A LEGENDary Honeymoon to Alaska!

So I’ve decided to write a review of my time on the Legend in Alaska August 9th-16th.

Appreciated reading all the different reviews and trip reports, and wished there was more information out there, so here goes a few highlights and thoughts of our time on the Legend, and in Alaska! This will probably be a scattering of thoughts and topics, but hope it’s helpful for some!

A little bit about us: My husband (38) and I (34) got married on August 6th! He’s always wanted to try a cruise. I’ve been on an Alaska cruise before 7 years before on the NCL Sun. My last trip, I loved Alaska, but I left feeling mixed about cruising, but I think that was primarily because of my attitudes towards travel in my late twenties. I enjoyed the destination, and thought cruising was really relaxing, but my vacations were usually not about relaxation, but rather exploration. preferred keeping busier and exploring new places on my own. However, in those past few years, I’ve ended up traveling A LOT, even living in Africa for a year, so I think my travel itch has been satisfied much more. All that being said, particularly for a honeymoon, we wanted to relax, and I thought cruising would be perfect! I love nature, and he loves the ocean. Considering he can’t swim, plus the fear of Zika, the Caribbean was out, so Alaska ended up being our destination!

Our General Travel Plans and Why Carnival: Since our wedding was Saturday in LA, we decided that trying to rush for a Sunday cruise didn’t seem wise (I learned my lesson last cruise flying in the morning of can be very stressful), Carnival really offered the only cruise itinerary that would work for us since it was a Tuesday to Tuesday. Plus, Carnival allowed us to get a balcony for what we would’ve paid for an oceanview or interior on the other cruise lines. Win for us (and something we are so grateful we paid for).

We arrived in Seattle Sunday evening, stayed at an Airbnb in the area, explored Seattle on Monday (Pike Place Market and the waterfront), and then embarked on the Legend on Tuesday. When we returned, we spent one more day in Seattle before taking the Amtrak from Seattle to Vancouver (highly recommended – it’s gorgeous, and quite affordable). We spent 2 full days in Vancouver (again at an Airbnb), and one more day in Whistler (Four Seasons – got a great deal with points) before flying back to CA. Won’t go into details about all those, unless people have any specific questions. One of my husband’s childhood dreams was to visit Canada, which is why we did the cruise the way we did. We could’ve taken a cruise out of Vancouver, but the Carnival Legend’s itinerary was by far the most suitable for our needs.

FTTF and Embarkation: We did purchase FTTF, and my husband thinks it was worth it. We ended up running a little behind in the morning, and didn’t get there quite when we had originally hoped (11 am), but got there by 11:30, and was able to get on the ship in minutes. I don’t think it was any faster with FTTF, BUT, as soon as we got on, we were indeed able to go right to our room, which was ready! We went up to the Lido deck to get some food, which was the busiest we saw it all week. After walking around the ship a little bit, we went back to the room and our luggage was already there! When looking around the hallways, the only bags that were delivered so far were FTTF. This was probably 1:30 at this point, and we were able to take the next hour to unpack. We saw bags being delivered hours later. For this alone, we thought FTTF was worth it – simply to unwind faster!

Cabin: We were in Cabin 5180, which was an obstructed view balcony. I had researched a bit though and looked for photos ahead of time, and found an obstructed view balcony that was barely obstructed. Well worth it for us, and honestly we could see almost anything except straight down! Probably the only day we spent a ton of time on the balcony was the day in Tracy Arm Fjord, but that day alone made it worth it. We found the cabin to have plenty of room for us.

Our cabin steward was Rudi, and he was awesome! He greeted us everyday, remembered our names right away, and kept our ice buckets filled (we didn’t even realize it until day 2 or 3). They did give us some extra gifts for our honeymoon which I saw other people get for their celebrations like birthdays (free photo, $50 spa certificate, and $25 wine credit). We used two of the three.

Alright, stopping here for tonight. Will continue on with more, including the Behind the Fun Tour, our time in the ports (rented a car in Skagway, and took a helicopter to the glacier in Juneau), and general impressions of the ship including dining and entertainment! Stay tuned!

Following. We are interested in an Alaskan cruise as well.

I was on this cruise as well. Following to hear your take on it. I had a wonderful time.

