Oh, NCL, our hopes were so high but left unmet after seven nights. Alaska was beautiful as always, but our first cruise on NCL will be our last. Food left so much to be desired, reminded our family of not much more than school lunchroom food. Service in all dining venues was almost non-existent, to the point of us leaving a table at lunch to go retrieve our own Diet Pepsi at a nearby bar! No excuses NCL, shame on you. Your staff seemed overworked and lacking enthusiasm throughout the week. We ventured to Tepanyaki one night, which proved to be our BEST meal of the week! The food was FRESH! Cagney's was a huge disappointment, we left without dessert after having spent 90 minutes in the restaurant with no drink refills and a waiter that was MIA. Crabby shore excursion reservation staff on more than one occasion with more than one person in our group. Hokey nighttime entertainment. I could go on… Only thing I can say is to READ the reviews and plan on getting what they share with you. Our thoughts were "it can't be that bad, can it?" throughout our planning. We have cruised on three other large cruise lines and will stick with them moving forward. We chose this cruise as it "met" met our schedule, embarkation city, ports and offered connecting balcony staterooms.