We cruised to Alaska on the Pearl 5/17-24. This was the second Alaska cruise for my DH and myself. We traveled with my two boys (1, 3) and my best friend. All three of their first time cruising. This was our first trip with Norwegian and we will be back. Our previous cruises were with Carnival and Celebrity and NCL was so much more our speed.We had a gorgeous AB suite and connecting AF mini-suite on the port side. These cabins worked out perfectly for us. We spent a great deal of our sea time in the suite (two little kids), so it was nice to have some space. We did shuffle sleeping arrangements around a little as the week progressed, but for the most part DS2 (1-year old nursling) and I shared the master bedroom, DS1 (3-year old) and DH shared the small bedroom and BF took the mini-suite. We had PLENTY of space for all our stuff, including enough storage for two full car seats. I found everything about the rooms to be exceptional, except the small bedroom couch-bed, which was way too hard for my liking, but my DS and DH had no complaints. We did also use the convertible couch bed in the living room the first night for the older boy and a few naps. It was pretty comfy. Better than the small bedroom bed, IMO. AB Master bedroom: This bedroom is heavenly. I was concerned that there wouldn't be enough room or privacy because it is just separated from the bathroom by a curtain, but it was really nice. It was cozy, but not too small. The mirrors really helped. There was a DVD player attached to the TV in here, which was a nice touch. The bed was so fluffy and nice. AB Small bedroom: This bedroom was actually also much bigger than I had expected. You can't really do justice with a photograph because of the shape of the room. We had both of my boys clothes in the drawers and closet and there was a lot of room left over. AF Mini-suite: My initial impression was that this room was smaller than the suite we had stayed in on our last Celebrity Alaska cruise, but after spending some time in the room I actually think it's about the same, just laid out differently. The room utilizes the space available quite well. There isn't a lot of room around the beds, but what is there is well designed. There is a lot of storage throughout the room.AB Master bath: OH MY, OH MY, OH MY. This is a bathroom. The closet is in the bathroom with a nice dressing area. There are large double sinks and a small room for the toilet (with a phone). The bath tub is open to the rest of the bathroom, but has a gorgeous ocean view. Several mornings my DS2 and I cruised into port in the tub, it was spectacular. The shower is equally wonderful. There is a rain shower head, a funky European sprayer shower head and some body jets. The whole thing has well designed controls. The shower also has a fantastic view. The little window cubby of the shower was my DS2's favorite place in the whole cabin. The shower drain was toward the window and depending on the ships movement the shower would get quite full because the water didn't necessarily drain toward that side, but it never was a big problem for us. The steward meticulously dried the shower out each morning and evening, which was a really nice touch.AB small bath: I think this must be the same size as the balcony and ocean view bathrooms. It was small, but not any smaller than any other ship I've been on. It was very well laid out and I never felt cramped inside. The shower was a nice size.AF mini-suite bath: I didn't use this bath/shower, but I did peek in there and it was nice. Quite a bit larger than the small bathroom in the suite. The tub looked about the same size as the AB master tub, just no view. ) The AB living/dining room: This was seperated from the master area by a frosted sliding glass door and opened into the dressing/closet area of the large bathroom. The dining area was very tight with 4 chairs and we ended up moving things around so that we could move about the suite more easily. We also ended up using two dining chairs to block off the bar area cabinets from my younger boy (tons of tiny bottles of booze and dishes inside). The couch area of the room was quite comfortable. The couch flipped over to make a single bed that we did use a couple of times. Pretty comfy.Balconies: The balconies of both rooms were pretty much the same. If there was a size difference, it wasn't noticable. There was different furniture (suite had 2 wicker chairs and a small table; mini-suite had two cloth chairs) but both sets were very comfortable and nice. We had inquired into opening the partitian between the two balconies and were told that it was never allowed to be opened. I recall reading here that they would open it while in port, but that was not the case for us. It didn't really matter, just a point in case someone else wants to know.Suite perks: The suite perks were given to our entire party, even though technically only my BF and me were registered in the suite. We did use Cagney's for breakfast and lunch on several days each and priority debarkation at the ports and on the final day. Also, the concierge (Karan) printed our airline boarding passes for us on the last day (AWESOME!). The three adults had varying opinions of Cagney's breakfast and lunch. The food was good and the service was impecable. My husband would have happily eaten there every day for the rest of his life, I'm sure. For me, as a picky eater, I found the menu to get stale after a few days. There were things I liked, but I would have appreciated a rotating menu (hence the reason we did sometimes dine other places for breakfast and lunch). The four days we had lunch in Cagney's my BF had the sliders each day. They were spectacular. One day we tried to order off the kids' menu for my DS1, but were told it would be a big deal to get it and asked if he would mind ordering off the main menu. We didn't mind and we didn't inquire about that again. It was fine for us, but if you have a picky child, or one set on "kids food," this may not be the best choice for them, though.The Food: There is always much discussion about food. It's subjective and there will always be things that people love and hate, and we are no exception. I