NCL Spirit Review w/ pics; 3/5/16-3/12/16

[Mrs.C05]

Well Ethan didn’t want to go to Splash Academy and was very well behaved in La Trattoria. He ate a lot of macaroni for just having pizza 2hrs ago, and then once I was done eating, he crawled in my lap and fell asleep. Once we were done, we came back to the room for the night. He’s been asleep since about 8pm.

 

This was my appetizer, and my entree was Pasta Cabonera (sp?) but I don't have pics of the pasta. I thought the appetizer was done up so well:

 

One thing Tommy said he heard people “complain” about regarding this restaurant was that it isn’t in its own place. If your facing forward on the ship, it’s the southwest quarter of the Raffles Terrace (sorry, that’s work coming out in me) They took part of Raffles, put up a small wall, and then also some 3 section accordion room dividers and named it La Trattoria. They sectioned off the sliding door out to Raffles bar. They were not busy at all. The servers were very nice though and pleasant.

 

I have included a picture of where the ship says La Trattoria is. In looking at this it appears to be on the starboard side of the ship, but when we dined there, we got off the elevator right there outside of it, and went to the right, so that would be the port side side of the ship correct? I could be backwards.

 

 

If I remember correctly though, in walking through Raffles Terrace on morning looking for hot chocolate, I walked right through what is La Trattoria at night. Seems like they set it up each night as a restaurant, and then take everything down so they can use it for breakfast and lunch like it's a full buffet area. Know what I mean? I really should have gotten pictures! Grrrrr!!!

 

The boat is rocking somewhat tonight, and we hear waves every now and then, or what sounds like it. It’s kinda freaking me out. I’m headed to bed to get my mind off the waves. Tomorrow is our tour with Peat Taylor in Ocho Rios.

[Mrs.C05]

Ocho Rios is going to have a lot of pictures, as will GSC, but I gotta get some stuff done so I'll do the next installment later tonight now that my pics are uploaded.

[Mrs.C05]

We wake up and it’s an over cast day when we sail up to Ocho Rios. The NCL Getaway was already docked in port, so we ended up docking at the “factory” or whatever it was.

 

We arrive around 9:30am and we get clearance to disembark right around 10am. We met at Cagney’s with Ms. Florentina who started talking with us about what we were doing. I'm telling her we’re with a private tour and we were to meet at a certain spot but now we’re not at the right dock, she gets her phone out to try and call him, but for some reason her phone drops the call. She tries a few more times, but I tell her not to worry, we’ll find him. She finds it pretty odd though that the call won't go through, and then took us down promptly to get off so we can find him.

 

Since we were not at the designated area as stated in Peat Taylor’s email, we ask someone who points us in the direction of where to meet him. The lady we speak with takes our name and who we’re with before she has someone else call the tour guides. Peat Taylor pulls up in his van so I go talk with him. He recognizes me and pulls around and checks a few things before coming over to get us. He points us to another Peat Taylor bus and said that Clifton and Rafael would be taking us today. We are with a family of 8 also, who was in front of us getting on. We head straight to Dunn River’s Falls, which is pretty busy. In fact the whole island is busy. We grab a locker, get with a guide and start climbing the falls around 11am. The family of 8 go without us, since we aren’t doing it. We weren’t sure how Ethan would do since he doesn’t know how to swim yet. Plus I wouldn’t want him falling.

 

We did follow the group up on the boardwalk, and there were some areas that Tommy was able to get in with Ethan. Ethan certainly enjoyed that. Doing the falls took 1.5hrs, and we return the locker keys (to get $3 back), and then head back to the bus with 5 minutes to spare. Clifton said to meet him back at the bus at 12:30pm.

