I'm from Florida so this review is titled "Fun in the Florida Sun" but it is a review of an Alaska cruise. We embarked in Vancouver and the embarkation process was quite fast and easy, be at the Ballentine docks by 12:30 and you should be on board by 1:30. Before we boarded we were surprisingly bombarded with hand sanitizer stations monitored by ships staff vigilantly watching to make sure that everyone used the hand sanitizer. A crew member informed us that this ship had recently experienced the Norwalk virus, thus the hand sanitizer is used as a precaution.

This was family vacation so we had two cabins. We booked inside cabins as Mom had previously cruised in Alaska and warned us of the constant sunlight as the sun sets at 11 PM and rises again at 3 AM. Our cabins were identical and were standard cabins similar to other cabins I have had on other ships. My nephew did complain that the upper bunk was uncomfortable. The people across the hall from us were complaining that they could not sleep because of the constant sunlight entering their cabin.

The ship is beautiful outside but I was disappointed with the art work and interior decorations. We observed pictures (drawings) on the ships walls of former and current controversial world leaders such as Haile Selassie, Mahatma Gandhi and Fidel Castro. It just seems that a cruise ship is not the right place for these types of pictures. Since we are from South Florida we were shocked to see a picture of Fidel Castro on the wall! Read more