My fiancee and I, both in our mid-twenties, had sailed with NCL the past three years (two Caribbean, one Mediterranean) and upon hearing great things about Alaskan cruises, decided to book an Inside Passage cruise. We met up with both sets of parents in Seattle for a day of sight-seeing before the cruise. Our past three experiences with NCL were great -- we enjoy "freestyle" cruising, were happy with the service, prices, food and excursion options.
Compared to the past trips and ships (Spirit, Sun and Gem, which is the Pearl's sister ship), I was a disappointed in several things with the Pearl:
- The menu options in the MDRs struck me as even more limited than in the past. The lack of variety and appeal of the daily options caused us to dine at specialty restaurants twice, which come at an additional price ($10 - $25).