 

Here are just a few pictures from the falls ;)

 

 

Each tour guide group gets in a line, and holds hands as they start there way up:

 

 

[Mrs.C05]

 

 

 

 

 

[Mrs.C05]

 

 

 

 

 

[Mrs.C05]

 

 

 

On the walk back to the bus, Ethan has found a friend within our bus group, who he later tells me is his girlfriend! This lovely young lady is Drew. She is part of the family of 8 that is with us. All 8 of them are together and we all start chatting on the ride to the Blue Hole of what cruises we’ve been on, etc. The ride takes about 45 minutes and it sure is bumpy! I’d imagine it would be less time, but there was a lot of traffic since another ship was in port.

 

**BEWARE: When walking back to the bus you have to walk through an open market area where they are very pushy on getting you to buy their items (whatever they have in there hut) and if pick it up, it's considered "sold" so you better be prepared to pay! We knew this from before, but Clifton told us this as well before entering for admission to Dunn River's Falls. A simple "No thank you" will do and keep walking.

 

**Another side note: Bring your own water shoes! I thought they'd have them there again for me to rent like last time, but they did not. They had some for sale, and had I known this I would have bought a pair. They would have come in handy for the next part of our tour.....

Edited March 17, 2016 by Mrs.C05

[Mrs.C05]

Sorry, I am so tired so I will try and do some tomorrow on my lunch break! As well as get the dailies all scanned. When I uploaded them, they got out of order so now I don't know which is which.

[Mrs.C05]

YES! I have successfully scanned the Freestyle Daily's! I'll be uploading these at the end of my review instead of some being in the middle of the review, and some at the end.

[TJCrenshaw]

The look on your face when you were told by the Priority Staff at the check in area where our cards were was definitely a good one.

Some people in reviews I read before noted disliking a LOT the whistling noise that comes through the door area where the storm door is on the front balcony. The first night we had some noise, for sure, and that wasn't even the windiest day by any means. The following morning when I went to go out on the balcony, I realized the steward had barely even closed that storm door. It had rained overnight as well, and there was a pool of water in the small walkway between the storm door and the door out of the suite. Every night after that I made a point to go and securely seal that storm door. We didn't have any more whistling after that.

 

Another note to point out is it is mandatory to close your curtains fully at night. There is both a sign in the room that states it, and one night we had them open and the room steward came in and closed them, said the captain called him and asked him to close the blinds on the room below the bridge (which was us). Something about it causes a glare on their windows up there. So no nighttime views over the front of the ship unless you just go out onto the balcony, but even if you do, you can't turn any lights on. This was by no means a deal breaker, but thought it was worth pointing out.

[Mrs.C05]

Walking back to the ship, these 3 windows were pretty cool on the back of the ship. You'll find out later in the review where you are in the ship, when you look outside these windows. Can anyone guess?

I apparently forgot to insert the picture I am talking about ^^^ here.

So, here is the picture I was talking about. I still haven't gotten to this part of the review though of where this is on the ship.

[Mrs.C05]

Grrrrrrr!!!! I'm going to have to redo Ocho Rios because I changed the name of my album in the middle of this, not thinking it would have an affect on my photos, but apparently so, I had to change it back to what it was so that the beginning photos of my review would show up. At least it is only one day to redo. Sorry y'all!!!!

 

MENTAL NOTE: DON'T CHANGE YOUR FOLDER NAME IF YOU WANT YOUR PHOTO URL'S TO STILL BE AVAILABLE.:mad:

[Mrs.C05]

We wake up and it’s an over cast day when we sail up to Ocho Rios. The NCL Getaway was already docked in port, so we ended up docking at the “factory” or whatever it was.

 

We arrive around 9:30am and we get clearance to disembark right around 10am. We met at Cagney’s with Ms. Florentina who started talking with us about what we were doing. I'm telling her we’re with a private tour and we were to meet at a certain spot but now we’re not at the right dock, she gets her phone out to try and call him, but for some reason her phone drops the call. She tries a few more times, but I tell her not to worry, we’ll find him. She finds it pretty odd though that the call won't go through, and then took us down promptly to get off so we can find him.

