Norwegian Dream - This was our first cruise, I think it may be our last.

We were notified a week before our cruise that the ship would not be going to Sitka. We were offered no compensation at all. We were lucky many people did not know of hee change until they boarded the ship. They were also not compensated. Then, in Sewerd, our shore time was cut by 6 hours, while in Prince Rupert we had to be back on board at 2:30 instead of the original 8pm. We did arrive in Prince Rupert a few hours early but there is not much to do there from 6 to 10am.

The food was just not all I thought a cruise ship would have. The menu rotated every three days. So after a week you had had everything twice. There was lobster one night, it was the size of a crawdad. The one buffet were you could get pizza, hotdogs and hamburgers all day were substandard at best. The pizza offered one slice of pepperoni per slice and the hamburgers were kept warm all day.

The entertainment was good. The comedian on board was outstanding, we saw her twice and we were rolling on the floor. The magician on board was also amazing and we went to both of his shows. The hypnotist was good, but the people didn't look hypnotized, more like they were just doing what he said and acting for the crowd. The singing and dance troop were very good but the productions looked more like high school productions. We were expecting more like Vegas.

The off shore excursion talks were sales pitches for their partners on shore and therefore offered no real information. The crafts that were offered were juvenile, but the trivia games were fun.

The ship was clean and well cared for. The crew and staff were excellent.

NCL Norwegian Dream
10 Day Alaska Cruise
July 11, 2005-07-26

This was our 10th cruise, the second with NCL. We had an inside cabin on deck 7, the Promenade deck, purchased on a late sell off for about $700. Embarkation for us was fast and smooth at noon. They handed out a sheet telling about Sitka being cancelled and that our ship accounts would receive a $50 credit per person which could be applied to any expense except gratuities and casino charges. The Capt and Chief Engineer did a Q and A during the cruise, explaining that one of the four engines was out of service with a broken piston rod and bent crankshaft, and won't be fixed soon. Later in the afternoon we saw many people boarding at departure time, and found out that the computers crashed and there was a 2 hour wait to get them working. The ship sailed about an hour late because of that. Whenever you leave or enter areas of the ship you'll find hand sanitizers, an effort to stop the norovirus that hits ships from time to time. It's a quick dispenser of alcohol based cleanser, with some type of lotion in it that dries quickly and leaves your hands feeling smooth and great.

THE SHIP

The ship was what we expected for a 3 star, no perks like an 8 story lobby or indoor solarium pool, but the crew were friendly, the food was good, the cabin was smaller than usual but adequate for 2 people, and the entertainment was fine. There are only 2 outlets- bring a power bar and the built-in hair dryer is strong enough but it cuts out automatically when it gets hot, so if you have thick hair you might want to bring your own. Luggage fits under the bed. The lower shelving in the closets was awkward to use, we missed having drawers for clothes. The standard bedding is a fitted sheet with a duvet and bedspread, no top sheet. The duvet proved too hot for us, so the steward replaced it with a top sheet and 2 blankets, one of which was just right.

We didn't go to the song and dance shows, preferring to see the comedians, magicians, and passenger game shows like "The Weakest Link" and "Newlyweds & Not So Newlyweds", which were good fun. A highlight was the dancing lessons by Andre and Francine, professional dancers who taught us all sorts of hot dances, so now we're all VERY cool on the dance floor. They are the last NCL ship that offers it, a shame, it was heavily attended. The destination lectures by the special guest speaker were interesting and fun. The port talk by the cruise staff were just a push for the usual mega store chains that the cruise lines are partnered with, not much useful information.

THE FOOD

We like Freestyle dining, it's a drag running in from ashore to make mealtime, and we never had to wait more than 10 minutes in the lounge for a table at either the 4 Seasons or Terraces, even if requesting a window table. If you don't make it by 5:30 opening, don't go till 6:30, it takes about an hour to get people through, and lots of tables will be coming available then. The Trittoria (Italian only menu) was smaller and a bit harder to get into. The Bistro, the pay restaurant, was $15 p.p., pretty good menu but not enough to entice us in. It's between the 4 Seasons and Terraces, and you can see in as you go by. It was never busy, and there were no window tables. The Sports Bar is the buffet, sort of like a cafeteria, not very large but the staff seem to clear tables quickly and you'll usually find a seat sharing a table with others. One night they had Oriental buffet, and it appealed to us more than the dining room choices. The rest of the time we ate in the dining rooms and were very happy with the food.

SEA DAYS

With Sitka cancelled we had 3 sea days going north, and everyone was getting cabin fever because out on deck it was cool (high 60's), cloudy, windy, rained on and off, and we only went out to jog on the track. No problem keeping cool doing that. There was a bit of a roll, and some people were taking seasick meds. My wife wore 1 patch for 3 days which worked fine, and didn't need anything after that because we were mostly in port, and we were in calmer areas close to shore. The ship loans board games at the library, mostly backgammon, chess, and Scrabble, but they often run out, safer to bring your own favourite. By contrast, the last day at sea returning was lovely, sunny, and warm, lots of people at the pool and in the loungers, beautiful scenery along the inside passage, bring your binoculars to look at the towns, boats, mountains.

HUBBARD GLACIER

The Hubbard Glacier stop on day 3 is awesome, 7-9am. The ship parks in front of the face of this 400 foot high, 6 mile wide mammoth, and you can hear the cracking and splitting of the ice, some like cannon shots, saw several small calvings. The RCI Vision was already there, dwarfed by the glacier as we entered. Great shots when the sun peaks through, blue ice, sparkly water. Nice views going in and out of the bay. The ship sends out some crew in a power boat to bring back a piece of an iceberg, displayed at the bow on deck 7 just past the railing. I don't know how they got a piece that big into the boat. The ice is blue from the pressure forming it.

WHITTIER

There's no point in staying in Whittier for the day; it's a village of only 200 people, with a few little shops on the dock. The only way out of town is via a one way 2 mile tunnel under the mountain, either by ship tour or rental car. The tunnel opens to cars for 15 minutes per hour each way, the rest of the time only trains and buses go through. The tunnel schedule is on the Net, Google Whittier tunnel. You want a time slot that reads Whittier to Bear Valley, and returning you want a Bear Valley to Whittier slot. Its $12 return per car and you pay when returning. Two places in town rent cars, Avis and Harley's Car Rental. We booked a full size at Avis on the net, using the discount code posted on the Alaska board by a CC member, and got an Impala for $51, regularly $69. You have to reserve at both Avis and Harley's, there are no spares on cruise days.

Avis opens at 8am, and we were hoping to get the car to the tunnel for the 9-9:15 slot, which we did, but when we saw the line-up of cruisers there we wondered if we would make it. The agent has no computer, does it all by hand just like the old days. He goes as fast as he can, but each renter takes about 5-7 minutes. He has a booklet of good maps. I'd suggest getting there before 8 so you aren't too far down the line.

Driving out you turn right on the only road and go about 1 mile to the tunnel staging area. A bunch of us Dream cruisers got there together, and cars line up in the left lanes and buses and trucks on the right the truckers told us when we goofed. Get in lanes 2 or 3, and a green light spaces cars entering the tunnel.

The locals said it rains all the time here, but we had a lovely sunny day. Our goals was to hike the Byron Glacier trail near the Begich Boggs Visitor's Centre at Portage Lake, and then do the 1 hour drive to Anchorage for the rest of the day, catching the 2:30 return time slot, with the 3:30 slot as a back up if we were late. The ship sails at 5. The ship offers the Byron Glacier Trail as a tour for $70, called Portage Valley Hike, code WQF-009, but has restrictions at the glacier, which we didn't want. And as usual, $70 x 2 is a little more than the rental car and tunnel ticket on your own.

To get there, you exit the main tunnel, then go through a much shorter tunnel, then over a river, and you will see the Visitor's Centre on the left. Turn left off the highway at the next junction, and then left again toward the Visitor's Centre. As you get near the Centre you will see an arrow to go to it, and an arrow to the right to the Byron Glacier Trail. We went straight to the trail.

The trail is rated as 30 minutes each way, which is was. The first half is an easy stroll over a wide path past pretty glacial streams, but the last half you pick your way over small rocks and around little boulders. Toward the end the glacier face becomes visible through the scrub brush, and the last 30 yards to the ice is over loose shale and tiny streams, but if you're careful and pick good routes it's easy to keep your feet dry. It's a small glacier about a third the size of a cruise ship, easy to walk onto, but signs warn not to because you could fall through thin places. We passed the ship tour, who weren't allowed on the ice. We went several yards onto the ice for some great shots and to tempt the ice gods, and I wanted close-ups of a large blue cave with a river coming out. Then our courage ran out and we scooted off. No bears or bugs, we didn't get our bug repellent out once, only the odd lost mosquito and a few gnats, no prob. It was a lovely time, one of the few chances in Alaska to get up to a glacier on your own. Ship tour choppers charge several hundred to take you onto a glacier.

