Pearl Review 8/12-8/19 (long)

[mizbear]

Background: my husband and I are in our early-mid 40s and cruised with our daughter (11) and my mom (late 60s). We had adjoining balcony staterooms. This was our third cruise (Carnival in 2001, Royal Caribbean in 2004). We were on the 8/12/07 sailing of The Pearl.

 

Seattle: we arrived in Seattle on Friday and spent a few days touring the city, since none of us had ever visited there. We really enjoyed ourselves, especially at Pike’s Place Market.

 

Embarkation: This could not have been smoother. We took a cab over, dropped off our bags and breezed right through. No lines and very easy. We were on the boat before noon on Sunday, and went right to Mambos to make reservations for Sunday and Monday evenings (thanks for the recommendations to do that).

 

We had lunch in the Garden Café and it wasn’t too crowded when we arrived, but as we finished our meal it became much more crazed in that area. It was clear that there was not enough seating for everyone in the Garden Café, and this was an issue at many breakfasts and lunches throughout the week.

 

We were in our staterooms by 1:30 pm and our luggage arrived before 5 pm. Our cabin steward and stewardess were wonderful – we really appreciated them! The stateroom was a good size – certainly bigger than other balcony cabins we had before and with ample storage.

 

On Sunday evening, we ate at Mambos. The meal started off well – we got our drinks right away and enjoyed appetizers and salads, but as the meal continued the service dropped off. The food was great and we all agreed we would come back to Mambos. However, this was our first indication that the service on the Pearl might an issue, and it was for many other meals.

 

On Monday morning we decided to try breakfast in Summer Palace since it was a day at sea. The service was terribly, terribly slow that morning – breakfast took well over an hour and the food was served cold. We chalked this up to the first full day of the cruise and shrugged it off. After lunch in the Garden Café we were able to enjoy some whale and porpoise watching from our balcony. The ability to view so much wildlife was definitely a highlight of this trip, and the weather was amazing – bright and sunny! We were extremely fortunate on this trip to have such wonderful weather as you will see from this review.

 

Monday evening’s dinner was at Teppanyaki. We enjoyed the food but found the bar service lacking – our drinks were delivered midway through the meal and the woman sitting next to us received her drink as she was finishing her meal. We found the bar service during dinner to be completely lacking overall – if you wanted to have a drink in a lounge before dinner you were fine, but to get a drink during dinner was difficult.

 

Monday evening’s show was the best one we saw. Charles Peachock is a juggler and his act was very funny.

 

Tuesday we woke up to a foggy morning and we were concerned about Juneau – but since we weren’t scheduled to arrive until 2 pm, we hoped the fog would burn off – and it did around 10:30 – 11 am. It was another gorgeous, sunny day with temperatures unseasonably warm in the high 70s. We decided to given Summer Palace another shot – this time, for lunch – and the service was unfortunately terrible again. We waited over half an hour between our salad and our entrée and were ignored by the wait staff during that time. Lunch took 90 minutes and we decided after this not to eat there again.

 

In Juneau we did the Mendenhall Glacier and Wildlife Quest/Whale Watching tour, which we all really enjoyed. While at Mendenhall Glacier we saw a bear fishing for salmon from a local stream, and learned so much about the glacier. We then went on a 3 hour boat ride and saw humpback whales, bald eagles and stellar sea lions. This was a terrific excursion.

 

My husband and daughter had dinner in the Garden Café that evening and went off to see the magician (Peter Gassomer) – the show was just OK. My mom and I had dinner in Indigo and enjoyed it – probably the best overall service we had during the whole trip and a good meal.

