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Sally Higgins

Age: 50
Occupation: housewife
Number of Cruises: 3
Cruise Line: NCL
Name of Ship: Sun
Sailing Date: June 8th, 2003
Itinerary: Alaska

I think having cruises leave and come back to Seattle is a brilliant idea. Air fare is a cinch and NCL has a beautiful new dock area right in the heart of things.

When my twin sister and I were going to turn 50, we decided that we would spend it doing a cruise so we invited friends and family to join us and ended up with 30 people. We got a great rate through CruiseMarketplace and the ones of us who had booked balcony cabins, got offered upgrades to mini suites which we took advantage of.

If at all possible, stay at the Edgewater Hotel before your cruise. It is a gorgeous hotel right at the water's edge and those lucky enough to have water side rooms will swear the Sun is coming right into their room. The hotel will even take your luggage to be checked which is a nice service.

Check in is a breeze - being a former NCL cruiser gave us the chance to use the Latitutude line. The only hitch was that even though we got to bypass the doorway that most passengers used, we all still ended up at the same x-ray machines. No big deal though. Once we were escorted to our cabin, we had fun exploring it. It was a beauty. The closet/dressing area was huge and there were lots of drawers and cabinets to store things. There were plenty of hangers. The main part of the bath had a full sized tub/shower with a wonderful European shower head. There was a big sitting area and good sized balcony which we used to its full extent.

We went to explore the ship. I think the Star has a more impressive atrium and some of the smaller lounges on the Sun are in an odd location, but overall, the ship is impressive. The Observation Lounge is a bit tricky to find but once we found it, it became one of our favorite places to hang out inside. I heard people complaining about how some of the elevators didn't go all the way to the top but since the pool was situated on the top deck, those elevators could hardly go any farther. Also, I asked one man where his sense of adventure was if he didn't want to explore where the elevators led, etc. I like to find out the quirks of ships.

Do not eat in the buffet when you get on board. The 7 Seas restaurant was open for lunch and it was also open daily for breakfast. It is a nice pace to sit and relax instead of jockeying for buffet food which is my opinion was not that good looking.

Las Ramblas , the tapas bar, made sandwiches daily to order for lunch. In the late afternoon, the tapas came out and if there are ones you like, get them that day cause they don't show up again. We ate there one night after having a big lunch. It was never crowded. We ate twice at the Teppanyaki Room - booked the whole 12 seats for some in our group. We really like Le Bistro and had the best waiter/waitress - Nellon from Trinidad and Ramona from Romania. They worked in the 7 Seas at lunch so we tried to get at their station because they were so much fun. We had great wait staff every day and if there was going to be a delay with the food, we were always warned.

I only saw the Que Noche show and enjoyed it. Others in our group saw the comedian the first night and said it was a must see - we were just too tired to stay up. Some of the other entertainment took place in the smaller lounges and filled up quickly. There was always something fun going on be it a trivia game or a craft, a talk about Alaska, a talk about shopping, etc. so there was no way to be bored on this ship. Most of the men in our group had fun playing in the casino tournaments.

The passage to Juneau is beautiful. We were blessed with gorgeous weather and enjoyed being out on deck watching the world float by. The biggest problem was that we were late getting into Juneau and there was no good command of the hordes all trying to get off the ship at the same time. NCL needs to post employees to direct those with early shore excursions off first. We had pre booked a whale watching trip with Orca Enterprises - l-888-733-6722 - talk to Carol or Capt Larry - they met us and got us loaded on a van and off we went to the boat. The whales weren't there in huge numbers but we were lucky enough to see several. Also saw some seals, otters and even a brown bear. There were plenty of eagles to make us happy.

Skagway was everything I hoped for scenery wise. Again, we booked early using M&M Brokers - talk to Mark at 1-866-983-3900 - we were booked on Frontier Excursions and 13 of our group were put into two brand new Ford Excursions and off we went on a 3-1/2 hour tour of the Yukon Territory. If you do this trip, you have to take your passport. The scenery was breathtaking and the narration of the hardships the gold prospectors faced just to get to the gold was interesting. Some in our group booked the train trip but that didn't go nearly as far as we did and we paid a lot less plus we got to get out and take pictures. M&M Tours is a broker and they will book anything you are interested in. One person in our group walked off the ship and talked to them and booked a dog sled trip which she thoroughly loved. There is some fun shopping once the shore excursion is over.

Glacier Bay was gorgeous. We were lucky that day because we had overcast skies which made the blue in the glaciers stand out.

Ketchikan was our only rainy/cool day. We didn't have anything planned there so we just explored Creek Street. We took the funicular up ($2) for a great view of the ship from up above. Some in our group did the lumberjack show and they enjoyed it.

We experienced some rough seas and strong head winds going to Victoria so we were late getting in. We had not planned anything cause we had been there before. Some in our group got off and rented a Rolls Royce limo and had a fun tour of the town in style.

Too quickly, our trip was over. Disembarkation went off without a snag - love how NCL does this. We had prearranged a van back to the airport and once we had everybody together, I called and the van pulled in. We used Emerald City at 1-888-622-3400 and it was $65 for an hour and split between the 7 of us was a great deal. Especially because the cruise line charged $20 each for independent travelers. Emerald City dropped us right at the curb and for those of you who are familar with Seattle's airport, it is a big deal to be dropped curbside.

We did encounter huge lines waiting to go through security - took us 45 minutes - so plan to get to the airport early if at all possible.

Overall, our group had a great time. We had a group coordinator once we were on board and she helped us set up a few things - thanks Carolyn.

I would not hesitate to do this cruise again. Great crew and fun cruise directors.

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