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Summertime in the States (2): Alaska on the NCL Pearl! (1)

 
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jbalonso777
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 12:01 am    Post subject: Summertime in the States (2): Alaska on the NCL Pearl! (1) Reply with quote

Hey all!
A quick three part picture montage of my Summer trip in the United States of America. The entire trip was planned around the cruise and dropping me off at college. Having landed at Seattle on the ERJ-175, we headed for the docks from where the cruise would depart. Here is the itinerary:
Day 1 - August 2nd 2015 - Leave Seattle at 4pm
Day 2 - August 3rd 2015 - In sea
Day 3 - August 4th 2015 - Juneau, Alaska
Day 4 - August 5th 2015 - Skagway, Alaska
Day 5 - August 6th 2015 - Glacier Bay Cruise
Day 6 - August 7th 2015 - Ketchikan, Alaska
Day 7 - August 8th 2015 - Victoria, BC (Canada)
Day 8 - August 9th 2015 - Dock at Seattle, 8am

This TR will cover Days 1 and 2.
We were well prepared for very long lines at the check in, however luckily this was not quite the case. Long lines, but swift moving. Check in took a while, because they'd give room keys with our picture and name on it. Pretty cool! We were briefed about a fire drill before we left the docks for our cruise. Handed our suitcases over at the airport itself, they'd be waiting for us in front of the stateroom onboard the Pearl.







We received a warm welcome onboard, being greeted with flower garlands and a lovely sanitization lady - she had a bottle of hand sanitizer spray and kept saying - Washy washy, happy happy, smily smily all the time! This was a recurring theme onboard the Pearl as these lovely ladies (and some times, men too!) were everywhere! Restaurants, casinos, auditorium, at the door, etc... This set up a nice party-vacation like atmosphere. We would call the Norwegian Pearl our home for the next week!






Stateroom 11034 - easily fitting in 4 people and luggage (2*23 kgs, because Emirates and Qatar Airways are generous airlines Smile )

With no time to waste, I headed up to Deck 12 (Garden Cafe, Great Outdoors) and Deck 13 (Tennis Courts, Golf Course, Basketball, Sports area and rock climbing), for some pictures of Seattle itself.







the terminal!

We had the fire drill about an hour before departure. No photographs were allowed because they required our complete attention. But rules are meant to be broken, right...? Wink

Stardust Theater!

At the end of that, it was the start of many meals onboard the great ship! Please, do not ask me what the exact names of the foods Sad I forgot all of them. I do remember that there were meals catering to everyone - continental, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, French, Mexican, Italian, etc etc...awesome stuff!



A slightly delayed departure at 1615 hours (4.15pm), but boy was this a quick ship! We quickly approached, passed, overtook and extend our lead over the other cruise liners, one of Holland America Lines (Royal Amsterdam), and the other of Princess Cruises.








It was absolutely epic that this suite had a balcony! Some of the lower deck rooms had pothole windows, or large windows, but boy having the balcony was absolutely lovely!

Winning, comprehensively!


The Great Outdoors and Garden Cafe. The butt end of the ship, basically!



Everything calmed down a little bit...by everything, I mean my parents and the other friend we were traveling with! I was super duper excited and basically restless! I walked around, up and down the decks...ahhh this ship was epic!



That even, we went for dinner at a restaurant. Lets just say that's probably the last IndiGo I'll ever be in Wink



Lovely Atlantic cod!



Went up to the Spinnaker Lounge, later that night. There was nothing interesting happening then, but we waited to for the next night to go up for special reasons Smile


Folks went back to bed, I headed for the viewing deck of the deck itself...




Fell asleep pretty easy with the movements of the ship. I was loving this.
The next morning, headed out for breakfast at the Garden Cafe (deck 12, just above us!)


