We booked this one week cruise because we had two friends that wanted to take a cruise and hadn't been on one in twenty years. This was our 24th cruise and the first out of the Port Of New Orleans. The ship had some positives and some major negatives and this was a cruise we would not do again. The Port looked pretty nice and we got through embarkation fairly fast and got on board. After checking out our cabin on deck nine, we did as all the others did and headed for Raffles, the informal restaurant on the Lido Deck, for lunch. We were not impressed with the food nor the layout of Raffles but much more about this later. Our cabin, an inside on deck nine, was rather small by comparison with those on other ships. Storage space was very limited but for one week, it was adequate. A bar of soap is NOT supplied in the bathroom, you have to ask your cabin steward for it. The bed seemed okay and the pillows supplied were on the soft side. The television in the cabin was a joke. It was an old 12", non flat screen, and you could barely read the text on their cruise info page even when getting up very close to it. The remote was highly directional so you had to reach up in the air in front of it to change channels. The ship had one pool and four hot tubs that were always in use. We saw people in the hot tubs at 9:30 at night so they either closed late or weren't off limits at any time. Staff asking for drink orders were everywhere. Surprise, the ship served Pepsi products, the first ship we had been on that did so. After the mandatory lifeboat drill which went smoothly, we watched as the thrusters moved the ship sideways from the pier and we were underway. We discovered that the Norwegian Spirit rocked and rolled almost all the time, despite relatively calm seas. We talked with people that had to get that round seasick patch under their ear and had never done so before. Although the ship was old by today's standards, and you could see evidence of this if you looked for it, overall the ship was fairly clean and looked good. The seven-day itinerary took us to Costa Maya, Guatemala, Belize, Cozumel, and back to New Orleans. We took no formal excursions, having been to all of these ports previously. Costa Maya, the manmade port had enlarged with more shops etc. since we had last been there. Santo Tomas de Castillo, Guatemala, had a rather large "straw market" inside the port terminal and we found that interesting. Many homemade products from that country were offered and the wheeling and dealing with prices was rampant. We had to anchor way offshore in Belize and take a high-speed tender into port. This "ride" was extremely hard on your bottom side, the boat slapping the waves and bouncing at the high speed. It actually hurt and many complained. The trip took between fifteen and twenty minutes and I don't really know of any other way to do it except for these high speed boats. There were a lot of shops in Belize City where we landed so very little walking. At Cozumel, the couple with us wanted to go to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville and we spent the afternoon there. It is about an easy three block walk from the ship. The spirit had a rather nice casino and this was the only ship that offered a multi-table poker tournament. With six tables of entrants (they used the blackjack tables until the final table that was held on the Texas Hold 'um table), first prize was in the neighborhood of $1600.00, second was about $900.00, third was about $500.00, with the amounts varying depending on the number of entrants. I did make the final table on the first tournament but went out before the final three who claimed the cash prizes. Now for the negatives. I saw a couple of reviews that stated the ship's staff were argumentative and surly. We found that the majority of the crew we encountered were very friendly with smiling faces with three exceptions of staff that were extremely argumentative, one even calling me a liar! This was totally unacceptable. When I looked at one person's name tag to get their name, she remarked, "Want to write down my name, huh, well, I'm putting you on our list" - whatever that meant - but I took that as a threat. Very unprofessional. The biggest complaint was one that affected this reviews low score and made many people onboard very unhappy. We usually eat in the informal restaurant on our cruises, not wanting to spend a couple hours in the downstairs restaurants. On this ship, Raffles was located on deck twelve. Well, after a few days, we noticed that except for what was being carved, the rest of the food didn't seem to change. We weren't alone with this, we talked to many saying the same thing, "Where was the variety?". We saw one man loudly put down his plate, throw his hands in the air, and walk out saying he was sick of the same thing every day. Believe it or not, there was a joke going around the last two days of the cruise, as follows: He: "I found a worm in the bathroom this morning". She: "What did you do with it?" He: "I ate it. It was better than the food upstairs". Anyway, thank goodness for the Blue Lagoon Cafe, a 24-hour restaurant on deck seven. It was primarily a fast food type place with burgers, chicken (very good!), French fries, cole slaw, and more, all at no extra charge, with drinks and shakes at a charge. A Pepsi was $2.24 with the added gratuity, shakes were $3.50. You could also get an alcoholic drink delivered from the bar in the next room. We began checking out Raffles every day at lunch and dinner, then ending up going to the Blue Lagoon because of the same foods upstairs. Let me say this about Raffles, for breakfast, it was just fine. Made to order omelets, sausage, orange juice, et al. It was lunch and dinner that things got strange with the same things each day. Speaking of gratuities, Norwegian charges the highest on bar drinks and cold drinks, and the "For your convenience" daily mandated tips added to your shipboard account was $12.00 each per day, also the highest of the industry in the general cruise ship business. Would I cruise on the Norwegian Spirit again? No. Would I cruise with another Norwegian ship? Maybe. After all, I cruised three times on the old S.S. Norway, and you couldn't do anything wrong with that great classy Blue Lady, now sadly gone to scrap.