Pearl - Alaska May 10th 2009 - Review

Genneral:

I’ll do separate posts per day as Misty is still writing up some of the later days!

I got very sick with flu on getting back to Seattle – As did a number of others it seems from this cruise. They even tested me at home on Monday night for Swine Flu but luckily it appears to be a regular variant. We had a few people sitting behind us on the last night at the Second City “adult” show coughing like crazy (which I now have too) so I blame them!

Overall this cruise (our first ever) was wonderful – any nit picks below are really just that – nit picks – but we wanted to make sure nothing was sugar coated and it was a real “warts n’ all” review of what happened. The crew and staff rocked, the food was great, the entertainment was excellent, even the weather was incredible!

We had a wonderful time. So much that we bought two “Cruise Reward” certificates onboard so we can return soon!

I've put some photos of our room (Owners Suite 9504 - we took an upsell) along with all the ship menus and food I remembered to snap here:

http://travel.webshots.com/album/572265867gDVwWC

I'll be uploading scenic photos to my flickr account in due course and will add a link for that later....

I also have the Freestyle dalies and will scan them in but that may take a bit longer.

ok... Next post will have the review of the first day (Sunday 5/10)....

Credit goes to Misty for writing the actual review - I'm just posting it for her :)

Yeah! Glad you are feeling better - can't wait for your future posts for Misty!

Thanks...:D

After 11 years of being married and 3.5 yrs of being a full-time mom the idea of going on a cruise where someone cooked for me, cleaned for me and the only potty trips to manage were my own completely sold me. When my parents agreed to come up and stay with our boys while we had a coupley vacation we jumped on the opportunity.

We agreed that being married 11 yrs was worthy of celebrating and splashed out on a suite for our first cruise - We booked 8132 (AE Aft). I let my husband manage the research but had no idea that he’d be reading and fwding me links non-stop from cruise critic. Months before we embarked on our first cruise my husband was trying to get me to decide on Cagney’s vs. Le Bistro and how many nights per week he could realistically have wings delivered to our room. He’d drunk the cruising kool-aid months before we were anywhere near a boat.

At some point we decided to pay the extra and upgrade to a Owner’s Suite (9504). We’re apparently VIPs and I’ve not done any research on what that entails and only half listened to my husband (honestly it’s been a nightly conversation and there’s a reason we’ve been married for 11 yrs –you have to tune out SOME things)

Here are my thoughts from our first day and I guess sort of my expectations.

Check-in

We arrived around 10.40am at the pier and were boarding by 11.20am - This, honestly, VIP or not I felt was poorly signed and very confusing. There seemed to be multiple lines and confused people. To be fair the lines to drop off the luggage (before entering the actual terminal) seemed to move pretty quickly but I don’t know if this was due to us arriving early or if they just had enough people to corral and direct lost people. So after we were given our magic green card that said we were VIPs (and couldn’t they come up with a better name for this? Isn’t everyone on these things a VIP) we were whisked through a bunch of slidey door things to this room where Peter had informed me we’d be waiting and receiving canapés during our wait. The canapés ended up being a tray of preformed cookies and lukewarm coffee. VIP indeed. The other weird thing I noticed at every stage up to this point was that everyone seemed to talk really quietly seemingly to not alert the other passengers of any extra perks we were receiving.

Overall this fell below my expectations. I was excited to be heading out but felt like the staff could have amped up the welcome just a bit.

Because we were in an owner’s suite our room was ready immediately which was a great perk not only to kind of get in and get our bearings but also because they were still preparing all the rooms and we were able to walk down the halls and take quick peeks at all the different rooms. We wanted to see if it was something we’d be happy with on a future cruise especially after our upgrades on this cruise. We both emphatically agreed that they inside cabins and regular balcony rooms looked better than we had expected and we would definitely stay in either on future cruises.

