7-night Alaska southbound cruise on Norwegian Sun: Cruise planning, pre-cruise stay in Anchorage, Grandview Train to Seward, embarkation - June 4-6, 2016

Trip Index

• Cruise planning, pre-cruise stay in Anchorage, Grandview Train to Seward, embarkation
• Morning at sea, Hubbard Glacier, La Cucina
• Icy Strait Point, Seven Seas main dining room
• Skagway, Cagney's Steakhouse, Juneau, Tracy Arm/Sawyer Glacier, Le Bistro
• Ketchikan, day at sea, Moderno Churrascaria
• Norwegian Sun Disembarkation, post-cruise stay in Vancouver

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PLANNING
As mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to tack on an Alaska cruise either before or after my cruise conference in Vancouver since I was already in the area, my husband and I both enjoyed cruising Alaska last year, and it would help earn me credits towards my Elite Cruise Counsellor status. The June 6, 2016 7-night southbound cruise on Norwegian Sun ended up the winner, due to a "no frills" fare availability and multiple $100 off $500 "Amex Offers" on several of our American Express credit cards.

If you are familiar with Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL), they usually offer a "Free-at-Sea" promotion where you get to choose one or more options including free drinks, free wi-fi, free shore excursion credit, or free dining. Sometimes there is a free 3rd/4th passenger option. But in the rare occasions when NCL needs to sell cabins last minute, they offer a "no frills" fare that does not include any Free-at-Sea options. This usually requires the cabin to be "guaranteed", so you could be assigned anywhere on the ship, possibly in a bad location, but that's the gamble one takes for an enticingly low fare. I booked a balcony guarantee for last year's Alaska cruise on Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas, and our cabin ended up assigned right above the theater's speaker system. Some nights, we could hear loud music during late shows, which could be troublesome if you go to bed early. For this NCL cruise, we were lucky and got assigned a nice and quiet aft starboard balcony cabin.

If you are an American Express cardholder and not privy to "Amex Offers", you are missing out! If you log into your account online and scroll down, there is a section called "Amex Offers and Benefits" where assorted discounts can be found. The offers come and go, so check every so often for something you can use. Technically, you can load a deal on only one card even if you own multiple Amex cards, but if you open multiple tabs for each of your cards, you can get the offer as many times as it shows up on the list. Just make sure you click the "Load More" button at the bottom of each tab to display all of the offers for all cards before you start adding them. The NCL $100 off $500 offer showed up on 5 of our Amex cards, which was perfect since the total including a train transfer from Anchorage to Seward came to almost $2700. I split payment between the 5 cards to trigger the offer. The 5 x $100 saved would help pay for our gratuities and specialty dining packages.

Speaking of specialty dining, I purchased a package that included 4 specialty dinners per person. Eating in the main dining room isn't bad, but I like to have the variety. If we went with the free-at-sea cruise balcony fare, we could have selected free specialty dinners (3 per person on this cruise) and one other choice, but the money saved through the "no frills fare" was worth more than that, since I don't drink and wasn't interested in the other options. We decided to pay for our own specialty package and Kaleb could buy the occasional drink here and there. The specialty dining package includes any of the restaurants on Norwegian Sun; there is some confusing wording about a-la-carte not included, but you can use the package at La Cucina, Cagney's and Le Bistro. You just can't order more than one entree in those restaurants, but you are welcome to order all the appetizers, sides and desserts you'd like. :)  You can also use it for sushi at $30 credit per person. Reservations can be made online through the cruise planner.

I opted to ride NCL's train transfer from Anchorage to Seward even though it was a little more expensive than the regularly scheduled train transfer on Alaska Train. Alaska Train departed at 6:45am versus NCL's train around 12pm. If you wanted to get in some sightseeing in Seward, the early train would work well.

Since Kaleb and I had already been to most of these ports last year, we didn't rent a car or pre-purchase any excursions. Instead, we were going to explore the towns and go on hikes.

ONWARD...

Continuing from where we last left off:  I was flying Delta Airlines from Vancouver to Seattle to meet up with Kaleb.

We had a 2.5 hour layover in Seattle so we visited the American Express Centurion Lounge Studio in Terminal B, with complimentary entry thanks to the AMEX Platinum Card. It wasn't as big as the normal Centurion Lounges, but there were substantial snacks and you can order complimentary alcoholic beverages from a server, delivered to your seat.


We boarded our Delta flight to Anchorage; the plane had in-seat entertainment. I enjoyed watching Zootopia - what a great movie!

Delta economy - inseam 29"

inseam 32"

you go girl!

glad we had dinner in the lounge

still bright at 9:30pm!

