The Alaska trip was great. We sailed from Seattle on a seven-day trip up through the inner passage and back. Our ports were Juneau, Skagway, Icy Strait Point (Hoonah), and Victoria. We would recommend it to anyone. Sailing along the inside passage is too beautiful for words. To enjoy the beauty that God has created is something that one can only experience for oneself. In looking at the pictures, I am reminded how they do not do the trip justice. In that way, it is similar to the Grand Canyon.

Our trip was a member's cruise, which I heartily recommend. From what I can tell, the difference between a member's cruise and a regular cruise is that on the member's cruise RCI provides gifts in your room each evening and there are special events throughout the week exclusively for C&A members. The higher level C&A members have a few more options and bonuses. We attended a class on digital photography headed by one of the ship's photographers and a cooking class/exhibition taught by the executive chef of the ship. There were too many events available to attend them all. Gifts for gold members included field glasses, scarves, and blankets. There are some somewhat nicer gifts for Platinum and Platinum Plus members.

We had an ocean view cabin and late dinner seating. I was initially disappointed in the late dinner seating. However, for this cruise it worked out great. This is a port intensive cruise. With an early dinner seating, we would have had to get back to the ship earlier that we would have liked or eaten dinner more nights in the Windjammer. I say more nights, because we did eat there two nights. Once because we went in for a snack before dinner and to meal and service was so good we decided to just have dinner there. Another time because we wanted to watch the whales from the front windows of the ship as we ate (our dining room table was not near a window). The food in both areas was great and we had a wonderful waiter - Salihd. We did have a disappointing experience with breakfast in the main dining room. One of the waiters asked one of our tablemates to hold onto his muffin so that he could take his plate. Breakfast in the the dining room took about 1/2 hour to 45 min to arrive. We never had lunch in the dining room due to the fact that we were in port most afternoons and would either eat in port or come back and drop off packages and go to the Windjammer to save time. Read more