Owner’s Suite

The room was, of course really nice and we spent the first 30 minutes opening every drawer and closet and going out onto our TWO balconies. The bathroom had a full bath as well as a shower with a bazillion nozzles shooting at you from every angle. The bathroom is shiny red and almost futuristic looking. I laughed at my own stupid joke about our capsulated toilet being our own personal Tardis or Turdis as we’ve started calling it. As part of the suite package and part of the romance package we got two bottles of champagne. These were not in our room and we had no idea when they would make their appearance (along with canapés and choc covered strawberries) – but we were in the suite by 11.30am so this is likely normal. We didn’t get a lesson on how to work the coffee machine in our room and were told later in the day that our complimentary alcohol would arrive first thing in on Monday morning. We’ve got 3 bottles of alcohol to make our way through and now we’re down 1 day! The canapés did show up with the choc covered strawberries sometime in the afternoon when we were out. We also received everything to make several loads of virgin martinis and drinks. We also noticed there were no slippers with the robes and told the butler but those did not show up either (We had to ask for them again the next morning). And where are the cute towel animals? Above all I think we just feel kind of forgotten – no written manual or instructions on the coffee machine or stereo system. We’re not exactly sure what the role of our butler Jeffrey entails. We don’t want to overstep things and ask for things concierge or housekeeping should take care of but we’re not sure the sort of things he’s sort of supposed to do for us.

Muster Drill:

The actual drill was about as painless as a squillion people in life vests and theater seats could be. Again, we knew this was going to happen sometime but no idea when or where. I just happened to catch something on the NCL channel and we had to work our way backwards to figure out where we were supposed to go. The drill itself was fine though.

Embarkation:

We boarded the Pearl at 11.20am - We left port 1.5-2hrs later than scheduled so people who were waiting on the docks to see others off were there for quite awhile but not a huge deal really. Something we noticed others had done that we will probably do in the future is immediately after the muster drill they returned their life vests to their room and then found a table on the deck at the back of the ship so they could enjoy a coffee and watch the port as we pulled out.

Food:

Let it be known upfront that I am extremely fond of desserts and have an entire set of sweet teeth with a particular penchant for chocolate. We went to Cagney’s for lunch. I tried to order just an appetizer so I could eat relatively lightly and then have a chocolate brownie for dessert but the waiter seemed completely shocked and told me it was only an appetizer and I should also order my entrée. I got flustered and assumed I’d ordered something tiny and done something dumb. My “appetizer” arrived and it was an entire chicken breast, a pita, and salad. It was actually really good and would have really been fine as my entire meal. After thinking about the response I think this is intentional as to not embarrass people if they DO want to order more. In the future though, think I’ll stick to my guns when trying to order lighter next time as we had a similar experience when trying to get a late night snack. For my entrée @ Cagney’s I got the sliders and we ordered a side of Cagney’s fries and creamed spinach. Despite being satisfied from my appetizer the sliders were really good as well as the fries and spinach and very yummy espresso brownie. Peter ordered crab cakes for a starter and NY strip steak for an entrée. They were all good. For dinner we tried the Garden Café. I wasn’t really in the mood for a carvery or most of the things they had. Having said that, we found quite a few bites of things! Again, really nice sirloin burgers (and that’s coming from a Nebraska girl). Peter LOVED the blueberry crumble. While the Garden Café was overly busy at peak times it had good quality fresh food. It was also normally always possible to find a table by walking right to the back and The Great Outdoors area – which we never found cold (but we’re used to Nebraska winters!). It would be nice to see a larger buffet seating area though on busy cruises.

Entertainment:

We went to the Welcome Aboard show at the Stardust Theatre. It was entertaining. We ended up being there 20 minutes early and there were plenty of seats available so we didn’t even use the reserved suite seating. Apparently this cruise is sold out with 2,500+ guests. You’d never know it from walking the halls or the applause and crowd participation in the theater. In some ways it’s been nice not fighting crowds but we also went to Ladies night @Bliss and the 70’s disco night @Spinaker Lounger and there were maybe 8 people total at both events.

At the Welcome Aboard show Simon did a crowd participation bit where he found the couple who had been married the longest. There was an Asian couple who had been married for 67 years and when asked their secret to a long marriage. The gentleman said his secret was a happy song. I thought it was going to go horribly wrong as Simon asked him to sing it and the elderly man forgot the song and tune but soon the entire house went quiet as this man sang their song while his wife lovingly enjoyed her serenade. I was completely touched and it brought a tear to my eye. Well done Simon for keeping the conversation going until the guy remembered his song.

