Siuolbear082015

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Much appreciated. I will try to see who NCL uses. 

Going to Alaska May 12th-May 19th on NCL Bliss. One of the offers we got was $50 off at each stop on excursions. We definitely want to do the whale watching in Juneau but have read that if you go through the cruise line they will put upwards of 50+ people on the boat. 

How crowded will it be? One excursion is Whale Watching and Wildlife Quest and other is Mendenhall Glacier and Whale Quest so not sure if one will get more than the other. 

Both Alaska and the New England Canada area are just gorgeous and I loved both the cruises. Alaska, to me, is much grander and just unbelievable. We will go back to Alaska someday but next year we are doing another New England cruise because we too are closer to the east coast. We took a seven day from New York and then back to New York. The ports we have in common with the one you are looking at are Portland and Halifax. We loved both! Beautiful landscapes and lighthouses in both. As far as wildlife goes we really didn't see any on the New England cruise except for dolphins on a few different days.

 

In Alaska everything is just so massive that it is hard to fathom unless you are there. We visited a glacier on a land excursion and it was breathtaking. We were on a small ship so we were also got to sail pretty far into Glacier Bay. The captain slowly circled the ship around for probably 45 minutes while there so that everyone got great looks at everything. The highlight of our trip was the whale watching excursion and at another port we went kayaking. We actually saw a whale and her calf while kayaking and it was amazing. We also saw a couple of whales while cruising. Bald eagles were also pretty common to see while doing excursions. We did not see any moose or bear while there.

 

Good luck with your decision. I don't think you will be disappointed with either. The only other cruise besides these that I have done was a Caribbean and I didn't enjoy it near as much. The New England cruise we are taking next year starts in Quebec City and goes to Boston but we have different ports than the one you are looking at. I chose this one in particular because it stops in Bar Harbor. Acadia National Park is on my bucket list so that is why I chose it.

Great info, thanks for the reply! Yeah we want to get out to Alaska soon but airfare will be much much cheaper for us on the NE/Canada cruise, so that is why we are thinking of doing that one this upcoming year. Glad to hear you enjoy them!

Hi all,

My wife and I were thinking of doing Alaska or a NE/Canada cruise as our next one. I came across this itinerary for a NE/Canada cruise that looked interesting-it's a 7 day that starts in Boston. It has stops in Portland, Halifax, Charlottetown, Gaspésie, Saguenay (La Baie), and ends in Quebec City.

Has anyone ever done this cruise? Any chance to see some wildlife? Being able to see some wildlife/nature is what attracted us to Alaska, but it looks like some of Canada offers that as well (and we are much closer to the east coast).

Please let me know if this may be better on the NCL boards, but I am more interested in knowing more about the port cities.