ashank1m

Forgot about Encore. I think Joy also has one. But not on Breakaway, Escape, Epic. Not sure about the newer ships.

Ward Cove is a mess, getting off ship is easy but getting off the Port was not. Once gathered at the Warehouse/shop/meeting points. Left side is the line for shuttles to the Downtown, right side is for Excursion lines. There is no walk ways after the warehouse. We walked through the dirt road and hiked 1/2 mile up to the street along the shuttles/buses traveling on that hilly dirt road then crossed street to hop on Ketchikan city bus to go to the Totem Bight State Park (2 miles 5 min ride at $2 per person.) Coming back to the Port from the downtown, there would be a LOOOONG line by Birth 2 (right by the Ketchkan City sign/ visitor center). The shuttle time to/from port to the downtown is about 30 min.(line was about 45 min)

Yes. Prior to cruise you can make reservation for most specialty restaurant but there is no option to make reservation for Food Republic. You can only make reservation on the ship at the Teppanyaki checkin. At Food Republic they would not make reservation, they will tell you to go to Teppanyaki restaurant to make reservation.

Its like buying a car, more options and dealer fees. NCL port fee/taxes are higher than others in same port and same itinaries. Then you add gratuities for drinks about $150 per person on 7 days and dining package, about $20 per person. Then add Daily gratuities of $20 a day per person (compare to $14.5 for Carnival/MSC and $18 for RCL), I think Suites get bumped to $25 a day.

Cruise companies would loved to see all passengers adhere to their checkin time. I get off ship at 8am and I see people waiting to get on board. As travelswithK mentioned, porters should be there to accept your bags. So check the big bags and just carry personal items. Interpid is only couple blocks away.

Go to your NCL online account, In your reservation, you can purchase 2 dining package/s for others in your cabin that does not have the dining package. The package is not restaurant specific, so after you purchased the package, you will see that in your reservation. About 30 days prior to trip, you can go online to make restaurant reservation. In your trip page, click on Specialty restaurant an your will see Reservation button, click on that and all your room party that has Dining package will show and you make the date and time for the reservation. Purchase of everything else is same.. You get 150 min of internet for the room (only first two passengers will have account but it can be shared with same log in information-click on your NCL Apps/internet-type in last name, birthdate.) If one needs unlimited internet, you can purchase individually and share (only one device at a time.) One of my kid had some online classes they needed to attend so we purchase 1 unlimited and 150 free min. with 2 pc andd 4 phone we managed to do what we needed.

