Norwegian Sun Review

Definitely Trip of a Lifetime

Review for Alaska Cruise on Norwegian Sun
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kimannt18
2-5 Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Jun 2016
Cabin: Oceanview Picture Window

I was traveling with a friend, we did a 5 day land tour prior to our cruise. We had the cruise line book our air, which the initial flight we had (6:30 a.m. departure - Delta) got cancelled and we were never notified. They arbitrarily put us on a 2:30 p.m. departure from Philadelphia which would not have gotten us to Anchorage until 9:00 at night for our land portion beginning early the next morning, all without informing us. Unacceptable. By the time we found out we were 20 days prior to departure, there was little space on the remaining flights, so got stuck with a flight leaving at 5:45 a.m. and stopping in Detroit and then Seattle on the way up to Anchorage. So BIG FAIL there.

The land portion was amazing but there is a lot crammed in and with travel time is brutal, at least for me, I was exhausted from that by the time our cruise day came around. They have what they call "bag pulls" most every day at the crack of dawn unless you are somewhere for two nights, then you need to get yourself breakfast somewhere and be ready to board some type of transport to get you to the next place. I would say that if you are thinking of doing a land tour with your cruise, make sure you schedule that FIRST, you will be happy for the downtime when you board the ship and are able to finally unpack!

We had lovely weather, except for one very rainy embarkation day. Embarkation went very smoothly, I think we were one of the first tour groups to make it down to port, our luggage was outside our stateroom when we arrived. This was my first cruise with Norwegian, and will likely my only trip with them. I'm sure all cruise lines are similar or tending that way, but I felt like I was being nickel and dimed the entire time, or just not given the whole story. We received the drinks package as an incentive when we booked, as well as a $50 per port excursion credit for our cabin. You are restricted to under $15 per drink, so you still had to watch a little bit what you ordered, continually reading the "fine print", but it was nice to not have to worry about a big drinks bill at the end of the cruise. With the shore excursion credit, we saw nowhere where it was limited to "3" port credits, and I only happened to see this while I was passing by the excursion desk upon boarding, no where in our literature or confirmations did it state that you were limited to "3" credits, so we were lucky that we booked our whale watch excursion in Icy Strait Point ourselves and not through the cruise line. Hoonah Travel whale watch excursion was wonderful. We did the train in Skagway, the Mendenhall glacier float in Juneau and the Misty Fjords floatplane in Ketchikan. The train was really nice but it must have been 80 degrees and sunny that day and I could see if your weather was not great the views would suffer and you might not enjoy it as much. The glacier float was OK, you have to get suited up in special gear which must have weighed 40 pounds and was very uncomfortable, and you cannot get as close to the glacier as you might think being on the water, maybe within a mile or so. Floatplane was beautiful and I am so glad I did it, but again, if the weather isn't cooperating your enjoyment of Misty Fjords might suffer, but it is still the experience of it. The food on board was marginal -- one dinner I had was awful, most were just OK, and only one or two did I say Wow, that was tasty (appetizer of one 2 inch piece of kofta kabob served with a teaspoon of hummus). We tended to eat in the dining rooms mostly and stayed away from the buffet unless we had an early morning or missed the dining room times. First lunch in the dining room I ordered the spanish frittata, potatoes were really undercooked and the dish was generally lacking in flavor. Even if the menu states that waffle fries are being served as a side, do not believe it because you will receive stone cold french fries. This happened on more than one occasion. I found the potatoes and vegetables with the majority of meals undercooked, even when included in soups the veggies were hard and undercooked, and the food not seasoned properly, if at all. I realize that you cannot please everyone with feeding so many people, but a little "umph" would have been nice. The worst meal in the dining room was the steak frites, which was a the toughest piece of meat I have ever eaten and was served with "frites", which were just the same french fries that they serve at lunch and were soggy and again, cold. Yuck. Portions tended to be on the small side, especially appetizers. One evening we ordered the shrimp potstickers. When the dish arrived, there was ONE teeny-tiny potsticker, which was fried but cold, and served over some lettuce. Saying "potstickers" gives the impression that there would be more than one! We laughed over that, saying that they must have been running short or something. The late night buffet selections were generally unappealing, if you are at all hungry after dinner and don't like indian food, you are out of luck because that was all they tended to offer at the buffet late night, and by late I mean 10:00 p.m. I like indian food and even I thought some dishes looked like the dog's dinner. Pizza like cardboard. This is only my second cruise (last one was with Carnival 10 years ago), and I recall the quality of the food being better in the dining rooms. Not enough seating on this particular cruise in the buffet seating areas for breakfast or lunches, I think due to it being a colder destination no one sits out at the tables on the open deck to eat so it is very difficult to find a table, even for just two people. If you happen to want to sleep in a little and are looking for breakfast past 10:30, you are out of luck. The ship is older, but I thought was well laid out and nicely maintained. Our favorite place on the Norwegian Sun was the Observation Lounge on deck 12. We caught a couple shows, but they were totally cheesy, the dance competition was good (professional dancers paired with different passengers - funny), and the comedy show good. Disembarkation was also a breeze, so job well done there. Our favorite port was Icy Strait Point, very quaint, we also stopped at Skagway (interesting little town), Juneau (really nothing but jewelry and souvenir shops by port, although it is the capital) and Ketchikan (walkable town) and visited Hubbard Glacier and Dawes Glacier, we couldn't do Sawyer due to too much ice in the water, so were detoured to Dawes. If you have a dollar amount in mind for your daily expenses, double it, because if you do a land tour you are paying for ALL your meals as well as transportation to get yourself out of the hotel area and to a place where you have some selection or variety while on land. We did Denali for 2 nights and the package had us staying at the Denali Park Village. Our room was on the ground floor looking at the stream, but was kind of small and must have been about 100 degrees. They said they had a free shuttle to "glitter gulch" closer to Denali National Park where the restaurants and shops are, however, the free shuttle ended at 4:30 p.m., so you would have to find your own way back. So OK, the hotel can say they have a free shuttle, which they do, but you cannot get anywhere direct with it (we tried to meet other friends for dinner, we were told the free shuttle would get us close but then you had to catch a Princess bus or something and that would have taken us at least an hour and a half -- not very convenient), and ending at 4:30 is also pretty useless. We ended up having to pay $5 each way both days we were in Denali to go 7 miles. So there's an additional $30, including tip, that is unexpected. Not the end of the world, but this is just one example of the added expenses of which you are unaware of and no one is going to tell you ahead of time. Then the tips to every Tom, Dick and Harry that crosses your path ... take more cash than you think you will need. The scenery was just spectacular and we really lucked out with the weather, mid-60's and partly cloudy with the sun making an appearance most days. Overall we had a lovely time in Alaska and I would love to go back, but I would not do another cruise, unless it was with one of the much smaller ships where EVERYTHING is included. Pricey -- but maybe at final tally it would have been worth putting out that money up front to not feel nickel and dimed every day with all these hidden things and have the ability to get into the ports where the larger cruise ships can't, and maybe the quality of the food would have been better. Have to research that.

Cabin Review

Oceanview Picture Window

Cabin OA

Cabin was clean and we seemed to have enough room for two single beds, bathroom, especially the shower, TINY. Forget about shaving your legs, ladies!

Port Reviews

Seward

Embarkation day

Vancouver

It's a city. Our flight was early afternoon so we had little time here, except the 4 hour wait for our flight since the cruise line wanted us off the ship at 8:15 a.m., our flight was 2:00 p.m.

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