This was my first cruise; a 7 night trip to Alaska to celebrate my 30th birthday. Overall, I really enjoyed it.
The itinerary seems fairly standard for cruises in Alaska. We sailed from Vancouver on the 5th, then spent a day at sea before arriving at Ketchikan on the 7th. From there, we sailed to Icy Strait Point, Juneau, and Skagway. We concluded by sailing past Hubbard glacier and finally disembarking in Seward after another sea day. There weren't any interruptions to the planned itinerary on our trip.
Boarding at Canada place was fairly easy. I flew in the night before and stayed in Richmond near a train stop. I took light rail from Richmond to the port, and walked on without any wait at around 10:30. Canada Place is quite large, but well signed, so it's obvious where to go even if you've never been there before. The staterooms (obviously) weren't ready that early, but the common areas were open.
Centrally located, but away from anything noisy. It stayed cool when we wanted it to, hot when we wanted it to, and everything worked throughout the voyage. No complaints.
I decided to go hike up Deer Mountain trail here, rather than take a shore excursion. The trailhead is within walking distance of the ship. Including the walk from the ship, it's about a 10 mile round trip with ~3000 feet of elevation from the trailhead to the summit. Not super technical (I did it in running shoes), but bring boots if you have them. I'm in good shape and it took me a couple hours to do the round trip. Beautiful view at the top, and lovely, peaceful trail if you get there early.
Walked from the dock to Hoonah and back. Scenery is pretty, but it doesn't seem like there's a lot to do here if you're not on the official zipline or something.
We took a bus from the dock to the Mendenhall Glacier visitors center, and then walked from there to Nugget Falls. Neat, but I wouldn't do it again; it was a zoo, more like visiting Disneyland than going into nature.
I rented a bike from Sockeye cycles and rode over to Dyea (roughly a 30 mile round trip from the boat). Highly recommended if you have even basic biking fitness...it's a really peaceful ride to a really peaceful, beautiful place that was almost entirely deserted when I got there.