Our family just returned from sailing Norwegian Spirit on a New Year's Cruise departing December 26, 2010 for 7 days in the Western Caribbean from New Orleans, with ports of call in Costa Maya (Mexico), Roatan (Honduras), Belize, and Cozumel. We had a group of 24 sailing with two large families, some couples and some single travelers in the mix, and our ages ranged from 83 years down to 9 months so we covered plenty of demographic groups. Many of us had sailed Norwegian before although some had not, and while most had some cruise experience, we also had some first timers too. For my part I am 60, I was traveling with my extended family, and this was my 11th cruise, the 5th on Norwegian, and we have sailed 4 times on Royal Caribbean, once on Celebrity and once on Carnival. We chose this particular cruise in part because of the good price, but also because of the departure city (we spent Christmas in New Orleans prior to the cruise), and because of the ship layout which included, among other appealing features, a special pool area designated for small children as our 2 grandchildren were traveling with us (ages 3 years, and 9 months).

PRE-CRUISE:

Although we live in South Carolina, my husband's family hails from Louisiana so the prospect of taking our kids to New Orleans for Christmas and meeting up with family now living in Dallas played into our choice of embarkation ports. We drove to New Orleans on December 23rd, and others in the family flew in either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day to join us. Since we arrived first, we decided to experiment with a small guest house the first night and found a particularly good price at the Lamothe House on Esplanade right at the edge of the French Quarter. Our daughters, who had 2 twin beds, found their room comfortable, but our double bed would not win any awards for comfort. Still, the guest house was only a couple blocks' stroll to the Port of Call pub also on Esplanade which serves up some of the best hamburgers anywhere, and we weary travelers were happy to enjoy a good meal without going to much trouble after the long drive. Read more