Review Spirit 6 Night June 11

[Pepi]

Just a few notes of our experience on the 6 night June 11 sailing with a 10 year-old. Overall, we had a great trip and think it's a great ship.

 

Embarkation was a bit confusing. They had people seated and at times it was confusing as to who was to get on line to check in and as to who remained seated. Once on board, cabins were not available until 2pm. Around 1:00pm, we went to our cabin and asked the steward if we could simply drop off our carry on bags and they were beginning to feel heavy. They allowed this...but doubt they would have if everyone was going to try this as they were working to get the cabins ready.

 

We had a balcony cabin on deck 10 which was a great location as it was just a quick trip down the hall to the arcade, Kids Crew area, and kids pool. Our cabin was fine and our belongings fit fine. No problem with that. The floor of the balcony seemed a bit grungy (parts seemed to need a quick coat of new paint), but the cabin itself was well kept. Beds were a bit uncomfortable, but most nights we were too tired to really care.

 

The Kids Crew desk opened for registration I think from 1:30pm thru 5:00pm..something like that on the of embarkation. You could register your child for the program at this time and once that was done you simply had to sign them in each time they attended. You could also purchase the children's soda card at the Kid's Crew desk for $14. We did this there and our son was provided with a soda wrist band. Only thing I noticed about the soda wrist band was that at times some of the children were ignored by the bartenders at the bars when they tried to get a soda. This made for a long wait at times. One night at the beach party on the private island, my son and a friend stood there while 3 bartenders..with no other guests waiting to order..just ignored them. I eventually had to go up and ask that the children be helped..and they then got sodas promptly. I saw this type of thing also at the Raffles bar as well. Children waiting and were ingored as adults came up and ordered.

 

We purchased an adult soda sticker for $36 to $37 ..it came with an insulated mug.

 

The kids club entrance is right next to the video arcade. I noticed that many children played the games when the kids club let out. The arcade games took quarters and there was a change machine. Every once in a while, our son lost a few quarters in a machine..but there is no attendant in the room and we did not feel like exerting the effort of calling the reception desk.

 

Our son attended the childrens programs on several nights and during one morning and one afternoon. He seemed to enjoy the program. On the last night, the held a pajama party but most kids in the 10-12 age group did not seem to be wearing pajamas. They took them to the teen disco that night for a pre-teen party. Kind of cute. Another night, they took the age group up to the sports deck to play some games like dodge ball ect..

 

The childrens pool area is great. Everyone seems to have a great time with the water falls and the sprinklers there. There was a sign stating the pool was for children only ages 1 thru 12. There was a smaller kiddie pool for toddlers and younger children. The depth of the kids pool ranged from 2 to 3 feet. They said no diapers of any kind were allowed in any of the pools and that children that weren't potty trained were not allowed in.

 

The water temperature of both the kids and main pool was quite warm...which I liked.

 

We spent little time at the main pool area which seemd crowded when we went. The water was enjoyable though and it is a pretty pool deck.

 

We found the entertainment to be ..well, entertaining. I enjoyed it and I think they made a good effort. One thing is that when they had a show, it started at 9:30pm and Kids Crew ended at 10:00pm. This made it difficult for us to see the entire show as we would have to leave to pick up our son. They did offer group babysitting for a fee, but there was nothing we felt we wanted to do that caused us to utilize this service.

 

The food we found to be pretty average. Overall, things looked good in term of presentation..but then lacked taste. I found the beef dishes in Windows to be the best. One night I ordered veal and while it looked good, it was rather tough. The pizza at Raffles buffet was also quite tasteless to me. We always found something to eat..but it wasn't anything great and frankly for the price we paid for the cruise, I imagine they had to cut back somewhere and I would say the food is where they cut back. This didn't really detract from our trip as we were just happy to be enjoying ourselves as a family and the food was really secondary to us.

 

We never had to wait for a table at Windows. We never went before 6:30pm though. One night, the serivce was super slow and it seemed we were there forever. I went through an appetizer, salad and had my entree in front of my before I could even get a glass of ice tea. The wait staff seemed overloaded. Yet another night, we went about 8pm and were whizzed in an out of there!

 

The ship itself was beautiful and very pleasant to be on. I enjoyed the size of the ship as well. My husand used the internet service with no problems.

 

While in Port Canaveral, we did Disney for the day. We had already purchased the transportation through the cruise line and then heard about the tropical depression. Unfortunately they don't allow you to cancel an excursion less than 24 hours proior to arrival at the pier. And our tickets stated that the excursion went "rain or shine". Would have liked to have changed to the Space Center..but we did Magic Kingdom in the rain. Though there were periods of very heavy down pours, we had a great time. We donned ponchos and baseball hats and went about our day. I would say we went on 8 or so rides. It was a very costly day..but definately a fun one.