For this post, I’ll go over some of our port days and some of the activities we did, and some of my thoughts.

Scenic Cruising (Endicott Arm & Dawes Glacier)

After a Sea Day, our second full day on the boat was spent cruising Tracy Arm Fjord. On my last cruise, we also went to Tracy Arm Fjord. According to Michelle, the naturalist, who we found to be very informative and helpful, this year has been a strange, unique year. Tracy Arm has had far too many small glacier pieces break off, making it impossible for cruise ships to go through, even late in the season. Fortunately for us, this meant we got to go through Endicott Arm, which was normally reserved for much smaller boats.

Last time in 2009, I went on the small boat excursion. It was a neat experience, going way up close to waterfalls, and going right up to the glacier and even seeing it calve. This time, we decided to stay on board. We wanted to spend our money on other bigger excursions, and honestly, we had just as good of time. I know many think the small boat is a must-do, and I’m glad I did it in the past, but the view off the boat was also incredible and didn’t feel we missed that much doing this (especially as we got to do the helicopter to a glacier later!).

Throughout the day we saw tons of whales and seals, and one bear family (though very far off in the distance). Binoculars were a must-have for us. We started up on the deck thinking we’d have a better view, but about an hour in, I had to go back to my room to get something, and realized that the balcony had a far superior view, as we were much closer to the water. My husband I went back down and spent the rest of our afternoon enjoying the views there. We loved this!

Comparing the two, I think I have slightly better impressions of Tracy Arm over Endicott Arm. I remember slightly better scenery and a few more impressive waterfalls, and the glacier seemed just a little more exciting, but that might have been due to the small boat experience (so maybe it is worth it!). Glad at least I got to try both.

Skagway (Yukon Highway/Car Rental/Caribou Crossing)

My husband loves dogs, so we were originally planning on doing an excursion to see puppies and do a dog sled ride, but we would miss out on seeing the beauty of the Yukon Highway, which I did last time. After realizing that he really just wanted to see puppies, and we could do that at Caribou Crossing, I decided to book a car rental, and do the Yukon Highway again. So glad we did, and this was one of his favorite things all trip long!

We rented from Avis and got ourselves a Camry to drive out. This was great for us, as my husband loves taking photos! We spent a lot of time stopping on the side of the road and he would just snap away. We saw tour buses that took a much faster pace, and we’re glad we could go at our own pace.

We passed by a husky dog sledding place (forgot the name) and stopped to take a look. Believed they were about $6 to see the puppies and almost went there, but we decided to pass and see what Caribou Crossing had to offer. It was a good call! We finally hit Caribou Crossing. Last time we stopped there, it was packed with tour buses, but this time, it was nearly deserted. We went in, found out it cost about $10 to go in, but it included a natural history museum, and many other animals to pet, plus puppies! We really enjoyed our time there. The puppies were cute, but they were sleeping, so we really only got to hold one, but one was good for me (I think my husband wished he got to hold more). We enjoyed the stop.

We ate at Spirit Lake Lodge (strange mix of Asian and Western foods that they have – we ordered some Wor Won Ton Soup and Poutine – we were craving Asian, and my husband wanted to try poutine – this was the worst poutine we had on our trip by the way). The overall food was ok, but the only thing we could get out there, and ended our time at Emerald Lake before returning back.

Border Crossing was easy, even for my husband who is a S. Korean national with a green card. This was by far my husband’s favorite day on our cruise. The weather was gorgeous, and he got to have his share of picture taking on this particular trip. I highly recommend renting a car. It cost us about $140 for the rental, which was cheaper than almost any excursion. We loved the flexibility for us!

Enjoying your post. We are going next August and are so excited already. Your detail are making it even more tantalizing.

Thank you.

Nice review. I guess I didn't realize that to see the puppies one has to pay a fee. BTW we will be in this same room in a few days. I'm glad to know the obstruction is not bad. Being able to see out and not down will be fine. It isn't the same as being on deck 2 in a cove balcony anyway. Love those coves. Looking forward to reading about your other ports.

Nice review. I guess I didn't realize that to see the puppies one has to pay a fee. BTW we will be in this same room in a few days. I'm glad to know the obstruction is not bad. Being able to see out and not down will be fine. It isn't the same as being on deck 2 in a cove balcony anyway. Love those coves. Looking forward to reading about your other ports.

