Having sailed on Norwegian Cruise before didn't think twice about booking the Alaskan 12 land/cruise with Norwegian. However, experience on this cruise very disappointing compared to our first experience. We booked the l2 day land and cruise package. The land tour was first. Our first stop was in Fairbanks. The hotel had no hot water for showers (boiler problem) and days start very early - 7:30 departures. Went to a sled dog camp - weather was rainy, chilly - but really didn't get to see dogs in a harness pulling a wagon or sled. Information about the dogs and training was interesting. Gold dredge #8 was excellent! Panned for gold which every in our group found something. Had open afternoon so felt early touring could have been readjusted so that we didn't need to get up so early. Second hotel in Denali had no heat. Weather rainy, windy, cold. Temp in the 40's and room was cold all night! However, the Denali tundra wilderness excursion was outstanding!! River was our bus/tour guide and did an excellent job relaying interesting information about the tundra and wild life. Saw moose, caribou, sheep, eagles and my favorite grizzly. Encountered grizzly bear with cubs and watched the cubs played - awesome! Although the excursion is slated for 7 hours on a bus, it really didn't seem that long. Planned restroom stops and stops to view animals allowed time to stretch legs. A boxed lunch from the Denali Tundra Wilderness company was a few unique snack (many not seen before). No time to order the recommended Norwegian lunch! Dome train rides between Fairbanks to Denali and toward Anchorage was pleasant. Great to see wilderness and how small towns are founded and survive. Only spent overnight in anchorage - hotel room there had small flying ants in our room/bed and again no hot water!! The land portion changed itinerary from that published on the NCL website. Our tour guide Gracie was superb!! She was full of information, happy, always keeping our tour laughing and enjoying this part of the trip. Loved her saying "THIS IS ALASKA" We used it every time it fit and then had a good laugh. Great, awesome job Gracie!!!!!! Jerry our bus driver was fun and related great personal stories as well.

Cruise ship Sun: older ship but still pleasant. Not really any WOW factors. Embarkation was smooth - we arrive by train to Seward and embarked about 6:00pm without any difficulty. Cabin number 10015 - it was a spacious cabin - enough room for our party of 4 adults. The sofa bed was very hard but was large enough (queen size maybe) for 2 adults to sleep on. Bathroom as with any cruise ship is small but still plenty of room in shower. Cabin steward was very good. Provided extra padding for sofa bed and checked daily to see if more was needed!! This cabin has a balcony and we loved using it. Only complaint for the cabin was that the AC was not working when we embarked on the ship. 2 calls to the service desk that day did not provide a maintenance person to fix the problem told no one was on duty. We were forced the first night to sleep with the balcony door open with damp, cold air blowing on us sleeping on the sofa bed which is right in front of the balcony door. Sadly to report, woke up sick the next morning ruining the rest of the cruise! Finally after 18 hours the AC/fan was fixed!

Dining, and service - we did the buffet on deck 11 and found the food was not all that good. Deserts all tasted sugarless, thank goodness for the crepe and ice cream stations. Cookies were always hard, and burnt!! Several repeat dishes on the menu daily as well, We did go to MDR on several occasions and again found that the menu was the same at each sitting except maybe a 1 or 2 item difference. The service in the MDR was outstanding. However, on the buffet dinning the service was terrible. Staff would walk by and not remove dirty dishes from table, or even clear a dirty table in a timely fashion. Many times, we cleared our own dirty dishes so as to have more room at the table and even cleared dirty tables so that we could get a table. Not impressed with open dinning staff! Read more