lwscrs

Hi, we just returned from our Alaska trip with 4 kids (12,8,6,4). If you stay in Girdwood, I would highly recommend the Girdwood Mushing Company dog sled tour. We did it yesterday, and it was at the top of our list of favorite things we did in Alaska!

The conservation center was okay, the bears were cool but we only spent about an hour there. It's a good stop in between Anchorage and Seward, though. We all enjoyed the Exit glacier hike.

The change has been confirmed with NCL but you didn't say when you were sailing:

 

...this change is only for the Norwegian Sun reservations between the dates of 5/26/2018 - 9/10/18. All future cruises aboard the Norwegian Sun will have no change..."

 

You didn't say when you are sailing but the NCL site isn't updated and bookings aren't possible for anything within this date range. Maybe you aren't sailing to Alaska?

Sailing July 9, 2018 on the Jewel (previously the Sun) - Alaska Northbound

We moved to the Jewel to be safe. Too many signs point to the ship change. Hope we gambled correctly. We needed connecting cabins and very few were left on the Jewel for our date.

MyNCL shows us on the Sun - just booked yesterday. I don't show Jewel as an option after April 2018. Strange

We just did the sharks/rays/snorkeling excursion you mentioned. You would be fine, one person even stayed on the boat the whole time so you don't have to get out if you don't want to. You have a life jacket on also. The area where the rays are is shallow - you can stand up, but they might touch you so you might prefer to watch from the boat.

Our disappointment was the time allowed - only 30 min snorkeling/30 min with rays/sharks, and a whole lot of travel time/wasted time waiting around. I would recommend a private tour also, where you can cater it to what you are comfortable with!

We just did this excursion with Carnival, and we left a bit disappointed. Maybe we were there on an off day and the time was cut short, but we only had 30 min of snorkeling, 30 min with rays, and then an hour at Caye Caulker. We loved the actual time in the water, but it just all felt rushed. So just fyi in case you are planning to do this excursion!

Just off the Dream - I think all the excursions had to use tender first. We did the Snorkeling, Rays and Island Getaway. It was a bit tedious as you wait in the theatre for your group to be called, tender to port, wait in a line there (our group waited about 15 min probably), then boarded another boat for an hour ride to the island. We only got a total of 1 hr of time snorkeling/sting ray viewing before doing the whole return trip. Felt like it was a lot of travel for the time actually spent int he water.