Norwegian Pearl Cruise Reviews - Reviews

The room and dining service were magnificent.  Lots of personal attention from the cabin steward and dining room staffs, all with objective of making the cruise a memorable experience.  Special kudos to Santosh, maitre d. in the Indigo restaurant and to Nancy Mendoza in the Garden Cafe.  They went the extra mile to assure our special meals were prepared and served to our liking and satisfaction. Our cabin steward Carlos, took care of our rooms even making special arrangements for the Sabbath for us.

The Garden Cafe is great for quick and delicious breakfast and lunch with a tremendous selection to satisfy all.

Some of the shows were great. I especially enjoyed the Tim the comedian and Ray the magician.  I thought I had seen them all, but Ray had some new tricks up his sleeve (?) or whatever.  Tim got the whole crowd doing the Wizard of Oz again. My wife especially liked the husband-wife Circus Soleil act.

The food is mediocre at best. The Chinese style restaurant sucks. This is the fourth cruise we have so we get picky. There is no free lobster not even for one day. I booked the cruise during 7/4 week and paid the premium. But the ship has nothing to show for this particular holiday. There are not many activities for people like us on the ship. The theater was greatly underused during the daytime. It stopped at 4 ports but two of them for only 5 or 6 hours, too short for a long shore excursion. The glacier bay day is short too. I'd prefer the ship stay a bit longer at the national park.The staff, as usual, are quite friendly and provided excellent service. The inside cabin, man, is very cramped. Overall, a so-so cruise.

I have been on many cruises before 3 prior with Noweigan The Dawn, Gem and Breakaway all were great. My experience with the Pearl is totally different. The carpet in our room was very badly stained and dirty also the shelves in the cabin were dusty and shelves in bathroom dusty the mirror always streaked and the liquid soap dispenser leakesbon the mirror. The carpets throughout the ship was dirty. The tables in the bar area were always dirty. On the first night we ate in the Summer Palace 3 in my party ordered the fish abpnd it was terrible. The staff was not friendly, they had a little attitude.we did not have a good first night. We did have 4 dinners at the specialty restaurants that was good staff also good. The ports were great. The Pearl need to be restored ASAP. I am not sure I would book another cruise with Norweigan. Very dissatisfied with the Pearl.

The ship was O.K. kind of run down and many areas looked old, service was very good (average), cabin was also very good.     About the food there was a good variaty but  we were a party of 17 family persons and 4 (25% of our party) of us got serius vomiting and diarrhea, we are sure we got norovirus.

Well, I can scratch this off my bucket list!  What an amazing cruise!  Alaska has to be one of the most beautiful on earth.  From the snow capped mountains to the amazing glaciers there's is always something spectacular to behold.  The soaring Bald Eagles are breath taking!  

We sailed on the Pearl, it looks a bit dated..I think it could use a facelift.  We selected Norwegian for their "freestyle dining" and it didn't disappoint.  So many selections/variety and very tasty.  It's very relaxing knowing that you don't have to make your 6:30 or 8:30 seating time and you don't have to be formal!  The cruise director did an excellent job with entertainment and he's very talented himself.  The majority of the crew are happy, helpful, energetic and polite.  We received a lovely cake and a song for our anniversary dinner.  I would highly recommend this cruise!

We spent our time on board stumbling over kids which made up about 30% of the passengers. Paid up for an outside balcony stateroom and every time we tried to enjoy it, we were chased inside do to the noisy family next door. The staff was excellent as is the ship. Food was about average with the buffet being about the same as your local Golden Coral. Thank god for the premium drink package. Our highlight was the helicopter excursion and exploration to a glacier, but rather than take a cruise, we could have flown to Juneau and accomplished that for a lot less money while avoiding the circus. What next, people on board with their pets?   

First time on Norwegian Lines. Enjoyed the trip ,the food & drinks&on board entertainment.

The off ship trips were great and we'll coordinated.

They got my vote!!

AP

We had a really good vacation and experience with the 7 Night Alaska Glacier Bay cruise on Norwegian Pearl. The ship was very good and maintained. Food was excellent, lot of choices. Rooms were good too. 

Two things I would have liked better are:

1. More time spent in glacier-bay closer to multiple glaciers instead of just one. The one (Margerie Glacier) glacier the ship stopped by and went closer showed the spectacular views. But ship just passed by others, didn't go close enough and didn't stop.

2. Would like more on-ship entertainment especially for the days on ship and mostly during the day time. 

Terrific cruise.  We were not disappointed about anything.  I highly recommend it.  Beautiful sights.  We went the last week of June and the weather was great;  50's to 70's all week. The Deluxe Yukon tour in Skagway, Rain Forest in Ketchican, and Whales and Mendenhall glacier in Juneau were all excellent excursions.  Twilight tour in Victoria, save your money, there's nothing on it to see.  Pick something else like the gardens maybe.

