NCL Jewel to Alaska 8/22-29/2015 Pics and VIDEO!

[willowvacay]

After lunch we didn't really have any plans. We went and sat on the balcony looking for more whales and ended up going inside and taking a nap. We set an alarm for dinner and got up to get ready to go to dinner. Tonight we went to La cucina. That is NCL's Italian restaurant. It was really good. We had lasagna, chicken parmesan, pesto pasta, and spaghetti and meatballs (don't worry, one meal per person). The desserts there are alright. I had tiramisu this evening and it was good enough. Mom had chocolate torte and she said it was "not great". Dad had ice cream and Ben skipped dessert.

 

 

pre-dinner timer pic

 

post dinner pic (la cucina is on aft 12 near the buffet and has a door that opens to the outdoor aft buffet)

 

Ben and I went to newlywed/not so newlywed game. We love that kind of thing. Its pretty much the same on all cruise lines and always the same on NCL but we still have fun. They had a little addition to the menu which included Alaska beer and a few drink choices.

 

 

 

 

Our turndown

[willowvacay]

The next morning we woke up in ALASKA!

The first stop was Ketchikan.

Parking in Ketchickan

 

Moderno is open early on the port days (at 0630) so Ben and I went and had a waffle pre-Ketchikan. We walked outside Moderno to take photos while we waited to be led to the gangway by Florentina.

 

 

view of Ketchikan from the ship

 

In this port we had plans for a private float plane tour of Misty Fjord via a private company Misty Fjord Executive Air. We have been doing non-cruise excursions since our second cruise (NCL epic Mediterranean cruise). We plan this mostly using cruise critic and trip advisor. We found this air company through trip advisor and they had really great reviews and their planes looked new so we went with them. My parents were really excited about this excursion because they had a float plane trip planned on their Canada/new England cruise but it was cancelled due to weather. Ben and I were nervous about the float plane but we went along with it anyway. Our trip was planned for 0930 and we were supposed to meet at the visitor center around then to get the bus to the company's depot.

 

 

 

 

Prior to that we went to creek street to check it out. Creek street is an interesting area with a few museums and shops. We walked around here and then tried to find the salmon "steps" thing without much luck. After that we looked around port to find some souveniers before our assigned meeting time. If you go to creek street super early like we did dolly's house and other areas wont be open but we ended up coming back there after the plane tour.

 

 

 

After leaving creek street and the salmon fail we walked closer to port to shop around. All of these areas are an easy walk from the ship. We were pretty surprised to find that all the ports on this trip had just as many Diamonds international and similar stores as Caribbean ports.

 

[shaun07]

Great review. I leave in 3 days so hurry up and finish :D:p

[willowvacay]

 

 

apparently it rains here. A lot.

 

 

The inside of the visitors center. A great place to go if its raining and you're waiting for your excursion. They also have very nice and clean bathrooms. It seemed after walking through here that if you had not planned an excursion that you could book one here through one of the vendors.

 

[willowvacay]

Outside the visitors center we met our 930 ride. There were other groups on the bus with us and they took us to the flight center. We got off the bus and spotted our plane.

 

 

It was small and it was just the four of us and the pilot.

 

 

taking off.

 

 

[willowvacay]

 

After flying for a little while we landed and pulled up to a dock to look around.

 

 

 

we took off again and did a fly by of the ship. Then we landed and headed back to port.

 

Edited September 10, 2015 by willowvacay

[Wavesprite]

I love your pictures and review!!!!

[willowvacay]

After we ended up back in port and my parents went on the ship and Ben and I headed back out to creek street. We toured Dolly's. It was set up pretty nice with TV's in each room talking about Dolly's work and the business of the brothels and booze in the creek street area.

 

 

 

 

After our second creekstreet visit we ate lunch at Fish Pirates Saloon. Ben had both Alaskan King Crab and Dungeness Crab.

[willowvacay]

We headed back to the ship and rested before dinner. We had Teppanyaki. That is a pretty fun hibachi style restaurant. It is the hardest to get a reservation for so you should try to make a reservation on the first day of the cruise or beforehand if possible. Compared to the Teppanyaki on Getaway it was a very small room and pretty loud with all four chefs doing their show at one time. The food is pretty good there and we always have fun visiting. It is not a restaurant we would visit on more than one occasion per cruise but it is worth going to once per cruise.

 

After dinner we went to the comedian show. It was very crowded and the gentleman was pretty funny and family appropriate.

 

 

 

[willowvacay]

I love your pictures and review!!!!

 

 

Thank you so much for reading!

[willowvacay]

Great review. I leave in 3 days so hurry up and finish :D:p

 

 

Thank you! I am going to try!!

[willowvacay]

The next day: Juneau!

