A Jewel of an Alaska Cruise...in a GV...with Pics!

[Cubechick]

Okay. A little background would be good here. DH and I booked this cruise well over a year in advance (very normal for us…we are planners!). We started out in a mini-suite, and watched for price drops like a hawk. Shortly before final payment, I spotted a price drop on aft-facing suites. Noting that deck eight is problematic on other ships as those cabins are directly over the nightclub, I was delighted to find out on the Jewel, deck eight stern cabins are over the duty free shops! I moved our cabin immediately (at a savings of $1100 over what that same room would have cost when we booked. SCORE!).

 

Fast-forward a couple of months and things changed again. The only reason I even bring up this scenario is to emphasize that you simply never know. What we never knew is that we would end up in a Garden Villa for this cruise. Truly, the planets came into alignment on this one. A month or so before the cruise friends expressed interest in coming along…I think the idea of booking the remaining Garden Villa started out as a joke…until we did the math and realized that it wasn’t that crazy. While we debated, the price came down $2,000 and sealed the deal. I am not going to lie and act like this cost the same as an inside cabin. But for our friends, who were traveling solo, the price for them was about the same as booking a balcony cabin individually. Not too shabby. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity literally fell in our laps. Of course after what I just said about “you never know”…well, you never know, LOL.

 

Needless to say, after moving our reservation to the Garden Villa, our excitement reached a fever pitch! DH and I were already really looking forward to every aspect of this cruise. Having only been to Alaska once, five years ago, we were more than ready to explore this wonderful destination again. Heck, I was nearly as excited about a day in Seattle as I was at seeing Alaska again. Last time we had sailed the Pearl and the majestic Glacier Bay. This time it was the Jewel and Tracy Arm Fjord and Sawyer Glacier. I would settle the argument of which was better once and for all (to me anyway!). Actually I was very excited to take the Tracy Arm Excursion, which took you on a smaller boat to Sawyer Glacier. The theory being that you would get closer to the glacier than you would on a cruise ship. How did that work out? Read on!

 

DH and I, being seasoned cruisers, arrived in Seattle the morning before our cruise. Even with a short flight, delays happen, and we always arrive the day before our cruise. We booked the Marriott Seattle Waterfront, which is literally across the street from the pier. It isn’t a cheap hotel, but by booking a year out (as soon as I could!), I got the best rate I saw all year, and it included breakfast! The best part of this (in my opinion) was that the included breakfast wasn’t limited to the buffet. We had a wonderful Dungeness Crab Benedict the morning of the cruise that was perfection.

 

Our day in Seattle was spent walking around in splendid weather along the waterfront, having an excellent lunch at Elliott’s Oyster house, and taking several pictures of Mt. Rainier (which was utterly invisible our last cruise).

 

 

 

 

That evening we just laid low at the hotel, ready to burst at the seams, waiting for the Jewel to come in and whisk us away.

Edited June 21, 2014 by Cubechick

[Hikini]

Can't wait for more!

[NancyL2]

Nice!

[PanFan]

Please stop posting such wonderful picture of our beautiful city we are trying to keep it a secret. :D

[Cubechick]

Day One

 

DH was up at crazy o’clock in the morning (after one night we were still on East Coast time) and had a panic attack when he didn’t see the Jewel docked. Of course it was just shy of 5 o’clock. However, as he rounded the corner he glimpsed the Jewel coming to get us. Phew! It was a little overcast, but it was the type of cloud cover that promised to burn away as the sun rose. The weather should be spectacular for sail away!

 

I swear, the only thing worse than killing time the morning of the cruise is packing up the night before you disembark. We killed our time with our aforementioned breakfast (seriously, if you find yourself at the Marriott Waterfront, check out that Dungeness Crab Benedict). We wandered around the waterfront; gazing up at our Villa…we may have pinched ourselves once or twice. As crazy as we are about arriving early, we noticed people lining the sidewalks at 8:00 am with luggage; waiting to board…I have to assume that they arrived on early morning flights. Even we aren’t that extreme. We dragged our bags to the pier at the more reasonable hour of 10:00, LOL.

