Onboard this cruise they had an interview With two gentlemen about how this ship is run, like a floating hotel. It is definitely more like a floating mall. If you want to buy jewelry, art & clothing or have your photograph taken Buy your own personal paid photographer, not just the regular photographers that are in other crew ships , this is the place for you. If you want to be nickeled and dimed for everything this is the place for you. A cruise is supposed to be all inclusive ( at least the majority) that was far from the case on the bliss. The add on packages that you have to pay additional for include water, soda, drinks, specialty dining, indoor pool, go carts, laser tag, select shows (Prohibition) and Video games. I’m sure there’s more but these are the things I know we paid extra for. When I first arrived on board I found out one of the things that can happen on this cruise and I tried to make sure I didn’t have to deal with it. When you have a child in your room they are automatically on your credit card they have a waiver that you can sign that says that you do not want your child to go over certain dollar amount but they don’t really enforce this because if your child happens to go over that dollar amount within the first hour such as going to the arcade they are not responsible because they only check daily. The only choice for us was to completely remove a credit card from my sons account so he was not able to charge anything. However there was seven games on his card that we were responsible for even though he wasn’t even supposed to have any access to our credit card. We did buy him the $70 package for select games ( not all) in the arcade because there was very little for him to do on the cruise. We usually make it a rule that my son is not allowed to play any kind of electronics when on vacation but I had to make an exception this time.Another boy in our group who is 15 and has been on many ships said this was the most boring he’s ever been on. On the last cruise I took, which was celebrity, you got smaller bottles of water that were free and if you wanted large bottles of Evian water you had to pay for them, which seems reasonable. This Bliss ship was one that was made for Alaska and I was on a cruise going to Alaska and if I wanted to go to an indoor pool I had to pay additional package for it. The amount of Chlorine that was in the outdoor pool made my husband sick and he could not wash his eyes out enough to stop the pain. We were so excited about the go carts and the laser tag when we booked, only to be informed after we purchased the cruise, there was going to be a charge for each which was annoying but we had to deal with it. When we get on the cruise we found out that it was completely sold out and we couldn’t use either of them. We were told we could go on standby which is going to take at least a half an hour to 45 minutes of our time but certainly did not guarantee us a spot and this was the case with almost everything on board the ship including every show. Everything had to be booked in advance and if you didn’t then you weren’t going to see it or you had to wait for a half an hour to 45 minutes on standby to do so. I don’t know about you but when I go on vacation I like to feel like I’m on vacation not like I’m at work where everything is planned. The activity level for the children I would say was about a 2. I told my nine-year-old son that he was about to go on the best vacation of his life. My son absolutely hates cruises now. They did offer clubs for different groups, my son is 9 he’s going to be 10 soon and he’s not a young 9. I asked that he be moved into the older group of 10 to 12 because the 6 to 9-year-old group had many young children, they said they did not allow that. Not such a big deal for me, my son only went once but there was another person on the cruise that had a 12-year-old child that was turning 13 a week after the cruise ended and they would not allow her to go into the older group so she was with 10 to 12-year-olds. Having said that basically you are sending your children to a daycare center everything being inside. They have added on laser tag and go carts which now is costing everyone on board additional money so now they no longer have the sporting area that they normally have for kids or other pools because the entire top deck is now being used by something that each member on the cruise is probably going to only enjoy once. The staff is by far the rudest, dullest and inconsiderate I have ever seen. I cannot believe this is a brand new ship and this is the way they treat guests. From the time I got on board and listened to a woman complain to a rude disintereseted “guest relations” rep about how she signed a waiver to not allow her child to spend over a certain amount of money, all the way to the end of the cruise when we had a member of our group fall on the stairs (which are dangerous)and asked for a copy of the report,which we were refused, It’s a constant reminder of how bad it really is. There was one woman on board that was in front of the buffet area that was absolutely wonderful and she sang a song for everybody “washy, washy” and made everyone smile but sadly she is the only memorable person on board. When I go on a cruise I expect that I will not be nickeled and dimed for everything, I will be treated with nothing but respect from all employees, my bartenders and waiters will be joyful playful and accommodating. I expect that I will have plenty to do and I will never be sitting in my room watching movies as all of us did at one point of the cruise. I expect that the largest ship should have more than 12 elevators in more than two outdoor pools and that they should have indoor pools that don’t cost additional money . I expect that if someone falls that employee will not walk by and say are you Are you OK but continue walking. I unfortunately could go on and on about this cruises faults but I really want to warn people to look into every single cost when booking Cruises these days. It is disheartening when you have a group of nine people and you each spent $2500 for a room to go on a vacation of a lifetime and come home frustrated and very disappointed. I have spoken to many people that have gone to Alaska on a cruise and it’s not Normal to return disappointed. Do yourself a favor and don’t book on the Norwegian bliss until they have corrected their errors. On a separate note visiting Alaska was a little bit different than I had expected. I probably watch way too much national geographic but I had expected to see tall glaciers and ice capped mountains. I am not sure if this cruise line goes to a different location than others but every port was pretty much the same there were mountains but everything was green. I assume because it’s the summer. We went on excursions through the cruise line but I highly recommend skipping that; Rent-A-Car and go see the countryside for the few hours that you are in each port. We went on a boat excursion that cost us $150 each for four people, $600.00 total. when we got off we rented a jeep for four people for $140 total and drove for four hours and saw the most amazing mountains (white capped), lakes, etc... When we got to British Columbia we rented a limo for $300 for five hours and saw everything that you could want to see. I’m not sure if there are other cruise lines that stay in the ports for longer than five hours but this was also a frustration as you had to get up very early in the morning get off of the ship go do your excursions come back have dinner basically ready to go to sleep, we were exhausted. That may just be the nature of the beast but you should know before you go. I really hope this review and the other reviews that you read about the bless help and I hope that people will see and the bliss will respond by making changes. It is not fair to go on what people call “a trip of a lifetime” and come home to write this kind of review.