Embarkation Day/Disembarkation
Getting on board was probably one of the easiest of any cruise I have been on. You get in a line that is constantly moving and you go check in with one person who takes your picture and checks your boarding pass and passport and you are done. Once you get on the ship the line in our case went right by our muster station for emergencies and we checked in completing the requirement to report to your muster station. It was all quick and painless. The only downside was even though the line was constantly moving and going forward, the line was long and it took about 20 minutes of walking to get on the ship. Then the real fun began. What they don't tell you is your room is not ready yet and you have to "hang out" somewhere before you can enter your room. Because we now carry light and don't check big suitcases we had to carry our carry-on for hours. You get to go and sit down for lunch which we had planned to do, but we still had lots of time waiting for our room. The bottom line is like most hotels today your room will not be ready until 3 PM so you need to be prepared for that. Disembarkation was similarly painless. You packed your bags and walked off the ship, again with a long line but always moving.
The Room
There is no nighttime to speak of in Alaska during the summer. Sunset is late and sunrise is bright and early. There is a funny story here. They had a spectacular sunset off the back of the boat so I was there taking pictures with my daughter waiting for the sun to set. And I waited. And I waited. It then dawned on me, up here the sun never sets in the summer so the dozens of pictures I was taking were all the same. Oops! So we insisted on an interior room much to the chagrin of our family who could not understand with our financial ability why we would not want to be in a suite. On our last trip some 30 years ago we taped aluminum foil to the windows so we could block out the sun. Our cheap interior room met our needs this trip and was surprisingly comfortable when compared to other bigger rooms and rooms with a balcony were not that much smaller. We slept well as there was no light contamination and it was a little easier to control the room temperature. We had such a good experience we decided for the most part in getting interior rooms even on the luxury cruises. Other than sleeping you don't really spend that much time in the room and even with a balcony your views are still restricted so if you want a really great view you will find yourself up on deck to see the best views.
The Food
Food was marginal. There were some great items and some you could not eat. High points were sauces and desserts. I commented the first day they must have a dedicated pastry chef on board and they did and he has been on the same ship for 22 years. You could tell, the desserts were spectacular every day. I also loved the sauces made fresh and assumed they had a dedicated saucier on board though I never confirmed it. In general, the meat selections were very good. Sometimes tough but always very tasty. The Italian specialty restaurant La Cucina was our best dinner on the ship both for quality of food and service. In the French specialty restaurant, Le Bistro, the food was very good but the service was a bust, and making reservations there was BS. We were severely restricted on the time of our reservations which did not meet our needs yet when we had dinner ½ the place was empty and there was no reason they could not have accommodated our requests, demonstrating poor customer service they rigidly stuck to their talking points from a wound up cupie doll. Service was so bad for the first time in my life I went to the purser's office and demanded my automatic gratuity be reduced for essentially nonexistent service in the food areas. One example. They had fresh sushi one day, which was good, but no soy sauce. I had to ask a server, and then a manager 3 times to provide soy sauce, and after a long wait in my opinion they came out with the smallest bottle of soy sauce I have ever seen. It was like 4 ounces. In minutes 4 or 5 people emptied the bottle leaving everyone back at square one, having to chase down a server or a manager to restock the soy sauce. It was insane. I had to do the same thing with cream cheese for bagels. On multiple occasions, we had to find the manager and complain about the lack of service. In at least two cases the managers apologized profusely and brought us multiple extras to appease us when all we wanted was for someone to offer service and deliver food and drinks in a timely manner. It got so bad with drinks we finally refused to order food until after they served drinks totally confusing the servers. They acted like all they wanted was to take your order and get you out of there as fast as possible with no regard to having anything to drink with your meal. I do feel cruise lines need to change their operations which basically segregates beverage servers' and food servers' functions. In the French restaurant, they only had one beverage server and we were told up front they could not serve drinks in a timely fashion. Too bad, we waited until drinks were served prior to ordering which resulted in us being the last ones to leave the restaurant. In another situation, we ordered a bottle of Champagne to have prior to dinner, and communication between the food and beverage server had to be bad as the wrong bottle was brought to the table. By the time they found the right bottle we were finished with dinner and canceled the order. One of the better food venues was the hot dog and hamburger place off the back of the boat. We usually ate lunch there and they had great burgers and dogs, especially the dogs. We have found we get no advantage to the drink packages as we just don't drink that much anymore and the drinks covered under the drink packages generally are not what we would drink anyway. One example, currently I am drinking Chopin Vodka for martinis as it is pure potato vodka. But on the ship, they were $19 plus gratuity and not covered. We drink a fair amount of sparkling water and probably should have preordered that package as the price may have been less. My adult kids did very well with the drink package and from what they tell me because they purchased it way in advance it was not much more than what I eventually paid for our soft drink package.