Peter, of course, ended the night in Blue Lagoon enjoying some wings - The stir fry I had was great!

Next up - first full day - Monday May 11th....

The dailies would be great! I am wondering what shows are on what nights.

Is The Great Outdoors open during port time?

You ROCK!

You did a great job with the pix; however, I can't make out the menus. But that's ok cause the pix of the food makes up for that:D

I wish someone had done this for the Star. Despite all I 've read about the food, your options look absolutely delish. I don't think DH could ever stay in an owner's suite. He'd never leave the cabin. With all that space, why would you?

thx so much for taking the time to post all of this.

Glad I had finished lunch before looking at those pictures or I would be starving! It all looks great, can't wait to hear and see the rest.

What did you think about the chocolate buffet? We didn't go to it on the Star.....we had heard that the lines go halfway around the ship and that the desserts were not very good.

Was it set up in the dining room or the buffet area?

Thanks

You ROCK!

You did a great job with the pix; however, I can't make out the menus. But that's ok cause the pix of the food makes up for that:D

I wish someone had done this for the Star. Despite all I 've read about the food, your options look absolutely delish. I don't think DH could ever stay in an owner's suite. He'd never leave the cabin. With all that space, why would you?

thx so much for taking the time to post all of this.

If you download the menu photos you should be able to zoom in enough to read them - I tested this on my PC and they were all readable if you download locally and then zoom in a bit....

The extra space is a blessing and a curse in the Owners Suite - While extremely nice to be honest I liked getting out and about on the ship more than sitting in the room. The extra space didn't get much use - While I loved the room I would, in the future, rather do more cruises with less space ;-)

The food was great - before going I'd read a lot of people comparing it to Applebee's. Personally I've never had food that good at Applebee's. Sure its not a high end restaurant but its a considerably better than Applebees.

On the Great Outdoors - I think it was open during Port time but not sure.... mainly I saw food there during breakfast, afternoon and dinner....

Just to show how subjective food reviews are, it wouldn't bother me any if NCL eliminated every buffet. Yet, so many want the buffet to be larger with more tables?

Its the same with every restaurant and dining room aboard. With open seating, if the venue is too full, dine at a time when less people are dining......

thanks for sharing!

If you download the menu photos you should be able to zoom in enough to read them - I tested this on my PC and they were all readable if you download locally and then zoom in a bit....

 

The extra space is a blessing and a curse in the Owners Suite - While extremely nice to be honest I liked getting out and about on the ship more than sitting in the room. The extra space didn't get much use - While I loved the room I would, in the future, rather do more cruises with less space ;-)

 

The food was great - before going I'd read a lot of people comparing it to Applebee's. Personally I've never had food that good at Applebee's. Sure its not a high end restaurant but its a considerably better than Applebees.

 

On the Great Outdoors - I think it was open during Port time but not sure.... mainly I saw food there during breakfast, afternoon and dinner....

Thanks again....your pictures are great!

Are the menus uploaded in date order?

We want to dine in Cagney's and Le Bistro's but there's some nights we will not want to miss the main dining choices. Someone posted that Beef Wellington is not longer serve and yet I saw it on one of the menus....yum!

Another couple of questions....the owner's suite is at the front of the ship...correct?

how much were you able to use your balcony while cruising?

Was it too cold for that private hot tub?

Thanks again....your pictures are great!

 

Are the menus uploaded in date order?

 

We want to dine in Cagney's and Le Bistro's but there's some nights we will not want to miss the main dining choices. Someone posted that Beef Wellington is not longer serve and yet I saw it on one of the menus....yum!

 

Another couple of questions....the owner's suite is at the front of the ship...correct?

how much were you able to use your balcony while cruising?

Was it too cold for that private hot tub?

Menu's are not in date order...

Beef Wellington + Lobster mains were in Summer Palace on Monday night on our cruise. We re-scheduled our Le Bistro dinner due to that! There was another Lobster night (Fri or Sat) as well.

No private hot tub in the Owners Suites - Those are only in the two Deluxe Owners suites....

Front Balacony was too windy to really use when cruising fast but fine when in Glacier Bay or approaching ports etc.... Side balcony was a handy retreat!

Will post "Mondays" review shortly....

