Same cruise line but what a marked difference between two ships. My wife and I, after using various other cruise lines, first cruised with NCL on the Jade last Christmas and New year, cruising the Western Mediterranean, this to us was a bad experience.
As we had already booked up on the Star for the Alaska cruise we were a bit concerned that things on the Star might be the same low quality. How wrong we were and thankfully things were much better with one exception.
Prior to the cruise we had flown into Calgary to experience the Rocky Mountaineer railway to Vancouver. After staying overnight in Vancouver we traveled down to Seattle and again stayed overnight before taking a taxi to the dock.