Seas2mountains

Thank you! Cheers! I’m glad to hear it is helping Dad. You are very welcome! I appreciate all your great suggestions and past reviews. Both places were very prepared to deal with the volume of guests. They both did a good job of keeping things as organized and as orderly as possible. I think it is fine.

Thank you! I’m excited for you and your cruise on the Sun. I’ve not had time to follow your posts since boarding the ship but look forward to catching up when my cruise ends. We had Edamame on the Escape at the end of May, too. This was a surprise change.

Your previous review and posts about the Spirit assured me that it was an amazing ship and experience. Please feel free to share any photos or comments. Thank you for sharing your past experience. You are right about how wonderful the Spirit is.

As a parent, grandparent and licensed professional working in a high school with teenagers, I love teenage kids. But they are also challenging and when I’m on school break and vacation, I honestly do not want to be around teenagers nor do my colleagues. I love that the Spirit has two areas where I can be assured they are adults only venues in Spice H20 and the Spa (additional fee). Honestly, it is even more challenging to work with teens when parents think the rules/expectations/guidelines don’t apply to their kids and they are exempt. These kids act all entitled and we are not going to bend to provide extra help to these kids who act like the world revolves around them. I know there is at least one other teacher on this cruise and I know many like to take cruises, too. Please model the behavior you expect of your child and honor the guidelines that the Spice H20 area is for adults only. your kid is not an adult. The pool and four hot tubs in the middle area are for families and kids. The Spirit is a small ship and you will get to know other guests. Do you really want your kid pretending to be a college student just to be able to share the hot tub with old people?

We are sailing away from Juneau ten minutes early just like we left 10 minutes early in Sitka and Vancouver. We are in Magnum’s listening to Over the Moon. They are fantastic and we are so glad they aren’t in Henry’s Pub like last night. If people are talking, this is such a large venue that we can’t tell as the speakers must be turned up. We have two wonderful bar servers in Magnum’s who know us by name and they return before our drinks are empty. We have seen Blazing Boots which we thought was fantastic on the Gem so we will not see it again tonight. Here are some photos of the port in Juneau. We get to return next Sunday. We were one of four ships in port. Usually, I think there are a few more in port for ships that do Saturday-Saturday or Sunday-Sunday sailings.

Day 4 daily PDF version. NCL Spirit Day 4.pdf

Day 4 daily.

I also ordered a new-to-me cocktail at Onda. It was also really good and not too sweet. It is called a San Remo. I would definitely order it again.

The desserts were amazing and I would order it again. I got Butterscotch Bondino and my husband got Tiramisu.

Here are the entrees. Branzino for me with Wilted Spinach as a side. The fish was good and I’m glad the portion size was small as the appetizer was so filling. I would order something different on our next visit. My husband got the Scialetielli pasta dish with seafood. Here is the menu, too.

Here are some photos of our dinner tonight at Onda. This is a new-to-us restaurant experience. We are looking forward to returning as sometimes you need a few visits to find the food selections that match your food preferences. I ordered the Burrata and my husband got the Beef Carpaccio. Here are also photos of the bread with olive oil, a tomato spread which was excellent or a cheese and butter spread. The appetizers contained more food than we expected or could eat. It was really good!

I’ll update later on our experience with the Tram and Alaska State Museum in Juneau. But first, thank you @YVRteacher and @laudergayle! The Matador is amazing! I’m hooked. You can get it at Henry’s Pub or the Local and both are on deck 7. A kind bar server in Magnum’s hooked me up with one as she traveled down one deck to get it.

We had a nice dinner at Teppanyaki last night. We keep running into our table mates around the ship today. We enjoyed hearing about their travels and excursions in Sitka. We did not take any photos. They no longer offer the edamame appetizer which is fine with me. We had the shrimp and chicken menu option which we thought was excellent. We have been avoiding the steak once they changed it from filet mignon to NY strip as it was too tough to eat. The rice was yummy as usual. After dinner, we enjoyed hearing Lorenzo play guitar (no singing for this set) in Magnums followed by the B12 band with the Sing it if You Know It game in Spinnaker lounge. It was so foggy outside so we kept hearing fog horns from our ship and other ships. Since there was no view to watch which is what we love doing in Alaska, we decided to listen to another group. Next we listened to a duo we really like called Over the Moon in Henry’s Pub. Many others also like them as it was difficult to find available seats so we waited until some opened up. We really liked hearing them perform, but unfortunately some people okay actually two people didn’t and they were talking so loud that it became so annoying that we left and called it an early night for us. We were really tired anyways.

