Our 4th cruise, first on a Norwegian. We got the balcony room courtesy of Harrah's in Las Vegas. A few years back, you would have never found my wife or me on a cruise ship. We were (and are) Club Med types who like to go to the beach and relax. We don't like schedules or herding around and thought this is what cruises were all about and therefore we avoided them. We are a 50 something couple married for over 25 years so we have pretty much figured out the number of "good" years for trips and vacations and don't want to waste any time on things that just don't work for us. However, for lack of anything better to do (other than work) why not take advantage of our second free cruise? That was our attitude going in to this trip on the NCL Spirit. We arrived to a frigid NOLA the day before. Had a downright terrible meal at Besh Steakhouse, had great oysters (and a few Abita's) at Felix's around noon on embarkation day and boarded around 3pm with absolutely no wait for anything, including our room being ready. I understand the lifeboat drill but really, it was literally freezing cold on that deck. The end result was I felt we were not correctly "drilled" because no one, including the crew, wanted to stay out any longer than absolutely necessary. Don't know how to fix that but someone could use a little common sense... I guess I will go by categories instead of days. Here goes: THE FOOD: My wife and I are by no means gourmets. True, we have had many fine meals both in the US and abroad but we did not have high expectations of gourmet level food on this ship. With that little preamble, let's just say we experienced a mixed bag. We ate at the Bistro two nights and both meals were truly EXCELLENT with EXCELLENT service (ask for James from India). We did do the "Taste of India" meal and again it was EXCELLENT. I have always been reluctant to order meals I couldn't pronounce, be it Indian or Chinese or whatever. Taste of India was just that, a "taste" of many different Indian dishes. All were very good and I am glad we did this. Now if I can remember the names of the dishes I ate... We ate one night in Cagneys. A complete disappointment here. You have to pay a $25 pp cover to eat there and it is NOT worth it. I have had better steaks at Longhorns. Our three other evening meals were in the Garden Main dining room. The last night was the best (roast beef with real Yorkshire pudding). My wife ordered Coq au vin one night and it was served on pasta...Just one example of someone in the kitchen deciding how a classic dish needs to be changed for the sake of change. Not a good idea. Another night, I ordered the rack of lamb and asked for it "medium rare" (this is the most common way it is prepared anywhere we have ever been) and was told by our waitress/server "we serve it medium, if you want something different, you must go to the specialty restaurants..." Folks, not only was that statement foolish and stupid, it was inaccurate to boot. How dare someone tell a customer that? I was served with a far too rare piece of lamb but I kept my mouth shut. Well, not literally, I did eat it but noted that experience for this posting... Another night I ordered their so called prime rib and asked for a "thicker" piece (I saw it coming out about a quarter inch thick and, no, I am not exaggerating) What did I get? TWO quarter inch thick slices! I was told the "slicer" was pre-set. What a crock. We usually ate breakfast in the Windows dining room. Poached and "SOFT" boiled eggs came out HARD both times...Serving staff grossly unprepared for anything other than filling your coffee cup. Ask a question and they tended to make stuff up that was NOT true. Yes, I did speak with a senior waiter about the making stuff up thing but refused to give names because we all need a job. Food conclusion, not enough to make me want to travel with NCL again. OUR ROOM: Barely big enough to get around in. That's about all I will say here. CASINO: They have a screwed up points system that definitely favors slots players over table players. Don't be a table player thinking you are going to get enough points to do anything with. SHIP IN GENERAL: The Spirit was built for Asians. Some nice Asian touches such as statues, etc. throughout the ship. Generally all the public areas were clean and well kept for a 12 year old ship. The main atrium area is on the small side. A little difficult getting to the main dining rooms without a map the first day. CREW: Mostly very friendly and Filipino. We had no problems with anyone during the entire cruise. WEATHER: Of course, no one can help this but we did sign up for a beach excursion via NCL and it clearly was NOT beach weather. NCL would NOT allow us to cancel even though there was no sun and the temperature was in the mid-70's at best. Again, not a good move on their part since it left a bad taste in my mouth about who the customer was and was it worth it to piss the customer off over a $45 pp excursion? Big mistake on their part. Overall, a day on a ship is better than a day at the office. Would I do it again? No, I would not take a NCL cruise again.

Guatemala (you did not have this as a "select a port" option... This is where we had the problem with the weather and the NCL booked "beach resort" excursion. Don't take this. There is an interesting locals selling area off the dock. In the afternoon there were several entertainers from a xylophone family to native dancers. We enjoyed that. I don't think you want to take an independent excursion in Guatemala just yet. There was a rumor about a NCL Spirit passenger being killed a few months ago here and after a while got it confirmed from more than one crew person. I think the crew has been told they will be shot if they talk about it but my advice is to be careful and don't stray too far from your group.