Just Off the Joy

[jsmjovi]

We just got off the Joy!  I was a little worried with some of the negative reviews, but overall it was a great cruise!  Here's what we loved and some things we didn't love.

- All the shows!  We're huge musical fans so we all loved Footloose!  It was really good, high energy, great music.  Elements was also great.  I like that it was a bit shorter so we were able to go do other things after it. 

- Game shows and trivia.  My daughter loves these so we were almost always doing something in the atrium.  My only complaint about the atrium is that it's always so crowded in there and there were never enough seats.  I wish they had somewhere else to do these activities as we had to get there really early to be able to get seats.  They would bring in folding chairs, but there were still not enough chairs.

- We had booked all of our shows before we got on the ship, but when we got on the ship we had letters that stated they were changed.  That's normally ok, but what happened is that they were changed to days/times where we had dinner reservations.  So it was kind of a pain to have to switch everything all around when we'd already spent the time planning it before we got on the ship.

- Amazing staff, everyone was very friendly.  Super clean ship.

- Loved all the music - The Cavern Club was really cool.  Loved the Beatles!  We also really loved going to see Marie Wise Hawkins in Q.  We went to see them almost every night...there were always lots of seats and they are a great band to just sit and listen to.  

- We mostly ate in the Garden Cafe (other than 2 times in the Manhattan Dining Room for dinner).  Garden Cafe was pretty busy, but we never had trouble finding seats.  I wish they had more larger round tables for larger families.  Food in the garden cafe was good, lots of variety.  I also LOVE that they offered no added sugar options for dessert....I don't remember them offering that on previous cruises.  If there aren't seats available, you can bring it down one floor to the observation lounge, which is nice as it's not quite so chaotic.

-The Observation Lounge is amazing!  We spent a lot of time in there playing games/cards.  They have lots of games on the ship and we also brought some of our own.  On the scenic glacier day we got up there at 11:00 to get good seats fo the day and pretty much spent the day there.  They also have food set up there so if you want some snacks you don't even have to go up one floor.  lol.  The one thing issue we ran into at the lounge was fellow cruisers.  Mostly on the glacier day....when members of our party would leave - to run up to get food, get drinks, go back to the room to go to the bathroom, other passengers would obviously ask us if the seats were available.  If they weren't we got SO many dirty looks and just general rude responses.  I know chair hogging is a big issue, so I'm probably in the minority here.  But if you want a grouping of chairs, don't expect to come down at 7:00 with your double strollers when we're right next to the glacier and expect to get 5 chairs together.  And then when you can't get chairs, don't get rude to the people that do have them and 1 or 2 members of the party are up doing something and will be right back.  I thought it was cool how when we got right to the glacier, they would spin the ship around so that you could see all sides of it.

-Bring binoculars.  I loved being able to use those throughout the entire cruise.

-I hated the last day of the cruise and not just because the cruise was over.  lol.  The entertainment was terrible.  I'm sure it was because we were in port until 10:00.  But they should put some kind of show in the evening in the theatre or music or something.  They showed Aquaman.  And yes, he's nice to look at on a big screen, but I can do that at home!  Also the last city was Victoria.  Which normally I LOVE!!  It's so beautiful, but its was chaos.  We had planned to do the hop-on-hop-off tour, but when we got to downtown the line for that was so long.  We would have to wait 2 hours to get on the bus, so we walked up the street to try another company.  We bought tickets for it, but then at the last minute the cruise tour showed up and boy did people get mad, because they took up all the seats on the bus and people had been waiting for an hour to get on the bus.  We ended up getting a refund and just walked around the city for a while, did some shopping, walked the jetty by the ship and went back on board.  In hind-sight, I should have bought tickets BEFORE so that we could have got on the bus at the stop by the port, but I didn't know that.  Also after the huge rush of people at 2-4 were gone we could have easily got on a bus as we saw them driving around town mostly empty.  It costs $15.99 pp to get the shuttle to go downtown.  You can easily walk it, but we had some elderly people in our party and it would have been too long for them to walk.

