NCL Jewel to Alaska May 20-27 2017 - An Absolutely Amazing Alaskan Adventure!

[deliver42]

We were on the Jewel the week before you, and also had terrific weather. Loved the ship and its crew. Glad you enjoyed the cruise as much as we did.

[DebQ5]

The doorway in your picture of the Gum Wall leads to one of the best dive bars in all Seattle, The Alibi Room. It's never crowded and a lot of the Pike fishmongers are known to drink there after closing.

 

The Gum Wall is super gross tho, and to think it was totally scraped clean less than 2 years ago.

 

It sounds like my type of bar! I'll try to get there next time I'm in Seattle...

[DebQ5]

May 20th - conclusion

 

Ok, to finally conclude May 20th we never did get dinner... after many more Mr. Worldwide's and Rebellious Fishes (not sure why I felt the need to mix them), we played Sing it to Win it and after losing (still contesting this but trying to be the bigger person) we wandered into O'Sheehan's for some "dinner". The food is good, and believe it or not the hotdog hit the spot! The next morning I would be wishing I ate a bit more that night, but at the time this was enough...

 

Daughter got the wings... yummy... but we thought it was funny that there was one carrot stick and one piece of celery.

 

Son got a burger (which he had also had for lunch lol). The fries were really good.. not sure what he's doing with them here...

 

 

And of course, my hot dog... the waiter could not understand why I wanted it just plain. I think I just couldn't decide...

 

 

My daughter wisely decided to go back to the room after "dinner" but son and I persevered on and went to karaoke in the FYZZ lounge. We had a lot of fun and met some great people.

 

 

I'm not sure when this was taken but I thought it was cool...

 

 

 

and then it was zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[DebQ5]

May 21st - The Lost Day

 

In a shocking twist of fate I wasn't feeling all that great the next day. I did get up relatively early, however and woke up to this, which sort of matched my head:

 

 

Daughter and I went to breakfast at Moderno's which was nice. After that we walked around a bit until Trivia! We were not good :(. But it's always fun to play.

 

 

Shake it Shirley was one of the better activities people... she seemed to have fun each time and got the crowd into it. Pictured with her is Nemo, who almost got lynched at the last Karaoke night...

 

 

After trivia we went to the spa for a bit, and then I went back to the room for a much needed nap. I did rally for the reception that we had been invited to in the Haven courtyard, because my daughter really wanted to see it, but we didn't stay long. It was hot and not really our style, but it was nice to be invited.

 

 

We ended up back in the room and the kids ordered dinner brought in. They both got pasta Bolognese, I believe, and dessert. Rodney was very gracious and it came very quickly. They were happy.

[DebQ5]

May 22nd - Ketchikan:

 

After researching here on CC, I hadcontacted Ketchikan Taxi Cab Tours. David Freeman replied, and we set up a 3hour private tour for $80/hour. We were advised that we could have up to 6 people for the same amount of money, but we kept it just to the 3 of us.

 

We had a great view from our balcony of Ketchikan in the morning. Unfortunately, it was raining, so we dressed appropriately for ourday. I knew that I had wanted to buy oneof the inexpensive rain jackets as a souvenir, so got off the ship a bit beforewe were to meet our taxi tour driver and found what I was looking for at thefirst store encountered.

 

 

 

After shopping for a bit we met up with Lisa, who had called us earlier to confirm our meeting place. Lisa

is a nativeCliquot (sp?), who is one of KTCT drivers. Lisa did mention several times thatshe will be opening her own business, but I'm not sure when. She is alsowriting a book, which we heard a lot about. It was raining most of the dayduring our tour, but we had a great time. Lisa provided some great history, gotout at every stop with us and told us about each place in detail. We wentthrough the town and then to Bear Creek where she was hoping we'd see bears. We didn't but it was a beautiful spot.

It was still raining, but we were able to get in and out of the van when we needed to and had umbrellas. Lisa pointed out the people who were ziplining across the creek... They must have gotten soaked!

