We chose to cruise on the Bliss to Alaska mainly due to the newness of the ship, figuring it would have plenty of activities throughout the week. While the ship was beautiful and more modern than the typical (our stateroom bathroom was divine!), the activity schedule was sorely lacking. We’ve taken about 8 cruises so we aren’t new to cruising but previous cruises have been in warm water and on different cruise lines. Because it was gray, rainy, and cold (which isn’t uncommon on an Alaskan cruise) the outdoor spaces were practically unusable, leaving us to spend any shipboard time inside. I would have assumed plenty of activities would be scheduled on sea days, which in all honestly was around 4 days as 2 “port” days were extremely short leaving around 2 comfortable hours to just walk around town and the other 22 hours onboard. Most days the only daytime activities were trivia in the atrium and maybe some art auction. The trivia we sat thru was about money, ie who made the first atm machine, etc… Not exactly compelling trivia. But let me tell you the atrium was typically packed with people because it was the only planned activity… just trivia after trivia, or meet the officer events, and behind the scenes of the cruise ship slideshows. The shows consisted of Jersey Boys on the second to last night on the ship and then again as a matinee the next day. There was a comedy show in the evening that seemed to have been totally booked prior to boarding, and also a Beatles cover band show. That’s really it other than some karaoke or mediocre music in the atrium in the evening. We walked every square inch of that ship over and over again out of sheer boredom, and hey at least we made sure we worked out every day. By the end of the cruise I honestly started to envy the ship employees who had something to do.

When trivia winners were quizzed with the typical “where are you from, what is your favorite thing to do on this cruise”, all but one responded that eating was their favorite part. Yikes. So I guess that’s the difference, it seems this is a cruise line for eaters… the sheer number of unhealthy guests was staggering.

I will say the Alaskan people were absolutely lovely and so happy to have cruise ships back in their ports. We didn’t realize we were the first ship of the season and were always greeted with such kindness. Having taken the trip in mid/late April I would definitely suggest waiting until a little later in the season as 1 of our excursions was cancelled and the other cut short due to weather. I would say that might have added to our boredom but we made the best of it in each town and enjoyed getting off the boat immensely. Read more