It's a great room, and hopefully Rudi is not reassigned decks, but if you do have him, he is absolutely awesome! Hope you enjoy your time!

Juneau (Helicopter to Mendenhall Glacier and Glacier Walk)

Saturday was spent in Juneau. We originally were going to do our big excursion in Ketchikan, and do a float plane and crab feed, but I recently discovered that I had to limit my diet quite a bit, and felt it wasn’t worth it to pay hundreds of dollars on a meal I couldn’t really fully enjoy. So we decided to take that money and do a more exciting excursion. We chose to do the Mendenhall Glacier Helicopter/Guided Walk through Carnival, which was run by Temsco Helicopters. This was a 30 minute helicopter ride to and from the glacier, and then another half hour tour of the glacier.

We met in Follies where we were given forms to sign, and where we had to give them our weight. Apparently, this is to balance out the helicopters. We boarded a bus where we drove for about 20 minutes before hitting the Juneau Airport, where the helicopters would eventually take off from.

After an orientation, they fitted us with life preservers and then gave us boot covers to go over our shoes. They made us put all of our bags away, as we couldn’t carry anything on the helicopter but what we could carry in our pockets. That day was rainy, so my husband did end up getting a plastic bag to cover over his DSLR camera, which they graciously allowed him to do. He did end up regretting bringing it, as he barely used it, and used his cell phone camera much more.

They were very specific in where we were to sit, as to balance out the helicopter. I fortunately got a great window seat opposite the pilot! My husband sat behind me, and had a window view. The only seat I might not want would be the one right in the middle in the back, but even he seemed like he had a great time. As I mentioned, it was rainy and somewhat windy, but they were able to fly just fine. In fact, they told us that the only times they wouldn’t fly is due to visibility. Wind and rain aren’t problems, as long as they can see the glacier and see in front of them. They have had people stranded on the glaciers before, which they really try to avoid.

We had a fun time learning about the glacier, but both my husband and I were COLD (admittedly, we are from California, so anything below 60 feels cold to us). While we covered our tops pretty well with waterproof jackets, gloves, and hats, we both didn’t have waterproof pants, which I wish I had brought. We really enjoyed being right on the glacier, which is probably why we didn’t miss going right up to the glacier a few days before. It was exhilarating and truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So glad we did this!

Ketchikan

After all the big adventures in Juneau and Skagway, we decided that since Ketchikan was such a short day (all aboard at 12:30 pm), we would just walk around town.

I didn’t do as much research as I should’ve, or I would’ve had us end up at Totem Bight State Park. However, the day wasn still fun.

We found a sign for the Totem Heritage Center and walked towards it (which at the moment, I thought was Totem Bight. As I hadn’t read up too much, I just knew that there were cool totems in the area, and thought we had hit it). We ended up paying the $5 to go into the very small museum. It was interesting - most interesting fact I learned: that totems each had specific ceremonial purposes, including one totem that was specifically meant to shame somebody for doing wrong. It was kept outside one’s house until they had remedied their error. We kept looking for an example of one in the museum, but alas they had none.

Probably wasn’t worth the money, but we were glad to support the work they were doing there to preserve local culture.

We walked from the Heritage Center to Creek Street, and got to see the salmon in the rivers. This in itself was very cool – a highlight of the day! We started at the Salmon Hatchery and didn’t see much there, but as we walked towards Creek Street, we saw more and more. It was really neat – but just be warned that at this time of the year, there were also tons of dead carcasses of salmon that didn’t make the trek upriver. There were many locals sharing stories for tips. We didn’t get to talk to one, but I think it’d be worth it if you wanted more local history.

After hitting Creek Street, we mainly bought some souvenirs (including some yummy smoked salmon) and on our way back to the boat, saw a bald eagle perching up in a tree right at the end of Creek Street. That was pretty incredible!

Oh, another huge highlight was for my husband! We are Pokemon Go players. I had stopped playing in Alaska, since my roaming was limited with my TMobile plan. He, on the other hand, had far more data allowance, and managed to catch a wild Dragonite right in Ketchikan near the water! I was very jealous, but supported and cheered for him as a good wife should do even as I myself could not catch mine.