After the creek Lisa made a stop at a spot where she was used to seeing Eagles, and sure enough, there one was...

We stopped at a very powerful, very pretty waterfall which the kids particularly enjoyed.

[DebQ5]

May 22nd - Ketchikan continued...

 

We made a stop at Potlatch Totem Park, which is a really neat little park with free admission which I thought was great. Lisa got out and provided a complete tour, with history and information on how things were done in an Alaskan village.

to be continued...

[LeesaB]

LOVING your review!

That Haven though... how dinky.

[DebQ5]

May 22nd - Ketchikan Continued...

 

After our tour with KTCT and Lisa, she dropped us off at Creek Street so that we could explore a bit. Yes, it was still raining, but it wasn't cold so off we went...

 

 

 

This was a funny sign, but we did not take the tour...

 

 

The Salmon ladder... too early for salmon though

 

 

After Creek Street we made our way to Fat Stan's Sports Bar and Pizzeria... So glad we did! The pizza was amazing, the staff was friendly, and the beer was great!

 

[DebQ5]

We made our way back to the ship after poking around a few more shops...

 

 

Saw the "famous" sign!

 

 

And the statue...

 

 

We had dinner reservations at Teppenyaki that night. The food was great as always, with the exception of the dessert options, but really, couldn't have eaten another bite anyway. The chef was friendly and good at what he does, but the show is a little lacking as they can't do any of the fire tricks... its worth the cover charge just for the food though, the steak is truly melt in your mouth and the shrimp was excellent!

 

Not sure what we did after this, but we either hit Karaoke or went to bed.... We had an early next day!

[Jed12345]

I'm also enjoying your review.

 

We were on the same cruise and had a great time!

[wnycruisefam66]

Hi - enjoying your review & pictures! We're going on our 1st Alaskan cruise in June 2018 on the NCL Sun. This will be our 1st time in a suite. We can't wait!

[DebQ5]

I'm also enjoying your review.

 

We were on the same cruise and had a great time!

 

Thank you! I'm glad to hear it! Feel free to chime in... Have you seen yourself in any pictures?? :)

[DebQ5]

Dailies!

 

Sunday, May 21

 

 

 

 

[DebQ5]

Dailies!

 

Monday, May 22

 

 

 

 

[DebQ5]

May 23 – Juneau

 

We woke up to some cloudiness, but still beautiful views from the balcony.

As I noted in my brief excursion post, this port took me the longest to book excursions (see that post for more details).

 

Again, as noted in my other post, we got off to a bit of a rocky start with Shane, with an almost 1 hour delay, andthe time in port is short, due to the sail down Endicott Arm later in theday.

However, once things got rolling we had a great day.

 

Shane took us through the town and provided a lot of history. We ended up at a small park-like area where he told us about mining, and showed us someold equipment relics. This really helped to solidify how difficult it was to transport these machines up the mountains and into the mines.

We drove by the Governor's house... Love the totem pole!

 

 

After our city/mine tour Shane brought us to Mendenhall Glacier. He dropped us off and said to call him when we were ready to go, as he couldn't park in the parking area (some permit thing). As I have read previously, Mendenhall Glacier is beautiful. We did not go into the building at all, but took the walk to the waterfall, which was well worth the trip!

 

[DebQ5]

May 23rd Continued

 

We continued the walk to the falls... It took about 30 minutes, stopping for pictures here and there...

 

 

 

 

[DebQ5]

Hi - enjoying your review & pictures! We're going on our 1st Alaskan cruise in June 2018 on the NCL Sun. This will be our 1st time in a suite. We can't wait!

 

This was our first time in a suite too! We really enjoyed it, mostly for the embarkation and extra room perks. Not sure we'll be able to do it every time, but is sure was nice!

[DebQ5]

May 23rd - Juneau continued....

 

We did not see any bears during our visit to Mendenhall, but it was a fantastic visit regardless! I think this is a must do while in Juneau, and there are a lot of different ways you can get there. I do think that limiting your time to 1 hour, as some excursions do, would be tough if you wanted to walk to the falls, but maybe we just walk slow...