 

Since we were not at the designated area as stated in Peat Taylor’s email, we ask someone who points us in the direction of where to meet him. The lady we speak with takes our name and who we’re with before she has someone else call the tour guides. Peat Taylor pulls up in his van so I go talk with him. He recognizes me and pulls around and checks a few things before coming over to get us. He points us to another Peat Taylor bus and said that Clifton and Rafael would be taking us today. We are with a family of 8 also, who was in front of us getting on. We head straight to Dunn River’s Falls, which is pretty busy. In fact the whole island is busy. We grab a locker, get with a guide and start climbing the falls around 11am. The family of 8 go without us, since we aren’t doing it. We weren’t sure how Ethan would do since he doesn’t know how to swim yet. Plus I wouldn’t want him falling.

 

We did follow the group up on the boardwalk, and there were some areas that Tommy was able to get in with Ethan. Ethan certainly enjoyed that. Doing the falls took 1.5hrs, and we return the locker keys (to get $3 back), and then head back to the bus with 5 minutes to spare. Clifton said to meet him back at the bus at 12:30pm.

 

Here are just a few pictures from the falls:

 

 

 

 

Each tour guide group gets in a line, and holds hands as they start there way up:

 

 

[Mrs.C05]

More pics from the Fall's:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mrs.C05]

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 17, 2016 by Mrs.C05

[Mrs.C05]

 

On the walk back to the bus, Ethan has found a friend within our bus group, who he later tells me is his girlfriend! This lovely young lady is Drew. She is part of the family of 8 that is with us. All 8 of them are together and we all start chatting on the ride to the Blue Hole of what cruises we’ve been on, etc. The ride takes about 45 minutes and it sure is bumpy! I’d imagine it would be less time, but there was a lot of traffic since another ship was in port.

 

**BEWARE: When walking back to the bus you have to walk through an open market area where they are very pushy on getting you to buy their items (whatever they have in there hut) and if pick it up, it's considered "sold" so you better be prepared to pay! We knew this from before, but Clifton told us this as well before entering for admission to Dunn River's Falls. A simple "No thank you" will do and keep walking.

 

**Another side note: Bring your own water shoes! I thought they'd have them there again for me to rent like last time, but they did not. They had some for sale, and had I known this I would have bought a pair. They would have come in handy for the next part of our tour.....

Edited March 17, 2016 by Mrs.C05

[Mrs.C05]

We arrive at Blue Hole, sign a waiver and then all of us, except Tommy and Ethan, climb more waterfalls. We were here a few years ago, but didn’t do any of the Cool Blue Hole since it wasn’t part of our excursion (we were only here then for a group that was doing it, and felt bad "piggy-backing").

 

I planned on doing it this time and boy was it fun! We go down the stairs and you see a rope climbing waterfall in front of you, and to the left is “The Cool Blue Hole” that you can jump into, but you go to the right first and jump off little cliffs, and then get to the rope climbing waterfall and go down. I did not do this (the repelling), nor did some of the people in our group. Once the 3 that did do it was done, we go back upstairs and head over to another rope swinging area. This one I did with 1 other person in the group, and we jumped off a ledge into the water one at a time, not the rope swinging. I went first and you’ve got to jump straight, like a pencil; 1, 2, 3 JUMP!!!!

 

 

Boy was that exhilarating! Free falling makes your heart go up into your throat. And the water is cold!!!! But this video is a second time, so Tommy could get it recorded and Ethan could see me jump. This was pretty humorous since 2 guys were standing there debating on jumping, and I wanted to get the 2nd one done so we could head back to the bus, so I jumped in front of them since they were taking too long to decide.