can't say if the food was any "better or worse" than another cruise line, because it is completely different than the other lines we've cruised. The amount of options available to us was amazing and for that reason alone we are sold on NCL for future cruises. We did not dine in Indigo, the second main dining room, or any of the BBQs or other pool side buffets. The BBQs smelled great, but it never quite worked out with our other plans. We did dine in the specialty dining quite a lot.Summer Palace (free, main dining room) the food was fine, nothing spectacular, like nice banquet food. This actually was not a great place for us because it took a long time for food to come out when we dined there. If we didn't have small kids, it would have been fine, but with little kids it was agony.Blue Lagoon (free, casual dining) was ok. The worst food we had was here. Some of the items were overcooked or just plain bad, but others were great. We stopped in for a very late lunch one day after a shore excursion and what we had planned on being a full meal just turned out to be a snack since we didn't eat quite a lot of the food brought to us because of quality. We didn't leave there hungry, but we also didn't go back.Garden Cafe (free, buffet) was also ok. It was often quite busy, but we never had too hard a time finding a seat. We mostly utilized it for quick meals for the kids and for breakfast. Once we were shown to overflow seating in La Cucina. The food quality was variable, as some of it is made far in advance. If you get fresh food, it's wonderful. The hand scooped ice cream is a very nice touch.Mambos (specialty, $10/adult, includes free margarita) was FANTASTIC! We live in Southern California and love Mexican food. I would not call this a "Mexican" resturant. They call it Tex-Mex and I would say that's an ok title. I'd heard from other CC members that the margarita was small and watered down. I didn't not find this to be the case either time we ate there. The appetizers here are the best we had all week long. Taquitos, southwest egg rolls, quesadillas, black bean soup, tostada salad, all wonderful. The first time we ate there we had one order of fajitas and one order of Il Popo to split between the 5 of us. It was great. Plenty of food. The second time we had fajitas again and my DH had something else, but I can't recall what it was (I had to evacuate the screaming kids). The fajitas the second time were a little salty for my taste, but still good. This was our favorite resturant on the ship.La Cucina (specialty, $10/adult). We dined here twice, as well. Great food. Once we were not charged for my DS1, and once we were charged $5. It was worth the $5. BF had the lobster ravioli once and the pollo parm. I had the pollo parm and the calzone. DH had the t-bone steak (sorry don't remember the dish name) and the veal marsala. I wasn't in love with the calzone, but the rest was great. Both meals my boys had pasta with bolognese sauce (also available at the buffet, fyi ) and LOVED it. The antipasti trolly was great. Desserts here were the best we had all week. Ricotta cheesecake and tiramisu were the favorites. The canoli was just ok, but I don't really love canoli to begin, so it's not a fair rating. Lotus Garden (specialty, $15/adult). We had a very late night dinner brought to our room the last night. We got back from Victoria late and called right at 10:00. Instead of our butler picking up, we got the room service staff. The very, very, very nice room service waiter went out of our way to bring us Lotus Garden, even though I think we were just supposed to be able to order from the room service menu at that time (he got a big fat tip and a STYLE card for that). We ordered a ton of food and were only charged 2 cover charges (not sure why, he did ask how many people and we said 3 adults, I guess we were just lucky that time?). We were starving and it was delicious. We had crab wontons, lettuce wraps, sesame chicken, kung pao chicken, lo mein, and pork fried rice. Teppanyaki (specialty, $25/adult). We ate there one evening pretty early and were the only ones at our table. Despite only ordering 3 meals (and sharing with the kids) we were charged 5 full price covers. I think this may have been because we had 5 spots and it wasn't based on what we ordered. I don't really know that the policy regarding kids and cover charges is firm, since we pretty much encountered every possible way to do it. The food was good. About on par with my local teppan place, which is great. The chef was funny and quite entertaining. They were very cautions about food allergies here, and I really appreciate that as someone with a shellfish allergy. Free dining vs specialty dining. I found the specialty dining to be far superior in both service and quality. I'm sure they send their best wait staff there, and having small adjacent kitchens helps with the food quality. We knew about the pricing and planned it into our vacation. I wouldn't say I was dissapointed in the free dining options, I was just willing to pay for the superior dining experiences of the pay options. The pay places were never full when we were there (5-7pm). There were no 2 for 1 specials for dining offered that week (that we know of).We are not dress up for dinner people. In fact, I had to buy my husband some jersey polo shirts for the cruise so he would have something to wear besides his normal printed t-shirts. He does own a suit, but it only gets worn for cruises, weddings, and funerals. We were very happy to leave it home. On the first dress up or not night (I think there were two?) we did see quite a few people wearing nice attire, but nothing overly fancy. We never felt out of place in our casual clothes.The crew: We found, on the whole, the crew was fantastic and friendly. We were always greeted and treated very well. We had different room stewards for each of our rooms, but they were both great. Our butler was also great. He was not at all obtrusive, but he was there every time we wanted or needed him. Karan, the concierge, was very visible and accessable. We spoke with him daily and knew he could help with anything we needed (we didn't use him for reservations