 

Wednesday we arrived in Skagway and took the Ultimate White Pass Railroad experience tour (8 hours). We were dismayed to learn that much of the trip was going to be a bus ride and were initially very annoyed with NCL that their descriptions didn’t let us know this. However – we had a FABULOUS tour guide on the bus, Chelan. She was just wonderful and entertained us the whole way up to the Yukon Territory with great stories and anecdotes. She really made the time fly by. The things we saw along the way were amazing – the mountains, the waterfalls, the lakes, even the smallest desert in the middle of the Yukon Territory! We went up to Caribou Crossing and did a sled dog ride which was a lot of fun. We even saw a bear on the side of the road! The White Pass railroad was a bit disappointing, however. The person who did the commentary over the speaker did not provide a lot of information and we were spoiled after spending the earlier part of the day with Chelan. We arrived back in Skagway and did a little bit of shopping. Again – it was a beautiful day. We did not even need the lightweight jackets we packed!

 

We had dinner in Cagney’s that evening (we made our reservation that morning and found that if you wanted to eat in specialty restaurants, the best way to get reservations is just to go to Mambos and set them up that way – calling just didn’t seem to work). The food was very good – we all really enjoyed our steaks and I loved the Cagney’s fries! However, the bar service again was not good (my daughter received her apple juice midway through the steak even though it was ordered at the beginning of the meal) and there was a long lag between salad and entrée. Our very kind server came over a few times and apologized for the wait.

 

Thursday was our day in Glacier Bay. I cannot begin to describe how impressive it was to see a glacier up close the way we did. We parked ourselves by a window in the Spinnaker Lounge on Deck 13 because the representatives from the National Park Service were there. They answered so many of our questions and we learned a great deal from having them on board (in fact, I think NCL should put a Naturalist/Wildlife expert on all cruise ships going to Alaska – I would have enjoyed that immensely). We spent a lot of time up on deck enjoying the views and had yet another amazing day weather-wise! We were up on deck in shirt sleeves. During the afternoon we saw so many whales (after 3 pm) as we headed towards Ketchikan – it’s definitely an amazing time to do some whale watching!

 

Thursday evening’s dinner was at La Cucina and it was undoubtedly the worst meal of the cruise. The food was just not that good and the service was terrible. I don’t think your appetizers, salad and entrée should all arrive at the table at the same time! During the meal a person dressed up as a dolphin came around with an annoying cruise photographer taking pictures – I expect that at a Chuck E Cheese but not during a nice meal! We also received the wrong bill to sign at the end of the evening (when your server can’t tell the difference between someone named Anna and another named Edward, you have a problem).

 

Thursday evening’s show was the comedy of Second City and we really enjoyed it, although much of the humor went over our 11-year old’s head!

 

Friday we arrived in Ketchikan, and we hit a little bit of rain, although it cleared up before we left. We did the Duck Tour and got a few laughs and heard some corny jokes, but it was fun and a good overview of the town. We did a little shopping for gifts before heading back to the ship. We returned to Mambo’s for dinner that night and again, the service was not great. We enjoyed the meal, but the portions were an issue that night – my husband and I ordered the “Il Popo” for two – but if something is serving two people, why did it only have one mushroom, one tomato and one piece of pineapple? Nevertheless, it was good, although not as good as Sunday’s meal there.

 

As “challenging” as the service was we never went to a manager for any of these issues – sure, we were slightly annoyed, but we didn’t want the issues to detract from the great time we were having. The restaurant service was extremely sub-par to both Carnival and Royal Caribbean, however, which we attributed to “freestyle cruising” and we decided to roll with it. I want to point out that we are not fussy people when it comes to service, but quite frankly, a 17 year old waitress at a local Applebee’s does a better job.

 

Saturday, however, we had a real problem in a restaurant. While eating lunch in the Blue Lagoon, I was served a salad that had broken chards of a plate in it! The managers I dealt with after this issue (maitre’d and the food and beverage manager) offered apologies but that was it. This was UNACCEPTABLE! Do you have any idea of the damage you can cause by feeding someone pieces of a plate?!?!? This was the last straw when it came to service – while I am willing to tolerate spotty service, this was inexcusable.

 

When we arrived in Victoria we took a horse trolley tour around the town. It was cloudy and cooler and I confess my mood was not the greatest at this point. We came back and had something to eat at the Garden Café. It wasn’t crowded or noisy (for a change) and it was really very, very enjoyable.

