Wind Spirit Review

[Seberus]

My wife and I just got back from a terrific trip on Wind Spirit from St. Thomas to several Caribbean islands.

Embarkation; Smooth , effortless and a real pleasure. The Captain is there to greet you along with the Chief Stewart and some of the other officers. You are whisked into the lounge where you go through some formalities while sipping a rum punch and muching on some very nice canapes.

The cabins:

Small , compact and very , very nice. A flat screen TV, a large queensize bed, plenty of closet space and a compact bathroom with stand up shower. The bathroom ammenities from Occitane are quite nice. DVD player and a great Bose ipod station ( they will also lend you an ipod, tho we brought our own)

The Staff;

Everyone is lovely, they are very friendly and eager to be helpful in every way. The cabin stewart who worked with us was excellent practically invisible. I am not the neatest person in the world , our room was shipshape several times a day. The waiters and stewarts immediately remembered us by name, were anticipatory in our wishes , and left nothing to be desired.

The Food;

Just great! From Breakfast to dinner , thoughtful, not too large portions and great variety.

Tea time ( 4 to 5:30) on the Deck, was something we learned to avoid because they always had an ice-cream something ( bananas flambe, cherries jubilee etc.) which our waistlines could not afford but looked to tempting to miss.

they have, at least on the Caribbean cruise, a barbeque on deck on the fourth night. It was truly spectacular, lobster, steak, roast pork etc. etc.a feast.

The entertainment:

Almost non existent. There is a gentleman at the piano, on deck who is in charge of all music ( except piped in ) we saw him playing the sax as well....other than he....on the 5th night they brought a "Caribbean duo" aboard who played oldies with a Raggae beat ( Bob Dylan would have giggled).

There is a video library which is nice, but no great new stuff and a DVD player in your room. We brought some DVD's we had rented and had a great time in the evening....also the ship runs three reasonably recent movies, continuously through the day.

Port of Call:

Terrific spots on terrific Islands.

In my humble opinion Windstar should rethink what they charge you for the port services. To charge you 35 dollars per person to get you to the Airport after the cruise when you could get there by Cab for 7 is really silly. The rest of the offering are equally inhospitable. When everything else is so lovely and gracious , it is silly to charge over 100 dollars for a massage. Etc.

Ditto for such things as charging for water ....just add it to the cost of the cruise....

 

The final day on Virgin Gorda was stupendous. They rent a beach spot not far from the ship , ferry you over and it is absolutey delightfu.

The Passengers;

We met several lovely couples on the cruise. Mostly retired , and semi retired mostly folks who are quite fit.

There is no elevator and you have to climb several stairs to get from one place to another so it is not really handicap friendly.

 

All in all it was a terrific experience and we look forward to taking the same ship on a Greek Island trip.

[wagsalot]

Seberus - my husband andI were on that same cruise 1/27 - 2/3. We loved everything. Virgin Gorda and Tortola were absolute favorites- to the point that we are looking into a villa rental in those two places with four others in the summer of '08.

To be honest, the lack of "entertainment" didn't bother us at all. And I agree on the water policy. They add extra in for tips - add extra in for water, soda, etc, too.