All in all, a very good day. We were on the boat right before the line became insane (around 11:30).

Victoria

This was a late stop on Monday night right before we headed back to Seattle. We were due to arrive at 7 (or maybe 7:30). We got in on time (we had heard from the people in the engine room during the Behind the Fun Tour that they were running on one less engine than normal, so were hoping they’d get in on time), but it took a while for us to disembark.

One note: they told people not to line up until they made an announcement. We followed directions for a while until we realized that other people hadn’t, and made a mad dash for the line. It looped all around Deck 2 all the way from the lobby around to Follies and around again. Once they did disembark, it moved fairly quickly.

We decided to do the walk from the ship to downtown Victoria. It took about 30-45 minutes, but it was a nice day and both of us felt the need to walk. We found the city to be charming and wish we had gone during the day as many more things were open. Explored some of the shops in downtown, and then thought about catching the bus back to the cruise port. It cost a little more than we were expecting, so we just decided to walk back also. I managed to hit my first 20,000 step day that day according to my fitbit (on average, I was hitting maybe 12k on the ship).

Victoria’s a beautiful city. I know Carnival mainly does this stop due to the Jones Act, and it’s a shame that not more time was spent here! Perhaps a tour would’ve been better for us to learn more about the city, but at least we got some good exercise in that night!

That’s the end of my port reviews! Will end off this review another day with some more info about the Behind the Fun Tour, dining, and entertainment, and some overall impressions!

Enjoying your review. Following.

Behind the Fun Tour

Our last cruise day, we had a chance to take the Behind the Fun Tour. I had known about it from browsing Cruise Critic, but originally hadn’t planned to do it because I wasn’t sure my husband would be interested. They were advertising in the Excursion Booklet, and my husband saw it and suggested we do it. I was thrilled! We booked it for the last Sea Day (Monday) on the very first day on the boat.

We met in the Trump Card Room in the morning (I think it was 9:00 am) on Monday. That was probably the only bad thing about doing this was that it didn’t allow for us to sleep in after multiple early days for excursions. In the meeting room, they provided some drinks and pastries, which was nice if somebody didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast.

We had a great tour guide (Raluca from Romania) who normally works in HR doing training for the employees. She definitely had an insider’s view on life on the boat. We went all throughout areas of the boat, including backstage of Follies, the bridge, the engine room, the galley, the crew lounge, the refrigerators, and Nouveau. My husband and I both thought it was really interesting. I had no idea it’d last 3 hours though (I guess I should’ve read the literature more carefully) and I was pretty hungry by the end of the tour.

It’s $95, but they give you multiple pictures, a ton of souvenirs, champagne, and they sent us a plate of chocolate covered strawberries to our room, on top of access to places you’d never see on a normal cruise. We loved being able to see the life of how the cruise ship runs.

Dining

I’m somewhat limited in what I can eat due to my longstanding diabetes. Just a few weeks before the cruise, my doctor really encouraged me to cut out all sugars and most carbs to try to get my numbers even better as I switch medications. My husband and I do very much enjoy food, but knew we would have to limit ourselves on this particular cruise. We stayed away from most desserts, and didn’t eat a lot of carbs. We found it quite easy for me to stick to my diet (though we still managed to gain quite a few pounds each).

Lido:

We usually stayed away from the Lido deck with the buffet, except when we were short on time or wanted to eat at odd hours. This meant we were there for a few breakfasts, a handful of lunches, and primarily snacks. The variety was adequate, and the food was good enough. It can be a little confusing at first figuring out all the stations, but we eventually got it down. The Asian section was probably most popular, though I found the Asian food to be too salty and a step down from Panda Express. The pizza was good, but we couldn’t really have it too much due to my dietary restrictions. We found that most evenings, they had similar entrees to the dining room, and sometimes we’d go there after dinner if there was an entrée we saw on the menu we wanted to try. Only had trouble finding a seat at embarkation and then again on the cruising day, but overall, found it fairly easy to navigate and eat at.

Dining Room:

In general, we tried to make most dinners in the dining room, and also as many breakfasts as our schedule would allow. We much preferred being served breakfast, and also limiting how much we ate. We also did two Sea Day Brunches.