Next we drove to Anchorage, took just under an hour, it's also a ship tour for around $50 p.p. You don't need a highway map, there's only 1 highway. Pretty city, stay on the highway till right downtown were the skyscrapers are, head for the Visitor's Centre on 4th Ave, it's on the city map. 4th Ave is hopping, shops, eateries, all kinds of people, and on 5th Ave is the large upscale 3 story Anchorage Mall with tons of shops. Metered parking, bring lots of quarters, have to get a couple blocks away to find a space. I think Penny's at the Mall had parking too; saw a sign, their sale was 60 % off everything, good deals my wife said. Ate lunch at a park on 4th, band playing, sun peeking through, lovely.

Made it back to the tunnel with 15 minutes to spare for the early slot. Sail away b'b'cue party on deck, great scenery.

Internet shop in town, hidden away, $3/half hour, and (75 cents/minute on board); if you want directions let me know.
Our friends did the Prince William Sound boat tour through the ship, and said it was good.

There is one other way out of town; hike the Portage Pass Trail, 3 miles of beautiful views, moderate difficulty, previously used before the tunnel was built as a mail trail from Pr. William Sound to the mining district.

COLLEGE FIJORDS

NCL HQ tried to get the Capt to cancel the trip up the College Fijords but he told them it was doable and we did it, buy that man a drink. It was lovely, many glaciers flowing down to the fijord. We parked in front of the huge face of the Harvard Glacier for dinner. Get a window dinner table on the port side from 8-8:45, awesome view. Still light enough for good shots. We were supposed to swing around to give the starboard side a view, but left before it happened.

JUNEAU

The ship docked 1.5 miles from town at the AJ pier, the town pier seemed to be full of other cruise ships, and there are continuous free shuttle buses to town. If you're waiting for a tour bus you stand under a tent, and if you're waiting for the shuttle bus you stand in the rain. Another tent wouldn't have broken the bank. Juneau has tons of cute shops, many on Franklin St., and fun times at the Red Dog Saloon with the DJ piano player. He asks everyone who walks in where they're from, and after they answer he has the crowd primed to reply "Who Cares!!??" There is a good net shop on Franklin, second floor of the Senate House, 2-3 blocks from the shuttle drop-off, about $5/hour, lots of computers and good fast connection. It rained most of the time we shopped, but many of the shops have overhangs out of the rain, and with umbrellas it was no problem anyway.

The huge Mendenhall Glacier is nearby, "easiest access to a glacier in Alaska," and the most visited. The ship offers several types of tours to Mendenhall, by hiking, or boating, or plane, with the cheapest being $45, up to the chopper glacier trek for $375 and $449 depending on what you do. The ship doesn't mention that you can take a $10 (return) local charter bus which runs every half hour, which we did. Buy a ticket at the booth where the shuttle drops you off, and then walk under the tram cables to the other parking lot to get the bus (it says $5 Mendenhall on it). When you get to the Visitor's Centre you can get some nice shots of the glacier right from the short "Photo Point Trail", or take several other trails. You can buy trail maps at the Centre for a few bucks. There are rangers there to explain everything.

We had great luck with the weather, no rain while we were at Mendenhall. You'll see a waterfall to the right of the glacier, and there is an unofficial trail to it which other cruisers have explained, where you can get some great shots, very close to the glacier. Halfway down the Photo trail you'll see a waist high V in the rocks. On the other side of the trail you'll see an unmarked trail going into the forest. About 20 yards further you're out of the forest near the glacial lake, and if the lake level is low enough, you can step across little pools using stepping stones, get to the lake shore, and walk up to the waterfall. The ranger said the lake was higher than he'd ever seen, and we couldn't get across the pools. We were so close to rolling our pants up to our knees and trying it, but we didn't know how deep it was.

While there we saw a very interesting tour, huge pair of canoes with perhaps a dozen people in each paddled across the lake, through icebergs, then along the face of the glacier, then over to the waterfall, then back across the lake. No one was working too hard, and it looked great, might have been a ship tour.

Our friends did the ship's Seaplane Flightseeing and Salmon Bake tour, and said it was great.

Ketchikan

Ketchikan has a pretty boardwalk, tons of shops and eateries. There is a Net caf , Surf City, in the building on the left facing inland from the dock; you can see the sign on it from the ship. On the counter their sign says $10 and hour, but when I said Seaport Cyber at the other end of town (Salmon Landing, upper floor, till 6pm) was $5/hr, he said $5 was fine. Hmmm. I didn't use my whole hour, I think there was about 5 minutes left, he closes at 7pm, so if anyone wants to use up my time, the code is PGGTN, just sit down at a computer and enter it, first one there gets the whole 5 minutes free.

