Norwegian Sun, Alaska
5
We flew to Seattle and stayed the night before being taken to the ship. The embarkation was a bit long as we were still in the throws of COVID and we had to all get last minute COVID tests (which we had been told we wouldn't have to have). Of course this was at an additional cost of £70+ each. I guess it couldn't have been avoided by the cruise company as we were told that Canada had moved the goal posts.
Once we were through this part the rest of the embarkment was straight forward and well organised.
The ship was clean and well staffed. Our balcony cabin was roomy and had everything we needed. The cabin staff were attentive. The bar staff were amazing and nothing was a problem. Its worth buying the added drinks package if you enjoy champagne. Food was good and adequate seating was available. We visited one of the speciality restaurants and that was a lovely experience.
The onboard spa was, as usual overpriced, and the massage experience was somewhat spoiled by the hard sell of the products after the massage.
The ship is well laid out with pools and jacuzzi, inside and outside restaurants, shops, bars and of course the theatre. The bars had a range of music experiences and quizzes etc.
Because it was a smaller ship we were able to cruise the smaller waterways and visited some beautiful scenery.
We had booked excursions for each stop but these were changed and we had to miss some of our experiences due to the time in dock being reduced. We did however manage to go whale watching (which was amazing), dog sledding (equally amazing) and canoeing. We had booked bear watching but that had had to be cancelled due to time in dock.
We arrived in Victoria, Canada in the evening and only had a couple of hours ashore so no real time to explore anything.
All in all the ship was top notch. The excursions that we did get were brilliant but we were disappointed that some of our shore time was taken away. This was a common theme from pretty much everyone on the ship.