 

Shane said we had time to squeeze in the Alaskan Brewery. My son and I love craft beers, and discovered Alaskan Amber on the airplane on the way to Seattle. We knew we wouldn't have enough time for a full tour, which was fine as we've done it at other breweries, but on the way over Shane gave us some great background on the brewery, its owners, and the changes that have occurred recently (it's become more established).

 

 

The people working the counter were very friendly, although Shane was disappointed as he didn't know any of them, apparently they've hired a lot of new people, likely for the summer season. This was evident when one of the workers couldn't answer our question about the beer, lol, but we didn't care, we just wanted to taste! They have a great selection!

 

 

We ended up with two "flights" with 4 different beers on each. The glasses were pretty large, so there was plenty to share. I believe it was $10 per flight... well worth it.

 

 

 

We were running out of time, so really had to move through the beers, but there were some really good ones If you have more time, and enjoy craft beers, I would allow for at least an hour here. I wouldn't have wanted to cut any of our other stops short, however, so this was the one to hurry at!

 

 

 

We were pleasantly buzzed when Shane dropped us back off at the pier!

[DebQ5]

When we got back to the ship we went to O'Sheehans for some snacks as we had dinner reservations at Cagney's that night. My daughter went to the Spa and I sat on the balcony as we sailed away from the dock. We had asked Rodney to provide a pitcher of orange juice and I opened up one of the bottles of "Shampagne" that came with the suite and made myself this....

 

 

I sat back to relax and read a little but had no idea that this was coming....

 

 

The views from the balcony were amazing!

 

 

 

It was one beautiful scene after another...

 

 

[DebQ5]

I had read about Suites being invited to a special glacier viewing and so we were!

 

 

We met at the elevators and were again escorted up through the Haven area. They were handing out blankets and rain ponchos, although it was not raining, the gentleman said it helped to cut the wind. We had our own blankets and declined the ponchos.. I assume the haven people got there first, as all the loungers were taken, but we found a nice lounge bed thing that the three of us shared and it was great! The butlers were passing around hot wine and hot chocolate and different canapes. It was really nice but the best part was the views!

 

 

 

 

The color of the water, the waterfalls, etc... it was all amazing...

 

 

[DebQ5]

At the end of the arm we encountered this...

 

 

I believe that small boat to the left was the excursion that ultimately meets up with the cruise ship. We got incredibly close to the glacier and the captain spun the ship 360 degrees so that everyone could get optimal viewing! Bear in mind that the channel isn't all that wide, so we were in awe of this!

 

 

The color of the glacier is so cool....

 

 

Eventually the captain turned the boat around again and we headed back the way we came.

 

 

[DebQ5]

We had a great dinner at Cagney's that night. I do love the quality of the steak, however none of my more recent cagney's experiences have lived up to the first one on the Dawn. I think it makes a difference on where you sit, as we were right in front of the open kitchen and had to listen to the waiters and waitresses shout to each other.

 

We all ordered steak, the kids got the filet and I got the New York strip. They ask what type of sauce and we all got butter garlic, I believe, but it came out as a hard piece of butter on top of the steak that never really melted. Design flaw... I like ordering the sides, but I think having them appear in separate dishes doesn't make an enormous amount of sense. It's not like they are really sharing sizes, everyone orders their own. But they are tasty!

 

 

 

Dessert was fabulous of course...

 

 

[alsgirl]

Thank you so much for this AMAZING review !!! I am hanging onto every word,I leave next Saturday on the jewel. Keep it coming I cant wait to get to my computer to check if you posted anymore and I love all your pics

[Clarea]

Very much enjoying the outstanding photos.:)

[DebQ5]

Thank you so much for this AMAZING review !!! I am hanging onto every word,I leave next Saturday on the jewel. Keep it coming I cant wait to get to my computer to check if you posted anymore and I love all your pics

 

Thanks so much! It's been fun reliving the trip while writing the review. If you have any specific questions don't hesitate to ask! I hope you have a great cruise!