 

 

The process in Seattle is a bit different (even compared to last time) to other ports we’ve sailed from. You drop your bags off outside (naturally), but Seattle has an outside table, by the luggage drop-off, that is for suite passengers. A lady named Jean works the table with military precision. She told us to return at 10:30 for escort onto the ship, and she brought us on shortly thereafter. She led us to security and waited for us on the other side to escort us to the VIP waiting room. It was here that we checked in. Check in was seamless and I love that they have added savory snacks (sandwiches, cheese and crackers) to the VIP lounge, rather than all sweet offerings. Seattle has one of the roomiest and comfortable lounges we have encountered to date.

 

NCL has abandoned the concept of butlers escorting you individually to your suites. It was extremely time consuming and I don’t blame them for discontinuing the practice. Now they herd the suite passengers and VIP’s en masse to the VIP lunch restaurant (in this case, Moderno, which was moved during the Jewel’s May dry-dock from deck eight to the space that I can best describe as the Cagney’s Annex). I have to admit that we are rebels and we broke away from the escort rather quickly. We scooted into our own bank of elevators and went straight to our Villa.

 

I took what felt like a thousand pictures before rooms were moved into. I have a couple of them here, but have many more posted to my Flickr account (in my signature).

 

 

 

After exploring the Garden Villa, we headed to Moderno for lunch. I had read reports before our trip that the service in Moderno is slow and the food is often cold. Unfortunately that would be our experience as well during most of our visits to this restaurant. I have to guess that the wait-staff simply hasn’t adjusted to the kitchen not being in their line of sight. Many years ago this area was used for the suite breakfast and lunch on the Gem so I know that they can get it right. I just hope that they figure things out soon.

 

 

After lunch we poked around until it was time for the muster drill (on our case in the new-to-the-Jewel O’Sheehans). Our departure was delayed an hour or so as the Jewel received giant scrubbers that are part of an emissions upgrade. No worries, we would have ample time to get to our first port, Ketchikan.

 

As I had predicted, the sun was shining as we sailed slowly from Seattle. Getting underway on embarkation day is one of the best moments of a cruise. All of the pre-cruise anticipation is still right there as you have the entire cruise ahead of you, but now the adventure has begun! Kind of like opening that first present on Christmas morning when you were a kid.

 

 

 

It is tradition for us to have dinner in Cagney’s the first night of the cruise. I am still finding that I love the new menu. I did find my soup and appetizer to be on the cool side (and the kitchen is right there, so the waiters don’t have that as an excuse!) but my steak and sides were perfect. Overall a good meal and I wouldn’t have minded dining there again (although we didn’t).

 

I am afraid that the travel from the East Coast got to all of us, and it was an early night for everyone. All I know is that I hit that super comfortable bed and that was it for me.

Edited June 21, 2014 by Cubechick

[Cubechick]

I realize as I write this that it was just a week ago today that we left this lovely ship and returned to reality...well writing this up will help with the PCD!

 

Day Two…Sea Day

 

Ah, there is nothing better than sleeping on a moving ship. I awakened early, but rested, and crept into the living room with my book. I was the only person of our group up so I enjoyed my first cup of cappuccino in solitude. For those that don’t know, the majority of NCL’s suites are equipped with a Lavazza machine that makes everything from tea to cappuccino. It uses its own pods (much like a Keurig machine uses K-cups) and is fantastic. Having one of these machines is one of the best things about suite life on NCL (to me at least!).

 

Again we were treated to a morning with overcast skies, but this time with a good dose of rain as well. I turned on the navigation channel on the television to get a sense of the forecast, but the system thought it was yesterday and that we were headed toward Seattle! That wasn’t much help (they would reboot the system later that morning and get us on the right bearing)!

