12 Day Grand Mediterranean Review on the Norwegian Spirit

[nolatravelgirl]

Part 7

 

As if we didn’t already eat enough on our food tour we decided to take our tour guide’s recommendation and had dinner in Barcelona at Cuidad Condal which was a few blocks down on La Rambla from the Le Meridien. I knew we were in for something good when the tables outside were packed and so were the tables inside. We had about a 30 minute wait for a table but we had a beer while we waited and salivated for all the foods on display.

 

 

The food did not disappoint and the bill was very reasonable. We ordered a bunch of montoditos (assorted tapas served atop crusty bread) and some other seafood based tapas. All the food was fresh and was worth the wait. Our total bill was 47 Euros and we had plenty of food and wine and was a much better use of Euros considering what we got the night before.

 

It was finally time to crash as we would board the ship tomorrow! This was my first trip to Barcelona and we really didn’t see any of the major attractions. Jenidallas had been previously and decided to stay back at the hotel the following morning while I went out to see Sagrada Familia. I logged on that night and was lucky to score a ticket for a 10:30am entrance with audio guide for 19.50 €

TIP: Book your tickets in advance! There was a long holding pen of people without timed tickets waiting to get inside. I would not recommend waiting to the last minute to book tickets but in the end it worked out okay for me. There were only 2 tickets left for 10:30 when I logged in so this was just dumb luck on my part.

 

The following morning I dragged out of bed and checked with the concierge about public transport. Ultimately I decided that time was a bigger priority so I jumped into a taxi; 10 minutes later and 6 euros poorer I was at Sagrada Familia. I had about a half hour before my timed ticket so I found a nearby café and had a quick breakfast. I had a coffee and some sort of orange flavored pain perdu (French toast)

 

 

I finally was able to get inside so I made my way to the “birth” side of the building. You know you are in the right place if you see the manger scene above the door

 

 

I had to stand in a second line to pick up my audio guide. It was the type that looked like a bar that you held up to your ear.

 

TIP: If you plan renting audio guides or are going on any organized tour that includes audio then go ahead and bring your own earbuds. The bar style guides have a jack on the side where you could plug in your own headset so you can free your hands for picture taking or if you want to save a few bucks two people can use the same guide since one can us the bar and one can use the jack with a personal headset.

 

I found the audio guide helpful and it pointed out several things that I may not have noticed on my own.

 

Here is a shot of me before I went inside. Please note that if you really want to see great photos of these places then you are better served looking on Wikipedia. These were my vacation snaps and I pretty much photo bombed every major site on this cruise.

 

[TMS9539]

Thanks so much for the awesome detailed review. We're doing this cruise next year and I can't wait to read more!

[nolatravelgirl]

Part 8

 

I was finally ready to head inside the cathedral. I had done no research on this site so I was practically flying blind. Even though this is a work in progress it is still gorgeous. The stained glass was amazing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The back side of the church shows the death of Christ in about nine carvings. Such a different style from the birth side, but still stunning

 

My time was quickly running to an end so I was sad to go, but the excitement of the ship was awaiting us! I hopped another 6 € taxi back to the Le Meridien where we finished packing , checked out and got a taxi to the port! A taxi from La Rambla to the port was reasonable, though I didn’t write it down. I think it was in the 20€ range. Porters came over and took the bags directly from the trunk (for a tip of course) and we didn’t see the bags again till they were delivered to our stateroom.

[montecarloss]

What gorgeous pictures! Thanks for sharing.:)

[blan2]

Thank you so much for sharing your review. I look forward to your next posts!

[elmsliebev]

Loving your review. I'm a huge tapas fan too & we had a gorgeous lunch at Cuidad Condal this February. Looking forward to the next instalment!

[BlueJai]

Following along! Looks like you are having a great time so far. We haven't done the Med yet but are booked on the Spirit once she comes to Canaveral so I am looking forward to your thoughts on the ship. The Med is on the bucket list a few years out so looking forward to more.

Thanks!

