Bliss - July 7th sailing - Travelogue

Then came the announcement - we can’t get to the glacier due to all the ice around us.

Bummer. Do you know which one you were headed to? Dawes or Sawyer? Did you get within eyesight of the glacier or did you not even get to see it?

Ok - gambles don’t always pay off. After reading incredible reviews of the Glacier Explorer excursion (where you basically get in a boat off of the ship about the same time the ship sets sail for the glaciers but you get an up close visit to the glacier), we canceled or Mendenhall excursion and rebooked to this.

 

Therefore, we spent the morning exploring the Juneau port and shops. Then, at 1:00, we headed to our excursion. Boy was it freezing. Las Vegas has really thinned my blood...

 

Tour started off well. In fact, we ran very near a whale on the way out. However, as we got closer and closer to the glacier area, they shared that a large part of the glacier fell off the day before. Therefore, we should be excited about all the extra ice we’re going to find in the water. Everyone was very excited - taking picture after picture of icebergs. However, at one point, there was ice surrounding the entire boat. I half expected to see Jack and Rose floating in the water nearby. Then came the announcement - we can’t get to the glacier due to all the ice around us. Therefore - if I had not switched tours, the kids could have experienced how overwhelming a glacier can be. But, instead, we froze in a sea of ice. Don’t get me wrong - we saw a whale, lots of icebergs and waterfalls and still got much closer than the Bliss could get - just would have preferred to see a glacier...

 

Like I said, can’t win at every gamble and lucky to have seen what we saw...

 

 

 

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Thank you for posting! Could you share the cost of the Tracy Arm Excursion? Thank you

First stop of the day... and they still use straws! [ATTACH]424682[/ATTACH]

 

Did you notice if they had a Starbucks YOU ARE HERE Collection specific to the Norwegian Bliss or were they just Seattle, Alaska, Canada, etc?

First stop of the day... and they still use straws! [ATTACH]424682[/ATTACH]

 

Did you notice if they had a Starbucks YOU ARE HERE Collection specific to the Norwegian Bliss or were they just Seattle, Alaska, Canada, etc?

I had to "Google" Starbucks Mug Collection(?) ;https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=starbuck+you+are+here+collection&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=176967340507&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=895013493968284164&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9006397&hvtargid=kwd-93185507580&ref=pd_sl_59wj779nvn_e

However, what I have found, from our TransAtlantic Bliss criuse, if you go to the Atrium Bar, across from StarBuck$,

and order a Baileys and Coffee, they will send a runner over to Starbucks for the included coffee(free if you have the UBP).:)

First stop of the day... and they still use straws! [ATTACH]424682[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

Did you notice if they had a Starbucks YOU ARE HERE Collection specific to the Norwegian Bliss or were they just Seattle, Alaska, Canada, etc?

 

 

 

My daughter in law collects these, and I was wondering the same thing.

 

 

 

 

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Thank you for posting! Could you share the cost of the Tracy Arm Excursion? Thank you

Looks like we paid $174 pp on the June 2 cruise. If getting up close to the glacier and other scenery and wildlife is important to you, this excursion is worth every last penny.

Our excursion captain stopped to do some whale watching on the way down and we got to see a whale breach. He stopped to look at what seemed like a brown rock onshore that when viewed with binoculars we realized was a brown bear. He pulled right up along side a large block of floating ice which may not sound like anything special, but for some reason it was. And then of course, right up close to the glacier (probably a good mile closer than the Bliss got for our cruise).

Bummer. Do you know which one you were headed to? Dawes or Sawyer? Did you get within eyesight of the glacier or did you not even get to see it?

Dawes but never saw it based on ice and low fog.

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Looks like we paid $174 pp on the June 2 cruise. If getting up close to the glacier and other scenery and wildlife is important to you, this excursion is worth every last penny.

 

Our excursion captain stopped to do some whale watching on the way down and we got to see a whale breach. He stopped to look at what seemed like a brown rock onshore that when viewed with binoculars we realized was a brown bear. He pulled right up along side a large block of floating ice which may not sound like anything special, but for some reason it was. And then of course, right up close to the glacier (probably a good mile closer than the Bliss got for our cruise).

Yes - we paid $174 as well.

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First stop of the day... and they still use straws! [ATTACH]424682[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

Did you notice if they had a Starbucks YOU ARE HERE Collection specific to the Norwegian Bliss or were they just Seattle, Alaska, Canada, etc?

 

 

 

I collect them as well and was disappointed to just see the Seattle ones onboard....

 

 

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Skagway... we just did the round trip white pass scenic railway. If you read above, this is where we sacrificed a bit in order to pay for zip line earlier. Beautiful scenery and great narration. However, if you have then chance, don’t choose the round trip. Family was a bit bored on the way back as it was the same narration. I remember, in the past, we took the suspension bridge half after the railway and that was a nice trip back with different scenery and different narration.