 

We woke up early the next morning because we had an early start for Juneau. While researching for what to do on trip advisor we found that this port was an easy one. Harv and Marv outback Alaska appeared to have the best of all the reviews. We chose it and booked early. They offered whale watching and guaranteed you would see a whale. They also allowed for small groups to have a private tour and for this group of four that was the perfect opportunity. Juneau was a short day (leaving at 130 pm) so we had to try and get in our whale watching plus find souveniers all while trying to get back to the ship by all aboard time.

 

This excursion was the one that we were unanimously the most excited for. We all couldn't wait to see whales. Of course we were a little nervous we wouldn't see any but we hoped for the best.

 

We stopped by Moderno for waffles at about 0645...I started to become afraid we may turn into waffles. We had to meet the rep from Harv and Marv at 0730. After breakfast FLorentina walked us off the ship and we headed out to meet our person. Harv and marv has multiple private groups so they had a large charter bus there to meet a bunch of us. We boarded the bus and were pleasantly surprised to find that the bus driver also gave a lovely tour of the Juneau area. After a short 20-30 minute ride to the marina we got off the bus and met our boat captain Liz.

 

us on the bus:

 

 

captain Liz Piloting our boat

 

When we started out on our journey it was very foggy because it was early morning but luckily it cleared up quickly. We went to the outside of the boat to wait for some whales. We were not disappointed. We saw lots of spouts and lots of tails!

 

 

[willowvacay]

it was beautiful even without the whales.

 

 

 

one of my favorite pics from the whole trip:

 

[willowvacay]

 

 

 

 

 

[willowvacay]

 

 

 

 

 

[willowvacay]

after finishing the amazing whale watching experience we headed back to town to check it out and get some souvenirs. We stopped in Red Dog saloon to check it out but we didn't really have time to eat or get a drink. I will say I didn't like the sawdust floor though. Yuck. We walked toward the cruise ships and the Jewel was not parked right in front of the incline (it was a little farther out). We hopped on a free shuttle and headed right back to the ship in time to make it! We headed to the room to drop off our bags and then straight to the buffet.

 

Why does the ship leave Juneau so early you may ask. After leaving Juneau we sailed through Tracy Arm to see Sawyer Glacier. I thought this would be a short experience but apparently it takes quite a while. After lunch we headed to our balcony to do some glacier watching but it was a long time before we made it there. In the NCL daily it advertised that someone would be narrating the part where we were near to the glacier both in person on the bow of the ship and broadcast over the TV. We left our TV on so we could hear the narration but it never happened. Don't know what we messed up there...maybe they didn't do it, maybe it wasn't over the TV etc. Who knows. I would have liked to hear what was supposed to be said about the Glacier because it's been a long time since that one geology class I took freshman year of college.

 

It was chilly sailing through Tracy Arm but it was very fun to just sit on the balcony and enjoy a glass of wine.

 

Lots of cruisers took advantage of going out onto the bow of the ship for the sailing through Tracy Arm.

 

 

its definitely cold if Ben is covering up!

 

yep I'm a dork.

 

 

 

[willowvacay]

After the glacier viewing we got ready for dinner. Tonight we had Le Bistro. I love LeBistro because it has French onion soup, Ribeye for two, and vanilla crème brulee. It was delicious as usual. My parents also had the Ribeye for two. I think all of our favorite part of the LeBistro dinner was when the server asked what we all wanted for dessert and when she got to Ben he said "I'm fine". So she brought him this:

 

 

While we were waiting for dessert there was a garbled announcement and all I heard was "around midnight." I was so excited because I thought maybe they were announcing my other Alaska dream (besides seeing whales) was about to come true....seeing the Northern Lights. But of course, no one around us had understood the garbled announcement either so I didn't know if that's for sure what he said. So on the way back from dinner I stopped at Guest services and asked them. Strangely no one there knew what the announcement was either. Luckily I ran into someone from the cruise director staff and asked them and they told me that tonight was supposed to be a clear night and that sometime after midnight the Northern Lights would be visible. OMG how exciting!!!

 

So being the cool kids that we are we headed back to the room to go to bed and set an alarm (rather than staying up until midnight...hahaha).

 

The alarm goes off at midnight and I realize I don't know what to do. We don't know where to go or where to look, so we get on our warm clothes and head to the pool deck. From there we can see a crowd of people looking out over the land but we don't see much. I see something that I think maybe could be it but its not too convincing. We spent about 30 minutes there standing in the cold and I keep trying to convince us both that there's a faint green tint in the sky over the mountains. We headed back to the room to go back to sleep and right before getting in bed I decided to step out onto

the balcony and give it one more try. Lo and behold with no lights on the balcony that faint green light we had been seeing WAS really there and you could see it super well!! How exciting!!!!!!! I can check one of my bucket list items off!! I guess the deck lights on the pool deck and upper decks was too much to allow good viewing.

