Alaska Cruise Experience

First cruiser's diary

For a long and intense period of reflection I thought about how I should exchange my experiences as the first kreuzer. I have cruise experience now, I realise that there was so much I didn't know before I went, I didn't even know the questions to ask. That' s why I have chosen to take directly from my diary so that you and I can find out something about the cruise.

Hopefully you will find this "Diary of a First Cruiser" useful if you are planning your own cruise. I' m going on my first cruise in the morning. I' m going to drive with the new Pearl from Norway Cruise Line through Alaska's Inside Passage. I' m not much different from most first-time cruise ships, I think.

I had Alaska at the top of my 2007 itinerary. Cruising seemed like a great way to see several places in Alaska without having to carry baggage to a new motel every saturday. The Norwegian Cruise Line's Freestyle Cruising®, with its many food and drink possibilities, seemed to be the ideal option for my first cruise outing.

After all, the Norwegian Pearl is a brandnew vessel specially developed for freestyle cruising. Beautiful Alaska landscape. Get to know the historical and cultural life of Alaska. Beautiful Alaska landscape. At about 1:30 pm my boyfriend left me at Pier 66 in Seattle; the Norwegian Pearl should leave at 4:00 pm. I had already had the baggage tag that I had with my travel receipt on it.

I went over a few platforms to the boat. When I got on the boat, I came past a ward where I was shown how to use the disinfectant. Turns out these disinfection wards are all over the boat, at the doors to every place on board, every toilet and every lift.

Everybody is asked to use them before they enter a canteen or return to the boat. At the end of the cruise, everyone joked that their palms had never been so sober. When I had handed in my hand luggage, I went out of my cab to inspect the boat.

Then I drove to the Spa, took a short walk around the facility and made some spas scheduled - a high on my itinerary! When the Norwegian Pearl left Pier 66, we were summoned for our life boat exercise. He warned of what to do and what to anticipate, so it really wasn't a biggie.

Fast and simple! So I went back to my room and packed my bags out. When everything was outside, hanging in the cupboard or stashed in shelving or drawer, I realised that the cubicle might not have been too big, but it was big enough. I left after I had unzipped the car.

I then walked around and chose to have supper at Lotus Garden, the Asia Fusion Resort. Enjoying a tasty lunch with egg roll, shrimp and mousse and a BBQ-pig and vegetable noodles. When I got back to my room and went through all the books and the particular notes I had in the room, it was 9:30 a.m., so I chose to call it a nocturnal.

My first full Alaskan cruise adventures didn't start so well. When I was in my room, I didn't feel so sick, but as soon as I came out and ran around, I felt really terrible, really quick. The algae pack and my massages were beautiful and soothing, but when I came back to my room, I was unhappy again.

I was invited to have supper with the skipper. So I spoke tolex again and agreed to supper with the skipper after the captain's cocktails. It was a marvellous experience having supper with the skipper. I was photographed with the skipper during cocktails and then had a chat with some other passengers and the team.

We had supper at Le Bistro, the private luncheon on Deck 6. I was accompanied by the captain (of course from Norway!), a young entertainment artist from Ireland and two pairs who had travelled together from Las Cruces, NM. The supper was totally great, the services were friendly and enjoyable. This was a vivid and inspiring evening.

Heaven is clear and azure and we are now in the Alaska Inside Passage. Prior to breakfasts I took a short walking tour on the boardwalk and took a few pictures of the Pearl community areas. While I was walking I saw some more cetaceans, a pair very near the boat. Returning to my room to unwind for a while and enjoy the beautiful landscape.

Again, some were very near the boat. When we were evacuated at the Juneau docks, it was fast and simple to leave the boat. It was a white-headed sea-else for Juneau and the Pearl was at Bay AJ, the furthest from the harbor stores and inner-city rides of Juneau.

One could run the miles into the city centre, but most folks used the comfortable shuttles to Mt. Robert's tram sta. I went through the city and looked at the stores and the surrounding countryside. The Alaska State Museum was my target - on the way I passed the Alaska State Capitol.

uneau is on a mound, so I had to go down several steps to get to the school. An Alaska State Musuem had a beautiful permanent exhibition that encompassed nature conservation, local arts and cultures, the period of Russia's ownership, the shift to US ownership and state identity, the golden fever and the tourist industry, and the advancement of the state.

You also had a specific exhibit of artistic jewellery at the moment of my attendance. When I went back to the shop I went through the St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, a lovely turquoise church. I was exhausted from all the undulating walks at this point, so I shuttled back to the boat and had a nice calm supper in La Cucina.

Whilst the folks who went on land trips had to get off the boat quite early, I resolved to have a nice and cosy buffet before I left. Skagway looked like a small pilot city with its colourfully decorated houses in a river basin in the middle of snow-covered mountain.

There was a brief stroll from the jetty to the city. Walking through the city, I went to the first stop of my journey, the Gold Rush Cemetery and Reid Falls. It' s been quite a stroll to get there (almost two mile from the dock). After that I went back to discover the city, shopping, art gallery and the charm of the Skagway museum.

After 3:00 pm I went back to the boat, prepared to leave my foot. Before I went to a killer mysty supper at 5:00. All of us who had registered for supper gathered in the Bliss Ultralounge and got our directions and screenplays.

Then we went into the summer palace dinning room and had our supper by living out the secret between the aisles. At supper we had egg roll, caesar lettuce, tiltapia in coir gravy and a fried potato in biscuits. At the Stardust Theatre after supper I saw a show girl dancing show named Sea Legs.

But it was above all a window for my feet and buttocks. I' m sure the men were enjoying that! Earlier this day, the boat boarded Glacier Bay National Park. But it was a small cupcake, but it met my needs at the age.

Luckily I was asked to see Marjorie glacier from the bridge, along with about a doze of other lucky kreuzers. As the boat approached the ice surface gradually, it halted half a nautical miles from the ice and turned very gradually through 360 degrees. Everyone, no mater where they were on the boat, had plenty of opportunities to see the beautiful bluewhite ice and some native animals.

Both the captain and crews manoeuvred the vessel with minute adaptations to generate streams that would move bigger bergs away from thehip. The view from the bridge of the Norwegian Pearl to the ice was really a unique experience. When the boat returned from Glicier Bay, I was enjoying a wonderful relaxation aroma therapy treatment using warm stones.

That was one of the best cruise dinners so far! I had an afternoons of relaxing in my cubicle and a showers and then had a Tex Mex supper at Mambo's. In the evening meal I watched the windows and saw several seal cattle. Norwegian Pearl didck at 6:00 a.m. in Ketchikan.

As we had to be back at the boat at 1:00 pm, I abandoned the boat around 6:45 am. Luckily, all the places I wanted to go to opened around 8:00 a.m. as they were used to accept cruise ships. Whilst it was still calm, I was walking around the city centre and Creek Street taking pictures of the stores, sights and landscape.

Most of the time of the cruise we were lucky with sunshine, but the mornings here in Ketchikan were cool and cloudy, according to the rainforest environment. Returning to the boat, I had dinner at Cagney's with cremebrocco, croqué sir and a Linzer cake.

So I came early to my meeting and stayed in the lounging area. The supper that evening was in Teppanyaki. Well, I was enjoying chickens and steaks, followed by a desert of chocolate muffins. I went to the Garden of the Geisha show at the Stardust Theatre after supper. This was by far the best cruise experience and featured soundtrack, dance and aerobatics.

And I had a piece of Black Forest pie and a little eclair. I visited a deboarding meeting at the Stardust Theatre at 10:15 am to find out more about baggage identification and transfer, custom and when and how to get off the boat. The additional funds I paid for a beautiful folo for the printing, which contained an evenings picture of the Pearl.

At about 5:30 pm we reached the cruise liner in Victoria. After I had registered for a 18:30 coach ride to Butchart Gardens, I took my sweetheart' day off. From the boat it was simple to cross the Canada custom and find the right coach.

Took a little over an hours to cross the whole backyard, which included the submerged backyard, the rosary and the japanese backyard. And then I would spend some of my free day walking through the artworks and souvenir shops of the parks before going back for a second, more relaxed stroll through the undergrounds. The darkest moment the coach came back to the city centre.

Returning to the boat, I had a little bite to eat at the Garden Café and then went to sleep. I' took the liberty of getting off the boat. The disembarkation took place from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., whereby the passengers disembark from the boat in colour-coded layers, according to the voyage plan. I' d registered for an expedited walk-off where those who were able to take their own baggage off the boat could leave whenever they were up.

Enjoying a cozy buffet breakfasts with clallah franc and berry toasts. Leaving the boat was pretty simple. There has been an efficient movement of the line through custom - at least for US nationals - we have actually just given them our documents and gone further.