After an almost 20 year hiatus and after becoming a recent widower, I decided to take another cruise again -- this time as a solo traveler for the first time in my life. I had been to Alaska previously on Crystal and Princess and wanted to go again, so I chose NCL because they are one of the few cruiselines to offer solo cabins. My travel agent informed me that they were having a special sale on solo supplements, and I noticed that I could book a mini-suite (Club Balcony Suite) for only $850 pp + reduced supplement, which was around the same price as the solo cabin, so why not splurge? With the mini suite I also received all 5 of their Free At Sea discounts, which was another nice bonus, so I quickly booked the cruise.

I then started researching NCL on Cruise Critic and watching YouTube video reviews, and became disillusioned with all the constant upselling that is done by NCL. Perhaps nowadays all the cruise lines are doing this, I'm not sure, but even my travel agent admitted that NCL attempts to monetize every perk on their ships. So I went into the cruise with a somewhat negative attitude towards NCL and decided I would try it, but this would probably be my only cruise with them.

Overall, the cruise was pleasant. The staff did the typical excellent cruiseship service, remembering my name and saying hello to me in the dining rooms, bending over backwards to be nice and do everything correctly. My cabin steward did not introduce himself to me until a couple of days into the cruise, but did a good job fulfilling any requests I made to him. There was no pen in the cabin, so I was unable to leave any notes or fill out the customs form until I went to Guest Services and asked for one, which I thought was odd. Read more