Norwegian Pearl Review

Trip of a lifetime but NCL has room for improvement.

Review for Alaska Cruise on Norwegian Pearl
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golden6911
2-5 Cruises • Age 50s

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Additional details

Sail Date: Aug 2015
Cabin: Owner's Suite with Large Balcony

This was my 20th anniversary cruise with my husband. I chose NCL because of it's casual vibe and the flexibility, plus the ability to eat in all different kinds of restaurants sealed the deal. Pros:

1) Specialty dining food quality was great across the board. We got the upcharges for free as part of our cruise package and we went to 5 different restaurants, Moderno (Brazilian), Le Bistro, Cagney's, La Cucina and Teppanyaki. All were very good to excellent with Le Bistro being our favorite. Make sure that you eat LIGHT the night you go to Moderno - they just keep bringing food! The service was also fantastic.

2) The ship was impeccably clean.

Cabin Review

Owner's Suite with Large Balcony

Cabin H3

I lucked out and got a very inexpensive last minute upsell to this suite, and I have to say, it was fantastic and well worth it! This really made the cruise super special and I was glad I got lucky for this cruise since it was our first real vacation in a very long time.

It is about 800 square feet, has a very comfortable king size bed, a small bathroom near the entrance, and a WONDERFUL large bathroom with a soaker tub that has a window looking outside. There were two balconies, one in the front that was too windy to be used while at sea, but fine when cruising glacier bay or sailing out of a port. I used the side balcony a lot more.

The suite comes with some very nice perks including a butler (Bagus was the name of our server) and a concierge (Leah). Both were very helpful although we didn't really use them much at all. There is a fridge in the room stocked with cokes and a pod espresso maker. They had a cd player in the room which really could and should be easily updated to an MP3 speaker system. Most people have smartphones and it would ahve been nice to play my tunes from my phone.

We also had access to special breakfast and lunch seating at Moderno with a nice menu of food that was better than the buffet. We didn't have time to eat there every day but it is a nice perk for sure. Also they give you priority embarkation/disembarkation for entering and exiting the ship plus many of the ports.

This suite also gave access to the Haven, but we never spent time there. It is basically a small sunroom with a hot tub, small pool and a sitting area. It was very humid (obviously) and just not appealing for us. Maybe the Haven areas are better on the other newer ships.

I could not have afforded this at full price but I would not hesitate to take an upsell if offered in the future. It was a lot of fun!

Port Reviews

Seattle

Cool city - never been before. I loved Pike Place market and the Glass museum near the space needle. I didn't get a chance to go up in the space needle since tickets were sold out when I arrived. Don't make the same mistake and order tickets online first!

Glacier Bay

Mindblowing. We had a nice sunny morning and get very, very close to Marjorie glacier. You could hear the ice cracking.

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