We cruised on the Spirit out of New Orleans on Jan 4th. Drove down from St. Louis on the Friday before and stayed the Saturday night in New Orleans to see some of the city. We stayed at the Drury Inn on Poydras and used their cruise deal, free parking for the duration of the cruise. The room for one night cost about $100.00 but that came with three free drinks on Saturday evening as well as a nice hot breakfast on Sunday morning. We spent most of Saturday afternoon walking around Bourbon Street and taking the street cars down through the garden district. Unfortunately it started to rain very heavily Saturday night so we were not able to do much that evening. Sunday we walked over to Jackson Square and had Cafe du Monde for a second breakfast after the hotels breakfast. We then got ready to embark on the cruise. This was a Christmas present from my parents as one of the last family vacations together. In total there were 9 of us, myself who has cruise 3 times already, my wife who cruised once before and our almost 2 year old son (first time). My parents who have cruised 12 times and my brother (2 cruises) and his fiancE (first time) came as well. Also my wife's parents came with us and this was their first time cruising. Getting to the ship was very easy. We drove three cars to the port about 12:45pm and unloaded everything. Then three people drove those cars back to the hotel and grabbed a taxi back to the port since we had free parking at the hotel for the week. We got in line and the longest we had to wait was to go through the security check point which took maybe 15-20 minutes. Unfortunately they did shut down one of the lines while we were standing there and made everyone get out of that line and into another so later in the day it might have been a longer wait. This was my second time on Norwegian so we got to use the latitudes line which was much shorter then the normal line. It took maybe 10 minutes to get our ship cards and then we got on board. Waiting for us was champagne which was just ok as it got a little warm sitting out. The cruise staff will try to direct you to Raffles (the buffet) for lunch however Windows is open as well. We chose to go to Windows and it was a very good idea. There were very few people there and we got a seat in the very back of the boat over looking the Mississippi River. Lunch was very good and by the time we were finished our rooms were ready. We had an inside cabin on deck 8, room 8509. As we were sailing with our almost 2 year old son we were not sure how he would handle the cruise. He was actually a wonderful little trooper and probably got the best sleep ever while on board. I had called a few weeks before to verify that we would have a crib in the room which was there when we walked in. Each night our room steward would turndown our beds he would also make up our son's crib with his blankets which was really nice. One of the biggest things that we were afraid of was that our son would not sit through a 2 hour dinner. We ended up buying a portable DVD player that we took to dinner every night and let him watch his videos. This was the greatest thing ever. He sat through every dinner calmly and really only got upset if the video ended or he didn't want to watch that one. We also brought some of his toys down with us so he would have some thing else to play with. The dinning room staff was wonderful with him. The first few nights we ordered off the regular menu for him but then one of the wait staff suggested a grilled cheese for him and once we realized that we could order more options for him then just then menu we were able to give him some things he was used to. We had two servers on multiple nights Cherry from the Philippines and Jan from Poland who loved to entertain our son. Back to the actual cruise. Monday was a day at sea and we spent the morning lounging by the pool and enjoying the warm sun. Four of us had signed up for the Texas hold'em tournament that afternoon so after lunch my dad, mom, brother and I all went to the casino. The tournament cost $40.00 and had a max of 35 people I think and while it was fun and as long as you were playing you got all you could drink free there was one major issue. The offered unlimited buy backs as long as you were under $2000 dollars. Well the table I was sitting at people would be buying back every 10 minutes. I bought back once in the beginning just to have extra chips and never did it again. There were some people that bought back a minimum 10 times which upset me and some other people. If they had allowed one buy back then it would have been fine. I lasted about an hour and a half and did end up drinking at least half of the money I spent back. My brother ended up taking second in that tournament winning about $800.00 and also on Saturday the other sea day he took third which was about $500.00. So he paid for his bill by winning in the casino. After that we got ready for what was considered the first formal night on the cruise. We had eaten in Window's the night before so we decided to see what the Garden Room was like. Both the dinning rooms serve the same food however the Garden room is much smaller and seems like they crowd a lot more people into it. We chose to eat in Window's the