This was our first cruise, sailing to Alaska to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. Seattle is a wonderful city; we ate dinner in Pike's Place and used the Sound Transit to get around. Used Seattle Express to get to the pier; that went very smoothly. I forgot to time it, but I know embarkation took less than a half hour. It was super crowded, but also very smooth. We had no issues getting on the ship. One of our suitcases took a little longer than the others to find its way to our cabin, but we had all our luggage quickly.

The staff were all amazing. Most were from SE Asia or the UK and we loved hearing about their parts of the world. My husband didn't care for our cruise director, Ken. He told a tasteless joke about kids on our first day and that really rubbed my husband wrong. We had one day of rough seas and my husband had to skip dinner and lie down.

The ship was very clean; though it looked older it was well kept up. Finding our way around was simple. There are interactive maps everywhere. Though it is a big ship, we never felt very crowded and ran into the same people multiple times, so we made some friends. All the seating (and the beds) were very firm. We were on the hunt constantly for soft, comfortable chairs. We never found them. We used the hot tub once (it wasn't very warm and the deck is pretty chilly). My husband ran on the track twice and used the fitness center. He liked their facilities. Read more