Ship could use some big time updating. Bathrooms were ancient. Plumbing issue on first morning (early) caused flooding of cabin. Maintenance came and asked us to leave the room while they made repairs. Water spilt over from the bathroom into the cabin, soaking the carpeting. We quickly got dressed to go to breakfast. Came back two hours later and found the problem fixed but our room had a high powered fan to dry up the cabin. Maintenance man said we could turn down the fan while we were in the cabin, and he would notify front desk of issue. We were NOT offered to move to another cabin. For two days, we put up with the fan as it tried to dry out the carpeting. My wife, who had a bit of a cold when the trip started, ended up with a lung infection, and the on ship doctor put her in quarantine for the last three days of the cruise. Food on the ship was only average. Have had better on other cruise lines. Entertainment was OK. Some nice shows, some real clunkers. Excursions were real nice and in fact, the best part of the trip. Embarkation was fairly quick, but disembarkation was LONG. We were told it was time for our group to go to the awaiting bus, only to have to stand in line for an hour waiting for a bus to arrive.
I would not recommend HAL for your Alaska adventure. Go with a newer ship, which will offer the same excursions but you will have a much better time on board. I have attempted to contact HAL Client Services with no response. My travel agent, which was a HAL representative, said that it sometimes takes a few weeks for an Client Services agent to respond, but it has now been 24 days which I feel is way too long.
Needs updating. One outlet in the room, so if you have a few cell phones to charge, plan on putting them on a rotation. Bathroom is ancient and shows it's wear. Air conditioning had one temperature. No matter where you set the temperature, it stayed the same.
Arrived at the port via bus from hotel. Line to board ship moved fairly quickly and embarkation was easy.