Mon 5/11/09

Breakfast:

We had breakfast in Cagney’s this morning. One of the suite perks allows us free dining in Cagney’s daily, for breakfast and lunch. Peter had the steak and eggs along with a side of pancakes. I had the Challah French toast with a gorgeous marscapone cheese on top with a side of bacon. The French toast is gorgeous. It will be hard to try the rest of the stuff the rest of the week.

We then went and enjoyed a Latte at the back of the boat because our in-room espresso machine was not working. I think we’ve found a great little place. It’s not incredibly windy, near the latte machine, and there’s normally something tasty at the grill we can grab or a dessert from the main buffet to go with our coffee.

Our slippers arrived today and they’ve been useful for stepping out on the decks as there’s always some amount of water on the ground out the front deck.

Our butler, Jeffrey removed the coffee machine today and returned it this afternoon only to find it dispensed one cup of coffee and then instructed us to fill it with water again (when it was already full). The liquor arrived today. We ordered one bottle of vodka, rum, and asked them to sub a bottle of triple sec for the third bottle. Despite it saying “no substitutions” on the form Jeffry was able to get it approved and we now have an entire fridge full of mixers of some sort (lemonade, cranberry juice, limes, lemons, lemon juice, and soda) and 3 bottles of booze to mix with it. Life is good… however it would be better if the coffee machine was working.

I’m finding the suite thing being kind of weird. Part of me feels like we’re missing out on the cruise experience by missing out on the smaller events around the ship (wii in the atrium, band in some other common area) and just people watching and observing the scenery. But if I head out to read I feel like I’d be missing the advantages of having this fantastic room with balconies, couches, the ability to kick off my shoes and put m feet up and read while light jazz plays softly in the background. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the week plays out and if I’ll still feel that way. BTW I’m reading Pretty in Plaid, the new book by Jen Lancaster. If you’re going to go for relaxation and feeling indulgent there’s nothing like curling up with bitchy chick-lit.

Lunch

We went to Cagney’s for lunch. Peter had the shrimp cocktail (apparently a popular choice as evident by a martini glass of shrimp or half eaten shrimp on nearly every table. I had the Salmon brioche which was really good. I’m not normally a big seafood person but I’ve made it a personal goal to try more while on this cruise in an attempt to stop being so picky and broaden my palette. Peter had the roasted chicken and I had the fettuccine with porcini mushrooms. While Mr. Meat apparently can’t let go of having Fettuccine Alfredo without any sort of meat, I thought it was lovely.

Today was the Cruise Critic meet and greet. Many thanks to Amanda (travel_lover) for setting it up!! It was nice meeting people and hearing from so many long time cruisers what their tips were. I’m still trying to work out what the best career options are that allow time and funding for SO many cruises and are they hiring? J Steve, Gloria, Matthew and Simone had lanyards made up for everyone. At the actual meet and greet I just assumed they were freebies from somewhere that they picked up enough for the group. I thought even then it was a really nice gesture. I was floored when I actually had a closer look at them about 4 hours later. And they’re TOTALLY handy – I haven’t lost my cardkey ONCE since I’ve had it on the lanyard. During the meet n’ greet Simon Murray (The “Smashing” Cruise Director” stated he would be leaving soon for his Aussie vacation and then going to work on launching the NCL Epic – I presume he will be the launch Cruise Director on that – very cool! Congrats to Simon!

That afternoon we went out to the back deck again to have a coffee and a quick look around when I noticed at the grill at the back had a dessert section that featured scones and cream. I grabbed a cookie and made a mental note to tell Peter and then got distracted on the way back to the table. About 5 minutes later I remembered to mention it to him and he literally got up and did a near dead sprint to the dessert bar before I could finish the sentence. You can take the boy out of England but can’t take England out of the boy. J

Martini tasting and on... Gets a bit blurry from here

This was great fun. It was crazy busy and there were something like 42 people doing it when normally there would be something closer to 15. I think the bartenders were really overworked trying to talk about the different martinis and accommodate everyone. The bartender seemed incredibly flustered and repeated himself often and was really difficult to understand. By the second martini I could see people everywhere looking really confused about what he was saying and shaking their heads. By this time we were having some great conversation with the people we sat near and the booming microphone and struggle to understand was more often than not an annoyance. Now having said that, the hubs knows when to turn it on and spout off his amazing retention of crazy, weird facts – like when there are free full sized martinis to be won. Peter was the first to understand and answer the Captain’s full name and what is the gross tonnage of the ship. Peter’s nickname for the rest of the night was “Gross Tonnage”. Awesome.

