We have been on multiple cruises over the years including Carnival Ships, Royal Caribbean Ships, an MSC ship and a Princess ship. Our favorite cruise line at this point is Royal Caribbean as they just seem to do most everything just a little bit better than the others. The reason we chose the Norwegian Spirit for this cruise was all about the itinerary, though. We searched through all the different Mediterranean cruise itinerary's and could not find any others that came close to the itinerary the Norwegian Spirit offered for the price. Although we had been to many of the itinerary cities previously by rail and stayed in hotels, we wanted to revisit another time with the advantages the cruising offers. We like the idea of just unpacking one time rather than packing and unpacking and dragging suitcases across European cobblestones.

The cabin:

I am always careful about cabin selection, choosing cabins midship with the least amount of movement and always making sure that we are not near any noisy public areas on the ship as I am a light sleeper. I always look at the deck plans and look for a room that has guest rooms above and below, rather than discos, restaurants, theaters, pools or casinos. When I looked at the deck plans for the Norwegian Spirit, I found a room that seemed to meet our requirements but when I called, the representative told me that the cabin I had selected was not available but cabin 10577 would be similar and be a quite room. Sadly, this was not the case. I would recommend that no one consider cabin 10577. As it turns out, it is actually below what is labeled, the "Tivoli Pool Room." I don't know what takes place in the "Tivoli Pool Room" but whatever it is, it is very noisy. There are loud booms that take place at intervals all hours of the day and night that kept me awake through the second night on board (I think we were so exhausted the first night that we slept through all the noise). At other times, it sounds like someone walking across an uncarpeted floor above. I was at guest services that second night around midnight to complain. They took note of my complaint but nothing else happened at that point. I returned to guest services at about 6 am complaining of not having been able to sleep all night due to the booming noises. These booms are so loud that ear plugs didn’t help. They took note again. A few hours later, I complained again and finally, at that point, they offered us another room, 4577. I checked it out and even though it was a bit of a downgrade in some ways, it WAS much quieter and that was the most important thing to me at that point. During the move,I was given the explanation that the noise from the Tivoli Pool Room has to do with water pressure changes when the Tivoli pool is refilled. I was told that they don't usually move someone to another cabin because of it but just adjust the water pressure but because they had another cabin available, they decided to offer it. (In line at guest services, earlier, I had heard them say to someone else that it was a full ship and that there were no empty cabins- apparently they just tell people this even when there are empty cabins). Read more