RCC or NCL to Alaska 2007

[travelling mom]

Hi, I'm planning a cruise to Alaska in 2007. I have a some questions and any advice and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

It will be our first time to Alaska. We love NCL and their freestyle dining concept. Will we like RCI and their set dining times? We are a party of 3 and will most likely have other relatives joining us on this cruise. Just for curiosity, will we be able to reserve just a table for 3 in the dining room?.

 

I'm interested in the 7 night Alaska Hubbard Glacier on Serenade of the Seas. RCI has 2 different versions.

The Hubbard Glacier-B Cruise has the following itinerary:

Vancouver, Inside Passage (Cruising), Icy Strait Point, Hubbard Glacier, Skagway, & Juneau.

The Hubbard Glacier-A Cruise has the the same itineray except that it will stop in Sitka and not Icy Strait Point.

Which in your opinion would be a better choice. I would also love to hear your comments about the ship too. Thanks

[suziehmkr]

We haven't been to Alaska yet, and we haven't sailed on NCL - but I can tell you why we picked the Serenade. Of the friends that I trust their opinion the most, all put NCL at the bottom of their personal lists. Granted, everyone likes something different, and we may end up trying them sometime in the future. But since we have never been to Alaska and this will be an expensive vacation, I didn't want to try a new line again... That backfired for us with our Hawaii trip on Princess. We will save the experimentation for the Mexican Riviera since we have done it already... thus the trying of Carnival this winter due to a killer rate! ;) The choice for us was obvious, we love RCCL and will always be our first choice as long as the itinerary and the price is right.

 

We also wanted to sail on a Radiance Class ship. DH doesn't like to fly and this will be our chance to sail on one since we don't get those nice fun ships for the Mexican Riviera.

 

As far as picking which one.... that will depend on what you are looking for. I was very excited that the week that we booked was a week with ISP as the rotating port. From what I have read about ISP is that if you want to really see some authentic Alaska, that you will love this port. There is a huge thread on the Alaska boards... do a search on "hoonah" and you will find it. It is a newer port that started a couple of years ago and it just sounds wonderful for an authentic visit.

 

We normally pick Early Seating, but for this cruise, we picked late. Although only one port is very late, we still wanted to take advantage of the extended daylight hours without feeling rushed to dinner. Again, a personal choice.

 

As far as the Serenade - I have never read a bad thing about this ship and we are soooooo looking forward to sailing on her in our AFT CORNER 9256!!!! Woo Hoo!!

[travelling mom]

suziehmkr, Thanks so much for your input. I can see you're excited about your upcoming cruise. Hope you will post a review when you return. I would love to hear about your cruise.

[suziehmkr]

Well, it is quite a ways off.... but I do try to get my reviews in asap. It's funny because we have never had two booked at the same time. The excitement of Alaska has me hardly thinking of Mexico. Probably because I am a super planner and the details for Mexico are already worked out.

 

I hope you enjoy whichever cruise you pick!

Tina

[Happy ks]

My personal choice would be any cruise that leaves out of Vancouver, rather than Seattle. Mainly because I love Vancouver and it is a destination in itself, we spent 2 days prior and one day after our cruise.

 

Our favorite port was Sitka, but we did not go to Icy Straight Point. We visited Juneau and Ketchikan, both of them we found to be too touristy.

 

There are pros and cons to any of the choices. I recommend you visit the Ports of Call board here for Alaska and spend a few hours reading up on it.

 

My choice would be based first on itinerary and not the ship itself, although some ships do have advantages. As an example, the NCL ship, Star, out of Seattle, has the advantage of Glacier Bay, rather than Hubbard Glacier, which is a big positive for that ship. We've sailed several cruise lines and I would not put NCL on the bottom of our list. Although it is different from RCI, you make or break your vacation, not the ship. We found Freestyle dining to be a big plus and the ship itself was lovely.

 

Princess and HAL have the advantage of more experience in Alaska than any of the other cruise lines. We sailed Celebrity (Infinity) to Alaska and were very happy with our choice, it was great to be on a classy ship with no constant selling and announcements.

 

If your choice is to be RCI, I would definitely recommend the later seating. We had the early seating and found we always felt rushed to get to dinner on time. I'd not worry so much about your seating arrangements, we always have a great time being seated with new people, so we select a table of 8 - 10. More people to meet and talk to that way.

[caviargal]

I have done Alaska five times, two of those were on NCL and two on RCI.

 

I prefer RCI overall as I do NOT care for Freestyle and also found NCL too casual for my taste. This is a matter of personal preference and you will have to decide for yourself. I do not think it would be hard to get a table for three as there are generally lots of 4 tops in the dining rooms and it is unlikey they would seat a single person with your family.