After the martini tasting (well worth the $15 bucks, btw) Peter and I stumbled on over to the Captain’s meet and greet event that we were invited to where I may or may not have called him “Captain Steubbing” and asked about the lido deck *cringes*. There’s a horrible picture out on the photo wall that I have to shamefully pass until they replace it. We’re next to the captain and I’m sticking my tongue out-it’s classy. Because we weren’t drunk enough we continued to drink free drinks (rum punch – yummy!!) until we had to take off to make our dinner reservation at Summer Palace.

Summer Palace is the only dinner place you need to dress up for dinner. I have no recollection of what we had for an appetizer. For dinner Peter had the lobster and I had the Beef Welligton. I spent the majority of dinner trying to talk my drunk husband into not dropping any more LOUD f-bombs after every other word for emphasis. Somewhere between our starters and main course Peter went to the restroom. I was worried he passed out in the bathrooms and starting to panic when I saw his drunk butt being escorted back to our table by 2 waiters looking for his wife in a “flowery, green thing”. To be fair, I have seen Peter get turned around when driving in a parking lot completely sober. Please look for us in the new “Parent’s Gone Wild” DVD. :P The lobster had no drawn butter and the Beef Wellington was ok.. not fabulous but my condition was slightly altered as well. J We had crème brulee for dessert with chocolate on the bottom. Peter is a purist with his desserts. No apple pile should have cinnamon and no crème brulee should have chocolate. I happily scraped his off the bottom of his bowl for him after he gingerly ate the crème brulee off the top.

We went back to our room after this for a quick break before going to the comedian show at the Stardust. When we got to our room there was a plate of chocolate covered strawberries and a plate of sandwiches courtesy of the hotel director. I think Peter may have passed out during part of the show but it all went really quickly. We then went back to our room before we had to head out to the Sexy Shadow Dancer’s party that evening. Turns out taking a nap when you’re drunk is not the best way to spend time before having to head back out. We went out to find the people we agreed to meet up with and did a quick scan around the room and headed back after our half assed attempt to crash for the night. When we walked into our bedroom we had towel animals – yay!

I am soooo enjoying your postings... We are on that cruise 6/21 and really appreciate the tips.... and I love that you post slowly and not all in one clip... Better to absorb........ Thanks for sharing............ Naomee Guest (naomee15@aol.com) New York..

What everyone is waiting for... First Freestyle daily is now online:

http://travel.webshots.com/album/572342323noyAVF

Pmd98052, I am enjoying your review very much! Thank you for taking the time to do it. I always enjoy reading about the suite life...I thought now there is a first on the boards...while walking to an owner's suite I wished I had a smaller cabin...gotta love it! Isn't nice to know you can sail in any category? You have a lot more options to cruise that way.

Looking forward to next installment!

coka

Do NOT eliminate the buffet IMHO :) I would have had to wait a LONNNNNG time to eat. Every time we went to one of the restaurants (Blue Lagoon and Summer Palace)We waited foreEVER to get our food. I loved just going in and getting some Indian food, Chinese food, a few other assorted cuisines, and sit down to eat :) YMMV.

Just to show how subjective food reviews are, it wouldn't bother me any if NCL eliminated every buffet. Yet, so many want the buffet to be larger with more tables?Its the same with every restaurant and dining room aboard. With open seating, if the venue is too full, dine at a time when less people are dining......

Thanks for the dailies!

Disco nights looks like a blast, although I would have to drag DH to come along.....LOL

Thanks for the dailies!

 

Disco nights looks like a blast, although I would have to drag DH to come along.....LOL

Well that is what we thought too but there was no one there!!!

Apparently we need to go to a ship seminar on how to relax and sleep in. We were both up again today before 6am. Last night we agreed that we’d finally sleep in and placed our room service order with Jeffry for 9:30am. At 7am we finally realized it was silly to be waiting around for breakfast and we cancelled and went down to Cagney’s for breakfast. For Lunch we went to Garden Bistro. I felt like something simple and opted for a Caesar chicken wrap and half a sandwich. Peter was looking forward to getting another burger but the line for burgers was 3 stations long every time we went up there. The food was good but I think because we happened to be there right when it opened it was annoying to search for a place to sit and then wait in lines for each thing we wanted to eat and then have people come by asking if we were almost done so they could have our table. We decided then not to go back to the buffet when it just opened and that we’d always try to make it to Cagney’s for breakfast and lunch and get reservations at one of the sit down places for dinners. It’s not that I’m above a buffet and sometimes they are nice for convenience and variety and most of all when you don’t have time to do a sit down dinner. I just think the sit down places (while they take much longer) provide a much more enjoyable ambience. Our coffee machine was STILL broken today and after a call to the hotel director to complain about it they just replaced the entire thing and now we’re in business.

Juneau

We got into Juneau at 1pm (an hour before scheduled). They had priority disembarkation for being in a suite and Karan the hotel concierge took groups of 10 at a time down through a staff elevator just outside of Cagneys. I heard the other lines were long so it was nice being able to skip right out of there. We did a tram ride and glacier package booked at the desk in the Mt Roberts Tramway building - $35 for the tram ticket + Glacier trip (versus $27 for just the Tram). The tram ride was nice and we got some good pictures from the observatory place at the top. The tram operator on the way down complained about living in Juneau and how he desperately wanted out. We got back and had a quick look around The Alaska T-shirt Company for some souvenirs for our boys. As far as normal touristy shops go they really have some inexpensive t-shirts and jackets. We then boarded a 1971 bus and were driven to the Mendenhall glacier. We had just enough time to walk down near the water in front of the glacier and take a few pictures, head up to the observatory and watch the 11 minute film and then hop back on the bus to return. Our bus driver Sage was entertaining and good at explaining much of the sites on the way there and back along with sharing her own personal “when I saw a bear” stories. J.

Dinner

We had our romance package dinner in Le Bistro this evening. I had the Roquefort – Frisee Salad and the cream of mushroom soup as a starter. The salad was good but the mushroom soup was outstanding - amazingly creamy and rich. Peter had the Escargots Bourguignonne and in my continued attempt to be more adventurous with food choices I tried one. It was really good. I was worried that I’d gag from the texture but honestly it was much like a mushroom in texture and enough butter with anything makes things more palatable. I had the Grilled Beef Tenderloin au Poivre and it was GORGEOUS - amazingly tender with wonderful flavor. Pete had the lobster (this was an additional $10). I think he liked it but he didn’t rave about it so I don’t think he was blown away. For dessert we both had crème brulee and Peter thought it was the best he’d ever had. They then brought over a one layer white cake with “Happy Anniversary” on the top and serenaded us with “Let me call you sweetheart”. Nice gesture but restaurant serenades always make me embarrassed and uncomfortable as you’re stuck there the entire time doing nervous laugh/smile thing and do I look at them or do I look at Peter? Peter was horrified at the end of the song when they stop singing and expected him to finish the last of the song by himself. I think even they felt sorry for the deer in the headlights look and quickly finished the song for him. There was also a person walking around selling roses (another thing I can’t stand). The night before upon seeing someone carrying rose I gave Peter a bye for the rest of his life for EVER having to buy me a flower from someone walking around selling them. You’re stuck then walking around with a flower and then finding somewhere to put it. I think he was happy to have the opportunity to see if I really meant it the next night when this guy came around with his armful of flowers. I did.

Enjoying your reviews and photos!

Uploaded Mondays Freestyle Dalies to:

http://community.webshots.com/album/572342323noyAVF

Will post next review part tomorrow...

Yes Peter and Misty you did have a good time at the Martini tasting.

Wayne and Debbie

Great review, I am laughing my head off at the parents gone wild bit. I saw in the Daily that they had Photo Frenzy for @120, did you take them up on it?

I am surprised that the Newlywed Game does not say for ages 18 and over. It did last year on the Star daily.

It WAS for 18 and over for sure.....I couldn't believe some of what was said! :eek: