Norwegian Spirit

We spent 9 nights on the Spirit from Barcelona and back via Madeira, Tenerife, Lanzarote and Malaga the weather was not too bad really hot in The Canaries but very windy in Malaga. We had a midships inside cabin on deck 9 and had no problems with the movement of the ship in fact I had trouble sleeping when I came home the movement of the ship rocked me to sleep every night but I would recommend earplugs we were near some Dutch people who came back to their cabins rather late and they were very noisy. The cabin although not large had everything we needed and yes your cabin steward will get you an iron so don't bother taking one just don't need it on the first day otherwise you have a time slot. We found both Windows and the Garden Room Dining Rooms to be below standard but Raffles more than made up for that the food was brilliant the staff were quick and very helpful. We saw someone drop their food on the floor and within seconds there was a barrier in place so nobody was in danger of slipping up and within 5 minutes it appeared nothing had happened everything had been cleared up. We tried The Bistro (now that's a misnomer!) all I can say is brilliant we eat regularly in France so are used to French food but this was something else; my steak could have been cut with a spoon (and I like mine blue - that is dead but hardly cooked) and I have never had a better meal not cheap but well worth the money. The coach run by NCL is worth taking in to Funchal as it is a fair walk from the dock to the centre of town the market is well worth going to and you could get some interesting pictures. We didn't like Santa Cruz it was very built up and there wasn't much to see in actual fact the nearest I could think of was Benidorm on a bad day! Arricife is fairly small but there are some interesting buildings and some very nice shopping to be had if you look in some of the smaller buildings the market was not open when we were there but there are some clean toilets and a cafe you just have to walk through lots of people to get there (I'm not sure it might have been their Job Centre) and it was very pleasant under the trees. In Malaga there are coaches to the entrance to the port but we took the electric road train which was great it ran about every 20 minutes and we saw most of the port and for 4 Euros each return was really cheap. Malaga has plenty to see and yet again it is worth going to the market (better than anything I've found in England) unfortunately we ran out of time and didn't have time to visit the castle on the hill but we managed the cathedral and had time for tapas a first which we enjoyed. What did we think of the ship well we will be going again (to Greece and Turkey next time) and think that for the money it was good value there is always somewhere to eat (the panini in The Blue Lagoon are to be recommended) and most of the staff are very helpful in fact our Steward was so helpful we put him up for a Vacation Hero and he got the badge so they do reward on the passengers recommendations! We have been on the Sun to the Baltic and the main dining options were much better but otherwise we were impressed.