May 2014-Our Honeymoon

The following day after our wedding in Key West, FL, my wife and I flew out of Miami to beautiful and amazing Venice, Italy!  We stayed in Venice for two days before boarding the Norwegian Spirit for the start of our 12 day cruise around the Mediterranean.  Our first impressions of the interior were that it was nice, clean and recently upgraded.  We've been on 5 other cruises to compare and the Spirit fell in the middle; it was not amazing, but it was nice.  It was to be expected for an older boat.  This cruise is all about the amazing ports of call.  You will need to take lots of tours which can get expensive and can be exhausting at times.  Mykonos, Greece is beautiful!  Kusadasi, Turkey has the ancient town of Ephesus which is a must see!  Rome, you have to tour the historic downtown!  The Amalfi Coast in Greece is miraculous!  The list goes on and on, but Cinque Terre in Italy, the 5 small villages was my favorite!  There are 10 ports of call and only 2 sea days so there's not alot of time spent on the boat.  When on the boat, we found the dining room food rather disappointing.  The speciality dining was much better, but with an upcharge.  There's a teppanyaki japanese hibachi table that we ate at twice because we love japanese food.  The steak house and italian restaurant where o.k. and the french bistro was the best.  The entertainment onboard was above average.  The violinist was one of the best in the world, the magician was as good as David Copperfield, the acrobats where fun to watch, and the cruise staff performance at the end of the cruise was very well done.  We had an interior room which was the cheapest so it wasn't great.  The room could have used some upgrades to the furnishings.  The staff on board was very friendly and accomodating. The spa was nice.  The cruise director, Geo was a nice guy.  To offer criticism, when the staff spoke in English to everyone (English is the spoken language on board), they would then follow with what they just said but this time in Spanish.  Very annoying and I'm sure that there were only a few Spanish speaking people on board that didn't already understand what was said in English the first time it was said.   The casino was small and full of smoke, but that's to be expected I suppose.  The club behind the casino was under-utilized; there wasn't a DJ in the club many nights and when there was, he was playing Latin music.  I really have nothing else bad to report. I recommend this cruise to anyone that wan't to see some beautiful places throughout the Mediterranean!  4 out of 5 stars.