Overall this was an amazing trip, full of once-in-a lifetime memories with friends and family. Our family cruises frequently and have cruised on Disney, Royal Caribbean, and NCL. This was only our second time on NCL and overall we had a wonderful time on the Spirit. The only downside was that we were traveling with our 14 YO son, and this cruise is definitely not the best for kids or teens - more on that later.

The Spirit is the oldest in the NCL fleet and I believe it is the smallest. We thought it was a very nice ship and refurbished very nicely. Overall, it was clean and the common areas looked high-end. We particularly liked how the dining rooms all had magnificent views. You could see the water in almost all of the dining rooms. I love ships that have a lot of places to look out and see the water. This one did not disappoint! The layout is a little weird because of the mid-ship atrium, which causes you to have to take some strange pathways to the dining rooms, but overall not a bother. We liked the classic feel of this smaller ship and really appreciated that it never felt crowded. We had no problems getting a table at the buffet - even during busy times, and we never had an issue getting seated right away at the dinner venues, even with a party of 7. We had some very nice weather during sea days and had no problems getting a deck chair. Overall, we really liked this ship and would highly recommend it for couples.

Now for the downside. The cabins are SMALL! We sailed in a midship balcony cabin (Me, husband, and 14 yo son). This was by far the smallest cabin we have ever had on a cruise and there was pretty much no room when my son's sofa bed was pulled out. The sofa bed blocked the balcony door, so if I wanted to go out when the bed was pulled out, I had to climb over it. It also completely blocks the only vanity/desk space in the room. Unfortunately, NCL has discontinued evening turndown service, so our fantastic cabin steward always put the sofa bed away during our morning service, but we then had to pull it out ourselves and make it when my son was ready to go to bed. I understand that NCL is trying to save $$ post pandemic by discontinuing the turndown/late service, but I REALLLY missed it! I love coming back from dinner / evening activities to a clean room, chocolate, towel animal, etc. If NCL is really trying to position themselves as a more high-end option than Carnival and RCI, then they should consider bringing this back. I did really like how quiet the cabin was. I didn't hear any noise from neighboring rooms, or above our cabin. The bathroom refresh was also nice because it included a glass shower door instead of a curtain, which is amazing. We did think that the cabin had a good amount of storage for the size and we were able to shove our suitcases under the bed, which helped free up the limited space. Read more