 

Once I got done, Tommy told me that one of the guys jumped, but not the other one. Once I was done, we headed back to the bus so we head over and drop the family of 8 off at the tubing. Ever since the Fall's Ethan has been chatting with her off and on. We say bye to her, and head to our “highlights tour” but I am looking at the time, and just want to get back by the ship. It is now close to 3pm and I have no clue how traffic will be later. I say let’s go to Margaritaville, since we haven’t been to this one before, and we’re starving, and once we’re done we’d walk back to the ship. I leave a note for Drew of what room we’re in and my email address, since Ethan enjoyed her company so much. Who knows if we’ll see her again on the cruise?

 

 

Tommy's burger:

 

Ethan and I split the quesadilla, but it was nothing spectacular.

 

We had our photo taken and a guy came around making animal balloons and made Ethan a sword.

 

We enjoy ourselves at Maragaritville, having food and drinks, and watch people dancing. By 4pm we’re done and walking back to the ship. Once on board, we change and then go to deck 7 to watch pier runners, it wasn't time yet for "pier runners", but we do run into Drew and say Hi to her as she gets back on the ship.

[Mrs.C05]

We got back to the room, and found this:

 

 

 

 

 

We head up to the room to get ready for dinner after saying Hi to Drew. We take a few sunset pictures off the balcony.

 

[Mrs.C05]

Dinner tonight is in the main dining room Windows.

 

 

 

 

 

It was all very good. I had the tomato salad, the pork loin and vanilla ice cream, Tommy had the mozzarella sticks, lasagna, and snickerdoodle dessert, and Ethan had a cheeseburger, fries and chocolate ice cream. (Sorry, no pics!)

 

We bring Ethan back to the room since he didn’t want to go to Splash Academy and he passes right out. The boat sure is rocking tonight so I put some MotionEaze behind my ears. I hope it calms down. The last 2-3 days it’s been quite rocky. I don’t know if that’s because we’re on the front of the ship up top or what. I’m going to bed soon so I can hopefully forget about the rocking.

 

[Mrs.C05]

Well I couldn’t sleep very well last night due to the rocking of the ship. We were hitting some swells sideways, and they were some pretty hard ones which would smack the side of the ship and make our room creek with the rocking.

 

We had breakfast at Cagney’s this morning, and took Ethan to Splash Academy from 9:30-11am. We came back to the suite and utilized the Jacuzzi bathtub for a bit and then watched some shows until it was time to go to Cagney’s for information on how to get off for disembarkation.

 

After that we got Ethan and went down to Blue Lagoon for lunch. We hadn’t eaten here yet, but the wings always looked and smelled so good. I ordered the wings and spinach artichoke dip and chips, Tommy got the wings and a Panini and Ethan got chicken fingers and fries.

 

Here is the menu for Blue Lagoon, which is open 24hrs:

 

Today must be the day of running into Drew. We see her after lunch and he tells her about the Circus show he’ll be doing at 4pm. She had come by the room and left us a note too, and said she’ll come see him perform. We come back to the room to find these delicious little treats.....

 

 

I liked the design on this one:

 

......and try to relax a bit but Ethan was too wound up and before we know it, it’s 2pm and it’s time to take Ethan up to Splash Academy for “rehersal”.

 

Once we drop him off Tommy and I head to the casino. The boat is still rocking a good amount, and as long as I am walking around, I am fine. It’s when I stop and am doing nothing that it bothers me.

 

 

 

I run into Drew again and offer her the wine and champagne we have in the room since we aren’t drinking it. She gladly takes it.

Edited March 18, 2016 by Mrs.C05

[Mrs.C05]

We head to Stardust Theater and save some seats for Drew and Ashleigh. It turns out the whole group shows up again – Jeremy & Drew, Ashleigh & her boyfriend, her Mom and Dad and Drew’s Dad and brother.

 

 

 

 

After the show, Jeremy, Drew, Ashleigh & her boyfriend come with us to get Ethan and then we chat by the stairs for a bit after taking pictures.

