budgetfairytale

Great Blog Mindy - really enjoyed our time with you and Tim and hope we will meet on future vacations - we are interested in the Panama Canal as well - possible Castaway future cruise?

 

JoAnn

It was so nice to hang out with you, JoAnn! Love the idea of a Castaway Canal Cruise!

I took over 2000 shots and had great difficulty narrowing it down to what I posted

 

I will be adding a few more albums from our trip in the near future -

You beat me I took 1200!!

Between me and my husband, we are sorting through 4000+ photos! :eek:

Thank you so much for this! Love the pics and review -- can't wait to read your day by day. Sounds like you and your husband had a great honeymoon despite the last minute changes :D

Thanks so much - just love it!! Can't wait until your day by day report!

Loved your review, glad NCL took good care of you and your special occasion. We are quite partial to NCL, we also feel they do a great job, and just stay with them. Love your new banners when you arrived at your room, you deserve it. :):):)

Thank you all for reading.

I wrote a little review of the Spirit on my blog and included a couple pics. You may find it helpful, or not at all helpful.

http://www.budgetfairytale.com/2013/05/all-aboard-norwegian-spirit.html

Could you please tell me how many "dress up or not" nights they have on a 12 day cruise? Do many of the ladies get really dressed up on that/those nights?

There were 3 or 4 nights and lots of people dressed up.

Thanks for the photos luv2travel - I really enjoyed them!

 

The latest dilemma I am pondering is how early to board in Barcelona (we embark on September 8th.) On one hand, we want to spend every minute we can exploring Barcelona because we only have 2 days there and will have 12 days on the Spirit. On the other hand, we really want to do the Chef's Table, so we should board early enough to sign up for it...any thoughts from you veterans????

We had two on our sailing. I signed up around 7pm on embark day. Then I changed our night two days later, so there was still room. Obviously I can't guarantee you anything, but this was my experience.

Chef's Table is wonderful, but it's "just" food ... if you have never been to Barcelona before and may never go back, I personally would spend the extra time in the city.

I am concerned about the cruise line keeping your passports as well. What is the purpose of this and what do you do when returning to the ship from a port as far as ID? Do you just show your ship card when you return to the ship? How does,that work.

The purpose of this, as I understand it, is to clear customs in each port faster. It's easier for the cruise line to say, "Hey, everyone here has passports or visas and we have them all if you have a problem," than for each individual person to have to clear customs.

For coming and going from the ship, you just need to slide your NCL ship card when you leave and when you return. Super easy.

Link works fine for me ... thanks for sharing, Joann!

Plenty of good information so far, thanks!

 

For those who embarked at Barcelona, was the Spain VAT added to onboard purchases? If so, what was the rate? Specifically, was the Spain VAT added to NCL shore excursions booked onboard? At what point in the cruise do they stop collecting the VAT? Thanks.

 

Woody

Honestly, it feels like the VAT was on everything. It was small, but off the top of my head I don't have a percentage - sorry. I can't remember if there was VAT added to the one excursion we did on NCL. If I can dig out my invoice I will report back. Sorry - even over a week after being home I'm still totally unorganized!

Thanks Elaine5 and Jean and Tony. I am glad to hear from those of you that have been to Cinque Terre. I would like to hear from anyone that will be sailing on the Norwegian Spirit on July 20 that might be interested in a small group tour to Cinque Terre. It sounds like we would not be disappointed. I have no idea how many people are on the excursions through NCL. Do they have a limit has to how many people they can take?

I recommend checking to see if there's anyone on your Roll Call through that section of Cruise Critic. As for NCL, they group people by buses. We did the Florence On Your Own through NCL and there were several bus groups, but we were only responsible for our one bus, which had maybe 30 people. Hopefully that makes sense.

So how was the pizza? We'll keep an eye out fori it!

Not the best but we were starving. Had much better pizza in Rome at La Montecarlo!

Just wanted to say I really appreciate all of the comments thus far… Usually, I just lurk and gather information, but had to ask some questions about disembarking in Venice.

In your experience, what time did disembarkation start and what was the latest time allowed on the ship? Since we can be out all night, do you still set luggage out the night before? Or, can you self disembark?

We are taking the 11:30 train to Rome and didn’t know if we should store our luggage somewhere to sightsee more or if we should head straight to the train station.

Thanks so much…getting really excited!

I believe disembarkation was from 7:30am - 9:45am. Around those times. You can either set your luggage out by midnight the night before, or carry it off yourself. It's a bit off a walk so I personally recommend checking it. You pick up luggage tags during the sea day before arriving into Venice. The tag corresponds with the time you want to get off the ship.

Thanks for all the info! We are on the May 6th trip from Venice. We also booked the ships transport into Florence. Where do they drop you off? Is it central? We don't want to spend time in a leather shop as we have tickets for Uffizzi.

 

Also, what did you do in Naples?

 

Kim

They drop you off in town. The highlights of Florence are all very close and walkable. I can't remember the exact name of the square where we were dropped off but it's close to Uffizzi. When in the square we were "suggested" to go into the shop and watch a 5 minute gold leaf presentation. DH and I skipped it in favor of the pizza shop next door.

Those who do not attend have to go the following day to a catch up drill.