 

I should add that the final insult occurred while we were disembarking. The cruise director announced that bowling was available 8 – 9:30 am that day so we decided to perhaps give it a try as we had a later flight and the Seattle Aquarium wasn’t open yet. At 8:30 am we had to notify someone at the front desk that there was no one there. When he did show at up at 8:40, he couldn’t get the computer to work to start up the alleys – however, he did want to get his hands on my husband’s Key Card so he could charge us (we walked out)!

 

For us, we will never cruise Norwegian again, which is too bad. I love the idea of Freestyle dining and I did like the choices that were offered, but they just couldn’t execute it properly. Had it not been for the chards of the plate in my salad, I think I would have given it another shot, but not after that incident. Maybe it’s because the waiters weren’t working for tips the way they do on other cruise lines but the service just wasn’t there, which is too bad. It’s a great ship and a fantastic itinerary, but I would use another cruise line.

[Len3]

Thank you for taking the time to write a review. It sounds as if most everything went well except the plate issue - wish is simply terrible. We will cruise on the GEM in February - our 3rd with NCL. I'm sorry that you won't be a repeat cruiser, but it's certainly understandable.

[Angelcreek]

Thank you for taking the time to post your review! I'm sorry that the service you had at mealtimes was lacking. We are not fussy people either, but would certainly expect it to be better than what you received. :( On our 2 previous cruises with NCL we had fabulous service for every meal........we will be on the Pearl in 4 weeks and hope they have their service problems worked out by then. If not, hey...we are on vacation....we'll just go with the flow.:D Glad you noticed the pieces of plate in your food BEFORE you ate it!:eek: Very scary!

[iceburg1]

Sorry you did not fully enjoy the cruise. We are going on the Pearl on 9/2 and had a few questions.

1. Who was the cruise director and did you like him?

2. Did they run any half-price specials on dinner at the specialty restaurants? Was it for early or late seatings and which nights was it available?

3.How much time did they give you to spend at Mendehall Glacier on the ship's Mendenhall Glacier and Wildlife Quest?

Thanks.

[mizbear]

Iceburg1, I hope you have much better service than we did. I would suggest that if you're not happy, contact Mirsad Bucuk, the food and beverage director, early on. In retrospect, I guess maybe we should have, but hey, we were on vacation, and why get stressed out over these things?

 

In response to your questions:

1) The cruise director was Clint Wells. He tells a lot of corny jokes and I'd describe him as your typical cruise director - high energy, very outgoing.

2) Half price specials on dinners were not available on our cruise -- then again, it was peak season and a full ship.

3) We had about 1 hour and 15 minutes at Mendenhall Glacier. You view it from somewhat of a distance -- less than a mile. It is still quite impressive. We had a beautiful day there and locals had kayaked in the lake nearby and were hanging out in the water. Several people brought their dogs to the water as well. I met someone who had done the helicopter tour to the glacier and she said it was spectacular. The boat ride portion of the wildlife quest was about 3 hours.

 

One good thing I did forget to mention is that we did do the BAGS program for $15 each. We left our luggage outside our room Saturday night and saw it again when we arrived at Newark Airport. It made things SO much easier and this was a very good service NCL provided.

 

I'd be happy to answer any other questions for you.

[cruisewmn]

Wow, we had a totally different experience on the August 5th sailing of the Pearl. We LOVED the food and service we received at the restaurants. We have sailed before on Royal Caribbean (1 time) and Disney(8 times). We found NCL to be superior in almost every way.

 

I must admit, we ate at the Garden Cafe only a handful of times and never ate at Summer Palace or Indigo. We never had a problem with slow service in any restaurant (we ate between 6 and 7:30 every night).

 

We had lousy weather on ours, but thought that NCL service and the facilities on the Pearl more than made up for it.

 

Let me add, I'm a pretty picky traveler -- I normally stay at the Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, Park Hyatt, etc. Still, I found the service on NCL to be excellent.

 

I'm sorry that you were disappointed in your cruise. I totally understand your reluctance to cruise NCL after your experience, but hope that it was the exception and not the norm.

