We just got home from our 12 day Venice to Barcelona Med cruise on the Spirit. It is 2am in California and I am wide awake because I am still on Europe time, so if some of this review starts to sound weird I am probably falling asleep. So, let's begin with my review of our cruise of a lifetime!

We are a family of five with two teenagers and a ten year-old. Our journey began with an eleven hour flight from San Francisco to Amersterdam on KLM airlines (fabulous airline), then a zombie-like walk, as it was 1am to us, to our connecting flight to Venice. We landed in Venice at lunchtime there, and, still half asleep but excited, got a private water taxi to our hotel near St. Mark's Square, the Locanda Vivaldi. I chose it because it is walking distance to St. Mark's, so we could see it on our own (we came a day before the cruise began, both for this reason and in case of any airline delays). It was a small hotel, formerly the home of the composer Vivaldi, and was charming. It had free Wifi and breakfast included. We made ourselves stay up until 8pm there, to avoid getting really screwed up, and wandered the crowds in St. Mark's, found a few souveniers (how the heck do you spell that?), and of course had gelato. In the morning we had the hotel get us another water taxi to take us to the ship. For those of you wondering, it was about 120 euros for the five of us from the airport to the hotel and then about 90 euros from the hotel to the ship. It was well worth it. You are like James Bond speeding across the canal, the wind blowing in your hair and the sights all parading before your eyes. Speaking of eyes, I accidentally left my sunglasses on top of my suitcase when we climbed into the water taxi and they fell into the water, so part of me is still in Venice, haha. Luckily on this cruise you will see hundreds of cheap sunglasses to buy, so I replaced them easily with a ten dollar pair from a street vendor in Athens. In Italy and Greece there are vendors selling knockoff brand name purses, belts, sunglasses, and watches on every corner, and they will follow you everywhere. They even waited at the bus dropoff spots. And in Turkey you will be followed by vendors selling lots of weird toys, like some splat ball thing, but if you shake your head and keep walking they leave you alone. I still recall an elderly mentally-challenged man in Turkey who was selling postcards for one euro, and he was so sweet everyone in our tour group bought some.

So onto the Spirit - a fabulous ship, which is the oldest in the NCL fleet. It is showing its age but is an oldie but goodie. She is clean and welcoming, with a wonderful crew. Seriously, every crew member we came in contact with was charming and helpful and put smiles on our faces. We had a suite, so got to wait in the priority embarkation lounge and were then escorted to our cabins. This is a nice perk. We had an SF suite on the 10th deck with a BC balcony connecting to it. Of course myself and two daughters got the suite, because it has two sinks, a jetted tub, and a lighted vanity and those are girlie things, so that relegated my husband and son to the balcony cabin. They were more than happy with it, as long as they had a hot shower and a TV to watch World Cup soccer they were thrilled. The suite is worth the splurge - a shower and tub that overlook the sea (with blinds in case you are in port and don't want to put on a X-rated show for the people on the dock), big closet, two TV's, a dining area, a sofabed that my 16 year-old daughter used (I recommend asking for the eggcrate mattress pad for that, made it much more cozy for her), and a small balcony. Our steward was Sanjay and he was excellent. He made awesome towel animals for my kids and got me whatever we needed and always with a smile. And he always smiled at the things my kids did, whether it was a stack of tiny Fruit Loops boxes that my youngest daughter hoarded from the buffet (like they would run out or something) or my son fashioning a soccer goal out of bed pillows to test out the mini soccer balls he always managed to find at each port. Our butler was Ravi, and he was always friendly and brought us the few things we asked him for, like chocolate chip cookies every night and a few DVD movies to watch. It is tradition that my son and I watch Pirates of the Caribbean movies while on a cruise during downtime in the late afternoon, before dinner and after a long day of exploring the ports on our tours. The girls prefer to be at the pool and my husband face down on the bed napping out of exhaustion. Read more