We received the letter to go the next day, the problem was it was in the middle of a port day. I went to the front desk and told the rep we couldn't make it since we would be in port. He said to just watch the safety channel, read the info on the back of our door, and physically look for our muster spot on Deck 7. (And we did.) When we got back from port that day, we received a stern letter on our door saying that we missed the makeup drill and to basically do everything the rep told me the day before.

What time would you all recommend we get to the port in Barcelona to board the Spirit, checkout time is 11 am I believe. But I would like to get on-board as soon as possible and explore the ship. What did you folks experience ?

We didn't board until 5 ... but ... if you want to be one of the first on the ship I would recommend going right from your hotel to the port and wait. This is what we did for our DCL trip a while back and it worked great. Just my 2 cents!

Was your sailaway at 7:00 pm as well? I can see where there will be some people missing the first drill and having to do a make-up one, since NCL says you have to be on board 2 hours before sail away - which would be 5:00. Confusing!

Yes, 7pm. Yes, that is why I assumed muster would be after 5pm. Thanks for the mind refresher!

Thank you for the muster drill information. NCL is telling us 30 minutes before sailaway, and 6:30 didn't make sense - right in the middle of dinner times.

At least they gave you a time. We called beforehand to ask so we could be on the ship in time, and they didn't know! I guessed it would be at 5pm, but I guessed wrong.

If anyone remembers, what time was the muster drill in Barcelona? The sail away time is 7:00 pm, and we are trying to figure out dinner arrangements.

 

Thanks! Less than 30 days to go now!

4:30pm. I remember because we arrived to port at 4:30 and saw everyone lined up on the decks.

How does Spanish Coke compare to American Coke? I'm kinda picky...

I can't drink American Coke because I'm allergic to corn and its syrup. I did okay with Spanish Coke (and Turkish Coke). DH said it all tasted the same to him.

Food: We ate at the Main Dining Room - the food was good but sodium content was high.

Glad I'm not the only one who felt this way!

How was weather for your cruise? Just wondering if it was warm throughout or not.

High 60s most of the days. The first sea day was freezing/windy, and the second sea day was blazing hot. Athens was hot - in the 80s. Raining and cold on disembark day in Venice. I didn't need anything more than a light sweater for any of the ports (except for disembarking in Venice).

Mindy, did they charge you a corkage fee on the wine?

No. In fact the xray machine attendant made a big production about putting them through and keeping them safe, like precious cargo - lol. I kept waiting for the table to pay the corkage fee, but nope. Once we got on the ship, DH went back off to the little shop inside the port and bought two bottles of rum and a 6 pack of Coke and carried them on with no problems.

budgetfairytale, Realitoes, Da-Painter, Joannel1958, kapitman, and Seaing the World, thank you all for posting your experiences and thoughts about your cruise. Very interesting and helpful information by each of you!

You are welcome!

For what it's worth, we used our credit card at every port with no issues (and we checked our statement carefully once we got home). While you can't predict when fraud will strike, if you practice good judgement, always check your receipts before signing, and don't buy goods from some dude on the sidewalk, you'll probably be okay.

We bought four bottles of wine at the Carrefour market on Las Ramblas to bring on the ship. Each bottle was under 10 euros.

Speaking of wifi...were you able to easily access it for free in every port or every main interior city pretty easily with decent speeds?

We didn't look for it in every city, but when we did we found it pretty easily. Quality was varied.

I guess Nengah liked you better! Haha

Our room stewart left a card at the nightly room turn-down, reminding us to change our clocks forward, and back, as well as in the daily.:)

If you get Charles, he also does wonderful towel animals, and taught my wife how to make them. :);)

We did not get cards, that would have been helpful! :) Our room attendant was wonderful, though.

Also I believe the captain mentioned the time change each evening, but sometimes it's difficult to hear, depending on where you are on the boat.

On any of your nights, did they offer a discounts at the restaurants? I've read that sometimes they offer 2-4-1.

 

Thanks

None that I was aware of.

While in the ports, did you see any internet cafes?

 

If so, were the computers older or a littler newer with a flash drive port? I keep a blog of my journey and would love to type it in my cabin, save it on a flash drive and then post it at an internet café. Cheaper than on the ship, I would believe.

Lots of places with wifi, but I didnt use any computers. For my blog, I typed notes on my iphone notepad, and when I came across wifi, I copied the notes into my blog.

Thanks for taking the time to help the rest off us out, in spite of all the catching up I'm sure you have to do.

We are on the same itinerary in a couple of months and I was wondering about the time changes. How many are there and are they on the sea days? Are they mentioned clearly in the dailies, etc? Thanks!

Yes. Forward one hour on the sea day between Naples and Mykonos, then back one hour between Athens and Venice. It's on the front page of the daily but you have to read the whole thing to find it! Many people missed it and were confused, but at least the times changes were on sea days.

We are on the Venice to Barcelona version of this cruise, leaving on July 10. Can't wait to read your review and the ones to follow. :D

 

Did you take the commuter train to DIY in Rome? I know you mentioned there were quite a few ships in port and it was crowded. Was there any issues with catching the train there or back? Did you have to stand on the way back? What station did you board for the return journey?

Yes, the commuter train. No issues with catching the train, it ran on time. I stood the way there, and got a seat after a couple stops on the way back. For the return, I boarded at the station closest to the Vatican (the name escapes me, sorry).