MaggieNY

We went on this excursion with an outside tour group because the NCL excursion booked pretty fast. The tour took us out to the Yukon Suspension Bridge, which was super-cool. It goes over a river with white water rapids. We did the bus ride up, the bridge & museum, then the train ride down. Someone online said that doing it in this order wasn't as nice because the brakes squeal the whole way down but we didn't find that to be the case.

We've always gotten the time change reminder cards in our cabin. But even if you don't, just look at the NCL app on your phone. That always has the correct ship time.

We find the online check-in usually saves us a lot of time at the port. But last trip DH took his own selfie and insisted I use it without cropping and adjusting the color balance. The program accepted the photo but I thought they might reject it at the port and they did. So he had to have his picture taken again. It only added a couple of minutes more to the process so it wasn't bad. I still remember our first couple of cruises where they didn't have online check-in and we had to do everything at the port. It was a lot longer process.

I can definitely confirm this. We don't get the drink package and prefer to bring our own wine onboard. Even with the $15 corkage fee per bottle, it's less expensive than buying a bottle onboard and we know what we're getting. The waitstaff always make comments about what we've brought and will chat with us about the wine. Last December, our maitre d' got a kick out of our bottle of Menage a Trois. He gave us a smile and a knowing wink. Our very first cruise, my husband thought he could get away with stowing a bottle of wine in our luggage. We got the naughty room notice and he had to stand on a long line. He was told he could pay the $15 or collect the wine at the end of the trip. He opted to collect it at the end He's since changed his stance on this and is okay with paying the corkage fee. We usually only bring 2 bottles of wine at embarkation and sometimes buy more when we're at a port. But I don't think there's a limit because 4 years ago we were on line to embark in Boston and the couple in front of us had 2 6-pack wine carriers with them. I really wanted to make friends with them to see if they would share! We usually drink 1/2 a bottle at dinner. The MDR staff will recork and tag the bottle for our next meal. It always works out. We've also shared our wine with other couples if we're seated with someone else during a busy dinner rush. Not everyone will do that.

Ask to smell the natural disinfectant they use to clean the room. I thought I smelled a sewer smell in our room. The next day my husband and I worked out in the gym. We used the disinfectant spray to clean down our machines and it had that same sewer-like smell to it.

We tune the TV to the channel with the bow camera. It gives off a little bit of light during the night, then as the sun rises the light gets brighter in the room. It's like having a window.

We just got off the Sun last Wednesday. It was an okay ship. I prefer the smaller ships as they're more intimate, but it seemed like the offerings on the Sun were more limited than we had on the Gem and Dawn. The buffet area is a little smaller but it wasn't bad. The selection was a little more limited than other NCL ships. We never had a problem getting a seat. We like the Great Outdoors buffet area but couldn't always make use of it due to rain. The sports bar handled overflow from the buffet and they used Moderno for continental breakfast then soup/pizza for lunch. Strangely enough, we had better service in the bigger MDR (Seven Seas) than in the smaller one (Four Seasons). Usually it's the other way around. Spinnaker Lounge has those nice windows up front for viewing. We weren't a fan of the aft Stardust Lounge. The lower area is pretty flat instead of sloped, and you had to get there early to find a seat in the upper area that wasn't blocked by a column. The Bliss Lounge is a nice size for all the games & trivia. Our daughter & son-in-law were on 6A Oslo, which is this weird forward deck sandwiched between decks 6 & 7. At first they liked it because the only people walking those corridors were guests on that deck (no through-traffic). However, it was crazy loud at 5:00 a.m. when the ship was pulling into port. We had the roomiest interior we've ever had on Deck 8 and even had empty drawers and shelves. We were not fans of the shower curtain or the hair dryer, but everything else was great. Because it's an older, smaller ship, we really felt the waves going from Juneau to Victoria. The ship was really creaking and groaning at 11:30 at night and it scared me a little. After a while, I realized the ship wasn't going to break apart and I was able to relax and let the rocking get me back to sleep. My husband, however, got really seasick. They put out green apples in the buffet and had sea sick bags on all the railings on the stairs. The entertainment seemed scaled back to us. Not sure if that was because of the itinerary or the cruise director staff. All in all it was okay. If there was an itinerary that we were interested in on the Sun, we'd probably go again.