One caution: you will have a $13.50 service charge per person per day as a gratuity no matter where you eat or even if you eat that is not obvious in your initial paperwork.  It adds up fast.

The idea of Norwegian Freestyle cruise is great. Dinner when your hungry, not tied to the same time every night. But, the food on the Norwegian Pearl was lacking in flavor imho. Maybe I was expecting too much, I don't know. The service was EXCELLENT!!  5 Stars for the service!!

Seeing Alaska was great but Norwegian was lacking.  Example, I made dinner reservations ahead of the cruise via telephone directly with the cruise line.  Norwegian sent me an e-mail confirmation showing each nightly reservation. The first night when my party showed up at the appointed time at one of the main dining rooms, I was told I had no reservation for that night or for the remaining nights.

On some other things I had pre-purchased and had a print out showing payment, I did not get and was told the payment was never processed so my choice was to rebuy and pay a higher price.  Also, the Pearl is in need of a refurbishment....particularly the nasty worn out carpet in our cabin.

My extended family all have restaurant experience, and when we go on cruises we enjoy eating through the options available to us. The saddest part of this 7 day cruise were the dining room dinners. Not only could they not differentiate between a well done and rare steak (they sent a whole table grey steaks when nobody ordered more cooked than medium-rare), but they tried to appologize and on giving them a second chance to make it up to us, they still could not cook a steak less than grey. If food is a concern, don't cruise with NCL. If you don't care for food, the boat has nice amenities, activities, and bars.

My family all had a wonderful time on our cruise. The only thing I would have wished for would be longer time in ports. We had an excursion set at every stop but that was all the time we had. The lack of time to check out the different cities is our only regret.  

everything was amazing! Everybody in the crew were amazing! Helpful, always willing to make your experience 100% and more amazing. I will recommend Norwegian Pearl to everybody. They went the extra mile... Not a single complaint. Clean, food was amazing, organization was great. 

We would highly recommend this cruise!  Fun, lots of interesting things to do or not to do, lots of places to get away besides your room like card room or quiet zones or bars with cool seating areas.  Surprises were the comfortable beds in the inside stateroom, great use of space, nice shower and how clean it all was! Everyone was super friendly!  The food everywhere was tasty and there was a vast variety!  The comedy show with Jim was very funny..love that guy!  The shows were professional and entertaining!   The excursions were good.  Only down for us was the limited time in the towns.  Loved it completely!!  Will do it again!

I highly recommend this cruise....everything was a treat....staff, food and entertainment !!!

We our looking forward to another cruise with NCL within the next year !

Food could have been better. Had eggplant 3 times every time was hard and not cooked. Service so so. Since we were a big group of Germans really enjoyed the german food .That was really good. Good entertainment. Food also very salty.

Our steward was GREAT. The rest of the cruise was a mistake. From the dirty handrails to the 'all about money' attitude that the officers and the 'powers that be' had...it was our last NCL. The price dropped significantly before our cruise and I tried repeatedly to get a reduction in price for the overall cruise, OR a drink package, OR a meal package, OR excursion money....NONE of which was offered or available. EVERYthing cost too much...from laundry service to a glass of wine. Really rediculous. PLUS, I caught the maitre D' giving a 'suite' passenger special priviledges (opening a bar for a couple), AFTER another couple had noticed that the bar was closed and should've already been opened. Didn't matter because the bar tender wasn't opening the bar UNTIL the money folks showed up. PLUS, my relative on the Pearl at the very same time was upgraded from a suite to a better suite for unknown reasons??? Really, now.....that's over the top! PLUS, the spa treatments were much higher than other cruiseships!

This was our first cruise with Norwegian Cruise Line. It was Awesome! Ship facilities were Super with Great crew.

We really liked the casual dining concept.

Weather during the week was excellent with no rain, warm temperatures and clear sky.

Norwegian will be our first choice for future cruise.

Alaskan cruise was amazing!!  First time for both my hubby and I to take a cruise. We Loved Glacier Bay, it's a MUST!!  NCL was great!  Entertainment was fun, food and staff were awesome!! Enjoyed having the unlimited beverage package! Rooms were clean. We booked one excursion with the ship and knowing now how things work, we would book with the ship.  We had booked a couple on our own. Alaskan weather was amazing and scenery is breathtaking!!  Since this was our first cruise experience and have nothing to compare it to, we'd surely cruise NCL again!!

Jerry & Michelle Paulson