rest of the time since it was cooler and less cramped. The first stop was Costa Maya. I have never been here but you can really see that they are still rebuilding from Dean. The port area is nice and has a lot of shopping options as well as some food options. My parents, brother and his fiancE took the catamaran sail and snorkel tour through the boat and my in-laws did one of the ruin trips since that was one of the things they wanted to make sure they saw. My wife and I were not sure what we were going to do since the ship did not really offer anything that was "kid" friendly. The on-line list of excursions showed a dolphin encounter that did not have an age limit but that apparently was not given any more. So we walked off the boat at about noon since the ship was late getting into Costa Maya, arrived at 10 and not 8. We walked over to where all the locals were selling tours and asked one person what he had that we could do with our son. He showed us a beach resort called 40 Canons and the pictures looked nice and it included all you could drink at their bar and chips and salsa. It was $30.00 a person and we would have to get a taxi there and back. They did offer us a bus that was going to drop everyone off at different places for $3.00 a person which we took. Also our son was free for all of this so for about $70.00 we had about 3 hours of beach fun with all you can drink for all of us. The place was wonderful and the water was warm and you could walk out 50 feet and still the water was maybe chest high. It was great for our son would could run around in the water and go out 20 to 30 feet and still stand. We left after about 3 hours and let our son take his nap. My wife liked it as well since she could nap with him. I went back and did a little shopping with my parents. It was nice but nothing special. We then got ready for dinner which was very nice as usual and enjoyed some music that evening. Wednesday was Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala. This was a very interesting port as you dock in a commerce port and there are cargo containers everywhere. They do have a little building that is set up for locals to sell stuff and you can find some very nice things there. They also sell a lot of jade so if you are a fan of jade make sure you spend a little bit of time looking around in there. The building is maybe 100 yards long so it does not take a lot of time to look at everything. The do have some entertainment in the building as well. We heard a marimba band playing and saw some dancers. The marimba players were really good and it was strange to hear "Stars and Stripes Forever" played on a marimba. We took a tour through the ship and went to the Las Escobas Waterfall Voyage. It was a nice trip however the falls were not all that spectacular; one local said that it was a lot dryer then usually. However the water was cold and clear and it was a fun trip. After we go back a few of us stayed in the port building listening to music and drinking the local beer Gallo (Guy-o). The send off the port does is really nice so make sure you do not miss it. All the cars come and flash their lights and there is music playing. Thursday was Belize City which we tendered into. Anyone that has cruised before knows that tendering is a very annoying process. My father and I booked the discover scuba diving tour and it was a great time. They took you straight from the ship to the little resort that the dive operator works out of. You spend about 40 minutes watching a video and going over some safety instructions then they take you to a shallow area in the ocean and you work on some skills while kneeling in water over your head. After about 20 minutes practicing we went about 10 minutes away and dove. It was a very nice dive and we went to a depth of about 40 feet which for a first dive was really nice. We spent about 30 minutes down at the bottom then came back up. Once you got changed and had some time to relax they took us all back to the ship. This was a really nice tour. I've always wanted to scuba dive and Belize is one of the best places to do it. Also if you are interested in getting PADI certified this will count towards that. Once back at the ship I got changed and went to the port. It's a nice port but you do have to tender which means you had to add on an additional 40 minutes to your time on shore, 20 there and 20 back. The port itself is nice but not to much different from any other. It has all the usual places but some local items too. Friday was Cozumel which I had been to once already and it a main stop on any western itinerary. We chose to do a beach and grabbed a taxi which was $30.00 for 9 people. We went to Playa Mia I think which we had been to before. It's a nice beach but very crowed since almost all tours stop there for some beach time. It was $16.00 to get in but that did not include any drinks or food. For drinks it was $40.00 per person and food was $52.00. We ended up picking the right one since we did not drink to0 much and only had a snack. We spent about 3 hours there and then went back to do some shopping. Cozumel is really good if you want shopping however we were at the downtown port which does not have as many options as the other port does in my