My wife and I just completed our cruise on the Sun's northbound itinerary departing June 17. It was our first trip to Alaska and our second cruise with NCL. Our previous NCL cruise was a short 3 day Bahamas cruise two years ago, which was vey good all around. We enjoyed the whole freestyle cruising experience and decided to cruise NCL this trip.

First off, Alaska is amazing. I think we would have had a great cruise with anyone. The scenery is majestic and you get the sense of discovery that the first explorers to see Alaska did. Long stretches of pristine coastline and abundant wildlife are everywhere. It was by far the most amazing vacation we have ever experienced. We were lucky with unusual weather - sunny with little to no rain, temps in the mid 60s to mid 70s.

The excursions were had were great, two thru the ship and one on our own. In Ketchikan we hired a private fishing charter thru Northern Lights. The Capt was very friendly, knowledgable and delivered 4 king salmon to our group ranging from 25-30 lbs! Bald eagles were everywhere and the Capt took some herring bait and feed the eagles, which produced great memories and awesome pictures. I highly recommend Capt Ken and Northern Lights Chatters to anyone looking at fishing for salmon in Ketchikan.In Juneau, we did the two hour helicopter glacier trek thru the ship. It was amazing! We looped over the Juneau ice field with the pilot pointing out interesting facts and landed on the Mendenhall glacier for our trek. The guides were great and helped us put on our equipment - fully supplied by the tour company, and prepared us for our trek. We drank glacier water- fantastic, and were in awe of nature's beauty. We got up close to crevasses - several 75-100 feet deep - just awesome. It was $450 pp, but well worth it! If you want to get some king crab for lunch, go to Tracy's near the dock. Highly recommend the combo of crab cakes, bisque and 1lb of king crab. Read more