We took a taxi from the airport to our home for the next two nights, the Hilton Anchorage, at the cost of 50,000 points per night. I had recently attained Hilton Diamond status until March 2018 through a status match with my IHG Platinum Elite status, a benefit of the IHG credit card. The match offer changes every year, so instead of giving you a link, I'd advise searching for "ihg platinum status match to hilton diamond" and you'll find the latest details. Having Diamond versus Gold gives a little bit more benefit, especially for paid stays. You'll still get the complimentary breakfast with Gold status, which is included with the forementioned AMEX Platinum Card.

stuffed moose in the lobby

view out the window at 10:30pm

comfortable bed

The Coffee Bean products

decent size bathroom

Peter Thomas Roth toiletries

Good thing our room had thick blackout curtains, since there was still sunlight late at night due to the high latitude!

The next morning, we enjoyed a complimentary breakfast buffet in the main restaurant as the Club Lounge was closed on Sunday. (meaning no hors d'oeuvres and desserts either)

a-la-carte menu if you don't want buffet

reindeer sausage was served

After breakfast, we checked out the area on foot and had dinner at Glacier Brewhouse, one of the higher rated downtown restaurants on Yelp.

Anchorage Market and Festival

freshly fried fish from the market, yum

list of cruise ships in town that week

house brewed root beer for me :)

complimentary bread

Alaskan salmon

Alaskan halibut

peanut butter pie

Monday morning, the Club Lounge was open so we had breakfast there. Since it was continental-style, the selections were limited.


After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and walked to the Anchorage Convention Center to catch a bus to the Alaska Railroad depot back at Anchorage airport. Even though there is a train station across the street from the Hilton, the NCL chartered train would be taking a different route and bypassing it.

It was a bit wet outside. There weren't very many people scheduled for the bus transfer to the airport. Perhaps most of the passengers flew into Anchorage that morning, so was already at the depot, or had rented a car earlier in the week and returning it to the airport.

convention center easy to find

good signage

I was not expecting that our names were not on the transfer list. Thankfully I had printed out the transfer confirmation and showed it to the staff. They gave us a bus transfer ticket and told us to work it out with the staff at the depot. Here's hoping we have seats on the train!

#6 to board the bus

airport train depot

There were a lot more people at the airport train depot. The line was long, but it moved at an acceptable pace, considering that we were actually checking into the cruise itself. Of course, since we weren't on the transfer list, they didn't have our key cards or train tickets. But fortunately, the train was not full, so we were given passes for the last car.

last folks waiting to be called

once car was full, train moved forward to next one

Our coach number was called and everyone still in the waiting area moved towards the train platform and boarded. We were assigned to a booth that was shared with a father and his young son. Since we were the last group and the other half of the car was empty, I asked one of the passing staff if we could switch to an empty booth and he said yes! So we moved, others did too, and everyone had lots of space.

The 4.5 hour train ride was quite scenic with beautiful landscapes, animal sightings, and a long dark tunnel. Large windows in each car afforded picturesque views. If you got hungry, you could order from a menu at your booth or visit the dining car. Only credit cards were accepted as payment. The food was fresh and tasty.

observation car

dining car offerings

beautiful scenery

going through a tunnel

lots of waterfalls

moose sighting

The train dropped off right next to the cruise terminal. Since we didn't get our key cards at the airport, we had to queue again at the cruise terminal, but at least we were allowed to enter an expedited line.

train to port

Seward cruise terminal

not too crowded at 5:30pm

Norwegian Sun, here we come!

We had a warm welcome onto Norwegian Sun. Our aft balcony room was comfortable. There was plenty of documentation in the room, including a notification that the stops on our cruise were switched around. Fortunately, we didn't purchase any excursions so we had no issue. If we had arranged an activity that wasn't through the cruise line, that would have been trickier.

I got a birthday card from NCL from adding a "birthday" notation on the reservation. It came with an offer for a free birthday cake, but since I've seen it before on my past NCL cruise, I didn't redeem it. Too much food as it is! I also received a cocktail party invitation for being a "Bronze" Latitude Rewards member. (only my 2nd NCL cruise)

balloons!

our balcony stateroom

view out the balcony

don't think we need these

Day 1 Freestyle Daily and inserts:


Dinner time! We were tired from traveling so we just went to the buffet. The ice cream and crepe station was great.

not much dinner since I was saving room for dessert...

The lifeboat/muster drill was at 8:30pm, as the ship was set to sail at 9pm. Unfortunately, we had to stand outside in the cold, as opposed to other ships where you get to sit in the theater or dining room.

All aboard! Tomorrow, we enjoy a morning at sea before visiting Hubbard Glacier...stay tuned!

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Another disclaimer:  The intention of this blog was to remind Future Me in full detail about where I went and what I did.  I could have made it private, but I frequently get questions from family, friends and internet folks about how I planned things, got deals, etc., so instead of repeating the story over and over, I direct them here. If you are offended by anything I say or do, save yourself the discomfort and kindly click away from my blog. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day!

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