Negative reviews on Spirit to Alaska

[cruisingnana]

Seems like the majority of posted reviews are negative.   Anyone have any thing positive to say about the ship?  Am considering it for next May.

[csm5986142]

I'm surprised to hear that, but I haven't been reading the Alaska reviews.  It's been a while but we have been on Spirit (and her sister ships) multiple times and really like the Spirit class, but I suppose it depends on what you are looking for.  It is definitely an older ship, and does not have as much to do as the Vista or Excel class.  But if you want a nice relaxing vacation without waiting in a lot of lines, and just a less crowded feel overall, the Spirit class ships are the best.  I love the "jungle" on the promenade deck (unique to spirit class ships).  The spirit class also offers the best space ratio per passenger across the Carnival fleet.  We could always find a quiet place (both inside and out) to relax or read.  On some of the newer ships there are times when you can't find a table hear the buffet because they are so crowded, that is not an issue on these ships.  We have found the crew on the smaller ships to be outstanding (they explained to me that the more experienced crew prefer working on the smaller ships).  If I remember correctly, Spirit has a retractable roof over one of their pools, making it ideal for Alaska. But I should clarify, decor and things like that don't matter that much us (we do care that it's clean/maintained) so I don't recall for sure, but I'm guessing Spirit has the older classic interior design/decor.

We are booked on a 16 day cruise next fall on Spirit and are really looking forward to it. 

[CruisingFromLA]

It is understandable that there is a lot of negatives lately as Carnival has had so many cut backs and it is interfering with guest experiences onboard. I know I was getting quite frustrated with several things when I was on board my Alaska cruise this past summer on the Carnival Spirit. However, here are a few positives.

 

Soul Play is great and I wish they would have it on more ships. Make sure you line up early, I got there 30 mins before sign-ups began and the line was quite long. I ended up not getting my preferred time/activity because it was already full. Note, you will not be able to sign up for everyone in your party as you can only sign up for an activity for yourself + 1 additional person. So if you are a party of 4, make sure 2 of you guys are there to be able to sign up for all of you.

 

There are 2 places to get specialty coffee (deck 2 and deck 9). Deck 2 tends to be busy, so I would go to deck 9 near the Serenity area and there is rarely a line there. 

 

The retractable roof over the pool is a nice touch for those cold sea days.

 

Overall, I personally would not sail on her again unless it was the only ship with the itinerary that I wanted. There were just far more negatives that outweighed the positives on the Carnival Spirit for me.

[Cushing985]

JAN19872016 is doing a review now live from the Spirit (B2B2B, Alaska, Panama Canal and Carribean).  He covered Alaska already and the ship is heading for the Panama Canal.  I think, overall, they're having a great time.  Take a look at it and form your own opinion.  I was last on the Spirit back in 2014 for a Hawaiian cruise and loved the size of the ship.  I didn't like the interior (Farcas design) but it didn't bother me after a couple of days.

[havanadaydreaming]

i love the Spirit class.   we sailing her this December out of miami.   

[LuvCruiSun]

We sailed Spirit to Alaska last month and everything was great! We prefer the Spirit class over the newer ships!

 

[Indytraveler83]

My parents just got off the Spirit a few months ago.  They had a wonderful time overall.

 

On the negative side, they enjoyed the decor less than on other Carnival ships and they said the ship was showing some cosmetic signs of wear.  While she did get the new paint scheme in 2021, it sounds like the last time the ship got a good "refresh" was 2018.  

 

Overall, you are looking at a ship with a great layout and one of the best space ratios for passengers in mass market cruising.  However, you are also looking at the oldest example of such.  Keep that in mind, and you should have a great time, as Alaska is all about the scenery, not the ship.

[RockHoundTX]

We did Alaska on the Spirit back in June. Definitely an older ship with a 1980's vibe and decor. My teen kids (who have done 20+ cruises) actually liked that. Since it was an Alaska cruise, you really don't need as many "extras" of the huge ships since you should be on the upper deck looking for wildlife anyway. 

 

As for plusus and minuses:

 

Food was OK but not great. Guy's Burgers was generally good but they did not have the good french fries on that trip. Unfortunatly, they also no longer had the tortilla bowls at the Blue Iguana but that seems to be fleet-wide. 

Not nearly eneough time in ports. They seemed to cut the time in ports by half (or at least 25%) compared to our previous Alaska cruises. Not sure why they did this other than fuel saving by being able to go slower. 

Lots of broke stuff. Weather was fantastic but slides were only open twice (and broke down after about an hour 1 time and after 15 minutes the second time). 

At least back in June, the ship was way understaffed. Not sure if that has changed or not. It was clear that some staff really did not want to be there (some we talked to were on their 3rd "mandatory" contract extension) but overall the staff was friendly and tried to be helpful.  

The positives is that it never felt crowded even though we were at full capacity.

The layout of the ship is WAY better than the Vista class. 

The Naturalist they had on the ship was great and very informative.

The dancers and singers were actually pretty good (better than our two previous Carnival cruises this year)

The Fun Squad was fairly low-key but still fun which was probably appropriate given the older clientelle vs other Carnival ships/desitinations. 

 

As long as you don't have "pre-Covid cruise expectations", you should be fine. 

[groundloop]

I was on Spirit's third cruise out of Jacksonville after she came back into service...... Once we got past the disorganization at the port everything was great.  Spirit was in great condition, I had no complaints whatsoever.

[CruizinSusan70]

12 hours ago, cruisingnana said:

Seems like the majority of posted reviews are negative.   Anyone have any thing positive to say about the ship?  Am considering it for next May.

Assuming you want 7 days out of Seattle, another Carnival option would be the Luminosa coming over from Costa.  The newest ship doing that 7 day  itinerary out of Seattle though is the Discovery Princess, which has an upgrade feature of 50 per person per day, which covers gratuities, wifi and drinks package. Much better value than what Carnival offers. Food for thought.

[cruisingnana]

11 hours ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

Assuming you want 7 days out of Seattle, another Carnival option would be the Luminosa coming over from Costa.  The newest ship doing that 7 day  itinerary out of Seattle though is the Discovery Princess, which has an upgrade feature of 50 per person per day, which covers gratuities, wifi and drinks package. Much better value than what Carnival offers. Food for thought.

Have a super casino deal thats good until end of October on Carnival.

[kona_wahine]

I was on the june 29th and my only negative would be the food but would say the same about the Magic in March. But I think that’s just Carnival overall. That’s ok, trying to lose weight anyway! Lol. But the cruise itself was magnificent! I also went on NCL Encore in May and had just as good of time on both.

[cruisequeen4ever]

I think on any given ship at any given time you’re going to hear different experiences. The funny thing is that one of my favorite cruise blogs from this Alaska season was the lady from Alaska who sailed on the Spirit with her boyfriend! I wish I could remember her name, but if you read her account, it may help.

[firefly333]

On 9/23/2022 at 10:18 AM, cruisingnana said:

Seems like the majority of posted reviews are negative.   Anyone have any thing positive to say about the ship?  Am considering it for next May.

I did miracle to alaska and loved it.

 

I doubt the comments are specific to the ship which has a nice lay out, roomy per pax. 

 

No one likes cut backs or higher charges