We took a 7 day Alaska cruise out of Seattle the week of Aug 6 on the NCL Bliss, our first since before COVID hit in 2019.
What worked ================================================
A gorgeous new ship. We’ve taken 5 other NCL cruises on their mid-size ships (Spirit, Dawn, Star) but wanted to try a larger ship made for AK. The Observation deck is superb, built for cooler summer weather that can stay with highs in the 50s. We had a balcony room and while the size and layout is similar to ships like the Dawn, it has a few USB jacks and more 110v US outlets. We miss a 110v bathroom outlet to plug in a nightlight but otherwise no complaints for a midship standard balcony.
11848 A balcony room and while the size and layout is similar to ships like the Dawn, it has a few USB jacks and more 110v US outlets. We miss a 110v bathroom outlet to plug in a nightlight but otherwise no complaints for a midship standard balcony. Typical "butt bumper" bathroom with mini shower but it was clean thanks to excellent room stewards and everything worked. It's also mid ship rear, closer to rear elevators that were rarely busy.
The city seemed interesting but being there 815-1145pm left few options. As mentioned in our main review DO NOT bother visiting Butchart Gardens IN THE DARK. Probably our most disappointing excursion on 45 days of 6 cruises.
Being next to a pod of Orcas for 20 mins made this COLD excursion worthwhile. Humpbacks were few to see.
No time to see Icy Strait or Hoonah.
We took an interesting 10am visit to Totem Bight park but got into port 7am. The actual city of Ketchikan is a 1.4 mile hike but the shuttles run all the time and were no lines so we pushed it on a 730am shuttle for some shopping and got back in plenty of time to catch our excursion. 70 and sunny in a port that's the rainiest city in the US, that's luck!
If you take an early tour to the Mendenhall glacier the bus driver can let you off in downtown Juneau for shopping then catch a normal shuttle back to the ship. For some reason the Bliss was NEVER close to city center ports ... don't know if it was the size of this ship or NCL was on bottom of the list?