Norwegian Spirit 2026 Review: Alaska, Hawaii and a Hurricane

Cruise Radio: Weekly Cruise News & Travel Tips

Ben reviews a 16-night 'Ice and Fire' cruise aboard the Norwegian Spirit, traveling from Vancouver to Honolulu. The episode details his expe

Key takeaways

• The Norwegian Spirit's massive renovation makes the 1998-built ship feel like a modern vessel with updated aesthetics.
• Using the Norwegian Cruise Line credit card can allow passengers to upgrade from inside staterooms to balconies using points.

Main topics

• Norwegian Spirit Ship Review
• Alaska Port Excursions

Notable quotes

It really felt like three different cruises because you have About five or six days in Alaska, five days at sea in the middle, and then another five days in Hawaii.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a comprehensive guide for travelers considering

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) Amazon Great Indian Festival is here. Amazon Speaker 1 (0:06) Great Speaker 5 (0:20) Indian Festival is here. This is Cruise Radio. Cruise Speaker 3 (0:32) Radio is brought to you in part by TripInsurance.com. Travel insurance done right by the people who know travel insurance. Get a quote today at TripInsurance.com. Speaker 2 (0:42) Broadcasting from the TripInsurance.com studios in Jacksonville, Florida. This Speaker 5 (0:46) is Speaker 2 (0:46) Cruise Radio. In Speaker 3 (0:48) August, Ben took a cruise aboard Norwegian Spirit. It was from Vancouver, British Columbia to Honolulu, Hawaii. It's what NCL calls their ice and fire cruise. He joins us on the line to talk all about it. How you doing, Ben? Hey, Doug. Speaker 4 (1:02) Thanks for having me back. Speaker 3 (1:03) I can't wait to hear about this itinerary and the 16 nights along with a little bit of a tropical activity, we'll call it, that you encountered near Hawaii. So before we get to that, give us some pre-cruise thoughts. What made you want to jump on this one? Speaker 4 (1:16) Pre-cruise thoughts. We've been kind of cruising around the Pacific whenever we can. And so I had never done Hawaii. I'd never been to Hawaii. My husband went when he was a lot younger. And, you know, we live in Seattle, so it's pretty easy to... get on a ship from Vancouver. And we've done Alaska a few times. So that part we were super, I mean, we were looking forward to it, but the highlight was going to be, you know, the days at sea in the middle and then the Hawaiian islands. So we were really excited for it. I Speaker 3 (1:48) love the fact that you packed in Alaska, Hawaii, and a almost trans-Pacific in one just giant itinerary. Speaker 4 (1:55) Absolutely. Yeah. It really felt like three different cruises because you have About five or six days in Alaska, five days at sea in the middle, and then another five days in Hawaii. So it was like three vacations in one. It was really cool. Speaker 3 (2:08) As you mentioned, you live in Seattle. You make your way to Vancouver. Any pre-cruise time there, or is that a day of trip? Speaker 4 (2:15) We did do a hotel in Vancouver the night before. Speaker 4 (2:21) Just to cover our bases, and normally we would not fly Seattle to Vancouver, but since we were flying Honolulu back to Seattle, the round trip booking scheme made a little more sense financially. So we went ahead and flew Seattle to Vancouver, had a whole day there. And funny story, I was in the hot tub on the ship talking to a guy and he's like, yeah, so I found a hotel room for $149 in Vancouver. And everyone in the tub was like, what? And he's like, yeah. So I get off the plane, I get in the car, I tell the driver the name of the hotel and he looks kind of funny and he asks me for the address. So I give him the address, he punches it in and he's like, yeah, that's in Vancouver, Washington. Which is basically Oregon. Yeah. And I was like, oh, and I'm so sorry. He's like, yeah, I had no idea there was a Vancouver, Washington. And I was like, yeah, sure is. So he, you know, it's like 8 p.m. and he got a hotel room, but it was about $800 that night. So a word of warning, if you're unfamiliar with the Pacific Northwest, be sure you're flying into Vancouver, British Columbia, and your hotel is in British Columbia. Speaker 3 (3:31) Absolutely. So let's talk about embarkation. You get to Canada Place. It's time to board the ship. Now, if I understand correctly, you're actually clearing immigration before you board the ship, even on this kind of itinerary, correct? Speaker 