 

 

The reason I was interested in the weather was that we were hosting the Cruise Critic Meet and Greet later that morning and I was hoping the weather would cooperate and give everyone a chance to explore without getting wet. I had started a roll call a year before the cruise. However we were too small a group to request a Meet and Greet, so I hadn’t even brought the subject up. When my friends came on board and we snagged the Garden Villa, the four of us thought it would be great to host the Meet and Greet in our suite. First I had to find out if there was any interest at all in a M&G. To my pleasant surprise, everyone on our roll call was interested (I didn’t mention the location just in case NCL said “no”) so I wrote to the Group Event coordinator for the Jewel with our proposal. I was thrilled to get a response in the affirmative for our small group of twelve (by the time we sailed we were all the way up to 19 people).

 

 

We asked our room steward, the awesome Joefrey, if he would take care of the Villa in the morning so it would be presentable, and headed to breakfast. It was the first of our poor breakfasts in Moderno; extremely slow service and over-cooked and under-cooked meals. Oh well.

 

About a half an hour before the Meet and Greet was scheduled, our butler Roland rolled in with an assistant to set up the beverages and snacks that NCL always provides at these gatherings. It was a large spread for such a small group, but it looked impressive! We were ready to go!

 

 

All but two people in our group showed up for the M&G. Most of the members of our roll call were either first time cruisers or new to NCL, so they had no idea what a Garden Villa was. They were suitably impressed not only by the space, but also by the fact that all of the officers showed up (excepting the Captain) just like they would for a larger gathering. The Group Event Coordinator, Iris, also had sign up sheets for those interested in dinner with an officer. I believe everyone that signed up was selected which was a nice surprise for everyone.

 

 

I think everyone hung out for about a half an hour after the officers left, exploring the space (the sun had cooperated and come out, but it was windy) and just having nice conversation. It was a really nice morning and I am glad we had a chance to share a little of our experience with our fellow roll call members. I was also really impressed that NCL pulled out all of the stops for our small group just like they would for a group of 150.

 

After the Meet and Greet was the Latitudes party for all Latitudes members held at Spinnakers. There was a good turn out with the majority of cruisers being Bronze members. They asked who had the most cruises as usual. I think the only ones in the room with more than 10 cruises under their belts were the four of us. One of our companions would be the hands down winner with 46 NCL cruises…however no prize was given for the most cruises (unlike on other cruises).

 

 

After the party we wondered around the ship for a bit. I am not sure what I think about Fyzz, the Jewel’s answer to Bliss that is the lounge on her sister ships the Pearl and Gem. It is a funky looking space on deck seven just down the hall from the Stardust Theater. As it seemed to be used primarily for karaoke, we never did stop by there at night.

 

 

We also swung by the newly updated photo gallery which has gone all digital. I know it's great for the environment and cost effective, but I'll miss walking through the gallery and checking out all of the pictures.

 

 

As is usual, the VIP cocktail party was this first night. The huge number of people present blew me away. The Courtyard was so packed that it actually got uncomfortably warm (now I know why they had cracked the retractable roof open). We ended up having a really nice conversation with the Captain, Niklas Persson. When we sailed with him last, he was the Staff Captain on the Breakaway. With a well-deserved promotion under his belt, the Jewel is his first command.

 

Since we were all gussied up for the cocktail party, we dined at Le Bistro this evening. I find Le Bistro to be consistently good and this dinner was no exception. I tried the asparagus appetizer with ****ake* mushrooms and a citrus hollandaise for the first time. It was very good and I was glad that I tried something different for once. I guess that was enough of me breaking routine, though. The rest of the meal was my standard fare of mushroom soup and the beef tenderloin.

 

After dinner we stopped at the Sugarcane Bar in Moderno for a post-dinner mojito. I have to say my pineapple coconut mojito was very tasty but the bar space isn’t really good to linger in as it’s on top of the diners in the restaurant.