because we never had any trouble getting what we wanted when we wanted it).Entertainment: Sorry, we didn't do a lot of the available activities, so I can't comment on much of the entertainment. We did go see Sharkbait one evening. They are FANTASTIC. Do not miss that show if you have the opportunity to see them. We also saw the crew show and went to bingo twice. Very fun. The only low point for us was the NCL-U "lecture" provided on glaciers. They had a travel writer on board who gave a talk, however, she basically just read from her slides what anyone with an internet connection could have found in about 5 minutes on wikipedia. It was HORRIBLE. She had never been to Alaska and never had seen a glacier in person. It wouldn't have been so bad if she had any speaking presence at all, but she didn't. I don't know who booked this woman, but that was a serious mistake. That's my one complaint. The ship!: Wow. What a gorgeous ship. The colors are bright, bordering on garish, but somehow it all works. Once you get used to the layout and knowing what elevators you need to get where you want to go, it was a breeze. Yes, there are some dead ends, but I think that is inevitable on a ship this size with that many public areas and different resturants. The elevators only were crowded when a show let out or people were disembarking - normal for ANY ship. There were tons of things to do. Lots of sports area, bars, lounges, and nice public spaces.Ports: We got extremely lucky with weather we had mild, clear, sunny days at each and every stop, eventhough rain is typical for this time of the year.Juneau - we went on a Photo Safari arranged independently with someone we met on our roll call. It was with Gastineau Guiding and was fantastic. The tour included an easy hike up to Mendenhall glacier and whale watching. The glacier and visitor's center were at the end of the hike and it was so nice to have the gorgeous glacier pop into view at the end of the hike. The hike was about a mile, but was quite easy. I did it with a 25 pound baby on my chest, so it couldn't have been too strenuous. On the 2 hour whale watch we saw several different humpback whales, some sea lions, and lots of different birds. The naturalist/photographer (Cam) was great and very, very knowledgable. The captain of the whale watching boat was also great. I highly recommend this tour if you are at all interested in photography. It was great even if you aren't, but there was a big photographic component. After the tour ended we took the Mt. Roberts tram up. They had a ton of snow, so there wasn't a lot to do up there, like there had been the last time I was there, but it was still a nice experience.Skagway - We did the Chilkoot Charters Yukon tour. It included the White Pass and Yukon rail train ride up to Frasier and a small bus tour up to Carcross, Yukon, then returning you to either downtown Skagway or your ship. The train was spectacular. I'm so glad we did it. The bus was fine, but it was really too long a tour for small kids and I regret the choice. The tour took us up to Emerald Lake and to Cariboo Crossing where they served lunch, had a museum and small sled dog camp. It was a great tour, just a bit too long for our group. We were gone from 7 am to 3 pm. While it did include lunch, there were no other food opportunities (and you are advised NOT to bring food off the ship), so it made the tour quite tough with small kids who are accustomed to snacking and get cranky when going long periods without eating. Something to keep in mind if you book this one, yourself. Ketchikan - We took the NCL Misty Fjords boat tour. It was great and the perfect length. They served pastries on the way out and vegitarian chili or clam chowder on the way back to the ship, they also provided coffee, hot chocolate and tea. Other food and beverages were available for purchase. The weather was so nice and the scenery was quite spectacular.Victoria - At the last minute, literly, we decided to do the ship's Craigdarrogh Castle tour. We booked it on the dock. LOL. It was very fun. The bus driver was knowledgable about the town and we had plenty of time at the castle. We had already been to the Bushart Gardens, so it was a nice alternative to that. However, if you have not been to the gardens before, do that one, instead.Embarkation: We actually had a pretty big snafu with our embarkation and were quite frustrated at the time, however with a little perspective, it wasn't bad at all. Since we had a suite we should have been escorted through security and to the concierge lounge, but were incorrectly told to go through the main line. It only took about 10 minutes and wasn't bad at all. No biggy. Once we got to the check-in counter, our problem started. It was the very first day for the lady who checked us in (and we were there early, so maybe her 2 or 3rd checkin ever). She couldn't operate the camera and it took us about 10 times longer than other people checking it at that point (meaning there were 10 other customers who checked in in the same amount of time at the lines around us). Then, once she was finally finished she was dumbfounded as to why the keys for one one of our rooms printed (we had repeatedly told her we had a suite and thought we were in the wrong place). Then it took her about 30 minutes (I am not kidding) to find someone to take us to the concierge lounge. Needless to say, I was very frazzled at this point. If we had been checking into a regular room with an experienced agent it would have taken us about 15-20 minutes to get from the curb to the room. For us, we were finally escorted to our suite 90 minutes after we arrived at the port. Debarkation: We used the VIP debarkation and it went smoothly. It only took about 5 minutes to get off the ship, through customs with our luggage and out to the waiting shuttle. Easy peasy. I think it would have been just as easy without the VIP debarkation if you went when your colored tag was called. Very nice to be able to stay in your room until you got off the ship. I have vivid memories of waiting loooong periods of time on all of our previous (non-NCL) cruises in crowded public lounges to debark. A+ on that NCL!