 

 

Then I invite them to the room, to come see it, and they do. We hang out a bit more, and then part ways since we had an hour to get ready for dinner. I also invited them to join us in getting off priority tomorrow on GSC, and I confirm with Ms. Florentina, since she had said earlier that if we had friends or family that was not priority, they could join you/us.

 

I call and confirm with Florentina and then leave a message on Drew’s phone in there room. Once we are ready for dinner at Teppanyaki’s, we head down to dinner and we run into Drew and the gang again, lol. I tell her about meeting at Cagney’s at 8am, and everyone is in agreement to meet there.

 

We enjoy our dinner at Teppanyaki’s (which you leave stuffed anyways) and head back to the room for bed. We’re getting up early at 7am, so we can meet everyone at Cagney’s at 8am.

 

This little monkey was waiting for us in our room: (sorry my little photographer took this):

 

 

Tomorrow is Ethan’s 4th birthday, and it’s Great Stirrup Cay Day! Yaaaaaayyyy!!!!

[Mrs.C05]

Dinner tonight is in the main dining room Windows.

 

 

 

 

 

It was all very good. I had the tomato salad, the pork loin and vanilla ice cream, Tommy had the mozzarella sticks, lasagna, and snickerdoodle dessert, and Ethan had a cheeseburger, fries and chocolate ice cream. (Sorry, no pics!)

 

We bring Ethan back to the room since he didn’t want to go to Splash Academy and he passes right out. The boat sure is rocking tonight so I put some MotionEaze behind my ears. I hope it calms down. The last 2-3 days it’s been quite rocky. I don’t know if that’s because we’re on the front of the ship up top or what. I’m going to bed soon so I can hopefully forget about the rocking.

 

 

This was "titled" wrong when I posted it. It is not Day 3, it's Day 5 of Ocho Rios still.

[Mrs.C05]

I am backing up to Ocho Rios, because I found some pics that we took on Tommy's underwater camera.....

 

This part of the Blue Hole that we went to. This is the repelling waterfall 3 of the people in our group climbed down. I can't remember who did, but it looks like it was Angel and Brent, and maybe there son Jeremy, or Chance (which is Drew's brother).

 

 

Here is the area for rope swinging and jumping off the ledge where I did as well as Angel (down a little ways, which is why Tommy couldn't see me, til he moved down further to where he got the video).

 

 

 

And we can't forget seeing this in Ocho Rios:

Edited March 18, 2016 by Mrs.C05

[Mrs.C05]

This day starts out with a small remembrance of me starting labor at 3am with Ethan…..and 18hrs later, he was born at 9:25pm.

 

We arrive at Great Stirrup Cay at 7am, if not before then, since we were already here when I looked out the window. Shortly after waking up we hear them letting the anchor out. We get our bathing suits on, spray sunscreen on and we’re off to Cagney’s for priority tendering. Drew and her group arrive just in time, and we’re all guided by Ms. Florentina down to the tender. It takes a bit to load up so we all talk and share stories. About 20 minutes later, we head over to GSC.

 

We have arrived:

 

We arrive around 9am and Drew & her family lead the way of where to go.

 

 

 

 

 

[Mrs.C05]

We find enough chairs for all of us, and we’re parked in an excellent spot. Not far from the bathrooms or the bar!

 

The bar close to our chairs:

 

We take a walk over to the straw market they have, but they were still setting up so no one bought anything.

 

 

 

 

Ethan immediately wants to build sandcastles and play, etc. Everyone is like family now, and have taken Ethan under their wing and played with him.

 

Drew and her Dad, Andrew, played with Ethan the most in the sand building rock castles, sand castles, etc., Ashleigh did too a bit, and the boys, Nick, Jeremy and Chance threw the football with him. We all did our own thing but still hung out from time to time, grabbing drinks and lunch, etc.

 

Around 2:30pm, Tommy, Ethan and I head back to the boat so we can shower and nap before dinner at 6:30pm at Cagney’s tonight.

[Mrs.C05]

More pics: