Just returned from a crazy Alaskan cruise on the Sun Oct 2-11!

[Smitheroo]

6 hours ago, duck_keeper said:

I guess I am just whining according to y'all.

I feel bad for the people who are first time cruisers that was on the ship because they will never cruise again I'm sure.

 

When we tried to go into Ketchikan the day before the wind was so bad that the boat was listing to one side and we had to go out and come back. So instead of getting in at 7am we weren't in until 1:30pm.

During the really bad weather I checked the scrolling details on the navigation channel as we were leaving Juneau and it said wind at 35kph and 18m swells for a bit and then it just stopped reporting anything...as if we were not moving.

As a visual think of sitting in the main dining area on the back of the ship and seeing all sky and then all ocean within a minute. That is what I saw.

 

I've been on the Bliss before in Sept and only had one rough sea day so I'm not a newbie to what it's like up there late in the season.

 

At this point it feels like a pile on to bring up anything negative about NCL since I'm being told what did I expect?

I thought maybe a littI fle more communication? An apology for the rough weather and asking passengers if they are OK? I can't imagine there wasn't someone injured because I had to hold on to the bed/couch just to walk without falling down or slung into something.

 

I hope others will chime in, but doubt it now that I've be chastised about having a bad experience.

 

 

 

I for one think the captain should have apologized the next day, if he didnt.  Hard to say if he did or didnt without being there.  And as someone pointed out, you only hear the announcements in public places (unless its a life or death emergency) so if you were in the bathroom at the time maybe you missed hearing that.   I  wouldnt say you are 'whining", maybe inexperienced   Anyone who  has traveled by sea often knows this happens from time to time.   I would prefer this to turbulence in the air.  At least on a ship you have a cabin to stay in and not hearing other people screaming or throwing up (as they do on airplanes)

[Smitheroo]

btw, I will be on the Encore 10/22 to see Alaska for the first time.   Should be interesting

[Smitheroo]

btw, I will be on the Encore 10/22 to see Alaska for the first time.   Should be interesting

[julig22]

2 hours ago, duck_keeper said:

I guess I have been told to run along because the adults are talking.

You guys are real peaches.

There were lots of scared passengers at the end of this voyage. We're any of you on this ship? So you have no idea how it felt. Do you know how big a 10 meter wave is... that is 32 ft. You tell me how it feels to be lifted and slammed down from 32 feet.

 

View out a porthole on deck 4 during a hurricane. That's completely underwater.

[Homosassa]

2 hours ago, duck_keeper said:

 

There were lots of scared passengers at the end of this voyage. We're any of you on this ship? So you have no idea how it felt. Do you know how big a 10 meter wave is... that is 32 ft. You tell me how it feels to be lifted and slammed down from 32 feet.

And yes I was on an Aft stateroom...I didn't choose the location because it was less than a month out and it was a balcony guarantee and was assigned later.

 

 

 

Been there, done that, no tee shirt: Empress of the Seas (old ship, no stabilizers), December 2003, low pressure front , waves 35 feet, winds 40-50 mph. Inside cabin was bottom deck, amidship. Only a slight motion as we were at the fulcrum point.

 

If you cruise in the future, pay to select a cabin that is on a low deck and amidship.

 

[Homosassa]

1 hour ago, duck_keeper said:

 

 

I see people recommend calling about all sorts of things (like a bad excursion or to get a cabin upgrade) so I wondered if a polite call to see if they would offer an OBC or FCC for the rough weather.

 

By all means, call.  Everyone needs a chuckle when dealing with the public.

[ChiefMateJRK]

3 hours ago, duck_keeper said:

There were lots of scared passengers at the end of this voyage.

What exactly were they scared of?

1 hour ago, cruiser2015 said:

The rest, not so funny when people are shaken up by an uncomfortable experience.

Sure, there are many more scary events that have happened.

But this seems like it was a bit more than a little bit of rocking the boat.

A lot of people are scared by a lot of stuff.  Perhaps they shouldn't sail, fly, go out at night, etc.  I was on one particularly rough cruise that delayed our arrival into Seattle by a couple of hours.  If I had an early flight (I didn't), I would have been "scared" about missing the flight.  Beyond that?  I actually did enjoy the rough ride.  It was in fact "fun" for somebody who understands what is and is not risky about getting on a cruise ship.  A lot of people are scared of roller coasters, while others have the time of their lives.  This may not be any different.

 

Not sure why you thought that line of reasoning was intended to be "funny."

[BunnyHutt]

1 hour ago, paradyne64 said:

Was on the 24 Sept Encore sailing.  Seas were so rough the first morning at sea, the hot tubs on deck 19 were spilling over the sides.  Staff placed barf bags at all stair wells.  Saw more than once stairs roped off from people getting sick. Seas calmed down for rest of cruise.  Was told on previous cruise seas were very rough 3 of the 7 days and Skagway port call was cancelled.

I was on the previous cruise. Definitely rough for a good 18 hours. Yep, Skagway canceled. 😢 I guess things were a little rocky heading back down to Victoria but *nothing* like they were Sunday overnight through Monday afternoon. So I’m not sure where the 3 days came from. 🤪

[Jackiejoe]

Not sure what I can add to the conversation, but I am currently on the Sun.  There has been lots of talk about the previous cruise. We just had one crew member who told us that a window was broken in the atrium on the 7th deck.  Just passing on what I was told by someone who was actually here last week 

 

Since last night we have had rough seas, but nothing like what happen last week.  Glad I remember to bring my Dramamine 😮

[durberville]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/powerhouse-typhoon-bolaven-will-impact-alaska-and-have-downstream-impacts-on-us/ar-AA1i6WB8?ocid=sapphireappshare
 

Oh jeeze! This doesn’t sound great. 

[duck_keeper]

21 minutes ago, Jackiejoe said:

Not sure what I can add to the conversation, but I am currently on the Sun.  There has been lots of talk about the previous cruise. We just had one crew member who told us that a window was broken in the atrium on the 7th deck.  Just passing on what I was told by someone who was actually here last week 

 

Since last night we have had rough seas, but nothing like what happen last week.  Glad I remember to bring my Dramamine 😮

Thanks for contributing. That was one of the things I had heard but could not verify and wanted to see if others had heard/seen the same or of other issues.

[phillygwm]

My only Alaska cruise, about 5 years ago, was the 2nd week in September.  As I recall, it was the next to last sailing of the season.  I know a number of shops were already closed.  Is this the first year NCL is sailing this late?  I know someone who booked this week next year...I tried to warn them!

[JustAPilot]

Any other cruise line still sailing to Alaska in October? It’s like going to Bermuda in November and expecting Caribbean weather and then picachu face that it’s the opposite. 

[PurpleKa]

This was a first cruise for 3 of the 4 people in our group and all 4 of us never want to cruise NCL again (the 3 for whom it was our only cruise experience may never set foot on any cruise ship ever again, and the experienced cruiser says never Norwegian again).
 

I talked to several experienced cruisers who had been on 5-20 cruises and all said they had never experienced anything like the level of ship movement we had on this cruise.

The amount of tossing and rocking and banging and the level of both sound and motion was extreme, and just went on and on. We had very rough seas and weather several days and nights of the trip. The first night at sea was very rough, Monday-Tuesday Oct. 2-3 and so was much of the rest of the trip; but the worst was Sunday-Monday Oct. 8-9.  
 

Our landing in Skagway was delayed until afternoon, our tram excursion in Juneau was canceled, and the stop in Icy Strait was completely canceled, but instead of staying docked or landing somewhere else we spent an extra day at sea in stormy weather.

The worst night (Sunday-Monday 8-9) it felt like the ship would completely lift off and fly through the air before slamming down with a crash on the next wave. Those few seconds of feeling like we were flying were kind of amazing though. The Gs were similar to being on a roller coaster. At times it was almost impossible for anyone to walk, and the halls were almost empty except for people clinging to walls and railings and I saw several people falling or almost falling.

 

We really thought at several points that the ship had crashed or was breaking apart. You’d literally take air and get lifted off the floor or bed and then get slammed down, over and over. The banging and slamming noises combined with shuddering impact motion were so loud people were wandering the ship asking if we had hit something.
 

Something was hitting the back of the wall where the head of my bed was so hard that it felt like it might break through or knock me off the bed, and the noise was deafening. I don’t know if it was lifeboats or service carts or what, but something large and heavy was not secured and was hitting the wall behind my head very hard, and this continued intermittently all night long. Other passengers were commenting about it too as we were getting off the ship and lining up for the departure shuttles. I was on the 10th floor and heard from passengers on the 8th floor they experienced the same thing.
 

Sunday night/Monday morning the ship was whipping back and forth so hard I felt like I was getting whiplash in my neck sitting/lying on my bed. We were losing TV reception. Around 3am Monday morning Oct 9 I heard an announcement saying something like, “all travel teams proceed to deck three zone three bunker”.

 

At several points we really thought the ship might completely tip over or that it might be breaking apart and about to sink. When we left the room to see if we could find any information I literally took our most important papers and medication along in case we were about to be evacuated.
 

There were a couple of nights they were running out of seasickness bags on the banisters. Sunday evening/Monday morning there was vomit on the floor multiple places in the hallways and outside the elevators, and it took about an hour after calling guest services to get anyone to clean up vomit on carpet in a room (we even called again and offered to clean it ourselves if we could just get cleaning supplies), and then it wasn’t throughly cleaned so the room didn’t still smell like vomit until a couple of days later. They stopped even answering the guest services phones at some point Sunday night.

 

 It was intense!

 

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by PurpleKa

[PurpleKa]

Also, the communication from Norwegian cruise lines to the passengers was not great. For example, we departed from and left our vehicles at Pier 66, but when we arrived back in Seattle, they just dropped us off at Pier 96 without even telling us we were at a separate pier, or giving us information about where to go or how to get back to our vehicles. There was no mention of the fact that we were arriving at a separate pier than we had departed from at all. And I listened carefully to all the announcements and read everything we were given. 
 

it was a 15 to 20 minute drive from where we were to where our cars were, and we spent a long time trying to figure out how to find our vehicle before we finally asked around among people milling around and found out there was a shuttle from where we were back to Pier 66. It was a couple of hours ordeal in cold, rainy, windy weather with my grandmother in her 90s to get to our car from where the Norwegian Sun dropped us off with no information or instructions about how to get back where we started.

Edited October 13, 2023 by PurpleKa
Add info and correct terminology (pier vs dock/port)

[IAcruising]

18 minutes ago, PurpleKa said:

 It was intense!

 

If this post had been the OP, this thread would have taken a completely different direction.

 

[PurpleKa]

30 minutes ago, PurpleKa said:

“Our landing in Skagway was delayed until afternoon, our tram excursion in Juneau was canceled, and the stop in Icy Strait was completely canceled, but instead of staying docked or landing somewhere else we spent an extra day at sea in stormy weather.”

Oh sorry, I think it was Ketchikan that was delayed, not Skagway.

 

[eaoks]

3 minutes ago, PurpleKa said:

 

 

I was also on this cruise, you were correct the first time that it was Skagway port that was delayed until the afternoon. 

 

I'm not going to pretend to know much about the navigational aspect and what would have been safest/smoothest in terms of sailing. I agree that communication was lacking from the crew, especially with the pier change. I had read that those on the back to back cruise were aware since their second portion embark port was noted, but assumed the cruise line would also provide some form of communication about it. 