There is a huge interesting store to the right of the ship, might have been called Tongass Trading Company, where they sell everything imaginable except fresh food . clothing, sporting goods, hardware, kitchen supplies, and cheapest pop anywhere, 6 pack for $2.99. Get the visitor's fold-out pamphlet that has 3 coupons on page 3 if you want a $5 Alaskan Ulu (curved) kitchen knife for .99, $4 wooden bear claw salad mixers for .99 (Alaska stamped on them), and a $5 T-shirt for .99. Each one is in a different store, not far apart, the pamphlet shows the locations, and the stores have a sign saying which number they are. I think we got our pamphlet at the Alaska Discovery Centre at the end of Main St near Salmon Landing. This store is one of the three, they had the salad mixers, way at the back (after all, they want you to look around).

We did the Deer Mt. hike which starts at the edge of town off Fair St. We took a $6 cab to the trail b/c it's an uphill walk for about a mile to get there. The trail is 3 miles, with major lookouts at the 1, 2, and 3 mile marks. It's a steep climb, like continually being on a Stairmaster in the gym, and we gave up at 1300 ft elevation, about the mile mark, had to save some energy for shopping. Some locals were actually jogging this trail, lots of loose rock, branches, slippery at times, they must have been crazy. No bugs or bears.

Our friends did the Jetboat tour through the ship, were very disappointed, not much to see, and just roared around scaring seagulls.

Prince Rupert, Canada

Prince Rupert is a nice change from the other ports. Here you won't see rows of the mega shops like Diamonds International, but local craft and tourist shops each with its own flavour. The US dollar is worth about 1.30 here, nice discount off the tagged price J When you leave the ship don't go straight up the hill into town, but turn left onto Cow Bay Road for the cute shops, eateries, and marina/mountain views. Go down Cow Bay Road to the Visitor's Centre where the action starts. Get a city map from the Centre, it's better than the ship one, has walking routes marked with spots that have totem poles and views, and they will mark on the map any stores or sights you are looking for. Follow the shops past the marina up Cow Bay Road till it reaches 3rd Ave, then go down 3rd. Cheapest net caf we ever saw was Ziggy's on the right side of 3rd Ave, a few blocks from Cow Bay, $2.50CAN for an hour, fast connection, about 8 computers. You get 3 minutes on the ship for that. Another net caf is further along, a little more money.

There's plenty of time to do the town as well as a tour. We did the Butze Reversing Rapids Trail, 3 miles total, and very easy walk through a mossy forest, lake views, rapids views, and rocky coast, lovely. The ship offers it for $40, but we did it on our own for $1.25 by catching the local bus (Port Edwards route). You can also take a cab for $12 each way. This bus leaves downtown at 9:10 across from the Chevron Station on 2nd Ave, look for the bus pole signs w/ route numbers, it will say Port Edwards. It stops at the Butze Trailhead, but tells the driver that's where you're going to make sure; it's out on the highway, a 10 minute ride. It returns to town from Butze at 1:00. The Prince Rupert Transit System bus schedule is on the Net: www.busonline.ca

The tour people were moving very slowly on the trail, and didn't do the side paths to the shore etc, or the Grassy Bay extension trail, examining every leaf as they went, so we were glad to be on our own. We were done in just over an hour. If you want more walking, the Mt. Oldfield trail (1800 ft) is across the highway. The Butze trail is marked on the map from the Visitor's Centre.

We knew we'd be done well before 1:00 and arranged for a cab to get us at noon to save time. While waiting for the cab we ate sandwiches we ordered from room service before leaving the ship, and drinks from our cabin, and enjoyed the nice view sitting back at the trailhead parking lot.

We sailed later than the original time, on board call posted at the gangway was 4:00, and we left about 5.

DEBARKATION

No need to attend the debarkation talk, it's all in the flyer delivered to your cabin. It went smoothly, first call was 7:20 for people taking their own luggage off, and we were the fourth colour called, about 8:30. The Gray Line "Cruise Express" buses to the airport are $25 through the ship, and $12 if you buy it yourself. They are off to the right as you leave the terminal. A town car limo driver offered to match that price ($24) instead of the usual $35, I'm guessing because he was so far back in the cue, and we took it. We had a nice time, and the cruise was good value for the money. We had a ball!