Alaska Cruise con't

7/27 we left Seattle on the Norwegian Pearl. Looking forward to a wonderful adventure to Alaska. The first day on the ship we found out that maybe the cruise wasn't going to be as enjoyable as we thought. It all started when we went to the main dining room, which is free in the Freestyle cruising that Norwegian advertises.

Well, we learned quickly that there was a "group" of 800 people that had reserved the dining room for the whole cruise !! There was another free dining room, but getting in there was like breaking into Fort Knox !! Now we were mad. So off to the Buffet we headed (I don't like buffets).....and to our surprise most of the "group" was up there and there were no tables. Finally we found a table and ate. Not happy about any of this.

The next morning we managed to get into the main dining room for breakfast. The Assistant Matre'D told us that we could reserve the other main diningroom for dinner, but you could only reserve one day in advance (all cruise lines do that). So we got a reservation for that night. The service in that diningroom let a lot to be desired, but the staff was friendly.

We also had some rough seas that first day. That didn't bother us very much, but the "group" would continue to be a thorn in our sides throughout most of the cruise.

The show that night wasn't very good. We only had one other cruise to compare with and that cruise had Vegas style shows every night. No so on Norwegian. There was only one show we enjoyed. Not much in the way of dancing on this cruise. The one disco with a dance floor didn't have very good music and the dance floor was filled with children the only night I went. To be fair, it may not have been like that the other nights.

Norwegian loves to give lectures !! Lecture after lecture and most were held in the main lobby area so it could be heard almost in all the public places. That was very annoying.

Guess you figured out we weren't to happy with Norwegian. I don't blame the "group" for any of this, but Norwegian didn't handle it very well considering the rest of the passengers was the largest group on the ship.