Alaska Trip - Great ports, not great ship for Teens unless you beat the crowds and bring your checkbook
Norwegian Bliss Cruise Review to Alaska - Inside Passage
7 Night Alaska Highlights (Seattle Roundtrip)
Sail date: August 25, 2018
Ship: Norwegian Bliss
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: 14714
Traveled as: Family (older children)
Reviewed: 6 years ago
Review summary
Just to recap - the ports in AK were great - our favorites were Ketchican (Salmon Fishing and Rainforest Canopy Zip Lining) and Skagway (Talia River Float). Juneau wasn't our favorite however we were surprised how much fun we had panning for gold down by the river - a lot more fun then we expected. Victoria was not as adventurous, however the History Museum was pretty neat and we enjoyed ourselves. The Ship was a bit of a disappointment - our Balcony room was amazing, but the activities for Teens was pretty poor and since AK is sooo cold and windy, the water slides and pools aren't really built for that type of cruise - Some other ships have solarium's with open and close roofs - which may be a better choice. We were never able to book laser tag as people had booked them all up so the entire trip we weren't able to do that as a family and the go carts were the same, our teens got to do it a few times and my husband and I were able to do it twice with them throughout the entire cruise as people booked them all up by the 2nd day on the ship - I hope they fix this in the future (I would suggest they limit how many you can book at a time until your first set is done - similar to walt disney world Fast Pass) - so you can imagine how bored my teenage kids got. The Arcade was ridiculously priced and the times we were able to go on the go carting it was run very very poorly - they let young kids stop at corners and never took them off the track - they did not have a fast and a slow setup, it was always at a point were you couldn't even get around the track once without stopping for a person who was nervous or slow - very very disappointing.Embarkation
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Food and Dining
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Children's Programs
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
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The amount of activities for Teens was disappointing unless you plan to pay through the nose for the arcade, or beat the crowd in the first two hours of your cruise to the go cart reservation and laser tag reservations. By the 2nd day - we couldn't find any reservations open for either that weren't - my teens ended up going on the go cart track 3 times on the entire cruise and never got to go to the laser tag. When we all went on the go cart track, it was run soooo poorly that each time we either had a very very young child that would stop at each corner or a very very old participant that would do the same. It was a very poor experience. The games at the arcade are sooo expensive that after 10 minutes there, we had to ban our kids from going back as it was soooo ridiculous. They ran out of things to do as they couldn't do go carts, laser tag, or go to the arcade. The Entourage club helped with one of our kids who liked video games but the other got bored.