[CRUZIN TOM]

I am sorry you are not going to do NCL again. We had a great time in Feb on the Pearl. You never did mention what the wait time was if any to get into the restaurants. I know those cruisers who have never sailed NCL don't care for it. Though I will say that most of our meals have been at the garden buffet. The food has always been very fresh and hot. We will be on the Pearl again this weekend. :)

[electricron]

Post scrambled? Why?

[electricron]

We'll try again to make an unscrambled post.

There was no way I could fix that last one in 20 minutes. :mad:

 

Shards of a dish in the salad was you only real complaint, imho.

No excuse for that. But you might have gotten better results simply by asking for another salad, that you didn't like the one you got, instead of making a big deal about it. Honey attracts more flies than vinegar. ;)

 

Your other complaints were very minor. It always takes more than an hour to eat breakfast at the Main Restaurants. There is always a wait between the salad course and the main entree course. Didn't you see soup being delivered to nearby tables? You skipped an entire course. :eek:

 

Fine restaurants have had photographers long before either you or I were born, and it's normal aboard cruise ships to have a photo taken with a costumed character. It might be strange to see a shark in a restaurant, but there would be mice, ducks, dogs, pigs, mermaids, tinklebells on another cuise line doing the same thing. Believe it or not, people actually pay more for a cruise on the cruise line full of characters. :rolleyes:

 

Ordering Apple juice at the Asian restaurant at dinner wasn't smart either. Someone probably had to run deep into the reefers deep down in the hold of the ship to find a glass of Apple juice. Instead of being happy it actually arrived, here you are complaining it arrived late. Why did you think the Asian restaurant would have Apple juice handy, and ready to be served?

[sph7]

Thanks for the very thorough review about NCL Pearl. I have been worried about Free Style Dining because of the same reasons you mentioned. Unless you go to their speciality restaurants, it sounds like the service is not that great. Also, more people have problem with NCL's food than that of Carnvial. Besides, we are a group of 9 which means we have to make reservations for every night. Now, it sounds like it is so much work compared to the cruise with Carnival. I'm really worried since I will be on Pearl this weekend.

[lovesublime]

Thanks for your review. We were on the Pearl in in May. We throughly enjoyed ourselves and I'm sorry to hear you didn't. I will agree that the service was slow many times, but I guess it just didn't bother us as much. The previous poster stated that he/she was concerned that Freestyle will be too much work. We found it to be quite the opposite. It was easy to make reservations. Otherwise, we just showed up to eat where we wanted. I guess not everyone has the best experience with it though. The Pearl is NCL's newest ship and if you didn't like your experience on her then it's unlikely you would like any of NCL's other ships. Again, I really enjoyed your extensive review.

[mizbear]

I did not think that Freestyle was a lot of work. I found it rather easy to get reservations and we did enjoy the variety of restaurants versus eating in the same place each night at the same time. I think it's a great selling point for NCL -- but in our experience we found the service sub-par and significantly slower to other cruise lines.

[Hollyspop]

Isn't it amazing? On our Pearl cruise we never once had service that wasn't superb. I find it incredible that you seemed to have found every sub par server on the same ship in the same week. We also found both the service and the food in the the italian restaurant to equall that of the best served in our area.

 

WE only saw a few whales from a distance on our cruise and the weather was atrocious to say the least.However, we had a marvelous time thanks to the great crew on the Pearl and of course are looking forward to our upcomming cruise on the Sun this fall.:) :)

[Jiminkcmo]

I guess I better throw in my $0.02.

 

I was on the same Pearl Alaska cruise of 8/12 and had a great time.

 

The food and service were both very good and how NCL arranged to have such perfect weather for us was astounding.

 

It is so good that we and our likes/dislikes are not all the same.

 

Think of how boring life would be.

 

Jim

[mizbear]

Jim, I'm glad your service was great...I guess we just had the misfortune of being in the wrong restaurants at the wrong times. But you're right -- the weather was completely amazing and we certainly lucked out there (and I'll take the good weather/bad service over bad weather/good service).