Norwegian Pearl Review
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We took the 7 day cruise to AK and this was our first cruise ever so our impressions aren't biased by comparisons with other cruise lines. We had a balcony room and were content with the accommodations although I'm glad I'm not a larger person or I never would have been able to get into the toilet room!
Our biggest single complaint is that nearly everything on the cruise is oriented towards passengers who like organized group activities. Early in the cruise we went to the Spinnaker Lounge because some 50's/60's music was advertised. Unfortunately, the music was punctuated by the inane patter of Philly Joel, the assistant cruise director, who insisted on having dance contests, and other activities that had no appeal to us. We left and never went back. On the other hand, we loved the "quiet hours" at Spinnaker and the delightful string trio that performed several times in some of the lounges. Maybe someone ought to tell NCL management that not all cruise passengers like bingo, dance contests and similar stuff.
As for the food, I agree with others that the really good meals are few and far between. Our best experiences were at Indigo; the food there is consistently above average and the staff were very pleasant. Summer Palace is noisier, the tables are closer together and the staff seemed convinced it was the "fancy" dining room so they could act more pretentious. The worst eating experience, however, was the buffet. We didn't mind the serving lines or the mediocre food as much as we minded the fact that once you had gotten your food you were forced to traipse around looking for a vacant table to sit at. Many families would stake out tables and then go get their food which further exacerbated the problem. When I'm paying a couple of thousand $$ for a cruise I hate to feel like I'm in a high school cafeteria looking for a place to sit down. We ate at the buffet I think 3 times total in the week and the situation was the same each time. For most of our meals we went to O'Sheehans where we could get a table BEFORE we got our food.
Cabin Review
Mid-Ship Balcony
The cabin size was adequate, but having an uncomfortable sleep sofa as the only "seating piece" other than a desk chair wasn't very pleasant. There was adequate storage under the bed for our suitcases and the drawers and closet space were adequate. The shower was excellent but toilet room was definitely designed for smaller people. The toilet was even slightly turned because there wasn't enough room for your legs to have stretched out straight. Lighting was marginal; a few decent reading lights would have been nice. The TV had to have been the smallest flat-screen ever made. The selection of watchable channels boiled down to FOX and MSNBC, which was pretty lame.
Port Reviews
Seattle
Reasonably well organized embarkation process; luggage check-in process was easy and fast but the line to actually get onboard would have been long if we had not had friends with priority boarding rights.
Juneau
Our seaplane ride was cancelled due to weather and there wasn't much to do in the rain other than have dinner and return to the ship. Most of Juneau accessible to travelers is nothing but one shop after another of tourist kitsch.
Skagway
We rented an Avis car and drove to Emerald Lake, Carcross YT on the Klondike Highway. Beautiful scenery.
Glacier Bay
The high point of the tour. We watched from our balcony and saw glaciers calving, bears, eagles and more. We'd have given up everything else on this cruise just for this day.
Victoria
Victoria on a warm Saturday night was vibrant and fun. We'll definitely return one day when we don't have to live with the constraints of a cruise.