We sailed from Seattle on Saturday 1 Sept on the Alaska inter passage route. Check in was easy and fast since we were VIP's (Penthouse Suite). We then went to Versailles for lunch (a great tip that I picked up here). About 1:30 p.m. we went to find our suite on the aft of the ship deck 9. We were surprised as the room was much larger than we had expected based on photos from different websites. We were very, very happy with the Penthouse Suite on the aft of the ship, some of the reviews warned about movement of the shipment being more noticeable here, but we only noticed it one morning when the ship was in gale force winds and the seas were 8-9 feet. I get sea sick easy and even that day I had a full breakfast and coffee. If you are an amateur photographer you can't go wrong on these rooms - I shot a little over 1200 digital photos during our week at sea many from the balcony of our penthouse as we entered and left ports.

Our room had a butler assigned, but she did not even bother to show up the first day, and was missing most of the rest of the week unless we ran her down - also never called us by name during the whole trip which was very odd as even staff that we had only met once or twice knew our names - my advice should you get this butler (you'll know after the first day) is to call the manager of hotels and insist that another person be provided - this was the worst service failure we experienced on an otherwise excellent cruise.

During the week at sea we had our butler bring breakfast every morning to the suite so we could lounge around our patio desk afterwards with our coffee. We tried to eat at all the restaurants but didn't quite make it to all 13. Overall I'd say you would be best off sticking with the Versailles restaurant for dinner - the quality and selection of food was the most consistent during our 7 days at sea (also no cover charge here). Remember that you must we nice clothes after the first night if you want to eat here - no blue jeans, shorts or other beach bum clothing. Read more