opinion. You still get the usual places to shop in the downtown port and there are a lot of silver shops too. The only things we bought were some liquor and a bracelet. Saturday was the last day of our cruise at sea. We spent most of the day just playing in the kid's pool with our son and enjoying the last day of fun. When we got back to New Orleans were we in for a shock. The weather was maybe 45 degrees. It was cold and windy and we were not ready for it at all. We got tags to leave the ship at 9:30. My brother did the express check out and it worked very well for them. They were off the ship by 8:20 and on the road by 8:45. Ours took a little longer but one word of advice is when you get your bags, have a porter carry them. They have their own line through customers and it is much shorter. We were done with customers in 5 minutes and waiting for two members of our party for 20 minutes. We couldn't get a taxi for two back to the hotel to pick up our cars since no cab would take just two people. So we ended up getting a taxi back to the hotel for all of us which only cost $45 dollars which was very nice. They might have been nice to us since they drug one of our suitcases about 10 feet before realizing it was caught on the bumper. Not sure how that happened but nothing was broken in the bag. We then spent the rest of the day driving back home which was about a 10 hour drive. As for certain aspects of the cruise: Food: The food was always good however they do use too much pasta instead of potatoes or other starches. It always came pretty quick and was always a good temperature. Dinner was always just under two hours but that is because we took our time and talked after. You can get as much as you wanted and I usually had two or three appetizers and that many desserts. I only at breakfast in Raffles but it was good. The made to order eggs were good and there always was enough food available. I found out the first day that if you go for Fish and Chips in either The Blue Lagoon or Henry's Pub that they are excellent. The tarter sauce has something else in it which made it really good and that is something since I do not like tarter sauce at all. Also the Spinach and Artichoke dip in The Blue Lagoon is really good too. Service: The staff in Windows and the Garden Room was really good and they took care of use wonderfully. Our son had a wonderful time with them and they really loved entertaining him and all of us during dinner. The only negative was that sometimes if you wanted something other then water for dinner it would take a while for it to arrive. Our room stewards were good as well and our room was always clean. I do like that they also made up our sons crib when they turned down our beds at night. The only negative here is that we only got two towel animals during the trip. One really nice thing is that on the last night we had to wash one of our sons outfit and we had wrapped it in a towel. I told our wife that she needed to take it out of the towel since they would take the towel. She ended up moving the towel into the closet and when we got back the towel was gone from the closet. So I had to go down to the room stewards who fortunately were only about 10 rooms away and explain the problem. It took about 4 times but the finally understood and then we proceeded to dig out every towel in the dirty bag and make sure our sons clothes were not there. We did find the towel at the bottom of the bag and got it outfit back. Everyone on the ship is really nice and they always said hello or good morning to you when you walked past. The ship was really nice and ever though it is a little older you really cannot tell. Everything looked very nice. The public areas were always clean and they were always cleaning up some area during the day. As for cruising with a 2 year old. I was very afraid that it would be a large task. What with keeping him happy and making sure he did not go where he was not supposed to and finding things to do with him. He was actually too young to go into the Kids Club but that was ok. He actually spent most of his time with us doing what we did. The kid's pool was very fun for him although he did not like going down the water slide by himself. With mom or dad he was fine. There was never a problem of feeding him as we could always find something for him and during dinner they would make a grilled cheese sandwich or mac and cheese for him. The portable DVD player was the best thing we could have purchased as it made dinners so easy. He gladly watched a video and ate supper every night. We also bought a back pack for him that had for lack of a better term a "leach" attached to it. In ports this was a great thing since we could keep him close. On the ship it was good to since with the large amount of people it would have been easy to get separated. The best thing though was that he slept better on the ship then at home. Our thoughts on this were that we had an inside room and it was totally day during the day for his nap and we did not get light from sunrise so he did not know that it was time to get up. He was sleeping 12 hours a night and two or three in the afternoon. This really helped his moods too since he was never over tired. All in all a great family cruise.