4 (3:42) Yeah, that's correct. You know, they really have it down at Vancouver Place. Your car takes you basically under the terminal. And as soon as you step out, of course, the porters are there and everyone's friendly. We had the first boarding slot. So we maybe had to wait a half an hour. But once we were in the waiting area, they started boarding right on time. Speaker 3 (4:07) What were your first impressions as you boarded Norwegian Spirit? Because this ship underwent a massive refurb a few years back. Speaker 4 (4:14) This is the greatest ship in their fleet, in my opinion. It's the oldest ship. It was built in 1998. But walking around, it feels like a miniature version of the Bliss or the Encore. They, I guess, stripped it down to the steel and every stateroom, every lounge restaurant is completely refinished in kind of their modern aesthetic. So it really did feel like we were on a, you know, a 2025 ship, but just smaller, which was really cool. It still had kind of the classic traditional layout, especially at the back with that kind of tiered cake pool deck structure. You know, you could get anywhere within a minute or less, but it still felt like a very elevated, upscale Norwegian ship. Speaker 3 (5:06) What kind of stateroom did you book for this 16-night cruise, and what did you think of it? Speaker 4 (5:10) Another little tip. If you're going all-in with Norwegian Cruise Line and you get their credit card, one of the perks of their credit card is you can use the points to book an inside stateroom. and then upgrade that to a balcony stateroom. And so for this itinerary in particular, for 16 nights, I mean, the price difference between inside and balcony is like 5,000 bucks. So we did that scheme for the first time, got a balcony for the price of an inside, and it was a screaming deal. I'd say for the Norwegian fans out there, that's the one perk of the credit card that can really make a lot of sense. Speaker 3 (5:53) See, I had a carnival card. Aside from that one perk, did you find that the card was actually worth Speaker 4 (5:58) it? There's no annual fee, so that's something to think about. There are absolutely other travel credit cards that give you... a much better ratio of points to dollar. Speaker 3 (6:11) You Speaker 4 (6:12) get three points to the dollar on Norwegian spend, and then two points for hotel and air, and then one point for everything else. And then the perks, they want you to exchange the points for onboard credit, but don't do it because that's like the worst deal. You really want to save those points up for a big ticket cruise, in my opinion. And that way you can book the inside and then upgrade it to the balcony. And it's about 60,000 points to do that. Okay, good context there. What did you think Speaker 3 (6:42) about the stateroom itself? Speaker 4 (6:44) The footprint of the room is smaller than their newer ships, of course, but it looks like a new stateroom. The shower had a glass door. The balconies are smaller than the newer ships, but otherwise... All updated USB ports by the bed, plenty of plugs, great temperature control, plenty of storage, really nice aesthetic too. Speaker 3 (7:09) Not to be redundant here, but give me some examples of plenty of storage. Speaker 4 (7:13) We had, I think, at least 25 to 30 hangers in the closet and then four drawers and then another floor to ceiling kind of cubby, open storage, fridge. Speaker 4 (7:29) Storage in the nightstands under the bed, of course, like it, I think it would be very difficult to unless you were on like a 180 day world cruise or something. It would be hard to fill every single spot, at least the way we travel. I don't know. Speaker 3 (7:44) Let's talk about the dining on board the garden cafe, the buffet area. How was the food? And did it ever feel too crowded? It Speaker 4 (7:51) was great. And no, it didn't. So this was the first time I think because the cruise was a lot longer than any we had ever done. We were semi-regular at the buffet for breakfast and lunches. We even had a couple dinners there. It was a great buffet. Really hot food, smart layout with the stations. They had a crepe-making station for dessert crepes. Of course, the ice cream and the omelets and all the things you would want in a buffet. But yeah, it was great. The crew took a lot of pride in it, too. Like the themed nights, you know, the big elaborate glacier displays and Hawaii night. They really decorated it and great variety. It