We have been on 5 NCL cruises, The Star, The Epic, and The Spirit. The Star, Epic, and the first of 3 on The Spirit were all great, but the last 2 on The Spirit have not been a good experience for us.

Last year 3 major ports were cancelled because of the weather, and I appreciate that this was just one of those things that could not have been avoided. Our main problem was that we had loud hammering and drilling noise in our stateroom from maintenance work on the deck above. This was every day of the cruise, and apparently there was no other stateroom to move us to. Then we had the problem with Spanish VAT. We had prepaid for a beverage package, as we had done the previous year, with no problems. This second cruise on Spirit was different, we were told that we had to pay VAT while in Spanish waters, even though we had prepaid. On returning home, we found out that we should not have been charged, and it was refunded.

Now onto this years cruise on The Spirit. First of all, we had a gastrointestinal virus on the ship, which was discovered during the first port of call. Obviously measures had to be put in place to avoid it spreading, but we feel that more could have been done to make passengers enjoyment of the cruise better. Read more