 

We did the swim with Sting Ray excursion at Nassau. They took us on a ferry boad over to a little island. There was not time to even peek into a shop in Nassau as the excursion took up our entire time there. We enjoyed the excursion and I would be more than happy to answer any particuluar questions about it.

 

The day on GSC was nice...but it is a crowded beach area. The snorkeling there is nice. We brought our own gear and just checked out free life vests. The party on GSC the night we docked was "okay". It was nice to get off the ship...but we didn't do much there. We didn't see the limbo entertainer. There was a crowd of people gathered round that area and we did not feel like dealing with it. The Kids Crew had a scavanger hunt which seemed pretty lame to us, but our son enjoyed it a little bit and it gave him something to do. The food was not too good at the beach party or during the next day there.

 

It seemed something happened to one of the tenders on the night of the beach party..so there was a long line to get back to the ship.

 

Blue Lagoon, the 24 hour restuarant seemd to get crowded later at night and it was a bit of a wait for food. We ordered from room service late at night twice. The pizza is like microwave type and chocolate mousse was tasteless. The noodle soup was okay. But it was good to have access to a snack when we were too tired to leave the cabin. The food came promptly within 1/2 hour like they said it would.

 

The casino was nice. I won a little money there.

 

The atrium area was very pleasant and at night they sometimes had live music there. It was very nice to sit and have a drink and listen.

 

I guess the biggest drawback for the trip would be the food. But as noted, I knew it got mixed reviews prior to sailing and I can't say we could expect too much more in quality for what we paid. All in all, we got a beautiful ship, relaxation, some decent fun time off the ship and a child that had a wonderful, wonderful time. Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves.

[Pepi]

In regard to the food, I just read on another thread about the same sailing that it seems some became ill.

 

The first night, I became ill for about 2 hours..severe stomach cramps and other fun stuff..you know what I mean!. I had eaten the baby shrimp at Windows that night and after a few bites noticed a strong iodine-like aftertaste so stopped eating it after that. After that experience, I didn't eat any more seafood during the sailing..and they had lobster one night.

 

Our son also felt ill the last night of the sailing...same thing as I had...sever stomach cramps that left him in tears for a short period.

Both incidents were short lived and occured at bedtime, so did not interfere with much.

[Maryfrei]

Thanks, Pepi, for the review. Did you try any of the Specialty restaurants?

[Pepi]

Thanks, Pepi, for the review. Did you try any of the Specialty restaurants?

 

Welcome. No, we did not try the speciality restaurants...mostly because we did not feel like making reservations. We are very fly by the seat of our pants on vacation. We did hear others say that they were very good and it's nice that they are there as nice dining options.

[Pepi]

Had read some things about blow dryers and voltage of the electrical outlets before we sailed. I did not bring a blow dryer and just used the one in the cabin. It worked okay...took a little longer to dry my hair..but it worked. Our electical things worked fine without a converter. We recharged our cell phone and video camara battery and had no problem without a converter.

 

One cute thing the Kids Crew did was have the Captain go to Kids Crew on the last day of sailing and answer questions from the kids. Sounded like a great thing.

 

There were 2 optional formal nights. I was surprised to see that even on the optional formal nights, they allowed people in the main dining room with jeans and sneakers. I also saw a man in shorts and open toe sandals. Overall, the dress code was very lax.

 

On GSC, they had brief massages available. I think you could make an appointment for these prior to arrival there.

 

We read something in the FreeStyle daily that they left in our room that one day they were having a talent competition for guests. The winner was to get a free cruise. Would have liked to have seen this, but we were to busy relaxing! So if you have a talent..brush up on it before you sailing and maybe you'll win a free cruise!

 

We did the express disembarkation off the ship. They left a form in our cabin explaining it. If we wanted to do this, we had to hand in the form by 6pm the night prior to docking. We brought the form up to the reception desk and they gave us yellow stickers for our room cards to show we were signed up for this option. We just walked off the ship with our luggage. There was a bit of a line..but that's how things like this go in life.

[sweetpea-2]

nice review........strange about the mousse not having much flavor as on her sister ship the Dawn is was excellent.....sounds like you had a great time thou

[Pepi]

Thanks SweetPea...our son liked the mousee. My husband and I thought it lacked taste.

We do like richer tasting foods..so that could be it too. In the main dining room, the butter used for our bread was unsalted..I use salted at home..so it tasted bland to me. Could just be personal taste. I haven't been on the Dawn..but I am gathering the food is better on that ship (?) from what I seem to have read.

The cream of cauliflower soup was watery..I am used to thicker cream soups.

 

I have been on Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Holland and Carnival..so have some basis for comparison.

 

Yes...we had a wonderful time!

[judyf]

Our electical things worked fine without a converter. We recharged our cell phone and video camara battery and had no problem without a converter.

 

Nice review thanks for posting. I've been asking and looking for an answer to this question. Thanks for all the details.