 

Loved the ship, it might be my favorite ship (been on the Pearl, Epic and Escape).  Never felt crowded.  Had to wait on occasion for elevators, but nothing really long.  Tried to take the stairs to work off some of the food.  Usually do the spa, but they didn't have the same spa as other ships, but honestly I didn't miss it.  
 

Happy to answer any questions if you have them!

 

[Ptroxx]

Great review thanks for sharing.     I’ll be on the Joy in 52 days.  Very excited for my first Alaska cruise.   

 

What room type were you in ?    

And how was the noise from the room?  

What excursions did you take ?  And review ?     

 

And how how was your experience getting off the ship last day  ? 

 

Thanks again 

[Quincella]

Thanks for the review, particularly the heads up about the shuttle downtown.  We actually have a whale watching excursion booked independently and were thinking we'd take the shuttle in, but since we have time I think we may just walk it.  

 

I'll be on the Joy in 10 days, and I'm so excited!  I loved the Bliss in February, and I'm expecting to enjoy the Joy just as much. 

[aero777]

Thanks for the great review!  

[aubreyc1988]

4 hours ago, jsmjovi said:

We just got off the Joy!  I was a little worried with some of the negative reviews, but overall it was a great cruise!  Here's what we loved and some things we didn't love.

- All the shows!  We're huge musical fans so we all loved Footloose!  It was really good, high energy, great music.  Elements was also great.  I like that it was a bit shorter so we were able to go do other things after it. 

- Game shows and trivia.  My daughter loves these so we were almost always doing something in the atrium.  My only complaint about the atrium is that it's always so crowded in there and there were never enough seats.  I wish they had somewhere else to do these activities as we had to get there really early to be able to get seats.  They would bring in folding chairs, but there were still not enough chairs.

- We had booked all of our shows before we got on the ship, but when we got on the ship we had letters that stated they were changed.  That's normally ok, but what happened is that they were changed to days/times where we had dinner reservations.  So it was kind of a pain to have to switch everything all around when we'd already spent the time planning it before we got on the ship.

- Amazing staff, everyone was very friendly.  Super clean ship.

- Loved all the music - The Cavern Club was really cool.  Loved the Beatles!  We also really loved going to see Marie Wise Hawkins in Q.  We went to see them almost every night...there were always lots of seats and they are a great band to just sit and listen to.  

- We mostly ate in the Garden Cafe (other than 2 times in the Manhattan Dining Room for dinner).  Garden Cafe was pretty busy, but we never had trouble finding seats.  I wish they had more larger round tables for larger families.  Food in the garden cafe was good, lots of variety.  I also LOVE that they offered no added sugar options for dessert....I don't remember them offering that on previous cruises.  If there aren't seats available, you can bring it down one floor to the observation lounge, which is nice as it's not quite so chaotic.

-The Observation Lounge is amazing!  We spent a lot of time in there playing games/cards.  They have lots of games on the ship and we also brought some of our own.  On the scenic glacier day we got up there at 11:00 to get good seats fo the day and pretty much spent the day there.  They also have food set up there so if you want some snacks you don't even have to go up one floor.  lol.  The one thing issue we ran into at the lounge was fellow cruisers.  Mostly on the glacier day....when members of our party would leave - to run up to get food, get drinks, go back to the room to go to the bathroom, other passengers would obviously ask us if the seats were available.  If they weren't we got SO many dirty looks and just general rude responses.  I know chair hogging is a big issue, so I'm probably in the minority here.  But if you want a grouping of chairs, don't expect to come down at 7:00 with your double strollers when we're right next to the glacier and expect to get 5 chairs together.  And then when you can't get chairs, don't get rude to the people that do have them and 1 or 2 members of the party are up doing something and will be right back.  I thought it was cool how when we got right to the glacier, they would spin the ship around so that you could see all sides of it.

-Bring binoculars.  I loved being able to use those throughout the entire cruise.

