Going to Alaska on Pearl - questions

[grits01]

Hello, I am new to this site, so bear with me. I may ask questions that have been asked before by others. I was wondering if anyone that has cruised on the Pearl had photos of cabin #10512. Also, freestyle cruising is new to us, (this is our first cruise with NCL, we have cruised mostly on RCL), is it hard to get your seating arranged once on board for the times you want.

[ute_fan]

No help with cabin photos, as we just returned yesterday after sailing an inside cabin on deck 8. As far as meals, you don't actually "arrange" seating on an NCL ship. With freestyle dining, you're free to eat when you want, with whom you want, at the restaurant of your choice.

 

Obviously, with 2500 passengers on board, it wouldn't work well if all of them showed up at Le Bistro at 7 PM on Tuesday night, so you can make reservations for the specialty restaurants ahead of time. You can book for either that evening or the next evening at Mambo's on deck 8, or by calling the phone number listed in the freestyle daily. We were able to get dinner reservations for 5 at Mambo's for Friday night by stopping by about 24 hours before. We heard no complaints at all this trip about people stuggling to get reservations, which was a marked contrast to our November sailing on the Jewel. Without going into details which may confuse you, the new reservations policy seems to be working well.

 

If you're eating in one of the two main restaurants (Indigo and Summer Palace), you won't need reservations. Just show up and you'll be seated. We normally ate fairly early and never had any significant wait times for the group of 5 of us who were dining together, but I did notice lines a couple of times with beepers being handed out around 7 or 7:30.

[GottaLuvCruising]

Hi Susan - wecome home! I'm dragging a little and had to take a break from work to check in here.

 

We never had a problem getting the restaurant and approximate time we wanted. But we went to Mambos early each morning to make a reservation for the next night (except the one time we dined in Indigo and one time in Summer Palace where we had no wait at all). Everything went smoothly for us and we had a great time.

 

Janet

[Aloha Gal]

Ute fan, I'm a friend of Mary's. Could you please e-mail me at loganinhi@hotmail.com

 

Many thanks, Logan

[7SeasLover]

Hello, I am new to this site, so bear with me. I may ask questions that have been asked before by others. I was wondering if anyone that has cruised on the Pearl had photos of cabin #10512. Also, freestyle cruising is new to us, (this is our first cruise with NCL, we have cruised mostly on RCL), is it hard to get your seating arranged once on board for the times you want.

 

Welcome! I see you are a first time poster. I don't have pics of 10512, but plent of other ship photos. (We just sailed the Pearl on May 13th.) RCL is a nice line and I've sailed that line before.

 

You can arrange your reservations on the first day if you'd like. I also found that we were accommodated in the main dining room with a specific table at a specific time. This time would be set up with the Maitre'D. You would need to be seated before or after the rush. I believe we asked for seating at 5:30. We had the same table and same server. We enjoyed it. Had a corner table by the window in the back. (Can't remember the ship though.) So it's doable.

 

If you want a link to the photos, just e-mail be below and I'll send you the link.