 

 

Us standing on the upper pool deck. In the cold. At about 1230 AM Alaska time!

[willowvacay]

Oh and I forgot to post what our towel animal had been that night:

 

I also forgot to post that between Juneau and the Glacier I had called our butler to please bring some wine and when he arrived I asked him to take my laundry bag. It was ready to go and he asked if we needed it by that evening or if it was ok to have it tomorrow (Wednesday) by 6. I said Wed was fine and he took it with him. We had a hard time getting the laundry back later in the cruise lol.

Edited September 10, 2015 by willowvacay

[texasmelrose2]

Thanks for this review! We are sailing this ship and itinerary next August...Can't wait!

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip. We have been on an Alaska cruise before but did not go whale watching. Definitely planning to check out Harv and Marv. Amazing pictures!

[willowvacay]

Thanks for this review! We are sailing this ship and itinerary next August...Can't wait!

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip. We have been on an Alaska cruise before but did not go whale watching. Definitely planning to check out Harv and Marv. Amazing pictures!

 

 

Thanks! I've been busy at work but plan on getting back to the review this weekend. You will love Harv and Marv should you go with them. It was a great experience.

[willowvacay]

So the next day we woke up and were headed into the port of Skagway. Initially for this portion of the cruise I wasn't sure what we were going to do. I knew that a popular excursion was to do the white pass railway but that didn't really seem like our group's cup of tea. I started seeing pictures of this place called Emerald Lake and decided that was where we needed to head. Reading review upon review and thread after thread in the area it seemed there were two good options for getting to emerald lake: rent a car and drive or find a private tour to take us there.

 

After turning to Old Faithful (trip advisor) I found several amazing reviews of a company called Skagway Private Tours and they all mentioned this tour guide named Sherry. Every review was wonderful and so I contacted Sherry and we got the tour all set up. We booked a 6 hour tour to Emerald Lake and planned to meet her at 730.

 

We got up for breakfast at Moderno and then walked off the ship and found Sherry waiting for us. We hopped into the van and were off on our way. The van was a Dodge Caravan and it was pretty new and very clean. Also, the third row of seats had a lot of space for a tall adult to sit in the back. It worked out wonderfully and we were comfortable for the ride.

 

I didn't know that much about Skagway and the Yukon territory but luckily Sherry is a native to the area so she knew tons about everything (and everyone) there! She gave us a tour of the town and then we headed out to see the area surrounding. You need a passport for this trip since you head into Canada and they did do a spot check at the station.

 

It was an absolutely beautiful day. There was hardly any wind and the mountains and landscape were all beautifully reflected on all the bodies of water in the area. Sherry is known for her ability to spot wildlife per trip advisor, but we didn't have too much luck on this go round. I guess nobody had sent the bears and moose their paychecks to appear that day! Haha.

 

 

 

 

The "welcome to Alaska" sign

 

 

[willowvacay]

 

 

On this tour we hit up Carcross which was an interesting little stop with a Lake and the Carcross Desert. There are some kitschy shops there and we got some souvenirs. One of my favorite souvenirs is the Carcross passport stamp at the general store!

 

 

 

 

The Yukon Territory Sign

[willowvacay]

 

Then we made it to Emerald Lake. I will say that once we made it there I realized that if we had rented a car and driven (as some people do) we would have likely missed it. There wasn't any warning and it wasn't super obvious from the road. It was very beautiful and like many of the pictures I have shared the pictures just do not do it justice.

 

 

 

 

After making it back to Skagway and some souvenir shopping my parents headed back to the ship and Ben and I went into the Red Onion for a snack. The food was good and the atmosphere was fun.

 

Upon walking back to the ship we got two fun pictures. In the first one, I happened to see my parents sitting on their balcony so I did some shouting to get their attention and took a photo of them.

 

 

And then we ran into the world's greatest room steward and all around nice guy Wayan and he agreed to take a selfie with me

 

 

Back on board the ship we spent sailaway on our balcony and then headed to LaCucina for dinner. I had the chicken parmesan this night and it was delicious. After dinner we went to see the "magician". He was kinda like a comedian/magician. While the small amount of magic he did was impressive we did not appreciate his humor too much. We like adult humor and jokes but he bordered on creepy with the audience members he picked and the way he interacted with them IMO. I'm sure everyone has their own opinions about this kind of thing but I don't like when you go waaaaay over the edge with someone else's wife or mother or whoever. Plus, this was the early show so I don't think I'm out of line suggesting that you tame it in a tiny bit. After this we went to live band karaoke and then regular karaoke. Ben and I are just observers but one member of the group joined in!