We loaded back on the bus to go to the Fortress of the Bear. When we arrived, we were joined by a second bus of people and we all crowded onto a viewing area where they have rescued brown and black bears living. They are not allowed to have these rescued bears released back to their former homes due to Alaska law. We stayed about 30 minutes before returning to the ship. The driver did offer the option to get off in the downtown area which would require using a free shuttle bus to get back to the ship. While several people chose this option, we stayed on the bus to return to the ship. Our bus driver was on a cruise on the Bliss last summer and that is how she became interested in the opportunity to work in Alaska. Her husband still lives at their home in another state with three teenage kids and she said it was his idea for her work in Alaska during the summer. She said she shares a place with several other people including young adults.

Here is more about the Best of Sitka tour: After the park, we loaded the bus to go to the Alaska Raptor Center. Two other buses of people on tours arrived at the same time. They were able to have all three groups crowd into the flight training area before having us all sit to watch a video followed by a demonstration of an employee with a resident bald eagle from the center. It was pretty interesting. After that, we had time to walk around the property to see eagles that can’t fly in an open area and eagles and other raptors in cages. There are some walking trails by a creek, too. With it being such a nice day, many people took advantage of the time to walk on the trails and we enjoyed it, too.

I’ll finish posting photos from the Best of Sitka tour a bit later. We are currently in Juneau where it is about 51 degrees F/10 degrees C and overcast. We have been here before so ours plans are to walk around the city. We slept really well and had a nice breakfast followed by getting a laundry bag filled and then Tri-bond trivia (we won with 15 correct answer) and general trivia (we lost with 9 correct answers -winner had 12 correct answers). Here are photos from the sunset last night at 10:30pm.

We were lucky to have a warm sunny day in Sitka. Our fleece jackets stayed in the backpack we brought throughout our Best of Sitka tour. The buses don’t have air conditioning as I’m sure it isn’t needed very often so it did get a little hot and stuffy. The air temperature was 62 degrees F or 17 degree C. The tour was a good way to hit the highlights of Sitka. The first stop was at Sitka National Historic Park/Totem Park. The bus driver/tour guide dropped us off for an hour for self guided tours in the rain forest and visitor center. There are totem poles throughout the park and inside the visitor center. Some people were at a display area building a totem pole. It was such a beautiful day to be outside. Some people walked towards the town with the hour we had to explore and others spent time by the River or creek. There were not any salmon running.

The current view from one of the Spice H20 hot tubs. The sun makes it feel warmer than the air temperature. The photos don’t capture the real beauty.

We are off to get breakfast and hopefully walk on deck 7 if it isn’t too windy or wet like it was yesterday. I think we will go back to Spice H20 for the hot tubs and the spa to relax on the heated lounge chairs where it is quiet. We should arrive in Sitka soon and have the Best of Sitka tour planned. It is foggy now but the sun is trying to break through the fog.

Day 3 daily. PDF. NCL Spirit Day 3.pdf

Day 3 daily.

When we went to Spinnaker lounge for the Latitudes party, we brought our water glasses as we had been drinking San Pelegríno. Servers were walking around with drinks but for some reason, we couldn’t get them to stop at our table. One server saw us as we tried to flag one down. She said she would be right back. She came back with a tray of 4 glasses of pineapple juice and set two glasses down without asking us if we wanted one. I asked her what it was and why she was giving it to us. She said it was pineapple juice and she thought we didn’t drink alcohol. I let her know I am allergic to pineapple and to please take it back as we would not be drinking it. My husband asked for her to come back with alcoholic drinks. She sure came back as she gave my husband not just one but two glasses of the red wine they were serving, Merlot. 🤣 That’s when I tried the Whiskey Sour.

When I drink, I tend to prefer wines or Gin with club soda as tonic water makes it too sweet. We really like ‘66 Gin by Norwegian which is on P+ and you may see ‘66 pins worn by the bartenders. On this cruise, I challenged myself to try a new-to-me drink. Yesterday, the drink of the day for me was the Sidecar. I could only take a few sips before my husband took over the drink. I also tried a Whiskey Sour which I was able to almost finish but I don’t think I would order it again. Any suggestions for non-sugary drinks that don’t contain pineapple juice?

Yes, there are plenty of great places to hang out on the Spirit and we hope the weather cooperates to use Spice H20 more. It is Wow space for sure. Yes, the dumping bucket was to dump wine or water used to clear the glass before the next tasting.

They introduced each table to briefly discuss each wine and they also introduced each wine steward who were staffing each table. The wine stewards discussed each wine in depth based on guest interest in hearing about the wines.