bstreep

Shuttle last week was free. We were on Spirit. Only tender port was Icy Point.

We did a NCL trip from Vancouver to Seward (Anchorage) that ended 3 days ago. We get on RCCL on Friday to make the same trip back. We anticipated that RCCL would win this one handily. But NCL has come out with a very strong round. We booked these cruises and they were within $50 of each other. The “ free at sea” is a big play. The alcohol is tips only on NCL. Best deal right now on RCCL is $63pppd. That’s not gonna happen. Shows on NCL were good, food was really much better than previous cruises. The “miss” on NCL is that we didn’t see Hubbard Glacier, and the other cruise ships did. NCL chickened out. And that’s a HUGE miss. But still, the bar was set pretty high. On NCL, just pay the buck or 2 upcharge. Tip in cash, it might quit happening. We’ve been told that if you are going to miss your dinner time, just let them know and walk up.

The pictures I’ve seen with Starlink antennas on them have had dozens. And you are right, that might not be enough. But that’s an implementation issue. The satellites handle it fine. On RCCL, they offer only one package. Surf and stream. If they are having thruput issues, they should tier price it. Our experience with Starlink is that they aren’t very good at the “customer service “ side of things.

We were on Spirit last week (arrived Seward 3 days ago). Did not have an excursion booked, and couldn’t get one when we arrived, due to capacity limits on park service permits. Raft and kayak trips were cancelled. We are going back late next week on RCCL. It appears the only way to get to the glacier is be helicopter.

We installed Starlink on our own boat earlier this year. We used it continuously on our trip between South Texas and Panama. It worked nearly flawlessly, even when many hundreds of miles from shore. Our 2 “land stations” were Atlanta and Columbia. That didn’t mater. Our pings were around 50ms, and 200mps were typical. We could make phone calls, download video, everywhere. For us, it was “gamechanging”. We were on Spirit last week, no Starlink. We are on an Alaska return to Vancouver in a week on RC Radiance, that has Starlink. Reports from Radiance aren’t positive. Seems like there may be implementation issues? Because the product is awesome. And ships use the same units we have.

Just quickly jumping in. Got off of Spirit yesterday. I’d say the food, overall, was generally better than good, and always well presented. We only did one specialty restaurant, and it was excellent. For the meat eaters out there, the do offer a Cagneys filet in the MDR for $15. It’s excellent. single biggest disappointment is that Spirit continues to chicken out at Hubbard Glacier. There are many posts on this. Glacier viewing from the ship is THE highlight of Alaska cruising. Spirit doesn’t go in, and the guests get to watch all of the other cruise ships go deep into the bay to view Hubbard. This is wrong. Don’t advertise it if you aren’t going to do it. Fortunately, we are going back on RCCL, we will get to see it then. PS, we did Star a year ago, and the food was tragic.

Yes! This is her last cruise in this rotation. She was so excited to see us.

We are on day 3 on Spirit in Alaska. The food here is an order of magnitude better than we had last year on the Star. Almost excellent. And that’s in the free restaurants. On Star we resorted to specialty restaurants about 4 or 5 days in, because the food just wasn’t even “fair”. I can’t believe the food 2 NCL ships could be so different.

So, either the reindeer stew was really good, or the food on Star is THAT bad (it is). Maybe Cagney’s should start serving reindeer steaks. Much to my surprise, phone cameras have benefited hugely from software innovations.

I guess we are about to find out. We board Norwegian Spirit on Wednesday from Vancouver to Seward, and then 9 days later take Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas.

I don't believe so. We received our upgrade about a month before our sailing (mid August), and we have no option to upgrade further. We got a really crappy upgrade on our NCL bid, been trying to improve it, to no avail. $2K to improve it. Sucks. Be careful bidding. Plan on getting the crappiest version and location of the cabin you are bidding on.

Similar story. Sort of. O'Sheehans. My wife wanted a BLT. (Sorry, I know you don't eat meat). Claim of "no bacon, breakfast is over". So she looked at the menu, and said "OK, bring me everything but for a BLT except the bacon, and then bring me a bacon cheeseburger, without everything except the bacon". SO sorry you having such a hard time. How about this - from the title of this thread - ask them for the beverage package to help this all go away.

Another vote for O'Sheehan's. We ate probably 1/2 of our meals there on the Star last summer. Hate to burst your bubble. We got the same assurances from the Star management a year ago about the food. They have known this for a while, all they have to do is read the reviews. What I don't understand is why. It's not hard to take decent ingredients and make a good meal out of it. Sure, I understand that they are cooking for 2500. But other ships manage to do it right. As weird as this sounds, we found the food marginally better in Aqua than the main dining room. Same kitchen, so not sure why. P.S. Love your commentary and pics.

Going from a porthole on Deck 4 to a window on Deck 6? $600. Nope.

Kalii Lara is the brewery/bar where I had the fantastic lamb. Food: Last year, the upgrade restaurants on Star were WAY better than the MDR - really excellent. When I asked what it would cost to upgrade the entire trip, they told me about $15 per day per person. We were pretty empty, around 60% capacity. I can't find anything near that rate on our upcoming NCL cruise. I'm hoping that everyone is right, and that it's just the Star that's bad. It really was tragic a year ago. One night the Maitre D' suggest that I have the bratwurst, as the best item on the menu. I did. It wasn't good. Interestingly, we had 3 other couples over a few nights ago, that had gone on that cruise. One of them has done 2 other NCL cruises since then. We were talking about this cruise. He said "God the food was bad on that cruise". That's his "takeaway". BUT, the staff was the best we've encountered on any cruise.

Ugh. I put 2 and 2 together, and realized that the very best meal we had on the whole trip, was there. The food on board the Star was just not good. The lamb at this restaurant was the best I've ever had.

Does your trip include Seydisfjordur?

No. Way!!!! She's fantastic. Can't wait to see her again. Anyone know: Can we bring her flowers or some other gift?

Wait! Is Cherryl THIS Cherryl? If so, our cruise is gonna be great!

So. After talking with our VTG rep, we've decided to stay put. To go to a balcony, we would triple the cost of the trip - and about 5X the upgrade cost on Royal Caribbean. He was on the phone with us and RCL. They claimed no better available OV cabins, but you can book one today on deck 8. Plenty of balcony cabins available on 2 decks. Hmm. Based upon recent reports from this ship, we will probably sail at about 80%.

We put together a huge "scavenger hunt" for them the last night, for a GIANT tip. They were absolutely fantastic. I wrote letters to the CEO and President about them.

We did this cruise on Star a year ago. We had a blast. But the food was very substandard. The 2 bartenders at Gatsby's were the BEST. If Suraj, Ali or Cherryl are there, please tell them that their friends from Texas said hi! A group of us that went were talking about the trip last night, and we all agreed it was one of the best trips ever. And the NCL bartenders were a huge part of it.

We've had generally good luck with upgrade bidding. Until now. So, here's a piece of advice: Before you bid on an upgrade, check the deck plan. If the cabin you are looking to upgrade could be in a worse place than your existing cabin, be aware that you could get that poorly placed "upgrade" cabin. I stupidly bid on an "Ocean View" cabin with a low/poor bid (along with a Very Strong" bid for a balcony). We ended up in the bilge with a porthole. They should figure out how to auction the upgrades. It would be more fun...

Looks like mods have been at work here. Wow. Didn't realize that this was such a polarizing topic. Called NCL, and they said that we'd have to talk to Vacations To Go. So I called them this morning and our agent is working on it. We are fine with our current "view" cabin. Really. Not what we wanted, but that's OK. It certainly won't ruin our vacation. Especially since I'm the one that shot himself in the foot. Lesson learned. Thanks for all of the replies and ideas.

BTW, this was a last minute (sort of) cruise idea. We booked this a couple of weeks ago. We were going to fly to Anchorage, and it was $1300pp. We fly free on SWA (points plus a companion pass - greatest cc perk ever). So we are taking the ship to/from Anchorage. No cabin numbers/selections/choices were available on either ship, for any class. The cruise line assigned us specific cabins - we never got a cabin number from RCCL, because they gave us our Royal Up almost right away.