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Tracy Hames

Age: 35
Occupation: Marketing
Number of Cruises: 2
Cruise Line: Norwegian Cruise Line
Ship: Norwegian Wind
Sailing Date: April 29th, 2002
Itinerary: Inside Passage (Alaska)

My husband and I traveled on the Norwegian Wind to Alaska April 29-May 6, 2002. This was my second cruise and his first. We booked roughly one month in advance and were able to get a good deal through travelocity.com on both the cruise and airline tickets. We flew from Los Angeles to Vancouver, boarded in Vancouver and returned there by ship.

I had heard nightmares about going through customs in Vancouver however; we did not experience any delays or problems on the in-bound or out-bound flights. We flew Alaska Airlines and arrived and departed on time, which has been my typical experience with Alaska. The Vancouver airport is about a $30.00 cab ride to Ballantyne Pier. Cabs were plentiful and the drivers courteous.

Now about the cruise experience:

Embarkation:

We arrived at Ballantyne Pier at 1:30 p.m. and stepped foot in our stateroom at approximately 5:00 p.m. The lines to go through security were long but moved pretty quickly. The same can not be said for the second phase of the line in which you spoke to a NCL rep, gave credit card information, and received card keys for the ship. It took about 2 ½ hours to complete that section. Many people were complaining and I overhead some of the NCL reps. explaining that since it was the first cruise of the season to Alaska and because of heightened security things were not moving as quickly as normal. This was not a good first impression. As a result of the long embarkation we were delayed two hours in Vancouver.

Stateroom:

We were pleasantly surprised to find we had been upgraded to a stateroom with a window—we had booked an inside stateroom with a porthole. The room was larger than I expected and seemed spacious compared to the room I had on a cruise I took on Royal Caribbean to Ensenada Mexico. We had a queen size bed, sitting area with a small loveseat, chair, and table. A surprisingly roomy bathroom and plenty of closet space for both of us. I had read past reviews of people complaining about a sewer smell in the staterooms. I am happy to report this was not an issue for us and I did not hear anyone complaining in that regard.

The Ship:

Once we found our room, we decided to scope-out the ship and see what was happening at the moment. The ship was decent. Not wonderful—not horrible. It was simple and not as glamorous as we had hoped. Everything was relatively clean except the windows, which was quite disappointing because the best thing about the entire cruise was the beautiful Alaskan scenery. When it was too cold to be on deck, many people gathered in the coffer bar area to enjoy the scenery and unfortunately these were the dirtiest windows of all.

The Staff:

All of the staff was very friendly and accommodating. The only staff issue I found frustrating was when dealing with the hostess at the Italian Trattoria restaurant. The restaurant was very busy almost every night and she seemed quite put out if you didn’t want to share a table with another couple. My husband and I tried it the first night we ate there and decided it wasn’t for us. We enjoyed the food and when we went back and requested a private table I had to tell here more than a couple of times we would wait, regardless of how long, for our own table. She didn’t seem overly pleased with me. I found out later, this could have been avoided by making a reservation—maybe that was the problem, I’m not sure. All of the other wait staff was wonderful. We had an especially great waiter at Le Bistro (the French restaurant on board--$10 co-pay) as well as a wonderful wine steward. The Maitre d’ at Le Bistro seemed a bit stressed, but was still quite pleasant.

The Food:

The food was overall disappointing with the exception of Trattoria and Le Bistro. Trattoria’s food was good-very good and Le Bistro was very good-excellent. My husband was more impressed with Le Bistro than I was, but I still think it was a good value at $10 per person based on the quality of the other food on board.

We decided to stick to Trattoria for dinner and have the barbecued lunch on deck. The barbecued lunch was generally excellent with the exception of one afternoon when everything was tough and dried-out. For breakfast we usually ordered room service. Which brings up another problem—the coffee. My husband and I are die-hard Starbucks fans and find bad coffee to be in bad form. The coffee was weak and tasteless. We were thrilled when we found Starbucks being served at the Skagway Mercantile. We practically ran to get in line.

Excursions & Ports:

We really went on the cruise for the excursions and ports—not the ship. We booked three excursions immediately because we were afraid they might sell-out. We initially selected the Pilot’s Choice Glacier Expedition in Juneau, the White Pass Railroad in Skagway, and the Saxman Native Village in Ketchikan. The day we were docking in Juneau, the Captain announced that we would be arriving 4 hours late due to rough seas the previous evening and, though he didn’t say it, I’m sure our late departure from Vancouver didn’t help matters. Of course, arriving 4 hours late wrecked havoc on the planned excursions. We missed our scheduled excursion time by 3 ½ hours. Most of the excursions that day were cancelled (ours being one of them) and the confusion that resulted was not handled very well by the excursion staff.

They had everyone who booked an excursion meet in the Stardust Lounge when we were getting ready to arrive in Juneau. The room was packed. In our particular case, they called us to the front of the room and said we would definitely be going, even though we were several hours late. In the meantime, they we canceling other excursions left and right. Then, after about 45 minutes, they canceled ours. They assured us our account would be credited or we could book for the following day in Skagway. We had already booked the railroad in Skagway so this option presented a conflict.

We ended up doing the following:

No excursion in Juneau because of late arrival. We walked around the city, took some pictures, and went to the Red Dog bar for drinks and music (that was fun—locals hangout there). It was cold and rainy that night, but we still enjoyed the city.

White Pass Railroad in Skagway. Skagway is a great little town with rich history. I really enjoyed it. The shops were more upscale than in Juneau and the store owners and staff were incredibly friendly. We did a fair amount of shopping here. The railroad was very beautiful with many photo opportunities and the narration provides a nice history of the town. We had great weather and loved the authenticity of the town.

Sea Kayaking in Haines. Again, we were late getting into port so the kayaking was cut a little bit short. There isn’t much to see or do in Haines, so I’m glad we booked the Kayaking. It was nice to do something active after being on the boat for a couple of days. It was wonderful (my favorite of the 3 excursions). We were entertained by a very large group of sea lions. One was so close to the kayak I could have reached out and touched him! The guides were expert, friendly and helpful.

Misty Fjords in Ketchikan. We took a floatplane through the fjords. This was very beautiful and my husband’s favorite excursion. My only caution would be that if you are prone to motion sickness this one is a little bit rough. The excursion was only 1 ½ hours so we had plenty of time to scour the city and shop. We had lunch at a wonderful little restaurant called The New York Hotel. Very friendly service and great food! We bought a pound of coffee called Raven’s Brew that they roast on site—excellent!

All of the ports and excursion were excellent and the people were wonderful.

We will most likely not take another cruise with NCL. Although we had a great time, it had more to do with Alaska than with being on the ship. I do think a cruise is a great way to see Alaska but wish we would have booked on a different cruise line.

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