We then walked the port a bit before heading back. Dinner at Los Lobos was very good. Just a bit of confusion at the end that nearly cost us our Jersey Boys reservations. But, we made it... I didn’t know the story ahead of time. We loved the show. The talent on this ship is amazing!

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Skagway... we just did the round trip white pass scenic railway. If you read above, this is where we sacrificed a bit in order to pay for zip line earlier. Beautiful scenery and great narration. However, if you have then chance, don’t choose the round trip. Family was a bit bored on the way back as it was the same narration.

 

 

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Someone asked about the advantages of the VIP car and this brings up one of them. In the VIP car there is no canned narration. You have your own guide and on the way down they answer questions and bring up new things and stories.. Ours talked a great deal about life is Skagway which was fascinating and requested by the people in our car but you could ask about anything you wanted.

A wealth of information. Thank you! We are traveling in September. Can't Wait! Are you experiencing long waits for the elevators? Do the elevators stop going up at a specific floor? The deck plans look like they may stop on 13 or 14 in the front of the ship.

A wealth of information. Thank you! We are traveling in September. Can't Wait! Are you experiencing long waits for the elevators? Do the elevators stop going up at a specific floor? The deck plans look like they may stop on 13 or 14 in the front of the ship.

We try our best to use the stairs as much as possible with all the food. On that note, I’m not sure I’d book floor 14 next time. It is great and convenient to the observation lounge, buffet and pool deck. However, a lot of our time is spent on decks 6, 7 & 8. Therefore, a floor around 10/12 would average stairs out a bit more if you understand what I mean (instead of two up and six down, maybe four up and four down). But, other than my obvious stair stamina challenges, good quiet floor.

I’d really like to take the Bliss on one of the Mexico cruises (west coast guy) to see how great this ship is with a full-of-energy pool deck. I’m sure you’ll feel the same on the east coast tropical voyages. Today we had the sun out but was still a bit cold. My son was able to go back-to-back on the crazy drop water slide with zero lines...

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Just back from seeing the Bliss leave for Seattle. Hope you enjoyed your time in my fair city of Victoria

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We were at the meet and greet as well as the slot pull. It was not ncl's fault that no one from the cruise staff attended. This meet and greet was not set up through the cruise critic ncl meet and greet process so we were just assigned a room to meet in. If you want to have the interaction from the ncl staff you need to offically sign up on the cruise critic meet and greet site

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The Bliss was an amazing ship. Even with 4700+ passengers we never felt crowded like we have on the Breakaway or the RCL Anthem of the seas

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Hello. Just bumping the previously asked question regarding the $99 Haven kart pass. Does it exist? Is there a Haven priority line?

A wealth of information.

Thank you! We are traveling in September. Can't Wait!

Are you experiencing long waits for the elevators? Do the elevators stop going up at a specific floor?

The deck plans look like they may stop on 13 or 14 in the front of the ship.

WE paid attention to the buttons on the elevator (lifts):cool::p

Find if the left, or right side elevator banks, take you to the top.

I still want to know if the wait for the $99 line was ridiculous or reasonable.

Interesting that you've heard good things. I thought they were awful - like one of the worst cruise bands and I've heard some awful ones on Carnival, trust me. Listened to a few songs, none were in the right key, so we left. Walked by a few times when they were playing and stopped to listen and each time I thought their musicianship was awful. Maybe their audience interaction skills are good?

 

But, as we all know, everyone's taste is different. Those guys obviously impressed someone because they got the gig.

I also thought Sligo was bad but husband liked the alt rock set they did. Drummer was lead singer and it was hard to see him in the back.

Hello!

Can you please let me know what the Prohibition show times were? We sail on Aug 11 and I'm looking for the info to plan our on-board activities considering we have a 6-year old who will need to be at Splash Academy at that time :)

Also, strange they are asking for 36 pp - the NCL website still shows me 29.99. What in the world? :))

Thank you in advance!

Hello Lady,

It went up from $19.99pp to 29.99pp this last week, and with NCL's

"convenience" fee it is around $36pp.

Check out Birdtravels post for every thing about the Bliss about show times, food pics etc. :cool:

I still want to know if the wait for the $99 line was ridiculous or reasonable.

Sorry. Hoping there will be a Haven traveler soon who might be able to answer for you as the pass wasn’t available as far as I could see to non- Haven guests.

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We were at the meet and greet as well as the slot pull. It was not ncl's fault that no one from the cruise staff attended. This meet and greet was not set up through the cruise critic ncl meet and greet process so we were just assigned a room to meet in. If you want to have the interaction from the ncl staff you need to offically sign up on the cruise critic meet and greet site

 

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That makes sense. I have no clue how it all works nor did I put any of the effort in so I can’t/shouldn’t complain.

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Hello Lady,

 

 

 

It went up from $19.99pp to 29.99pp this last week, and with NCL's

 

"convenience" fee it is around $36pp.

 

 

 

Check out Birdtravels post for every thing about the Bliss about show times, food pics etc. :cool:

Yup. The $36 is with all the fees added...

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