jstmike Cruise Review on Norwegian Bliss on Sep 22, 2018

Norwegian Bliss Cruise Review

jstmike

Contributor Level: Purser

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 16

Overall rating:

5 out of 5

Sail date: September 22, 2018

Ship: Norwegian Bliss

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

Cruise #37 for me. What a wonderful cruise. I will give some tips in my review. Embarcation was the fastest ever. Beautiful ship but can be hard to get bearings. Tip: The fish printed on the carpet swim to the bow. Cabin location is important when booking. Our cabin location was perfect #14760. Very quiet. We didn't hear a thing around or outside. A few steps from the bow stairs and one floor up was observation deck for morning water, coffee and lite breakfast and above that was buffet dinning. Stern is spa and gym. We got a mini-suite with 2 free deals of unlimited alcohol drinks and 3 specialty dinning. Tip: For best deal join the cruise club at icruisesmart dot com. We ended up paying only $700 for all this because I'm a partner getting $200 Cruise Dollars for free each month because I referred 5 members and my wife is a member paying $100 and getting $200 CD's each month. So after 14 months we had enough CD's in our account to book this cruise with $0 out of pocket. This also included the 20% service fee they charged on the free packages at the time of booking. Fantastic deal. Tip: Since we're not normally drinkers if we didn't have that deal above I don't think the drink package was worth it because the 20% is $17 per day. Since that fee is at the time of booking we used our Cruise Dollars. We did enjoy the freedom of trying many drinks and having wine at dinner. Tip: Be sure to reserve your specialty dinning after you book. Cagney steak house and Teppanyaki is a must. You can always try standby and cancel. We did that for the shows too. We could only book for the late shows but got in earlier on standby. Tip: For the cabin the smoke stacks do work overtime and it was strange the they produced like rain on cloudy days. I heard a person at the service desk complain about their stern cabin. I would recommend a forward cabin. The Race Track is a must. If you know the weather will be nice then prebook. I had good luck and just got there at a scheduled time and someone didn't show. Tip: We way over packed. I didn't wear my suite, dress shirts, dress shoes or ties. Could have packed carry-ons which also allows you to get off the ship the earliest too. It did take us 1 1/2 hours to get off the ship after our color was called. So plan your transportation accordingly. Don't stress. This was really the only line. Oh also take the stairs as much as you can. It's good for you :) Tip for excursions: Alaska weather is unpredictable. We never prebook unless it is a must do bucket list where it is good rain or shine. When we got to Skagway it was beautiful and getting off the ship we saw the bus about to leave for Yukon and Train and was able to book right then. $258 per person plus the dog sled option was another $35pp later. So glad we did both. Because of our savings we also got the Spa room package which was around $250pp. So with cabin fee of $14.50 pp pd and these 2 extras our final bill was $1,300 on credit card. Our cabin with taxes and fees would have been $5,100 but because of the cruise club we only ended up paying $700. Wow! I know this was a different review and I hope you got something out of it. Join the cruise club for sure. Good for most any cruise. Huge savings even if you're just a member. icruisesmart dot com is a blog site I put together to promote it. This is our 2nd cruise using it.

4 Comments

Gwbigdog 2 years ago

Thanks for sharing your cruise.

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sfinegan 6 years ago

Thanks

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jstmike 6 years ago

After research the "rain" from the smoke stacks is scrubber tech for Alaska where water is pumped into the smoke to reduce airborn pollution. I don't think you want that on your skin or clothes so avoid it if it is turned on. Other ships are installing the same tech.

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KaseyB 6 years ago

Thanks for the detailed review!

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