The Amenities
WIFI was expensive and spotty. When it worked it worked fine, and when it didn’t it was nonexistent. Our room price included 150 minutes which frankly met my needs but you have to be careful and make sure you log out every time you use it or you will waste all of your time. Two members of my family did this on the first day and had no time left without buying more at a very high price. At the ports there was always some place that had good WIFI available so if you wait to get off the boat and use local WIFI at a restaurant or business you are generally fine. You only need the boat's WIFI on sea days. We did not use the Spa as the prices again were in our opinion ridiculous for what you got. Their hot tubs were OK, especially the one by the kiddie's pool, and were hotter than what I have experienced on other cruises. The entertainment was OK. I saw a couple of shows and they again were OK. We watched a couple of movies in our room we had not seen before.
The Out Islands
If you have been on Carnival Caribbean Cruises you are familiar with the one-day out island experience. The Cruise company owns a small island and you spend the day there at the beach and usually having a cookout. Well, the cruise industry has taken this to a new level in Canada and Alaska. Covid changed everything and Alaska cruises made lemonade as a result. The Coastline of Alaska is littered with abandoned lumber yards and canneries. Cruises purchased these areas for pennies on the dollar, built a dock, and renovated the area building shops and restaurants for tourists to visit. Some stand on their own like Hoonah, Alaska(Icy Straits); others are 5 to 10 miles out of town like Ketchikan. In Ketchikan, it is a huge facility and they offer free shuttle buses to town but not before having you walk through a mile of shops for tourists to drop a few dollars. You have to also believe the cruises save a lot of money in port charges in these areas. We actually found the one at Hoonah to be quite lovely despite being told there was nothing there. We found a lot of better holiday gifts there and stocked up. It also had great views. They also had great internet as compared to the ship. The main downside was sometimes the shuttle to town took 20 minutes or more but you also got to see the surrounding area and scenery while riding into town.
Excursions
We did not take any excursions off of the ship. The prices in our opinion were ridiculously high beyond reason and the rules and numbers did not work for our family. No more than 6 in a party, no children under 8, etc. Even online I could not find excursions that appealed to us. But we did fine in this regard. While online I found a site that rented large SUVs for large families in Haines and the family was able to spend the day exploring the out areas of Haines. In Sitka, we did even better buying tickets for the "Cool Bus" which was a joy and one of our best discoveries of the trip. The owners do a 1-hour loop around Sitka and actually operated on an "on Call" service. If you finish an activity early call them and they pick you up and take you to your next place. We ended up doing 4 activities in a day that individually would have cost over $200 per person with the ship excursions being offered and the "Cool Bus" fee is $30 a day per person all inclusive (https://visitsitka.org/member/sitka-rides). In Ketchikan, there were dozens of individual operators at the shuttle shops more than willing to pick you up right now with your group at substantial savings over the ship. I highly recommend in Sitka using the "Cool Bus" you visit both the Fortress of the Bear and the Raptor Center. You can easily do both in a half day. Both facilities have multiple wild animals to view and photograph that they are caring for and the staff at both places were highly professional, motivated, and instructive on what you were viewing and how to deal with these animals if you happen to come up on one during a hike. Their websites are listed here:
https://alaskaraptor.org/
The biggest advantage to our Norwegian Cruise was it was the least expensive trip we have taken in two years. Overall we had a memorable and great family trip and met most of our goals. I wished the food service and quality were better but in reality, for what we paid we got good value, and making the right choices made a lot of difference. I suspect I would be OK with another Norwegian cruise though I would do as best I could with due diligence prior to booking.
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