 

* The bad word editor won't let me write the name of the mushrooms...which are Japanese and begin with an "s", LOL.

[LooneyCruzer]

rah, keep going! More pics

[amarvel]

Love this review.can't wait to read more!

 

Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2

[NancyL2]

Great review...keep it coming with lots more pics of the Jewel. :)

[brunolvr]

I realize as I write this that it was just a week ago today that we left this lovely ship and returned to reality...well writing this up will help with the PCD!

 

 

We asked our room steward, the awesome Joefrey, if he would take care of the Villa in the morning so it would be presentable, and headed to breakfast. It was the first of our poor breakfasts in Moderno; extremely slow service and over-cooked and under-cooked meals. Oh well.

 

 

 

 

 

Joefrey was our Room Steward on our May 31st cruise on the Jewel. He did a great job!

 

Just wanted to mention that we had 5 of our breakfasts in Moderno and had great service with our food arriving hot and cooked just right. I know I've read others have had slow service and cold food, but for some reason we lucked out!

[mfinster007]

Thank You! We are sailing on the Jewel in just one week on the 28th. Do you know if they are still offering the Chefs Table?

 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Forums mobile app

[deladypilot]

Great review. We sail on here next year for 10 in Alaska in a 2bdrm so I really excited to hear what all you have to say and of course photos

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[Cubechick]

Joefrey was our Room Steward on our May 31st cruise on the Jewel. He did a great job!

 

Just wanted to mention that we had 5 of our breakfasts in Moderno and had great service with our food arriving hot and cooked just right. I know I've read others have had slow service and cold food, but for some reason we lucked out!

 

Isn't Joefrey excellent? Always a big smile on his face!

 

Wow. I guess you did luck out. I think only one breakfast came out in a correct and timely manner. They did a little better with lunch...but only a little.

[Cubechick]

Thank You! We are sailing on the Jewel in just one week on the 28th. Do you know if they are still offering the Chefs Table?

 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Forums mobile app

 

Yes they are! I have to think they had a couple of seatings as they were coming around Moderno for the first two days seeing if anyone wanted to sign up.

[david_sobe]

Wow how nice of you to host the meet and greet in your villa!

[NJLVW]

Love reading your reviews. Great pictures. We had the opportunity quite a few years back to be in one of the GV on the Jewel. What an amazing time. Your pictures bring back wonderful memories. Someday we will get to Alaska. On my bucket list of places to go. Thank you so much for always sharing your vacations. I feel like I am there with you! It does make my time for our next cruise go by that much faster and easier...

 

Norma

[Cubechick]

Thank you for the positive feedback! Let's visit some ports!

 

Day Three – Ketchikan!

 

The four of us went our separate ways in Ketchikan with two of us walking around and taking the Duck Boat tour and two of us taking the Misty Fjords excursion. DH and I had opted for the Duck tour just because we hadn’t seen any of Ketchikan during our last visit aboard the NCL Pearl and I’ve always wanted to do a Duck Boat Tour for some reason. (Our friends with thrilled with the Misty Fjords, by the way, and felt it the best tour of the trip.)

 

Being that our tour wasn’t until 10:30 in the morning, we got to sleep in and have breakfast at our leisure. We decided to go to the buffet and were taken aback by how different the set up is from the Gem. The ships being of the same class are so similar; it’s always surprising to come across the little differences. The buffet had a nice variety as always. I discovered that besides scrambled eggs and mini omelets they also had pans of fried eggs. I thought the fried eggs a nice addition for people who don’t want to wait at the omelet station to get one.

 

It rained off and on in Ketchikan, but was much better weather than we experienced on our last trip, when it poured most of the time. Heck, the sun even peeked out at times, so I thought that was a bonus! DH and I walked around before our tour.

 

 

We came across the fire station, which had an old fire truck on display. A woman crossing the parking lot let us know that the door was open and we could go right in. She even came in and let us know that it was a 1925 Seagrave (she seemed proud of that). That was very nice.