[nolatravelgirl]

Part 9

 

We finally made it inside the terminal sometime between 1:30 and 2:00pm. There was barely a line at check in and we were called up to a waiting guest services desk within a minute or two. They processed our credit cards and made our ship board cards. I am glad they don’t put your photo on the ship card as they did on one of my Seabourn cruises.

 

Barcelona is really a great city and unless I was from Barcelona and had no reason to sightsee then I am confused as to why people camp out in the terminal trying to be the first one’s on the ship, especially the Spirit when docked in the Med. I could understand if someone wanted Vibe passes on the larger ships but every specialty dining except the chef’s table can be pre-booked online. We were able to walk on the ship with no waiting.

 

TIP: If you know you want to do specialty dining then go ahead and book online before you leave home. No sense in spending time waiting in line when you could be having fun!

 

We boarded mid ship on Deck 7 in the atrium and it definitely had a different feeling than Seabourn. There was activity everywhere you turned. Some of the activity was good and some of it was bad. There were temporary tables set up in the atrium selling drink packages and there was also a long line for the shore excursion and a dining reservation line. Do most people not realize that this can all be handled prior to boarding? It seems that having all these lines in the atrium isn’t the best use of space. Couldn’t they at least move shore excursion/dining reservation booking to the theater where people could sit down and wait. It just seems like it would make more sense. Heck, they could even have roaming waiters selling cocktails if they wanted to make the wait more palatable.

 

We caught an elevator up to the 10th floor where our balcony cabin was waiting for us. I was a little taken aback by the size. Yes I knew not to expect Seabourn suite size rooms, but it was tight. A few little nitpicky things were that there was only a bedside lamp on side of the bed and there was this large tray with coffee set up on the only desk. We quickly found our room steward and had her remove the coffee set up as there was a distinct lack of flat surfaces in the room.

 

The other thing that I found annoying was the motel 6 style hangers where the ring stays attached to the bar and you hang the hanger from the bar We had 20 hangers so there were an okay amount of hangers.

 

TIP: If I were to go back again I would throw in 10 or so dry clean thin wire hangers and then just leave them in the room at the end of the trip if you have a lot to hang up.

 

 

The bathroom was bigger than I thought it would be even though the sink area lacked any real counter space. The shelves by the mirror were big enough for smaller items. The rest we just kept in makeup bags and just stored o the little shelf under the sink. The shower was actually bigger than the Seabourn shower, but the difference is Seabourn has a separate soaking tub and a giant double sink area, so not exactly an even trade.

 

Here are a few snaps of the room after being in the room for a few days. This is what it looks like with all our stuff!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[nolatravelgirl]

Part 10

 

More pictures of the room

 

I know this room can sleep 3 and the sofa folds out into a bed. I couldn't imagine having three people in this room as the entire room would have been nothing bed. If the sofa bed were extended then it would have blocked access to the balcony.

 

[

 

TIP: Another place you should NEVER underestimate is your under bed storage. The suitcases fit nicely underneath and can easily slide in and out. I used one suitcase as my dirty clothes bin and one to put souvenirs and other things in as I purchased them in port.

 

 

The balcony was definitely smaller than Seabourn. On Seabourn there was a smallish table that was big enough for two people to sit comfortably outside for a meal.

[Cruisermom2nick]

What room # did you have? Thanks for this great review! :)

[nolatravelgirl]

What room # did you have? Thanks for this great review! :)

NCL Spirit Room 10558

[nolatravelgirl]

Part 11

 

The bathroom was divided into three areas:

Toilet in small “closet” with a frosted glass door

Sink area in the middle

Walk in shower with a clear door

 

You had to step up into the bathroom which is always fun to remember to do in the middle of the night. I had nightmares worrying about the tiny bathroom. It proved to not be awful. The shower was more spacious than I was expecting, my biggest gripe was the wall mounted dispensers and the tile on the floor and the grout in the shower was pretty grimey. There was also several broken tiles that were loose on the floor in front of the sink. This I thought was a hazard and housekeeping never reported the broken tiles to maintenance for repair. We ended up just throwing the terrycloth bathmat over the broken pieces to protect our feet.

