Norwegian Spirit Review
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This is our second NCL sailing and third overall. After experiencing Royal our last cruise, we were eager to loosen up and freestyle again, and it didn't disappoint. The Spirit represents the sweet spot of cruising, not too big or small, 2000 passengers and about a 2:1 ratio of passengers to crew members. Translation: Anything we wanted to do was easy to do with no excessive wait and help was never far away if we needed anything.
We drove from part way from central Texas the night before our cruise and arrived late Sunday morning to Fulton Place Parking. Write that name down if you don't know about it already. Case and point, it was only $10 a day instead of $16 at the port and extremely secure. How secure? I managed to leave the car unlocked for the duration of the cruise and nothing happened! Whew. They also provide a complementary shuttle to and from the terminal that only takes a couple minutes. Embarkation was a snap through the Latitude line and we were on the ship in about 20 minutes total.
First impressions of the ship were what we expected, not blown away but by no means disappointed. It's an older ship, in fact the oldest in the fleet but it didn't matter. The decor could be considered a little tacky and worn out in places, but I thought it was unique that the ship retained so much of the original name and decor throughout, the Superstar Leo. I don't need on board surfing, carousels, mini golf, or a rock wall to make my cruise experience complete. The layout was a little tricky and not really mastered until we finished out last sea day. Certain locations were truly hiding and you would walk by half of the places if you weren't looking. Being asymmetrical in layout probably caused that a little. I know it wasn't just us. Every time someone got out of the elevator, there was confusion. Again it's only our third time cruising, but I've never been so poor about mastering the layout.
Cabin Review
Inside
Our cabin 5003, on the Norwegian Spirit was exactly what I was hoping it would be, adequate. There's a saying I like, "everything looks the same with your eyes closed", so really I wasn't expecting much more than a place to crash at midnight. It's no denying the cabin is small, as it was designed for the Asian market rather than us fat Americans. But it easily held our emptied suitcases and the bathroom with glass shower door was plenty roomy. The bed was not my favorite. My 240lb frame found it too hard and the valley created by putting two single beds together just makes it worse. But then again, I wasn't expecting space age memory foam either. I now appreciate my bed at home more now. If you are prone to motion sickness, you may want to consider something further back as the rocking is prominent and the crashing waves on the bow sound like a train wreck at times. Also the mechanical equipment used in port on the ship is easily audible too, so don't expect to sleep in. This created an alarm clock for me so I didn't mind.