-I hated the last day of the cruise and not just because the cruise was over.  lol.  The entertainment was terrible.  I'm sure it was because we were in port until 10:00.  But they should put some kind of show in the evening in the theatre or music or something.  They showed Aquaman.  And yes, he's nice to look at on a big screen, but I can do that at home!  Also the last city was Victoria.  Which normally I LOVE!!  It's so beautiful, but its was chaos.  We had planned to do the hop-on-hop-off tour, but when we got to downtown the line for that was so long.  We would have to wait 2 hours to get on the bus, so we walked up the street to try another company.  We bought tickets for it, but then at the last minute the cruise tour showed up and boy did people get mad, because they took up all the seats on the bus and people had been waiting for an hour to get on the bus.  We ended up getting a refund and just walked around the city for a while, did some shopping, walked the jetty by the ship and went back on board.  In hind-sight, I should have bought tickets BEFORE so that we could have got on the bus at the stop by the port, but I didn't know that.  Also after the huge rush of people at 2-4 were gone we could have easily got on a bus as we saw them driving around town mostly empty.  It costs $15.99 pp to get the shuttle to go downtown.  You can easily walk it, but we had some elderly people in our party and it would have been too long for them to walk.

 

Loved the ship, it might be my favorite ship (been on the Pearl, Epic and Escape).  Never felt crowded.  Had to wait on occasion for elevators, but nothing really long.  Tried to take the stairs to work off some of the food.  Usually do the spa, but they didn't have the same spa as other ships, but honestly I didn't miss it.  
 

Happy to answer any questions if you have them!

 

thanks for the review!
 

And I think you should pause and think about the other passengers perspective on the observation lounge seats. They had no idea how long your friends were gone or what they were doing.  I've asked people "is someone sitting here" and they respond "Oh yes they went to go grab a drink" and I find a seat nearby and I NEVER see the other person come back. So I can understand both sides to the story. 

[disneyochem]

6 hours ago, jsmjovi said:

We just got off the Joy!  I was a little worried with some of the negative reviews, but overall it was a great cruise!  Here's what we loved and some things we didn't love.
 

-The one thing issue we ran into at the lounge was fellow cruisers.  Mostly on the glacier day....when members of our party would leave - to run up to get food, get drinks, go back to the room to go to the bathroom, other passengers would obviously ask us if the seats were available.  If they weren't we got SO many dirty looks and just general rude responses.  I know chair hogging is a big issue, so I'm probably in the minority here.  But if you want a grouping of chairs, don't expect to come down at 7:00 with your double strollers when we're right next to the glacier and expect to get 5 chairs together.  And then when you can't get chairs, don't get rude to the people that do have them and 1 or 2 members of the party are up doing something and will be right back.  

 

Thank you for the review.  We’re on the Joy in December and was started to get a little nervous about all the poor reviews.

 

i agree completely about the folks who come late and expect to find prime seats.  Always happens on glacier viewing days regardless of location—lounge, promenade.

 

 My favorite are the parents who say that their kids should be in front and expect you to give up your seats for them!  Uh no, we got there early so we could see.  And, I don’t mind the kids going in front but it’s never just the kids —mom, dad, grandma, etc. 

 

 

6 hours ago, jsmjovi said:

 

 

[jsmjovi]

5 hours ago, Ptroxx said:

Great review thanks for sharing.     I’ll be on the Joy in 52 days.  Very excited for my first Alaska cruise.   

 

What room type were you in ?    

And how was the noise from the room?  

What excursions did you take ?  And review ?     

 

And how how was your experience getting off the ship last day  ? 

 

Thanks again 

It was our first Alaska cruise as well, I think it was my fav cruise so far.  

 

We had originally booked an inside and then bid on upgrade for balcony, which was accepted about 4 days before we sailed, so we ended up being on deck 8.  Great room, no noise concerns at all.  Well the only noise we heard was the hangers banging around, but I brought some duct tape so I lightly taped them together so they didn't make noise at night.  lol

 

In Juneau we did the Juneau Ice Field Helicopter tour which was AMAZING.  I booked it through Alaska Shore Excursions.  We had one of the first excursions out in the am so that was nice because we could come back and wander around the town and shop.  We docked at the far away dock there (might have been AJ), so they have a free shuttle into town, runs often and takes about 5 minutes to get to downtown.  From downtown the tour company meets you there and takes you on a bus to the airport. The helicopter was really fun, kind of a once in a life-time experience.  Super knowledgable guide so that was also great.

