Jane's NCL Spirit Alaska Cruise - May 2005 
We just returned from our first cruise to Alaska, which
was aboard the Norwegian Spirit. The ship itself is
lovely, and Alaska is beautiful. Having said that, we
found the food on the ship to be mediocre to bad, unless you
paid for the specialty restaurants that had a surcharge, or
ate in the Blue Lagoon Café, where you could get made to order
items. My husband and I are cruise agents, and it was
our 5th cruise on NCL, and in all probability, our last -
if you haven't already booked, I'd recommend taking a different
cruise line. If you have, then be prepared to either
eat in port, or in the Speciality restaurants. On "formal"
night (formal dress is optional), I got the lobster - and
it arrived undercooked, with a black vein running through
it (yecch!), and raw looking claws. Normally, either
the maitre'd or the waiter removes it from the shell; not
in this case, which several passengers commented on.
So I ended up sending it back (I've never done that before),
and got the beef wellington, which was okay. The pastries
and breads were good, as was the Chocoholic buffet.
I wouldn't recommend the specialty restaurant, La Trattoria,
which is up in the Bistro restaurant - the staff there is
Filipino who use Italian phrases (doesn't suit the mood);
they were not courteous, and never asked if we needed anything
once our food arrived (hardly any customers in the area).
The food looked and tasted as if it came out of a Chef Boyardee
can, and we only about a third of it. I ordered the
cheese, foccacia bread and fruit to end the meal and received
a few slices of cheese leftover from the lunch buffet, kind
of dry; 5 crackers instead of the listed foccacia bread; and
7 grapes. We also ate at the buffet restaurant one evening
when they were serving an Asian layout - the items that should
have been crisp and dry, like egg rolls, were soggy and wet.
On a positive note, we found the entertainment throughout
the ship to be very good, and all of my bar drinks were good,
especially the pina coladas (on previous cruises, the quality
has occasionally varied from bar to bar). One of our
favorite spots was The Café', a coffee bar / full bar in the
atrium, behind the staircase - great service, great for people
watching, and just looking out at the sea when it was too
cold or rainy to stay outside.
To answer your question about the drink card for cokes - I
bought about 4 cokes during our cruise, and they only cost
about $1.63 per drink, so unless you plan on drinking a lot
of soft drinks, it might be better to buy them by the glass.
The other thing that was bad was one of the shop clerks in
the Columbia Emeralds gift shop - I took my sister in to look
at some tanzanite/diamond earrings that I was interested in,
which matched my wedding ring. As they were somewhat
pricy, I made the comment to my sister that I wouldn't want
to pay more for the earrings than we had spent for the ring.
At that point, the sales clerk, Ms. Casimer, made the comment
that the stones in my ring were poor quality. I told
her that I had the ring appraised in Atlanta, and she said
the appraisal was based solely on the diamonds, which it wasn't,
and again said that the tanzanite was poor quality.
I then told her that she was speaking of my wedding ring,
and asked if it was the policy of her store to insult the
customers' jewelry. I have addressed this issue with
NCL and Columbia Emeralds, but wanted you to be aware of her
rudeness, as it was totally uncalled for.
Having said all of this, we did have a fantastic time on the
cruise, because we were in Alaska, seeing all the wonderful
sights, and having all of the great new experiences.
We did not let the above ruin our cruise.
Jane Bresler
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