 

The next day was a sea day and we were finally able to sleep in! Our internal alarm clocks didn't get us up at 5am! After sleeping in we went to the gym and then to breakfast at the buffet because we missed modernos breakfast hours.

 

After breakfast we hung out in the room for a little while and then went to the captain question and answer session. This ended up being pretty interesting as there were a ton of people there and lots of interesting questions were asked and answered. Sometime after that we went to garden café for lunch and then Bingo. Dinner was cagneys and it was wonderful as usual.

[willowvacay]

The next day was basically a sea day as well with an evening stop in Victoria. We slept in a little but didn't want to wait to long to head to the gym because I didn't want to miss Moderno breakfast again. I needed my last waffle! Well somehow we lost track of time and by the time we headed to Moderno they were closing the doors. NOOOOOOOOO! I was pretty disappointed but Ben told me they had all the ingredients for the waffle in the buffet. We went there and Ben made me a copycat Moderno waffle with strawberries and whipped cream that we enjoyed on the back of the ship for our last breakfast onboard.

 

We spent some time just hanging out in the cabin and packing. On an interesting note we had sent out laundry on Tuesday that was supposed to be back by 6pm on Wednesday and it didn't come back. So on Thursday morning I called the Butler to see if he could locate it for us. He told us it would be back asap but surely before 6pm Thursday. It still hadn't made it. I called Thursday evening to let him know it still wasn't there and he said he would make sure it got back. It wasn't there when we headed to bed on Thursday evening. Friday morning I was ready to pack so I just called guest services to see if they could help me find it and within 5 minutes it was at our door. I'm not sure what happened in the time between Tuesday and Friday morning but at least we eventually got it back!

 

We headed to bingo to see if we won the free cruise for two. We did not. Too bad.

 

We had lunch and waited to make it to Victoria. We ended up getting there earlier than the 5pm advertised. We got off the ship and decided to walk to the fisherman wharf. It was a little far. We took a water taxi from there to the downtown area and checked it out and bought some souvenirs. We ended up looking for a taxi and didn't have much luck so we walked back to the Empress and caught a taxi at the front door there. Victoria was very nice and had beautiful flowers and seemed very clean and liveable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Victoria we headed to Cagneys for dinner and had our last meal there. We enjoyed some Mai tai's in the hot tub afterward and savored our last few hours of vacation. Afterward we headed to bed.

 

In the morning we met up at the appointed meeting place for early disembarkation with all of our luggage. As soon as the ship cleared customs we were the first people off the ship. We walked out to our taxi and headed to the airport. Vacation was officially over.

[willowvacay]

Overall this cruise to Alaska was truly amazing. If you were to ask if we would do it all over the answer is yes because it was very worth it. Our excursions were exactly what we had hoped for and made the trip once in a lifetime.

 

Usually the butler service kind of makes the trip extra special. This time our butler was just so-so and he didn't really make anything too exciting. However our room steward Wayan was excellent and he made our vacation extra special. He was so sweet that he even left us a thank you note! We really enjoyed talking with him and getting to meet him. Any person who encounters him can experience great service and I hope he is getting noticed by NCL.

 

 

We enjoyed that the casino seemed to be more generous than other NCL ships. One night all four of us came away as big winners. (we are talking a few hundred dollars but still...that is way better than the other NCL cruises we had been on where we lost our money right away and didn't even keep playing).

 

The Buffet setup was generally better than other cruises we had been on. Many of the newer ships seem to have what I would call a wrap-around buffet where the food is along a wall and wraps in a semi circle around the back of the ship. I feel like this requires you to make the whole loop to see all the offerings and make your selections. The Jewel Buffet was set up more what I would call cafeteria style where they had stations that were all relatively close together and you could check everything out easily. There were very few lines and it seemed to have a good flow to it.

 

Disappointments:

We didn't win bingo (haha)

When requesting reservations through the concierge she did not let us know if they were confirmed or not.

No glacier commentary on the TV even though it was advertised on the daily

No channel guide/tvguide on the tv to tell when certain movies would be playing

Shopping channel excessively loud relative to the other channels so channel flipping in the late night or early morning would wake anyone else in the room

Drinks were a little too creative without a description of the ingredients on the menu. (I tried a drink advertised as strawberry-pineapple but it apparently had a strong clove infusion that overpowered the drink. I wouldn't have ordered it if I knew that was there. In fact this is the only drink I have ever taken back to a bar and asked for another drink or a refund.)

We did not receive our lattitudes ship pin. We asked our butler for it and he told us they didn't do that anymore but when we asked guest services they gave us one right away.

 

Overall we had a great trip and we loved this itinerary and the jewel. Can't wait for our next cruise :)