew needed a little spark to bring them up to cruiseline standards The shops onboard were very poorly stocked, and the quality of the logo products onboard was very poor.

All in all, I enjoyed this Ship I would rate it 3 out of 5 stars ***