My husband and I cruise on the Norwegian Spirit from 12/26/2010-1/2/2011 over our holiday break. We both work in education, so we took advantage of having the week off and headed towards some sun with 2 hours to spare before the blizzard hit Philadelphia. This was my husband's first cruise and my third, where this was my first experience with NCL. I had previously sailed with Royal Caribbean on 2 occasions with my family.

We have friends in New Orleans who picked us up from the airport and showed us around the city before boarding the ship. The weather on embarkation day was fairly cold, so it wasn't the best for site seeing around the city.

Embarkation was fairly easy taking us only around 45 minutes to get on the ship, where our room was ready for us once we got on board. We had an oceanview cabin on the 4th floor and were surprise in a good way upon entering our room, where we both felt it was bigger than we thought it would be. Our bags were in the room about 3 hours later, airplane bottles and all! We had purchased the honeymoon/anniversary package as a gift to ourselves for our 3rd anniversary. I highly recommend this package (price $219), as it includes 2 massages and champagne among other things. We continued to feel the perks of this package throughout the trip and we ate at the speciality restaurant Le Bistro the night of our anniversary without a cover, including the bottle of wine. Read more