And I did some more walking around...here's the swimming pool:


There were a lot of activities going on. The ladies went for the jewelry stuff, Dad and I went for a photography event in the lounge. Pretty interesting stuff! Later that day, while we were out at sea, the old folk went for a show at the theatre, I stayed back in the room and wrote TRs. Yup, talk about a big backlog....
Lunch included pizza and mutton rogan josh Cool




Expeditions on shore....boy did we have some interesting stuff lined up!


Duty free booze. Kinda felt like we'd be ripped off, so nope Razz


Up in the Spinnaker Lounge, it was counting down to midnight, as the 70s/80s disco tunes were played live. The parents loved it! Sure, I was going a bit overboard with the booze (but under limits hahaha), Mum tried stopping me. The host came up and said - ....but who's driving home tonight?! Laughing Laughing Laughing

That will be the end of part 1. Part 2 will follow soon!

Regards
Jish
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sumantra
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 8:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

What a lovely Part 1! Given that I haven't ever been on a ship (leave alone a cruise liner), this TR was something I was looking forward to for a long time.
It starts with a neat picture of a Ducks vehicle, a rather typical American concept. Your picture was taken at the right moment, as if the vehicle is holding the bridge up!
Just a stupid question: how silent is the ship, when you are on the deck?
Second, did you get a tour of the ship itself, or are these parts out of bounds for passengers? Did you also have Internet connectivity?
Eagerly looking forward to the replies...and the other parts!
Cheers, Sumantra.
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jbalonso777
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

sumantra wrote:
What a lovely Part 1! Given that I haven't ever been on a ship (leave alone a cruise liner), this TR was something I was looking forward to for a long time.
It starts with a neat picture of a Ducks vehicle, a rather typical American concept. Your picture was taken at the right moment, as if the vehicle is holding the bridge up!
Just a stupid question: how silent is the ship, when you are on the deck?
Second, did you get a tour of the ship itself, or are these parts out of bounds for passengers? Did you also have Internet connectivity?
Eagerly looking forward to the replies...and the other parts!
Cheers, Sumantra.

Thanks so much, Sumantra sir! Very Happy
The ship was very silent, just some very faint generator sounds could be heard from the deck itself, otherwise, you wouldn't know you're on a ship! Very Happy
No tour of the ship as such, however, I will tell you that I attended quite a few information sessions of running a floating hotel, and some more technical information sessions. Dad and I took this with great interest. These were held at the Spinnaker Lounge. We got to ask questions to the executive chef (who was a Bengali!). Dad asked a few, and I asked one that really got the Captain asked - relating to aircraft ops and swaps (if needed), I asked what happen if the Pearl with to break. The Captain jokingly stated he did not want to talk about that. But he did say, that if such an event ever occurred, bye bye cruise!

But to answer your questions, the important bits, behind the scenes stuff were out of bounds.

The ship had internet wifi. Pretty quick, but very expensive!

Thanks for reading!

Regards
Jishnu
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sumantra
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 11:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jbalonso777 wrote:
The ship was very silent, just some very faint generator sounds could be heard from the deck itself, otherwise, you wouldn't know you're on a ship! Very Happy
Wow!
jbalonso777 wrote:
No tour of the ship as such
Hmm...security concerns, of course.
jbalonso777 wrote:
We got to ask questions to the executive chef (who was a Bengali!).
Yikes!
jbalonso777 wrote:
The ship had internet wifi. Pretty quick, but very expensive!
Hmm...
Thank you...and surely you did not ask why the ship had a namesake in a Pirate ship made famous in a contemporary series of movies Smile
Now, I look forward to reading your Part 2, which you have just posted!
Cheers, Sumantra.
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jbalonso777
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

sumantra wrote:

Thank you...and surely you did not ask why the ship had a namesake in a Pirate ship made famous in a contemporary series of movies Smile
Now, I look forward to reading your Part 2, which you have just posted!
Cheers, Sumantra.

If I remember correctly, the NCL Pearl belongs to the Jewel Class cruise ships, that include the NCL Jewel/Jade/Pearl/Gem.

But yes..all I could think of was indeed PoTC all the way, and Captain Jack Sparrow with that! Razz
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