Last weekend I did the dinner cruise with my spouse. We selected Spirit because their other ship, although it was a plated dinner and the ship is glass enclosed, had a menu that did not appeal to us. Boy, were we disappointed, and we were not the only ones.
First of all, this is not a high-end operation. If you have done a chartered dinner or lunch cruise before, this one is catering to the masses, which may explain the pricing being a bit lower than what we were used to. The ship was jammed, noisy and the napkins and general glassware were a bit dusty and soiled.
We, like a number of other tables, did not realize this was a party boat. And once the cruise gets going, especially after dinner, the music starts up and it is loud. Just an FYI if you thought, as we did, that this was more of a sightseeing / relaxing cruise - it is not. Plenty of teenagers and folks looking for a party atmosphere - which is fine, we just did not understand that going in.
The big complaint besides the noise was the food. No way - I mean NO WAY - anyone could rate this food above an "average" rating. We were in the first 10-25 people to the buffet (they come around and tell you when to go). The chicken and fish dishes were barely warm, everything else was cold. Nothing was bad, but nothing had much flavor either. Everything looked fine, but there simply was very little taste to any of the dishes. On the dessert table, the cakes, which were really subpar, had all been cut into little 1" square pieces - little mini-bite size pieces like you would give school kids. I mean, come on - people are paying good money here, at least provide real slices of cake, even if they are small slices. That was cheap beyond belief, and looked ridiculous. I get they don't want folks taking too much, but this was silly - and other than the carrot cake, everything else had either no flavor or tasted like a mix from an old Betty Crocker box.
This was huge disappointment, and certainly not what we were expecting based on all the reviews and wonderful write-ups. Something is badly off-base here.