 

 

It was time for our tour and we boarded our Duck boat.

 

 

I have read reviews on Trip Advisor and the complaints that there isn’t much to see. My response to that is, well, “Duh”. Ketchikan is a small fishing village and you could probably see most of it on foot in a couple of hours. What do these people think they’re going to see? They aren’t touring London or Boston. Anyway, I like tours like this because you get tidbits of information that you would miss on your own.

 

For example, we'd walked by Whale Park:

 

 

But hadn't realized that it was named that because it was shaped like a whale.

 

Our guide was born and raised in Ketchikan and shared a lot of good and sometimes humorous information. I also enjoyed the ride in the water with seaplanes coming in for landings over our heads.

 

 

On the day we visited there were about 3,000 more people in town than usual with an extra ship in port. That meant my dreams of having lunch at the Alaska Fish House were dashed. Not only because of crazy long lines, but they ran out of Dungeness crab…my entire reason for wanting to go there. Defeated, we headed back to the ship for lunch. Oh well…it was be a much cheaper option anyway.

 

I had read that approximately three hours after departing Ketchikan (for those of us sailing north), you sail through Snow Pass. This is supposedly an ideal place for whale spotting (the Captain announced the same so it must be true). As the time approached the four of us scanned the seas and had maybe five confirmed sightings between seeing “blow” and a couple of dorsal fins. I was so bummed! We cruised this exact time of year before and saw dozens of whales over the course of our seven days on board. These sighting would prove to be the only whales spotted all cruise, so I am glad that I got to see at least that much!

 

 

Because we were so busy trying to spot whales, we decided to order dinner in. It was kind of last minute so we assured Roland that whenever he could fit us in would be just fine. We went with Chin Chin and everything was very good. I figured that Asian food would travel well. It seems to be made for takeout. :-)

[soaringfalcon]

Great review so far! Looking forward to the rest.

[brunolvr]

Isn't Joefrey excellent? Always a big smile on his face!

 

Wow. I guess you did luck out. I think only one breakfast came out in a correct and timely manner. They did a little better with lunch...but only a little.

 

We ate lunch in Moderno's only once. To us the menu was getting boring since it's been the same for our last few cruises. We enjoyed lunch in the main dining room several times and also ate lunch in O'Sheehan's several times. O'Sheehan's burger was bigger and better than the one we had in Moderno's!

[Johnny Bananas]

 

 

we also swung by the newly updated photo gallery which has gone all digital. I know it's great for the environment and cost effective, but i'll miss walking through the gallery and checking out all of the pictures.

 

 

 

wow!

[Cubechick]

We ate lunch in Moderno's only once. To us the menu was getting boring since it's been the same for our last few cruises. We enjoyed lunch in the main dining room several times and also ate lunch in O'Sheehan's several times. O'Sheehan's burger was bigger and better than the one we had in Moderno's!

 

I so agree about the menu!

 

We went to O'Sheehans once for breakfast. It was the best breakfast of the week. :)

[Cubechick]

Day four – Juneau and Tracy Arm Fjord/Sawyer Glacier (part one)

 

Today was the day we had been waiting for since we booked this cruise over a year ago. Being able to experience a Garden Villa turned out to be a nice bonus, but you don’t (or at least I don’t) book an Alaska cruise to spend all of your time on the ship. This cruise is about nature and astonishingly beautiful scenery.

 

I am embarrassed to admit that we didn’t even get off of the ship in Juneau. We’d had a vague plan to walk into town and explore a bit as our excursion was in the afternoon. But the morning got of to another murky start (I am sensing a theme here) and our pier was at the furthest spot away from town.

 

 

So we did nothing. We couldn’t even get motivated enough to go have lunch so I ordered in a pizza. I don’t know why I bother. Grabbing pizza at the buffet probably would have been better. The pizza did arrive piping hot, but slightly undercooked and very bland. Definitely not a pizza worth paying for.

