Just returned from Alaska on the NCL Pearl. We arrived on Saturday, May 17th and spent one night in Seattle at the Hotel Vintage Park, booked through Hotwire for $114 night. The hotel was nice, but small and a little off the beaten track. They were very friendly and had a nice wine reception at night. Overall I was happy, but would have preferred to stay a little closer to the ship and Pike place area. We took a cab to the ship and the cost was about $10..including tip.
Okay, so we arrived at the dock around noon and it was pretty crowded. We were a little disappointed with the long lines and chaos. It took us about an hour to get through all of the lines, but we were thankful to be latitudes members, we cruised NCL to Hawaii last year, so this helped us get through the lines quicker than many.
Once aboard, I remembered the suggestions from this board to the Summer Palace at the AFT of the ship. This was nice and relaxing and the food was great...BTW- there were only about 10 tables taken, as the crew was directing everyone to a different location...can't remember what it was as I was determined to follow the cruise critic advice and was sure glad I did. Our room was ready while we were still eating, so we dropped our stuff right after lunch and our bags arrived pretty quickly.