 

In Ketchikan we did the Bering Sea Carb Fisherman Tour through the same company.  This was our groups fav excursion.  We're all huge fans of the tv show Deadliest Catch, so you go out on the Aleutian Ballad and they talk about the fishing industry.  Saw lots of cool wildlife - there's one spot where you so SO MANY bald eagles.  It was really neat.  It was very informative and the crew was just so nice and really funny too.  Highly recommend this tour. 

 

In Icy Strait we did whale watching through Icy Strait Whale Adventures.  I'd also highly recommend it, except maybe if you have younger kids.  It's a long ride out to the whales and after you've seen them a couple of times it might get a little boring for them.  lol.  I loved it though, also super knowledgeable captain and he'd drive past all these boats stopping and looking at whales to tell us he knew where better whales were and sure enough he was right.  You meet the guides at the excursion building and they take you into town.  

 

Getting of ship was a breeze.  I was surprised at how early you have to get off compared to Caribbean cruises.  We only had carry-ons and we had to be off by 8:00 am, so it was an early morning.  No issues though, walked right off around 7:45 and were down to get a taxi in about 15 minutes total.

 

We stayed in Seattle the night before the cruise at the Inn at El Gaucho, it's walking distance to the pier so that was nice.  Great hotel, kind of pricy, but it's downtown Seattle so I felt like everything was pricy.  It was also walking distance to Pikes Market.

[jsmjovi]

5 hours ago, Quincella said:

Thanks for the review, particularly the heads up about the shuttle downtown.  We actually have a whale watching excursion booked independently and were thinking we'd take the shuttle in, but since we have time I think we may just walk it.  

 

I'll be on the Joy in 10 days, and I'm so excited!  I loved the Bliss in February, and I'm expecting to enjoy the Joy just as much. 

 yes....save yourself the $30 and walk.  I want to try the Bliss next!!!  

[jsmjovi]

2 hours ago, aubreyc1988 said:

thanks for the review!
 

And I think you should pause and think about the other passengers perspective on the observation lounge seats. They had no idea how long your friends were gone or what they were doing.  I've asked people "is someone sitting here" and they respond "Oh yes they went to go grab a drink" and I find a seat nearby and I NEVER see the other person come back. So I can understand both sides to the story. 

Yes....I totally get that and do understand both sides.  And I understand the frustration to those looking for seats and seeing empty ones for hours.  But get mad at us if they DON'T come back.  Or if you see the same seats empty 15 minutes later.  Don't get all pissy immediately.  lol.  It wasn't so much of a complaint as a suggestion to get down there really early to get a seat if you want it on the glacier day.

[jsmjovi]

32 minutes ago, disneyochem said:

 

Thank you for the review.  We’re on the Joy in December and was started to get a little nervous about all the poor reviews.

 

i agree completely about the folks who come late and expect to find prime seats.  Always happens on glacier viewing days regardless of location—lounge, promenade.

 

 My favorite are the parents who say that their kids should be in front and expect you to give up your seats for them!  Uh no, we got there early so we could see.  And, I don’t mind the kids going in front but it’s never just the kids —mom, dad, grandma, etc. 

 

 

 

  

Yeah, I was worried a bit too about the bad reviews but we really didn't have any issues.  It was my first Alaska cruise, so good to know about that for the future.  I think I was more surprised by the entitlement of some people. 

[blake-lisa]

Just got off the Joy on Saturday and out of 23 cruises it rates as one of the best. We got really lucky with weather which is a huge plus. The service and food/drink were fantastic. We dined in every venue and each had great service and food. The buffet was crowed but there was seating outside under heaters or you can take it one floor down to the Observation Lounge. 

Highly recommend the Bearing Sea Crab Excursion in Ketch. The 30ish Eagles a few feet away from us was the highlight of the trip. Whale watching tour in Juneau was great also. Elements, Beatles and Mary Wise band were great. Internet worked well and then at port cell service worked. Galaxy Pavilion was a great deal for 90 min at $29 for all the Virtual Reality games. Casino staff were great and had a great time at slot tournament. Price went up to $50 for the session which I believe our last cruise was $25. Winner got to pick one of 10 envelopes and smallest amount was $500 and largest was $5,000, but the poor guy picked the $500 one. Pools were heated and actually the large open area worked out well as they had events out there a few of the days. 

[Sand and Seas]

Thanks for sharing your review!   We loved the Observation Lounge on Bliss.....still can't believe they have that large of an area on a prime deck for a lounge.   Can't wait to see Footloose😊

[MyPortofBaltimore]

Thank you for the review!

 

How was the food in the main dining rooms? Also, how was the weather? I've heard that this is an unusually warm summer for Alaska. I sail in two weeks and would like to plan accordingly. 

[graphicguy]

Thanks for the great review. Joy and Bliss are both on my radar for my next cruise.

[tanyaewa]

On 7/3/2019 at 5:44 AM, jsmjovi said:

But if you want a grouping of chairs, don't expect to come down at 7:00 with your double strollers when we're right next to the glacier and expect to get 5 chairs together.  And then when you can't get chairs, don't get rude to the people that do have them and 1 or 2 members of the party are up doing something and will be right back

Oh I so agree!!! 

[jsmjovi]

9 hours ago, MyPortofBaltimore said:

Thank you for the review!

 

How was the food in the main dining rooms? Also, how was the weather? I've heard that this is an unusually warm summer for Alaska. I sail in two weeks and would like to plan accordingly. 

 

Weather was amazing - low 70s and sunny!  I brought jeans and never wore them, capri pants were perfect for the temperatures.

 

I thought the food in the MDR was great.  Had steak on both nights and salad as an appetizer one night and shrimp on another.  I went upstairs and got the lighter/no sugar added desserts.  I thought they had a great menu in the MDR, but I never eat steak so I went with that.  lol

 

ETA - it was a little cold on the Helicopter tour (when we were on the glacier) and the whale watching so I was glad I had a light jacket.  I think everyone says "dress in layers" and they are right.  

Edited July 9, 2019 by jsmjovi

[momtodogs]

do you know if there was a place on board the Joy to sing karaoke?  I am going to be with a group of 14 family/friends, and a couple have asked about karaoke.  I've never sung karaoke, but I said I would research it.

 

Also, are the tables in the Observation Lounge coffee table height, or dining table height?  I like to find a place to relax and color, for a while, when my feet give out.  Usually I have to go to the buffet area (between meals), but I hate to take up the space, there from people looking to get a meal.

Edited July 25, 2019 by momtodogs

[navy60wife]

error

Edited July 26, 2019 by navy60wife

[navy60wife]

46 minutes ago, momtodogs said:

do you know if there was a place on board the Joy to sing karaoke?  I am going to be with a group of 14 family/friends, and a couple have asked about karaoke.  I've never sung karaoke, but I said I would research it.

 

Also, are the tables in the Observation Lounge coffee table height, or dining table height?  I like to find a place to relax and color, for a while, when my feet give out.  Usually I have to go to the buffet area (between meals), but I hate to take up the space, there from people looking to get a meal.

 

@momtodogs Look up on Youtube, there are several very nice videos showing a tour of the Joy in 2019.  You will get a glimpse of the observation lounge as well as the other venues.  It looks like a great ship! 

[momtodogs]

Is Jim, the piano man, still playing in the District Brew House?  I saw him on another cruise, and loved him.

[katcruiser]

Great review...thanks for the tips! Will be on the Joy August 31 and it will be our first on NCL...(Platinum on both Royal Caribbean and Carnival) so we're excited to see how NCL compares...booked the Pearl in February also. Do they have "formal" nights where they have a better menu than other nights, ie...lobster? Want to book the specialty restaurants but don't want to miss anything special in the dining room.  Also, did you do any excursions in the other towns and if so what did you do? Thanks again for your review.