Pearl 9/22-Alaska

[Luve5285]

Sorry for the way this pasted.

 

What an amazing trip!!! What an amazing ship!!! Our small group included me (33), my husband (35), my son (10) and my grandmother (75).

I am going to start off with the negatives since there is only a few of them.

1. The food in the specialty restaurants could be a little bit better especially for the surcharge.

2. Any restaurant that wasn’t a buffet took too much time out of our day.

3. The spa prices could be more reasonable.

4. Inside staterooms are a little small for 3.

That’s it, that’s the ONLY negatives…good new right??

Onto all the fantastic stuff!!! I am going to try and break this down as organized as I can.

Embarkation: We flew into Seattle the day before and toured the city the next all that day. The next morning our hotel had a shuttle to the pier. They dropped us off around noon. It took a little while to board but not too bad. We were on the ship and in our room by 2:00.

Rooms: We had two rooms, an inside and a mini suite. The inside room was right across from my grandmother’s room. The inside room was a little tight for the 3 of us, but very functional. The beds were comfy. The bathroom was spacious….for a cruise ship. The mini suite was fantastic!! It would have been plenty of room for 3 or 4 people. The balcony came in very handy during Glacier Bay day.

Food: We primarily ate at the buffet. The food was good and quick. Quick is important on this sip because there is sooooo much to do. At times the buffet can be a little busy and hard to find a seat. But be patient and it will all be okay. We ate at the Indigo a few times. The first night they served lobster…yum!!!! The food is good, but it takes at least 1.5 hours to eat there. The specialty restaurants are good but not worth the money to me. We ate at Cagney’s and the Brazilian. Actually maybe the Brazilian was worth it. The specialty restaurants seemed to be busier in the beginning of the week. Only the Japanese Steak house stayed busy the entire week. Lastly don’t forget about the Blue Lagoon, the food is great!

Bars: We didn’t spend too much time drinking because of the cost. But we favored Bar City, The Bliss Lounge and The Spinnaker.

Pool/Hot tubs: This area was very nice. We couldn’t really use the pools because the weather was too cold. However, there were some brave souls that used the pools, and they seemed to like them. The hot tubs were great! Although I thought they’d be used more than they were.

Game room: It was great, just a simple kind of fun.

Spa: Nice but overpriced. My 50 min massage cost $90 and that was at port price, yikes!!

Shows: The shows were amazing. They offered a very nice variety of shows. Second City was probably my favorite.

Disembarkation: We Disembarked from Vancouver. We carried our bags off and were off and to the airport by 9:00am.

Ports:

Juneau: The trip to Juneau was beautiful! I didn’t really care for Juneau though. The shops were overpriced and it was kind of dirty. I did enjoy our activity. We rented a car and drove ourselves to Mendenhal Glacier, very easy and way cheaper! We used Avis: they picked us up from the dock and dropped us back off.

Skagway: We took the train ride, we enjoyed this very much! Didn’t like the city though, again over priced and kind of dirty.

Ketchikan: Beautiful city!!! Didn’t really do too much here.

Glacier Bay: Amazing!!!!! Hard to get good pics from any of the public areas on the ship. We ended up going to our balcony room and stayed there until we left. It’s also hard to hear the “white thunder” from any of the public areas.

Victoria: Cute little city. We did the Horse Drawn Carriage ride, very nice!!

I think I have covered it all!! You will love this ship!!!!

[texanitalian]

Thanks for your review. We are considering this cruise next September, but hubby is worried about the weather. Was is foggy, cold, or rainy? I know the weather is hard to predict, but I was just wondering how it was for you.

[Luve5285]

The weather was fine for what kind of cruise it was. Kind of foggy, threatened rain a lot. The temp was about 50 each day, but with the wind from sailing felt colder.

 

I would recommend going in May or June.

[martinchem]

The Pearl was my favorite ship. We did Alaska in August on Princess, temps around 60. Mendenhall was special wasn't it.

[Sherrica]

Glad you enjoyed the cruise! Thanks for posting!

[Keith1010]

Glad you enjoyed the cruise and thank you for the review.

 

Keith

[deladypilot]

Thanks for posting your review. We love Alaska and have done 2 so far. Its always nice to relive the experience through others