 

Oh. We did plan on dining in this evening and had given Roland plenty of notice this time. So we poured over the Main Dining Room menu that he had dropped off in the morning and wrote down our orders for him before our tour.

 

At 12:45 we all gathered in the Stardust Theater to wait for our tour to begin. We were taking the Tracy Arm Fjord & Glacier Explorer, which meant that we would leave the ship to get on a boat and pick the ship up again in Tracy Arm Fjord. How cool was that? The idea is that being on a small boat, you will likely get closer to the glacier than the ship will. I got nervous when the tour started late (our boat hadn’t arrived!). This tour was the entire reason I booked this cruise!!!! At last we were given the green light and we were off! Sort of. We boarded the boat (there were less than 70 of us on board, so we had our pick of seats) and waited…and waited…and waited…to be given the green light to leave. The Pearl had come in and was waiting for the Jewel to vacate the berth. Between her and the Coast Guard cutters that were there, it was quite the traffic jam.

 

 

Finally we were on our way. It would be about a 90-minute ride to the Tracy Arm Fjord. Thank goodness there was plenty of gorgeous scenery to keep us occupied. I can’t believe that with the eerily calm water we had in places that we never saw a single whale!

 

 

I was surprised that the moment we turned into the fjord, there were ice floes. (there had been none along the way).

 

 

The sail up the fjord is just gorgeous. I was so glad that we cruised at this time of year again as the mountain peaks were still snow-capped. The contrast between the lush green foliage and the icy white slashes of ice is stunning.

 

 

I began to realize that another advantage of the small boat tour (aside from the hope to get closer to the glacier than the ship) was that the small boat arrived at the fjord much earlier than the Jewel and could maneuver through the fjord at a faster pace as well. So we really got to linger at a waterfall that we encountered (the ship didn’t pause here at all).

 

 

Not only did we get closer to South Sawyer Glacier than the Jewel (although she did get quite close) we got to spend triple the time there. Finally we were able to go to Sawyer Glacier itself (we were the first tour of the year that was able to) and the Jewel was too large to give it more than a passing glance as we began to sail out of the fjord.

 

(Breaking up this day into a couple of posts so I can post the pictures I want!)

[Cubechick]

Day four - Tracy Arm Fjord/Sawyer Glacier Continued...

 

None of the pictures that I post here will fully capture the beauty of what we saw. The intense blue of the glacial ice at South Sawyer Glacier was apparently a rarity that had the naturalist on board scrambling for his camera.

 

 

 

Every brown dot you see on an iceberg is a harbor seal and likely a pup as well (so we did get to see some mammals on this trip!) as Tracy Arm is a perfect spot for them to have their young. (Supposedly the orca, the seals’ biggest predator, doesn’t go into the fjord as it messes with their sonar.)

 

 

As we sailed away from South Sawyer Glacier, we neared the Jewel waiting to make her entrance. This is when we went to Sawyer Glacier. Although it was nice, it didn’t have the impact of South Sawyer Glacier (still can’t get over the intense blue at South Sawyer Glacier)! It did do a little calving for us, which was special. We lingered here for quite awhile until the Jewel gave us the go ahead to come back to the ship.

 

 

It was cool approaching the ship and catching pictures of her with the glacier in the background.

 

 

Soon we were back on board, and still taking pictures like crazy. We had about an hour to kill until dinner would be delivered. I had thought that this was a good day to plan on dining in just because it was a long day with us boarding after 6:00. What I didn’t realize is that it would also afford us the perfect view as we sailed down Tracy Arm.

 

[Cubechick]

I feel compelled to add a few more photos:

 

On the way to the fjord:

 

 

 

In Tracy Arm Fjord:

 

 

The Jewel waiting near the entrance to Sawyer Glacier:

 

 

Sailing out of the Fjord:

 

 

Sunset that evening: