Cruise to Alaska - A Pearl Review (8/9 - 8/16)

Whales and Porcupines and Bears, oh my!

We are just back from our Pearl cruise to Alaska and I have to say between the ship, the staff, and the itinerary - WOW!! What a cruise!!! We saw Orcas, seals, eagles, porcupines, and lots of other wild animals!! This has to be my favorite cruise yet!! I have lots to share and pictures galore!!!

But let me start at the beginning.....

I am Pam and I am 55. Sailing with me this cruise was my wonderful hubby Greg, who is 57. This cruise was to celebrate 10 years of wedded bliss and we decided what better way to celebrate than to cruise to Alaska! Actually, I got a "free cruise" offer from our local casino and once we decided where we wanted to go, the rest was easy. We picked the date (to coincide with our anniversary of course) and booked (and paid for) a balcony cabin midship - 10576. Once booked, I logged onto Cruise Critic but (gasp) there wasn't a Roll Call set up yet, so I set one up!

We looked at hotels, airfare etc and it was all quite expensive and getting more expensive by the day. I finally bit the bullet and booked our hotel thru Priceline and booked our flights with American. We also had all of our excursions picked out and paid for, so all that was left to do was pack!!

Now the countdown began.

Friday, August 7, 2015

Today is the day!! After a half day at work, I headed home to do some final packing and give final instructions to our house sitter. Our niece picked us up and dropped us at the airport with over an hour to spare. We made it thru security and to our gate only to see that our flight was late. Ugh! We only had one hour between flights in Dallas, so we were really hoping our flight would get there soon. Our flight got there and quickly unloaded and reloaded passengers and soon we were in the air. We must have had a good tail wind because by the time we landed and got to our next gate, we had 10 mins to spare!! Whewwwwwwwww!!! We boarded our flight and headed to Seattle!! We landed around midnight and by the time we got our luggage and got to our hotel, it was 1am.

Priceline booked the Residence Inn by Mariott at Lake Union for us and I was quite happy with the location. I headed to the front desk to check in and found out that they had no rooms available. Even though I booked thru Priceline and paid for a room, they had NO ROOMS!!! I was not a happy camper!!! They called and called all around and due to a Taylor Swift concert and several other goings on in Seattle there wasn't a room to be found!! They finally found us one in Bellevue! They paid for the new room plus the taxi ride to and from the new hotel and refunded my money thru Priceline. We finally got to the new hotel around 2am and quickly passed out... lol!! We had to be back at the Marriott by 10am because we were meeting a friend there, so needless to say, we got very little sleep that night.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

After breakfast, we headed back to the Marriott and met with the Manager. She apologized again for the mixup. About that time, my friend Lisa walked in and after saying our hello's the manager asked what we were doing for the day. We had plans to go to the Space Needle for lunch and to look around some so she gave Lisa a parking pass and asked her to park at the hotel and had the hotel car drive us to the Space Needle.

NOTE: They screwed up and they knew it and admitted it, but they also took care of us. In the end, it all worked out and I would stay there again.

We had booked brunch at the Space Needle, so after getting there and doing some shopping and sightseeing, we checked in at the desk and were taken right up to the restaurant in the elevator. We got seated and had a GREAT view of the city!! The cost was $50 each but well worth it!! The food was great too!!

Oh, my pictures are HUGE!! I will work on getting them smaller.... lol

More Seattle pictures

I think that is it for tonight. I need to take some time and figure out why my pictures are so huge. I will resize the next ones and start again tomorrow.

If you have any questions, please ask.

Cant wait to see more pics! Thank you for posting. It sounds like you had an amazing time.

Cant wait to see more pics! Thank you for posting. It sounds like you had an amazing time.

I will post more tonight. We had a wonderful, wonderful cruise!!!

Hi all! I am back with more pictures and more of my review!

Here are a few more pictures of the Space Needle and Chahuly Glass.

Here are some of our views from the Space Needle.

After our brunch and sightseeing, Lisa needed to head home and we desparately needed a nap, so we said our goodbyes and after checking into our room, we headed straight up and napped for a short time! We woke up long enough to have dinner, lay out our clothes for the next day, shower and back in bed!!!

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!!!!

Sunday, August 9, 2016

After breakfast, we went back upstairs for our luggage and then downstairs to check out and get a car for the port. It was a flat $20 fee to the port but the driver wouldn't drop us where we needed to be because there were still lots of people waiting to be picked up. We ended up having to walk a block. I had forgotten to staple our luggage tags onto our suitcases, but there was a lady sitting outside with tags and a stapler, so I was able to get ours stapled on. We turned in our luggage and then headed to check in.

At this point, it was about 1030am and there was no one in line. I told the man at the line that I had booked with the Casino Department and he said that was the magic word and had me go in "a special" line. Again, there wasn't anyone in line so it really didn't matter what line we got into. I just didn't know if we needed to be somewhere special (we had a special check in desk when I cruised on the Gem out of NYC). We got to the desk, handed over our passports and our credit card and once checked in he went to get our Sign and Sail cards. He came back empty handed and said that he had good news and bad news. The bad news was that he didn't have our cards. The good news was that we were VIP and had to follow him to another room where they had our cards!! SCORE!! What a wonderful surprise after a rough couple of days!!! (At that time we didn't know if we were VIP due to the casino or the Meet and Mingle, but later found out it was the M&M. Thanks Leah!! It made our cruise even that much more special!!!)

They had a nice layout of sandwiches, cookies, fruit with coffee and orange juice to drink. We had just had breakfast at the hotel we weren't too hungry, so we had some orange juice. We visited with other cruisers and before we knew it we had our key cards in hand and we were being escorted onto the ship and into Cagney's for lunch!

We explored a little and walked around the deck until our cabin was ready. Once they made the announcement, we headed down to our cabin. It was on the small side, but for just the 2 of us, it was perfect. This was the first time Greg has sailed on NCL, so he really liked the shower door vs curtain on other lines! Also in our cabin was a nice bottle of champagne and a fruit basket was waiting for us from the Captain.

This is the champagne and fruit that was waiting for us in the cabin when we arrived!!

Before we knew it, it was time to go to our Muster Stations. Ours was located in the Lotus Garden. We got there in time to have seats and waited for the announcements to begin. It was painless and lasted all of 5 minutes and once finished we waited until the crowd thinned out and headed up to the top deck for sailaway. We were due to sail at 4pm, but left early - around 345pm!!

We met some of our cruise critic folks at one of the bars on the pool deck and visited for a few minutes. We then headed to our cabin to get unpacked and settled for our upcoming week!!

Our cruise has officially begun!!

Here are some pictures from Sailaway.

Joining in...will have to go back and read tomorrow though! I see though with a quick glance you went to Chihuly...we did too and loved it.

I will be back with more tomorrow. Sorry it's taking so long. We got back Sunday night and I had to be to work first thing Monday morning.

Please take a minute and say hello and let me know if you are enjoying my pictures!!

Joining in...will have to go back and read tomorrow though! I see though with a quick glance you went to Chihuly...we did too and loved it.

Thanks! We loved the Chihuly glass. Didn't get many pictures, except for the few I posted. I took well over 1,000 pictures and am still going thru them... lol.

Great start Pam! Awesome pictures!

Sorry we missed the Meet. I was in the spa, and couldn't get out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!!!!

I was getting off that ship that very day...hey I think I see myself! ;)

In reality at this point in time I was probably already at the airport.

Great pictures as always Pam. So glad you enjoyed your cruise 🚢

Great start Pam! Awesome pictures!

 

Sorry we missed the Meet. I was in the spa, and couldn't get out!

We missed you too!!! We had a great Meet with the officers and everyone else. So glad you enjoyed the spa!!

Great pictures as always Pam. So glad you enjoyed your cruise 🚢

Thanks Margie!!! We really did enjoy this cruise!! This is one to mark off our bucket list!

This is great! I will be on the Pearl next month for the Alaskan cruise with my husband and mother in law. We have a 2 bedroom suite so every little bit of information is so very helpful! And the pictures are great too!

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This is great! I will be on the Pearl next month for the Alaskan cruise with my husband and mother in law. We have a 2 bedroom suite so every little bit of information is so very helpful! And the pictures are great too!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You will love the Pearl and you will love Leah Rodriguez the Concierge!! You will have to tell her hello from me!! I will post a lot more tonight!! Thanks for following!!

Pam, I'm so glad you let us know you were doing a review -- I love really detailed reviews with lots of photos, so I'm settling in for some good entertainment here! Your photos so far are awesome . . . dare I hope that you also have some food porn for us? Can't wait to hear more!

Pam, I'm so glad you let us know you were doing a review -- I love really detailed reviews with lots of photos, so I'm settling in for some good entertainment here! Your photos so far are awesome . . . dare I hope that you also have some food porn for us? Can't wait to hear more!

Annie, I rarely took my camera to the dining room.. BUT I did get pictures of some food... lol!! Thanks for checking in!!!

I am back!!! Lets continue....

To finish day one, we had dinner at the Summer Palace (aft) and then headed to the casino for some fun before turning in. The casino was hot and cold for me. One night I won $400 on a penny slot that Greg had just lost $20 in and then won $900 the very next night on the same slot after he lost another $20... hahaha!!!! Greg wasn't nearly as lucky as I was but boy he wanted his fair share!!! LOL

Here are a couple pictures of the casino. I got more but they were blurry!!

I didn't win much that night, but we sure slept good on our first night!!