Ship: Beautiful and big ship, it seems to be the only NCL ship with huge observation lounge in the front, where light meal/snack and a bar was open most of the time. This is where the Glacier Bay NP rangers hosted presentation overlooking the Glaciers from 8-noon. ship layout with one central point with two elevator banks on forward and rear. As typical there is no indoor pool/Solarium which would have been nice in 40s in Alaskan cruise. This being fairly a new ship with refurbishment in 2022, I thought ship would be smoother but in cabin 13270 which is right by rear elevator (2/3 of ship), I felt ship vibrate throughout the trip, standing still, I felt like I was a vibrator. The vibration was mostly throughout the ship more noticeable in center to rear in every floor. The fitness center was small but has about 3 dzn cardio machines and about a dzn workout machine, full rack of free weight and virtually no extra room for stretching or individual work out. Unique to the ship, it has a very decent go-cart track, $15 for about 10 min ride, it was nice but the speed seems to be limited by central controller, where at the beginning no matter how hard you press the accelerator, it wouldn’t move until they give you the power then suddenly pops forward and if you drive fast, they seem to throttle you back. 8th floor has various restaurants and boardwalk, forward port side had District brew which has several specialty beers on the tap. We avoid 8th floor in the center due to heavy cigar smoke near Cavern club area. Cabin: in Fam Bal 13270, was by far the smallest room I have been onboard with virtually no storage space. Other than closet with 4 shelves, there are no real drawers in the cabin. There is two large drawers under the couch but it had couch cushion when converted to a bed, main desk/vanity had two area with shelves but one was just enough to put clothes other with about 3-inch width, it really didn’t serve much. The bathroom actually had more storage space than the room! Bathroom size avg but sink was big enough, and shower actually had enough space to move around. Although nearby elevator it was far enough no noise yet quick access to most rear of the ship facilities (2 floor up for Fitness and Spa, elevator down to 7 for Main dining, 6th for two alt main dining Savour and Taste. This is one of few rooms that narrow mid ship expand to wider body thus giving you extra 20 sqft of balcony space with forward view. With the latest change, the daily gratuity is $20, which is almost 35% increase mean while you get only 1 room cleaning a day. (get the math, 35% increase to get half the service?) I don’t really mind on cleaning but making up bed should be done 2x a day. With bunk dropped from the ceiling and couch being a bed, you really don’t have any room to lounge and move around in your room. Dining: Main cabin dining presentation was good, food was very mixed some good some bad. One biggest gripe was all chowders/creamy soup had one flavor, no matter which soup (clam chowder, Salmon Chowder, etc) I had it always tasted like a raw flour and had small rump of flour floating. I don’t think the chef on NCL knows the concept of roux for chowders. If due to dietary restriction, veg oil can be used for roux. Service was mixed as well, sometime decent other times not even getting a water or see a server for 20-30 min. Buffet was set up with similar food on both sides. starting with drink station, cold food (right side had desert with ice cream section) that connects to middle that served egg stations in morning, pizza/burger bar in the afternoon and dinner. Across that center section will be hot food and carving stations (egg and hot breakfast in the morning), similar set up forward except, left side will have Indian food section and right side with Asian food (had one type of noodle soup, one stir fried item, one stir fried noodle and rice), food quality is very lacking. Like the food you get from cheap Chinese carryout in a bad neighborhood. Indian food was decent in taste (I am not a fan of Indian food but as a foodie I will always try different food.) Other free meal places are at the 15th forward for Observation lounge where they usually have drinks and light finger food/fruits. Local bar has various bar food which also was hit and miss. Wings were ok I prefer more deep-fried type, had hotdogs and bugers which was good. Fish and chip was weird as when you bite into it you will only find inside with half empty. They could cut back on amount of fries with food to cut back on food waste as we left about 2 large McD portion of fries with 3 orders we had. if you choose to have a dining plan (2 meals) or purchased a plan, you have access to Cagney’s Steakhouse, Ocean Blue Seafood, La Cucina Italian, Los Lobos Mexican, Le Bistro French, Q Texas Smokehouse, Food Republic Fusion, Teppanyaki, American Diner. For me, paying almost $50 for a meal to have Teppanyaki (typical in my area for $40 a meal), Mexican, or American Diner for burgers didn’t make sense. So I opted for Cagney and Food Republic. Cagney, with a meal plan, you get 1-App, 1-Salad or soup, 1 main course, and 1 dessert, and you cannot combine 2 meal plans for a Porter House. As you can see from the menu, steaks weren’t either Prime or Choice and my opinion, I have had better steaks at Long Horn/Outback than here, the meat was flavor less and was not juicy even at Med rare. This was the same for Prime rib, NY strip, and Filet Mignon. Fries and veg were good, but the baked potato were not. it was a lump of potato in a nice dish, you cut it and a server will load the toppings but my potato was not hot enough to melt the butter and was dry. I also tried a NY Stip in main restaurant and I like the free steak better than at Cagney’s. Food Republic was a good choice, each meal plan will give you any 4 choices from menu. They had 10 diff rolls, varying Asian food and some Latin fusion food. Rolls were good but rice was too wet and over cooked (you shouldn’t be paying to eat at a sushi restaurant if rice is like this, wet and busted/broken due to overcook) cut back on water by 10% should solve this problem. (I would cut back by 15% and after cooking pour mirin/rice cooking wine to simmer in room temp.) Most of other food was acceptable although bit off from authentic, especially spicy Korean fried chicken was not very good. But, I do recommend this place for varied food. Hint: you cannot make pre-reservation for this place, but you must make reservation at Teppanyaki restaurant for Food Republic as this place is small and is always packed. Next time I will opt for Q-smokehouse instead of Cagney’s. Bar services were typical, but did notice Local Bar had only couple bar tenders working and wait was long. District bar is good place to go for beer as they had several special, including NCL’s own brew. Entertainment: As mentioned above, go-cart was nice. Game room is on 5th but also some in Local bar with 2 lane mini bowling alley. Six and Jersey boy’s had two shows each. They are very long (1:25 min for Six and 1:45 for Jersey boys) it is full production show. Overall, it’s a nice ship and plenty to eat and do. I do wish, NCL can cut back on food portions a bit to reduce the food waste. (I don’t need 3 egg omelets along with plate full of other items. People tend to count how many they can eat not how much (volume) they can eat.) It has been 3 years since last NCL cruise and will be on another in couple years. (we cruise once a year and alt with other cruise lines.) Note for Alaskan cruise: Rockslide in Skagway port. You cannot walk to town from the ship. You need to use the screen by the stair (around the corner from elevator banks) to make shuttle bus reservation or go to guest service. You will disembark and walk up the ramp then walk 200 yards of container ship made tunnel to board the bus for about ¼ mile to the parking lot by the entrance to the port. From here you can purchase a town shuttle for $3 one way or $5 all day pass. Getting back to the ship the same way. Line are very long so prepare for this. Our time was Shuttle 8, shuttle 1 was calle at 8:30 but we went out at 8:30 and no one seems to be checking.

That is a standard service. Steward will come in the morning when you leave to put it away. When you leave your room for dinner, he/she will come back and pull it down for the evening. But then they have cut back on 2X daily service to 1.