[PurpleKa]

1 hour ago, phillygwm said:

My only Alaska cruise, about 5 years ago, was the 2nd week in September.  As I recall, it was the next to last sailing of the season.  I know a number of shops were already closed.  Is this the first year NCL is sailing this late?  I know someone who booked this week next year...I tried to warn them!

please tell them to read my post. Several people at the ports told us that landings and excursions get canceled regularly this time of year because of the weather and most cruise lines are already done for the year by now.
 

We were told this current week (the next cruise after ours) is the last week of the season and there are no more Alaska cruises after this. A lot of the attractions and stores were already closed for the season or open only short hours on certain days.
 

On the bright side, a lot of the ones that were still open were having clearance sales.

[PurpleKa]

1 minute ago, eaoks said:

 

I was also on this cruise, you were correct the first time that it was Skagway port that was delayed until the afternoon. 

 

I'm not going to pretend to know much about the navigational aspect and what would have been safest/smoothest in terms of sailing. I agree that communication was lacking from the crew, especially with the pier change. I had read that those on the back to back cruise were aware since their second portion embark port was noted, but assumed the cruise line would also provide some form of communication about it. 

Thank you. Yeah, we were only on the one cruise and we were given zero communication about it. And we were not the only ones wandering randomly around the pier trying to figure out what we were supposed to be doing and where we were supposed to be going. Then people had to stand in line about 30 minutes to an hour for the shuttle once we finally figured out what line we were supposed to be standing in. 

[PurpleKa]

Also, I don’t know if this is standard for cruises or not, but we had someone in our party got sick during the cruise and when we called the health center we were told it would cost about $350 for an exam and testing, and there was no way to get a Covid test or even Over-the-counter medication different than what was carried in the main ship store without doing that. And they don’t accept or bill any health insurance and couldn’t tell us whether our travel insurance would cover it or not. So our only option would be to pay out-of-pocket and then hope either our health insurance or travel insurance might reimburse us. There was no way to get any sort of testing or treatment  other than that. 
 

We at least self-isolated as much as possible and took precautions to try to avoid infecting others. But there were so many people all over the ship and excursions that were very obviously sick and coughing and taking no precautions.
 

We all tested as soon as we got home and three of the four of us tested positive for Covid.

 

On the bright side we thought the food was amazing, the staff were kind and friendly and generally mostly helpful, and our housekeeping staff made daily towel animals for the child in our party, which was greatly appreciated.

Edited October 13, 2023 by PurpleKa

[phillygwm]

7 minutes ago, PurpleKa said:

On the bright side we thought the food was amazing, the staff were kind and friendly and generally mostly helpful, and our housekeeping staff made daily towel animals for the child in our party, which was greatly appreciated.

Glad to hear this.  I'm one of those juveniles in his late 50s who asks for towel animals.  Hopefully it isn't a dying art.

[PurpleKa]

Just now, phillygwm said:

Glad to hear this.  I'm one of those juveniles in his late 50s who asks for towel animals.  Hopefully it isn't a dying art.

If you do this, I would encourage you to leave an extra tip for that person. We did.

I overheard someone who had talked to several of the staff saying that since the ship is docked overseas, they don’t have to follow first-world labor laws or pay scales and a lot of the staff don’t get any days off for months at a time and don’t get scheduled breaks. Reportedly a lot of the staff were up all night without any sleep or breaks the nights we had the worst weather.
 

This person said the housekeeping staff have to work until their allotted number of rooms are done and then if there is time, they might get a chance to rest before they have to start the next round of tasks. But if the cleaning takes longer than usual, or people aren’t out of their rooms when they need to clean, they might not get time to themselves.

[duck_keeper]

1 hour ago, PurpleKa said:

This was a first cruise for 3 of the 4 people in our group and all 4 of us never want to cruise NCL again (the 3 for whom it was our only cruise experience may never set foot on any cruise ship ever again, and the experienced cruiser says never Norwegian again).
 

I talked to several experienced cruisers who had been on 5-20 cruises and all said they had never experienced anything like the level of ship movement we had on this cruise.

The amount of tossing and rocking and banging and the level of both sound and motion was extreme, and just went on and on. We had very rough seas and weather several days and nights of the trip. The first night at sea was very rough, Monday-Tuesday Oct. 2-3 and so was much of the rest of the trip; but the worst was Sunday-Monday Oct. 8-9.  
 

Our landing in Skagway was delayed until afternoon, our tram excursion in Juneau was canceled, and the stop in Icy Strait was completely canceled, but instead of staying docked or landing somewhere else we spent an extra day at sea in stormy weather.

The worst night (Sunday-Monday 8-9) it felt like the ship would completely lift off and fly through the air before slamming down with a crash on the next wave. Those few seconds of feeling like we were flying were kind of amazing though. The Gs were similar to being on a roller coaster. At times it was almost impossible for anyone to walk, and the halls were almost empty except for people clinging to walls and railings and I saw several people falling or almost falling.

 

We really thought at several points that the ship had crashed or was breaking apart. You’d literally take air and get lifted off the floor or bed and then get slammed down, over and over. The banging and slamming noises combined with shuddering impact motion were so loud people were wandering the ship asking if we had hit something.
 

Something was hitting the back of the wall where the head of my bed was so hard that it felt like it might break through or knock me off the bed, and the noise was deafening. I don’t know if it was lifeboats or service carts or what, but something large and heavy was not secured and was hitting the wall behind my head very hard, and this continued intermittently all night long. Other passengers were commenting about it too as we were getting off the ship and lining up for the departure shuttles. I was on the 10th floor and heard from passengers on the 8th floor they experienced the same thing.
 

Sunday night/Monday morning the ship was whipping back and forth so hard I felt like I was getting whiplash in my neck sitting/lying on my bed. We were losing TV reception. Around 3am Monday morning Oct 9 I heard an announcement saying something like, “all travel teams proceed to deck three zone three bunker”.

 

At several points we really thought the ship might completely tip over or that it might be breaking apart and about to sink. When we left the room to see if we could find any information I literally took our most important papers and medication along in case we were about to be evacuated.
 

There were a couple of nights they were running out of seasickness bags on the banisters. Sunday evening/Monday morning there was vomit on the floor multiple places in the hallways and outside the elevators, and it took about an hour after calling guest services to get anyone to clean up vomit on carpet in a room (we even called again and offered to clean it ourselves if we could just get cleaning supplies), and then it wasn’t thoroughly cleaned so the room didn’t still smell like vomit until a couple of days later. They stopped even answering the guest services phones at some point Sunday night.

 

 It was intense!

 

 

Thanks for your post. This is what I was trying to convey and it seems to have set off a series of posts saying rough seas are the norm and basically laughing/mocking at the thought of being concerned about our safety.

I thought we docked elsewhere because the dock looked totally different than I remember. So sorry you had the run around to find your way back to your car.

They probably had to dock there to get some repairs done to the ship if there was some damages.

[PurpleKa]

5 minutes ago, duck_keeper said:

Thanks for your post. This is what I was trying to convey and it seems to have set off a series of posts saying rough seas are the norm and basically laughing/mocking at the thought of being concerned about our safety.

I thought we docked elsewhere because the dock looked totally different than I remember. So sorry you had the run around to find your way back to your car.

They probably had to dock there to get some repairs done to the ship if there was some damages.

Yeah, it is hard to really convey how it felt being there on the ship. I also would’ve appreciated some communication from the staff, or at least reassurance that this was normal and/or what was going on and that they had it under control when things got really bad. But when we went out looking for some information, it was really eerily quiet as far as the crew (besides the noise from the ship, storm, etc) and very few people around.

 

We were told the ship had to dock at a different pier because there were repairs being done to the other pier, I thought. But it’s possible that I misunderstood and it was something about repairs to the ship, I suppose? I would not be at all surprised. Even my family members on the fifth floor were awakened in the middle of the night with a huge crash and jolt, and initially thought there had been some sort of accident or damage to the ship. 

Edited October 13, 2023 by PurpleKa
Typo