We cruised on the Spirit from New York (April 19, 2008). Our experience that we saved and saved for started out bad and just got worse. We begin with the change in itinerary. We purposely booked this cruise so a) we would leave from NY and b) my kids wanted to go to the Caribbean (beach, shopping, etc). My husband and I love St. Thomas which was on the original itinerary. Well, this was changed. We called your customer service department many times from when we first booked the cruise until our sail date. One of things we asked was why the itinerary had changed. We were told that the ships engine wasn't strong enough to get to St. Thomas and make the rounds and return to NY within the 8 day timeframe. We accepted that until we looked at a map onboard which showed the route we were taking and saw that we were going to pass right by St. Thomas to go to one of the other islands anyway. This was ridiculous in itself.

Crew/Staff: There wasn't much of a crew presence at all. You saw the entire activities staff when they were robbing us during Bingo but other than that you couldn't find them. I think we saw the Activities Director twice during the entire length of the cruise (one time as Austin Powers announcing the 70's party and the other was when he was performing in the finale). My son wanted to participate in a scheduled Basketball tournament. He and my husband showed up on time and met one of the activities staff members. Some kids were already there playing basketball. So instead of the activities staff member letting them know that there was a scheduled activity, he just let the kids play on while the three of them sat there waiting. After 20 minutes, my 11 year old son gave up and left. I don't know if they are so used to getting complaints all the time or just on our journey, but from the people at reception to the waiters, managers, etc. everyone seemed so oversaturated with complaints that they didn't know what to say anymore. They didn't even try to fix problems. Automatic Gratuity: Bad idea. The staff did not have any incentive at all to provide top notch service or go above and beyond. We loved our cabin steward and actually tipped him more. The bar maids/waiters were hustling of course for the extra tips. We spent $200 on soda cards. They didn't want to know you because guess what, they weren't used to getting tipped from soda card holders. There were times that my children asked for a drink and it was never delivered. The staff did not engage the children at all. The worst of the worst was the staff in Windows and The Garden Room. You always had to wait to be seated, wait for drinks, wait for your order to be taken and wait for your food to be delivered. They had two "muffin/pastry" waiters for breakfast for the entire dining room. You were lucky if you saw them once during the meal.

Freestyle dining: In a word - stinks. My husband was up early every morning to make reservations. He couldn't get anything before 8:30 at night. To pay more money and eat this late was unacceptable. We are used to RCL where you see the same wait staff every night - by the 2nd night they usually had the drinks waiting for you when you arrived. The food was not great at all. Read more