justhappy

Beautiful review, beautiful photos and amazing adventures with your dad. I’m loving it ❤️

I’m with you on wishing I’d had more, I’d order 3 servings next time and have that for my entree. That beef was perfectly seasoned.

I can’t answer for cruiseny4life, but I had this appetizer on the Breakaway in 2020 in the Manhattan restaurant, and it was excellent. It is listed as Ranchero Beef mini tostadas on the night 5 main dining room 2023 menus

My favorites from the last year and last 4 cruises, Blazing Shrimp, clam chowder, and Cheesecake in a jar at Ocean Blue Osso Bucco at La Cucina Mushroom soup, escargot and Dover sole at Le Bistro. Reuben sandwich and wings at the Local Banana Banoffee cream, seafood fritto misto, lump crab cakes and shrimp scampi at the Haven restaurant. Ribeye steak with maitre d butter and crème brûlée at Cagneys Poblano relleno and bunuelos at Los Lobos Loaded fries with pulled pork, brisket and fried okra at Q Thai chicken lettuce wraps and Volcano roll at Food Republic Nutella crepes, palak chicken with naan, and lemon sorbet at the Garden grill.

This is how I feel about cheesecake too, but I do have to give two thumbs up for the cheesecake in a jar at Ocean Blue, I think of it as a cheesecake pudding instead of cheesecake. It’s delicious.

Yes! And this is why my favorite cut of steak is a ribeye, the fat helps make it tasty.

I’ve had the pleasure to see Lucas Bone on a cruise 4 years ago, he was excellent. I keep hoping he’ll be on another of my cruises one day. I love your review, thank you!

I don’t recall seeing anything that said no admittance, if I had I wouldn’t have gone in. You are correct that lots of people probably do go right on in to stay in their rooms. And now that rooms aren’t available till 3pm or later I can imagine it will occur more often.

This is true, on my last cruise in April on the Getaway the hallway doors were shut but not locked and we opened them and carried our carryon bags to our aft Haven stateroom and dropped them off. We didn’t see anyone on the way there and back but if we had would have said we were dropping off then leaving.

Thank you both for your help. I’m not going to stress too much over the stores, we have much longer in Skagway to shop-assuming no more rock slides- and as we are going on a rv road trip to Colorado next month and I can get huckleberry products there. Now we just have to plan to squeeze in the Mt Robert’s tram then meet up for the Whale watching excursion.

On the Getaway we had the same issue. No matter how many times you ask for half and half they bring you the coffee mate crap. We were in the Haven and even there they will only supply that. When our friend who will only use real half and half in his coffee would explain what he wanted it was not supplied. He ended up going to the buffet and getting a glass of it from the dispenser and keeping it in his room fridge, then bringing it with him to breakfast. No one could be bothered to keep a supply in the Haven restaurant for him .

As someone who lost sleep most nights of a 7 day cruise due to what sounded like a ball bearing constantly rolling back and forth across the ceiling in our interior stateroom 9 years ago I honestly understand your frustration and what a lack of sleep can do to you. I was told after engineering came by my room that there was nothing they could do and no other room to put us in. No compensation and no one said so much as we are sorry. This was on Disney Cruise Line which touts themselves as a premium line with excellent customer service. I sincerely hope the rest of your cruise goes well.

Do the NCL Alaska excursions always meet onboard and then led off the ship in groups? We plan to do an excursion that starts at 4 pm, ship arrives at 2:30. We want to get off and hit up the big Alaska TShirt store across the street from the Mt Robert’s tram. Hubby likes to stock up on huckleberry products there. While on the Escape in January we had to meet in the theater and be sitting there waiting for our group to be called. If that’s the case then shopping is a no go. As it’s a bus trip to Mendenhall glacier then a whale watching boat I’d hope we could just meet up outside the ship. Anybody have current experience?

Mr Melroy is awesome, I’m guessing Kivanc Ucar must be on vacation. I don’t know if she’s on vacation or not, if you happen to talk to Mr Melroy please ask him if Lilibeth Espinosa is still on the Escape. The Snows miss her!

Years ago my husband and I took a 9 day driving trip around Alaska and spent two days in Seward, and between the Sealife Center and the day cruise into Kenai Fjords National Park it was the highlight of the trip, even beating out 3 days at Denali National Park and all the wildlife we saw there. Hoping the seas aren’t too rough for you guys.

I’ve been binge reading your review today and love your attitude towards cruising with your Dad.❤️ So happy to hear you both loved this excursion as we have it booked for August. My husband is a big fan of Deadliest Catch, watching it from season 1 and is so looking forward to it.