We found the food to be good, though not spectacular, but we weren’t expecting spectacular. It felt like it was on par with what you’d find at Cheesecake Factory or Applebee’s. Some nights, we didn’t like most of the entrees, but my husband and I both enjoyed the daily selections. He would usually get the Flat Iron Steak, which he found to be pretty good. Definitely favorite night was the Lobster night! We also LOVED the Sea Day Brunch. The steak and eggs were amazing, as was the pork chop! The breakfasts we found to be better quality than the buffet. We also enjoyed sometimes dining with others for breakfasts (and saving our dinners for just the two of us). Because we sat by the window one morning, we saw tons and tons of dolphins swimming behind us.

Service was excellent. We had My Time Dining, and rarely had a wait (with the exception of the first formal night, where we waited 30 minutes around 7 pm). I had read horror stories of how it would take people 2 hours to eat a meal, but we never found that to be true, and managed to do 3 courses usually between an hour and 90 minutes. We did learn that the one thing we miss with My Time Dining was the server’s dancing, which we only caught once.

Nouveau Steakhouse

We were originally going to just go to the steakhouse once towards the end of the cruise, but my husband loves steak. We had gone to the Steakhouse tasting, and really enjoyed the food, so I asked him if he’d like to go once earlier in the cruise in case he loved it and wanted to go again. We managed to snag a 9 pm reservation the day of. It was late, but we decided to go for it. It was a little annoying arriving a little early, and seeing a half empty restaurant only to have them tell us they couldn’t seat us until 9 because they were “full”, but we realized they are limited to their number of servers. We finally sat down and ordered away. The steakhouse was amazing! Definitely a notch above the dining room.

Super personalized service and excellent food. They also gave us champagne for being honeymooners, and extra dessert, plus we got more dessert from a neighboring table who had a custom cake made for a birthday by the chef. Unfortunately, we couldn’t really eat it but we appreciated the thoughtfulness.

It was so good we went twice, and the second time, they remembered us and it was as good as the first.

My husband loved the new york strip (more than the spiced ribeye he got the next day). I had the surf & turf, and switched to just the lobster the next day (realized I’m not a huge steak eater). The best appetizers for us were the crab cake, ahi tartare, and the lobster bisque.

We thought the $35 upcharge was very reasonable, considering the quality of food!

Entertainment

We enjoyed the things we could do around the boat, including the steakhouse tasting, Zumba, square dancing, movies, shopping events, liquor tastings, and the shows. We never found that there wasn’t enough to do when we wanted something to do.

We managed to watch 3 of the 4 Playlist Production shows, and really enjoyed them. I’m not sure if there’s much rewatch value, but we thought they were fun. The performers are very talented (and if you weren’t sure, they are not lipsyncing. We learned on the Behind the Fun Tour that they will only use a pre-recorded lip syncing track if they’re sick, which rarely happens).

Jaime Dee was the cruise director, which I found out after was quite a treat, as she isn’t usually in Alaska. I thought she was excellent! She was at all the shows (guess that’s normal?) and did a great job with the Hasbro Game Show as well as the Love & Marriage Show. We also did Bingo, which was a little bit of a rip off, but I guess fun to do at least once.

We spent some time in the Casino, and while we probably broke even, thought the games weren’t as good as I’d find in Vegas, and the slots were very, very tight. We did blow quite a bit of money on the arcade games in the casino.

Overall Impressions

My husband and I loved our first cruise together. It was his first cruise, and I don’t think it will be his last. We were pleasantly surprised with the service of Carnival, and one of his favorite part was probably the soft serve machine (he says it’s probably the best soft serve he’s had). Can’t complain about Alaska in any way, shape, or form. We’d do it again! (We were super tempted at the 14 day sailing out of Long Beach next year, but know he can’t get that much time off again).

We’d do Carnival again due to how much we enjoyed it and it left a better impression on me than NCL last time, but part of me wants to check out one of the huge RCCL superships.

The Legend is a nice sized ship, and we loved the people we met. It was big enough to keep things interesting, but small enough that we’d run into the same people over and over again.

Overall, it was a great trip and a great boat. Don’t know that we’ll cruise all the time, but definitely want to make a return trip to Carnival at some point.

Glad to know you enjoyed it very much. Thanks again for the review.