SkeeterPilot

This is a close one for me but I would go with the Balcony. I would not do Alaska wothout a balcony. Glacier Bay is great but it is 1 day of the cruise. The scenery and wildlife that can be seen from the balcony every day is amazing. There is nothing better than getting out of bed with a cup of coffee and stepping out on the balcony to look for whales.

Are you taking the train or a bus? If you are taking the train you will meet in the theater at around 6:30am. You will go out as a group and go straight to the train waiting right by the ship.

To be honest I did not last too long in the tournament. There was nobody smoking at the table I was on.

The Jewell does have several poker tables. When I was on the Jewell in June they had 2 tournaments. One was a satelite tournament for the Poker cruise and the other is a regular tournament. The buy in for the regular tournament was $80US. The tournaments are held on Sea Days.

My wife and I have been in the Club Balcony deck 11 mid ship 3 times on Alaska cruises and have had no issues. There were a few time that we could hear chairs being moved around in the morning but we are always up early anyways. We get the mid ship area close to the elevator. It makes it nice to go up 1 flight of stairs and right into the Garden Cafe for that early cup of coffee or mid day snack.

There is a fish hatchery in Juneau right on the ocean. If you can make it there you will see many.

We did the Anchorage to Seward train through NCL in 2019. It was one of the highlights of the entire trip. The veiws from the train are amazing. The train leaves around 1:00pm so we had the morning to explore around Anchorage. One benifit was when you check in at the airport you check in for the cruise. There were no lines and it went really quick. They take your luggage and you don't see it again until it appears outside your cabin door. You do board the ship in the late afternoon but it was well worth it.

There is one whale watching excursion through NCL that my wife and I did in 2021 and we are doing the same one this June as well. It is call Discover Alaska Whales. What I liked about this one is the naturalist onboard knew a lot about the local whale population. I got several pictures of the under side of the whales tails as the began their dive. She went through the book she had onboard and was able to identify 2 of the whales. She had a lot of their life history and even their offspring. There were 2 whales that she did not have in her book. When I got home I emailed her the pictures and she was able to identify them and emailed me back with info on those as well.

My wife and I did this tour in 2019 through NCL and had a great time. You take a high speed catamaran from Skagway to Haines. Then a buss to the river for the jet boat trip. We had a great time. We did not see any bears on our trip but we did see several moose. One cow moose was in a small creek just off the main river. The boat pilot was able to manuver the boat and keep it in place for sever minutes so we got some great pictures. I highly recomend this tour.

I would do a whale watching excursion in Icy Straight Point for sure. There are a couple local companies that do small boat whale watching tours.

In my past expierences I will be up on the bow as the ship is approaching the glacier. As soon as my balcony is going to be facing the glacier I much prefer enjoying the view from my private balcony. You do not have to try to fight for a front row spot to view and photograph the glacier. But the one thing that I found the best is the quiet. The sound of ice cracking is amazing and that just can't be expierenced on deck with large groups of people.

My wife and I are going on our 4th Alaskan cruise this June. We have done R/T out of Seattle twice and a southbound 1 way out of Seward. We have done 1 on the Norwegian Encore and 2 on the Norwegian Jewel. This time we are doing a northbound from Vancouver to Seward on the Jewel again. We really like the smaller ship better for Alaska. The major reason that we chose this cruise is it goes to two of the in my opinion "can't miss places" for an Alaskan cruise. These are Glacier Bay and Hubbard Glacier.

We are doing a cruise this June on the NCL Jewel that is a one way from Vancouver to Seward Alaska. When we disembark in Seward there is an excursion through NCL that is the train ride from Seward to Anchorage. We did a similar cruise a few years ago that went in the oposite direction. We we took the train from Anchorage to Seward it was one of the highlights of the entire trip. The rail cars are a domed glass type and the scenery was amazing. We seen several glaciers some mountain goats and even a black bear on the train ride.

Does anyone know what time the Cruise ship chartered trains arrives in Anchorage. We are on the NCL Jewel arriving in Seward on June 19th. The meeting time for the train excursion is 6:50am. We have a 2:20pm flight out of Anchorage.

We are on the June 12th-19th on the Norwegian Jewel. We are staying at the Pan Pacific the night before bording. They are a little more expensive than other hotels but they are right at the cruise port.