I’ll have to say I find Skagway very charming and mostly because it reminds me of Silverton, without the water of course! We purchased the train excursion last year but due to the rock slide the ship visited a different port. With my dad in 2015 we did a bus tour up to the Canadian border and it was beautiful but a train ride just hits different! I’ve ridden the D&SNG 4 times over the last 35 years. The San Juan mountains are my favorite area of Colorado. We’ll be back in June camping at Vallecito Lake!

I have yet to do the White Pass, that’s in August weather and RockSlide willing, but I’ll have to agree with you, I don’t think anything can rival the Durango and Silverton route. I did read an article a while back that when a train route from Silverton to Animas City built by Otto Mears closed in the 1930s, parts of the train were sent to the White Pass RR. I’d love to find out if that’s true.

If you’re talking about the free at sea package that sale is a standard sale that has been running for as long as I can remember. It’s ‘free’ but you do have to pay gratitudes on the value of the drink package and dining package.

My thoughts on this cruise.. Staff were routinely hard working, friendly and respectful. Service outside of the Haven was as good as in the Haven. I get the feeling that crew are overworked, either due to cutbacks or understaffing due to visa issues as several I have talked to mentioned the US government is woefully slow to issue visas right now. After only meeting our Butler on day 2 after we mentioning to the Concierge that we hadn’t yet seen her, we only saw her another two times, once when she delivered a meal to our room and once when we were leaving the ship this morning and she heard us talking to our stateroom attendant in the hall. She popped her head out of a Haven room across the other side of the ship and said goodbye. No contact other than that. I assume she was the one who delivered the daily afternoon snacks. I assume the limited contact is from having to deal with 11 other aft Haven cabins. No calls to see if she could be of any assistance as was our experience in the past. Our friends staying in a Haven Courtyard stateroom had a butler who was downright unhelpful in that he never brought requested snacks or other items and was aggressive in pointing out he was not in the tipping pool. Their stateroom attendant on the other hand was excellent and received most of the tip they had planned to give to the butler. The ship is in great condition in all areas I visited. We didn’t have an issue with soot on our aft balcony as I’ve heard some mention. Maybe the new scrubber the installed a few months back help with that. All the entertainment we saw was very well done. Although we didn’t see every thing available we enjoyed what we did see and thought the variety was good. Food overall was very good this cruise, after some not great meals on other ships at Cagneys, we though our meal there was excellent. Embarkation was very well done and I greatly appreciated that the muster drill involved only checking in your room key at your muster station. Debarkation was a little backed up by the time we got off using the Haven escort. Using a porter is well worth the tip as it gets you in a special line which moves soooo much faster. Out of 15 cruises on NCL ships, 5 have been in the Haven. I am not the type to only sail in a Haven. The value has to be there for me to justify the price. This cruise hit that price point and was worth the price paid. Thanks again to all who followed along and special thanks to Amy who added her perspective.

If it were me I’d pick the Escape for the Haven as it has a bigger restaurant and an outdoor dining area. The sundeck area is nicer too. I’ve been on the Escape 5 times, both in and outside the Haven and will be on her in January 2024 hopefully. We own DVC at BWV and Boulder Ridge. Like you we love the Epcot festivals. We are actually back at Saratoga Springs for the night before driving home in the morning.

Thank you Amy for filling in great information on this trip report, I feel that at times I was too boring. Your input and photos have been helpful. And I will probably do a trip report for the Encore to Alaska too, although it won’t be from the Haven.

I’m so glad you’re adding this information since I’ve been incommunicado for the last few hours, thank you and Amy too!

I just need to learn to say no 😛 I did stop eating once I was full and left behind half my entrees a lot of the time. I had been to Great Stirrup Cay in early February on the Escape so I wasn’t too bummed about. We got $25 pp port fees back in refundable onboard credit for missing it. Atlantis was great when we went but that was probably 15 years ago.

After a lovely meal at Le Bistro we headed to the buffet so we could get crepes. I love these fresh made beauties. our server might have been a tad miffed that we didn’t want any desserts from Le Bistro though. We then headed to the Atrium to see the Movies Scenes trivia show. It is hysterical funny due to the entertainment staff! We then headed to the theater to see the two comedians onboard in one last show. Mike Head is especially funny! We had to hoof it back to room to get our suitcases out in the hall . Mission accomplished at 10:50pm. Then to bed and quickly feel asleep to to the rocking of the ship. We woke up just as we were approaching Port Canaveral and saw the harbor pilot boat after they dropped off the pilot. It’s going to be a beautiful day for the next set of cruisers! It’s been a wonderful cruise, I’ll post my final thoughts later today. Thanks again for following along I hope it brought some enjoyment and information.