Pearl Review--July 19-26 Seattle to Alaska

[dng6325]

Thank you for the great review. We'll be doing the same route in 3 weeks.

 

Did you reserve the Japanese restaurant on the Juneau day in advance? I was looking if it was available at noon time on our cruise, but did not see any time for it.

 

Thanks!

[quercus alba]

Day 8: Seattle and home.

 

Long unhappy day, since our flight wasn’t to leave until 6:30 PM. We managed to work in one last breakfast at Cagney’s as the kids slept in, then tried not very successfully to help them pack up without forgetting things. (Word to the wise: if your kid has bought an Alaskan ulu knife as a souvenir, please advise them to remember to pack it in checked luggage so as to avoid awkward, sad, and unpleasant events with the TSA.)

 

We wheeled ourselves off at about 9:15, found the Pier 66 concierge without trouble and checked our luggage there for a mere $3/bag. We still had tickets left over from our Seattle City Pass for the nearby Seattle Aquarium, which was worth a couple of hours, then we wandered up into the throngs on Pike Place. I’ve heard that Seattle gets rain sometimes—I can’t say that in my 2 whole days there that I’ve observed it. And when it’s sunny…everyone seems to be out to play. Anyway, I got my original Starbucks, grazed some Pike Market food, and walked on back to the pier to reclaim our bags and get a cab to SeaTac.

 

There we had plenty of time for DS#1 to learn about the joys of security checks, go back through security in reverse to mail himself his souvenir, and come through the line again. He was not a happy camper, but at least slept the whole flight home. We finally got back to MN just after midnight, knowing that DD and I both had to work in the morning. :( Got home by 1:30, all luggage intact--and no broken bones, for those who read about my previous Pearl cruise! Our puppy was ecstatic to see us, at least, but no one fell asleep easily.

[quercus alba]

A couple of general impressions:

 

Pearl—just love this ship. Only our 2nd time, but feels like home. Very happy staff who work hard to ensure us a great vacation. Thanks, NCL.

 

Cabins—we had connecting Mini-suites on deck 11, starboard, right at the aft stairwell. I really like these minis, and we had no issues with noise from above that I noticed. I did sometimes notice noise from the jogging track 2 decks up--we were right at the point where the track juts out a bit on an overhang to loop around the sports court, so you could hear tromping up there if you were out on the balcony. No big deal.

 

Very convenient location for us—in fact, I thought about it and decided that from our cabin to the Pearl's "secret Good Coffee Machine" upstairs was not really significantly more than the distance from my bedroom to kitchen back home! Always easy to pop up and get coffee or breakfast or snack items.

 

iConcierge—so, there’s this app… As advised, we all installed it before leaving, and it crashed my phone when I went to activate it on board. I had high hopes, but it was a bit of a bust. Five of the 6 of us had it, but the messaging never worked for DS#1 with his Windows phone, and it was spotty with the others’ 4 iPhones. There was a lot of fiddling with settings—wireless on/off, cellular data off/on…we’re not totally stupid about technology, but it was still confusing and awkward. I spent way too much of my first day at sea trying to mess with it and make it work. I mentioned this at our feedback session and was basically told that "they're working on it"--but honestly, it behaved more like a beta product, really not ready for prime time. I probably could have made a case for getting the charges removed, but didn't take the time for it.

 

Also, on an Alaska cruise, you’re in US ports with decent coverage for normal texting, etc., anyway, so we honestly didn’t get our money’s worth from it. I really wish that ships and resort hotels, etc. would just accept that this is how we live now, and just offer us all seamless wireless access and internet.

 

Misc. obervation: I actually think that DS#2 ran up a bigger tab at the video arcade than DS#1 charged for drinks this cruise. Don't even know what to think about that....:rolleyes:

Edited July 29, 2015 by quercus alba

[Cavetti2013]

Looks like you have to walk away from town around a industrial area to get to the road and then walk back toward town. Any shuttles or anything?

[quercus alba]

Looks like you have to walk away from town around a industrial area to get to the road and then walk back toward town. Any shuttles or anything?

Yes, there is a short detour through a parking lot, skirting an industrial container depot, but it is not far. There are shuttles, but it is only a 1 mile level walk.

See map.

Edited July 29, 2015 by quercus alba

[quercus alba]

Thank you for the great review. We'll be doing the same route in 3 weeks.