Ship - Sun Deck - 8 Viking Stateroom # 8319 Stateroom Category – IA Family Inside Starboard or Port Side - Starboard, slightly forward of mid Quiet Stateroom? – Yes Was stateroom a connecting stateroom? - No Balcony View - N/A Balcony Size- N/A Was wind a problem? N/A If an aft cabin, was soot a problem? N/A Any specific problems with this cabin? - None Any other comments? There were just 2 of us in this cabin and it was super roomy! It only cost a few dollars more than a regular inside room and was worth it. For the first time ever, we had empty drawers and shelves. The bathroom had plenty of shelving. A few small complaints: - Instead of a light or a dial outside the door, you had to hang one of those old fashioned "Do not disturb/Make up the room" hang tags. They were always falling off the handles when other guests walked through the hallway. - We hated the hairdryer in the bathroom. It was hard to direct the airflow where you wanted because of the hose, the hose kept getting hot, and only one person could use the bathroom if someone was drying their hair. - We would have preferred a glass shower door instead of the curtain. It was a little dark in the shower and you had to be careful to be sure the curtain remained inside the shower area or you had a flood on the floor.

There IS tour transportation to and from the theater. But we wanted to go into town earlier so we took the Ward Cove shuttle. There wasn't enough time to take the shuttle back to the port in time to take the shore excursion provided transport right back into Ketchikan. The option I described works for anyone who's already in town.

So we just did this yesterday. Our NCL Shorex ticket actually said "You can meet the tour at the show directly." We took the Ward Cove shuttle into town, wandered around then went to the show. When they took the ticket stub, they gave us a cash register- like receipt with a red line on it and the shuttle time. At the end of the show we exited through the store and we're directed to walk about 2 blocks down across from the Soaring Eagle store. Pretty easy process. As we drove past the waiting area for the port bus around 2:45, the line was fairly long, but not as long as the line in the morning. Last bus was at 3:00 and we didn't leave anyone behind so they got everyone back in time. It was a good plan so I say you should go for it

Okay, this is freaky. We also had a Colonel Sanders on our cruise, same year!

On Halloween Day 2019 on the Gem, there were a lot of Halloween food displays in the buffet but there weren't any other decorations on the ship. When my husband realized we would be on our cruise for Halloween, I gave him carte blanche for picking out costumes. He went all out. We had a slight misunderstanding with the costumes, though. I started putting on my costume for dinner, he thought we were going to go back to the cabin after dinner and put on costumes. I said there wasn't time. He felt a little funny dressing up for dinner, but we had 2 couples who were together beg us to sit with them in the MDR. People were asking for pictures all night. They had a costume contest. We didn't win but it was so much fun.

I had the same problem last night. It accepted my picture but not my husband's. After several tries, I gave up, finished the check-in and told him he would need to get his picture taken at the port. After I logged out of my NCL account, I decided to log into his account and try to upload his picture. It worked on the first try. Go figure.

I don't know the date of your trip, but here's the schedule for the free shuttle: https://wardcoveak.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/2023-Ward-Cove-Port-Schedule-7.17.2023.pdf It looks like they adjust the last shuttle time based on the cruise line's departure time. My family just booked the lumberjack show thru NCL. Due to another scheduled excursion, we picked the 1:30 show, which ends at 2:30 and the last free shuttle is 3:00. I saw online that the lines can be long for the last shuttle. With the $50 shore excursion credit and our 10% Latitudes discount, it cost $97.00 for each couple vs $85/couple with taxes & fees directly through the lumberjack show's website. We figured we'll take the free shuttle into town earlier in the day, see the show, then take the NCL shuttle that's included with our tickets back to the port. Guaranteed seats, no waiting. For me, that was worth the extra $12. YMMV.

My husband and I did the Meraviglia out of Brooklyn back in June. The biggest differences between MSC & NCL for us were: MSC has assigned dinner seating vs NCL's Freestyle dining. We didn't like the 15-minute window to get to our seating. However, we were able to get a later seating one night when we were late coming in from the port. We prefer just showing up at the MDR on NCL when we're ready. Entertainment was pretty okay on MSC and we had different shows every night but the caliber of the shows was lower than NCL. Cruise director staff on MSC seemed a little aloof. They were certainly energetic but seemed to avoid mixing with guests the way NCL's cruise staff does. It might have just been the staff on that particular ship. There were fewer audience participation game shows on MSC. Buffet was okay, nothing horrible, but we felt NCL had a better selection and more variety from day to day. MSC seemed to serve almost the same thing every day. The pizza, however, was AWESOME! No washy washy ladies when entering the buffet, a big negative for me. I've always been a germophobe so this stressed me out the whole week. MSC's private island is really nice. They have their own dock so there's no worries that you might not be able to tender.