 

I ended up paying for dinner on NCL every evening as I preferred the ala carte restaurants.

 

I prefer Sitka over Icy Straits by far.

 

I would highly recommend a one way over a R/T and also think Vancouver is one of the worlds most spectacular cities.

[RichardK]

The #1 requirement for our June 2007 cruise was a R/T Cruise out of Vancouver. We plan to stay in Vancouver 2 or 3 days pre-cruise to explore the city.

 

That being said, I weighed NCL Sun against the Serenade of the Seas. I have sailed both NCL and RCL -- NCL, however, prior to their initiating freestyle cruising; and, my last cruise on the Serenade out of San Juan last winter.

 

We choose the NCL Sun. We wanted an aft balcony cabin, and NCL's price was significantly less than RCL. I'd have preferred RCL, all things being equal, but chose NCL based upon price.

 

Also we're looking forward to trying freestyle for the first time --- hear more good opinions than bad.

[ejhall]

I can also tell you why we chose the Serenade, June 16, 2007 for our next Alaska cruise. It was mainly itinerary. We wanted to visit ISP as we haven't been there yet and as previous posters have stated its new and not super-touristy yet. Sitka was a nice port, we enjoyed our day there. It is very quiet compared to Juneau, Ketchikan and Skagway, which we also enjoyed. We also prefer R/T Vancouver because we LOVE Vancouver and enjoy spending a few days pre-cruise there!! We have heard only good/great things about the Serenade and are really looking forward to trying her out. We don't plan on bring fancy clothes this trip (just too much luggage schlepping for two ladies!) so we will plan on eating at the Windjammer for dinner those nights. As far as Hubbard Glacier, been there twice and it was totally awesome both time! Very impressive!

 

As far as NCL goes I really love the idea of Freestyle (dining as well as clothing), but when I looked at their itineraries on all three ships (Sun, Star, and Pearl) and even given that I haven't been to Glacier Bay yet, IMO their itineraries just weren't what we wanted. Also, the ships that leave from Seattle travel outside of Vancouver Island (basically at sea) the first day and you therefore miss some very scenic cruising.

 

Hope this helps!

[Minybear]

I personally have booked for our Alaska/2007 trip 2 cruses (NCL and RCL) due to me being confused on which ship and which itinerary. I booked the NCL Star going out of Seattle and we will see Sawyer Glacier (I also liked the freesyle in dinning). I also booked Serenade out of Vancouver due to I liked the itinerary (plus we will experience RCL in October and I have a feeling my husband will say he wants to cruise RCL again). We have never been to Icy Straight and Hubbard Glacier. The only thing my husband wants to see Ketchikan and Ketchikan is not in the itinerary for Serenarde (it is for 2006 but not for 2007!). So at this point quite confused.

[katiel53]

We sailed on NCL Star last year. We now have reservations for Serenade for next year. There are some plusses for NCL. The freestyle cruising idea is great if you don't like getting dressed up for dinner and want to eat whenever. Our meals in the dining room were not great and we ate 6 of 7 nights in specialty restaurants, so it wasn't anytime dining. We had to make reservations for each night. Having said that, it is nice to have so many choices for dinners though.

 

I loved Glacier Bay and thought it was the highlight of our trip. We sailed from Seattle and the first night was very very rocky as was the last night. The ship itself was fine.

 

We like RCL and Celebrity, so decided to go on Serenade for next year. We haven't been to Vancouver before, so we are looking forward to that part of the trip. We are also interested in Icy Point Straight and Hubbard Glacier, so I think this will be a great trip.

 

I am certain that whichever trip you choose, you will love Alaska.

[jrm9999]

I would post a few questions on the Alaska board too, especially in regards to itinerary.

[herb]

After ALOT of deciding on which ship and which itinerary we narrowed it down to NCL Pearl and RCI Serenade of the Seas.

 

We picked Serenade of the Seas for 2 reasons. Excellent reviews and they leave r/t from Vancouver as opposed to Seattle, which NCL Pearl leaves from.

 

We chose the Serenade cruise that stops in Icy Strait Point.

[NancyIL]

The fact that NCL has no one-way cruises eliminated it from my consideration. I would consider a roundtrip IF it were one of the longer cruises, like the 12 and 13-night May/Sept. cruises on Celebrity's Infinity and Summit. In fact, the 13-night Summit cruise May 12-25, 2007 was a serious contender for our Alaska cruise next year, but I wanted to spend more time actually in Alaska for our first visit there.

 

I booked the southbound Radiance because I liked the itinerary - though I would've liked it better if it stopped at Sitka! HAL's Volendam has a southbound itinerary for 2007 that includes Icy Strait Point and Sitka...so we'll see what kind of prices they have in a few weeks.