 

Did you reserve the Japanese restaurant on the Juneau day in advance? I was looking if it was available at noon time on our cruise, but did not see any time for it.

 

Thanks!

I reserved it the day before, I think, as DW & I were planning out our dining strategy for the week.

 

We used iConcierge to make the reservations, and it works pretty well, most of the time. There's no way to cancel a reservation, though--you have to call. The app also had some errors: it let me book a lunch at Le Bistro, though it was not open at that hour. The reservations staff caught it and called me to let me know though.

[dng6325]

May I also ask which company you use for the fishing trip in Ketchikan. DH & DS would love fishing for a few hours, but only day-long fishing trips were available when we looked. How long was your fishing trip and how much did it cost? Thank you very much!

[quercus alba]

May I also ask which company you use for the fishing trip in Ketchikan. DH & DS would love fishing for a few hours, but only day-long fishing trips were available when we looked. How long was your fishing trip and how much did it cost? Thank you very much!

 

I'm not sure which specific charter it was, but we booked through a Shore Excursions Group offer via Delta SkyMiles cruises. It was $207/pp for 4 hours, leaving at 7 am.

Don't know if this is "cruise critic legal", but here: http://www.shoreexcursionsgroup.com/Salmon-Fishing-Adventure-Ketchikan-p/akktkcbsalfsh.htm

[dng6325]

Thank you! DS will be so excited!

[quercus alba]

Finally sifting through some photos and thought I'd share these panoramas my daughter Alyssa shot:

 

Seattle at Sailaway

 

Mt. Roberts, Juneau

 

White Pass, Skagway

 

More to come, perhaps...

[jenseib]

Gorgeous!!!!

[lmintzer]

Day 3: Juneau.

"Any day that starts with Crab Cakes Benedict is a good day."

 

OK, so one thing about this itinerary that I didn't like was the fairly wierd times in port--and actually I’ve kind of decided that in general I like this the least about cruising—rushing in and out of every port--and it just seems especially pronounced here in Alaska. It does help that the summer sunsets are quite late in the evening, but it still frequently feels that there's not much time to do and see things. In addition, when 3 out of 7 nights you're scheduled in port over the dinner hour, it might make one reconsider the UDP if one were actually paying for it outright. But anyway, we worked the system such that the 2 PM docking in Juneau gave us time for a noon reservation at Teppanyaki, whereas evening reservations are less available. And later, we managed to get back to ship in time to make a late Italian dinner at La Cucina, so I guess it turned out fine.

 

So Juneau has quite a bit to do if you want to. I didn't book any excursions since I have a friend in Juneau who is pretty well-connected in town. She was busy at 2 when we berthed, but directed us to walk in to town to the bottom of the Mt. Roberts tram (about a mile) and take that up the mountain while we wait. Excellent advice—about $25 pp, but worth it—great views at the top and nice nature trails. Easy to just walk up for a ticket, and minimal lines. Only downside was that it turned out uncommonly warm and sunny today, and we wished we’d gone with shorts instead of the long pants and sleeves we chose in the cooler breeze at the port!

 

After a couple of hours hiking around at the top of the mountain, we returned to the bottom to meet my friend, who salmon hatchery and fish ladder, which was absolutely teeming with jumping salmon, then to Alaskan Brewing's taproom where we got free samples of several excellent local brews, then to Mendenhall Glacier, which is magnificent, and was quite uncrowded at this time of day. It would have been good to have a bit more time to walk further into the park, but the views were gorgeous all the same. Had a nice visit with my friend and she got us back to the ship at about 8:30, in time to head up for pizza, etc., at La Cucina. This is a fairly underrated specialty restaurant, BTW, and never hard to get into. Decent variety and ample portions. My DD said she’d be happy to eat there every night. Went up to the hot tubs around 10—they were fine but it was crazy cold when you got out!

 

 

Thanks for the great review. The short time in Juneau is one of my main concerns about this ship/itinerary. Princess has another 2.5 hours there--woudl that make the difference? I don't know. And what is a UDP? Some kind of a restaurant upgrade? Still not sure how dining on the Pearl works . . .

[jenseib]

Thanks for the great review. The short time in Juneau is one of my main concerns about this ship/itinerary. Princess has another 2.5 hours there--woudl that make the difference? I don't know. And what is a UDP? Some kind of a restaurant upgrade? Still not sure how dining on the Pearl works . . .

 

UPD is unlimted dining plan. You can go to the upcharge restaurants with it.