was it was a really, really great buffet for us and not too crowded either. That Speaker 3 (8:45) class of ship has the great outdoors, that extension of the buffet going towards the back. Was that operational? They Speaker 4 (8:51) have that extension. You could tell there were. stations to maybe do hot dogs or hamburgers outside. They didn't serve any food from there, but it is just right off the buffet. And then they had two floors of seating too, because of that kind of tiered cake structure I was telling you about. So especially in the tropical climate, it was very easy to find a table outside. And then they have a specialty restaurant up there now on that. And during breakfast and lunch, that was open for overflow seating if you wanted to be inside. Speaker 3 (9:28) Let's jump to some of the restaurants there. And actually, before we do that, we'll go to the main dining room on board. So obviously, they don't have a set dining time on this one because it is freestyle dining. So what was your experience like in the main dining room? And are there multiple main dining rooms? Speaker 4 (9:46) Yeah. So the main dining room is called Windows. And the design of the ship has three massive, almost two and a half story tall arched windows at the back. So it was a beautiful dining room, very bright, tall, tall ceilings back there. And that was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And then they have a second dining room called Taste. And that's more in the middle of the ship. And that was open for dinner only. But then they would use it during the day. They'd advertise it as like the quiet space or sometimes there would be wine tastings or other private events in there. And then they have the local, the 24-hour pub, and that's open breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. Speaker 3 (10:40) Did you hit up the local at all? Speaker 4 (10:42) Yeah, we did. Um, it's, you know, the same menu as anywhere, but, uh, it was great. And, um, there's a bar in there too. A couple screens though, the way they had to shoehorn it into the older, smaller ship is it is more of a pass through space, but it does have a, a nook where they, they filled in with tables and booths and stuff. Um, but it's less of a enclosed destination. Um, they also advertised, uh, they have a. a beer garden way up, um, by the pool deck. And that was kind of the smoking area and a bar, of course. And that had, um, buffet service counters there and they advertised pre-cruise that that was a dining option but they did not serve hot food from that space but that was okay it was you know a 10 second walk to the buffet anyway you Speaker 3 (11:34) mentioned it was a pass-through for the local i'm just trying to think of like i've been on like norwegian pearl and norwegian star before where it was off the atrium is it kind of like that Speaker 4 (11:46) Uh, it doesn't overlook the atrium on this one. Um, they overlooking the atrium, they have a champagne bar and that was one of our very favorite spots with a grand piano too up there, um, overlooking the atrium. So yeah, the local is, I think it was deck eight, uh, kind of between the atrium and the casino, I want to say. Speaker 3 (12:11) Because you were on such a long sailing, I'm curious with their free at sea promotion, how many dining options could you pick during this 16-night sailing? Speaker 4 (12:20) So there were six official specialty dining restaurants on the ship, and then included with the free at sea scheme, you got four. And then we have latitude status, so that came with an additional two. Speaker 3 (12:37) Oh, wow. Okay. So let's talk about some of those dining venues you Speaker 4 (12:40) hit up. And did you repeat any of them? We repeated the Italian restaurant, Anda by Scarpetta. And then we did not do Silk, which is sort of their catch-all Asian restaurant. The rumor on the ship was it was kind of underwhelming, and that was our experience on another ship. So instead of that, we went to the sushi bar inside of the restaurant. And you can use your credit at the sushi bar. And it has a separate menu that is obviously all sushi. Speaker 3 (13:11) So using the credit at the sushi bar, is it more of like a, because it's a meal credit, is it a prefix menu or you can select a certain amount? How does that work? Speaker 4 (13:22) Yeah, so they have appetizers and then rolls and then nigiri and sashimi. So you got to pick. I think one of each of those categories.