 

Note the Asian style wall mounted hair dryer. It was pretty bad and if I had known it was this type of dryer I would have brought my own.

 

The little fishy tile was very reminiscent of the 1980s Golden Girls house, that along with the blue wavy carpet in the bedroom cheapened the “feel” of the room. If you look at the renderings on the NCL website the rooms have a much more stylish look than what is actually delivered.

 

There was no light in the shower part of the bathroom

 

Note the condition of the wall tile. On the plus side the shower had awesome shower pressure, just be sure to press the button on the left knob to turn the water pressure up to full strength

 

 

[blan2]

Part 11

 

The bathroom was divided into three areas:

Toilet in small “closet” with a frosted glass door

Sink area in the middle

Walk in shower with a clear door

 

You had to step up into the bathroom which is always fun to remember to do in the middle of the night. I had nightmares worrying about the tiny bathroom. It proved to not be awful. The shower was more spacious than I was expecting, my biggest gripe was the wall mounted dispensers and the tile on the floor and the grout in the shower was pretty grimey. There was also several broken tiles that were loose on the floor in front of the sink. This I thought was a hazard and housekeeping never reported the broken tiles to maintenance for repair. We ended up just throwing the terrycloth bathmat over the broken pieces to protect our feet.

 

Note the Asian style wall mounted hair dryer. It was pretty bad and if I had known it was this type of dryer I would have brought my own.

 

The little fishy tile was very reminiscent of the 1980s Golden Girls house, that along with the blue wavy carpet in the bedroom cheapened the “feel” of the room. If you look at the renderings on the NCL website the rooms have a much more stylish look than what is actually delivered.

 

There was no light in the shower part of the bathroom

 

Note the condition of the wall tile. On the plus side the shower had awesome shower pressure, just be sure to press the button on the left knob to turn the water pressure up to full strength

 

 

 

I feel that I will have to bring a scrub brush and some cleaner to try to get the tiles and grout clean before using the shower. Everything else looks fine, but the shower actually looks pretty bad.

[nolatravelgirl]

Part 12

I guess now that I have brought up the state of the bathroom tile I will give a full assessment on the room steward for this trip before diving into more detail of the rest of the ship and our first day experiences. I heard how other people gushed and raved about how awesome the cabin stewards were that I was expecting great service. The room attendant was certainly very nice but at the end of the day I don’t really think that housekeeping was her calling.

 

I hate to be negative as the rest of my review of the crew (to be detailed in turn) is largely positive so I hate to start with the low point.

 

Many times towels were not consistently replaced, even when taking the dirty ones. Secondly, I had issue with the sheets always coming loose from the bed. This was pretty gross to me since there was no mattress pad on the bed. I finally figured out the culprit being her “interesting” approach to making a flat sheet fit the bed.

 

 

We also would frequently bring back beer or wine glasses to the room in the evening and we would come back from touring to still find the empty bottles and glasses on the desk. This led me to do something I loathe doing which is to leave dishes in the hallway. I find leaving dirty dishes in the hall as rather unsightly and unsanitary. I don’t think there is a systemic housekeeping issue, but I think this was a one off issue with this housekeeper. We did not leave an additional tip

[rochelle_s]

Really enjoying your review. My solution to the problem of the glassware not being picked up is to put it on the counter in the bathroom when I leave in the morning. I have never had a time the steward did not take it when I have done that.

 

Looking forward to reading the rest of your trip report.

 

 

Rochelle

[CincyJen]

I'm loving this review. Thanks so much and I hope all the encouragement keeps these terrific reports coming!

[SwissLe]

Oh my, a housekeeper that doesn't know hospital corners is like a bus driver without a license! I would send these pictures to head office, simple retraining could ensure this is rectified.

[cardbucfan]

We had similar issues with our steward on the Getaway. The only time dirty glassware was taken away was when we put it in the bathroom and we never got replacement beach towels. It actually got to be a running joke with my husband and me about what he'd forget to give us each day!

[clarkg]

I'm enjoying your review!

 

We did this cruise too. Loved it. The only difference it that we started in Venice and ended in Barcelona.

 

I did a cruise blog of it too. Might be interesting to compare.

 

http://clarkanddeb.blogspot.com/2014_09_01_archive.html

Edited September 10, 2015 by clarkg

[dexddd]

Thanks for the review and pictures thus far. We are sailing the Spirit for the 2nd time coming up in December so your pics are nice to see as well as the commentary.

[nolatravelgirl]

Part 13

 

Here is the Day 1 Freestyle Daily

 

Okay enough about Housekeeping. I was finally ready to experience this ship. We had one order of business and that was the muster drill. We headed to our station and I took a selfie with the statue at the back of our station.

 

 

One of the things I was never a fan of on Seabourn was the somewhat sleepy sail away parties. Sure there were passed canapes and trays of champagne, but I really wanted to have a lively sail away. We headed up to Deck 12 and went exploring. I wanted to check out the buffet and was pleasantly surprised by the food displays. Yes it was busy, but I think NCL did a great job of setting up neat and attractive stations that were logically laid out and helped with traffic flow. I didn’t see any long lines or giant institutional size food basins. The carving station looked especially tempting.

 

 

The dining tables looked a bit “cafeteria” style, but I understand the need to have tables that can be quickly wiped down between guests. Due to the amount of people who use this space there maybe could be some improvements in adding some more sound absorbing materials to help with some of the noise.

 

 

 

Another thing that I appreciated was all the napkins were cloth, even in the buffet. I loathe paper napkins. I am sure this is more due to the need to not produce excessive paper waste, but I still was very happy with it.

 

Since we UDP our first night was dining in Cagney’s steakhouse. Sorry didn’t photo bomb my food, but I had the petite flilet and a baked potato. The potato was small and the waiter came by with a tray with cheese, sour cream, chives and bacon bits. You could customize your potato to your liking. The steak was very good and was cooked properly. Not much else to say about it.

 

We had an evening cocktail at Maharini’s Bar which frankly was pretty dead. I was really bummed that no one was out. We learned afterwards that all the “fun” was being had up on Deck 12 at Galaxy of the Stars. GOTS is definitely the after dinner place if you don’t wish to take in a show at the theater. Maharinis is the late night dance club.

 

Next up is our first port Toulon, France where we went wine tasting!

[Emperor Norton]

How are the clientele now that it's not around Halloween?

[nolatravelgirl]

Part 14

 

Port: Toulon, France

Day 2 – Freestyle Daily

 

 

Today we docked in Toulon, France at 8:00am which seemed super early as I had not yet fully adjusted to the time change. We had found out about a private Provence Wine Tour from our Cruise Critic Roll Call. We booked directly with the company and were glad we booked this one early as it is run by a small company and they were sold out for the day. Our guide/driver was the owner of the company. She was telling us that she only had 4 guides and each tour holds 8 people.

 

We all packed into Mercedes minivan. Two people had to sit on the bench seat with the driver. We were on our way and the guide gave us some history of the Bandol wine region. We turned onto a fairly rustic road and I knew that we were definitely not going somewhere that the big tour companies would even be able to get to. We stopped at the picturesque Chateau de Pibarnon

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2015 by nolatravelgirl

[nolatravelgirl]

Part 15

 

We all headed back to the van to drive to another picturesque winery for yet another tasting. The next stop was Domaine Bunan

 

 

 

 

 

[

 

The rose wines at both wineries were lovely. If it wouldn’t have been such a pain to pack them in my suitcase I may have brought some home. I also appreciated that neither winery was pressuring us to buy wine. They almost seemed indifferent as to whether we did or not.

[Ilikebigboats]

Yay! Just found your review, we are doing the reverse itinerary next June. Love your writing style and I appreciate your helpful tips. I can't wait to read more of your exciting adventures!