To start with, it should be noted that I can't relate our recent experience to previous cruises. I took one "party boat" cruise to the Caribbean with my high school graduation class. That was over 30 years ago and I don't remember much about service, the food or the ports - just that the weather was quite lovely and warm.

We have never had any interest in cruising, but I thought it would be best to see Alaska by ship rather than staying there. Not caring for cold weather, I figured being on board would be a nice way to see part of the state. Everyone that we told about our trip commented that we were going on the 'geezer tour'...their words - not mine. Many of these people said they were by far the youngest on their ship, but most went a few years ago and some are a decade younger than us to start with. When we first got on the ship we were happy to see so many people either our age or younger in addition to some passengers older than us. We thought it was a good mix overall. By the end of the trip, after encountering more poorly behaved children than we could count (that were all in the presence of their parents), I so wished we had been on a "geezer tour" and would have paid extra for the privilege.

Obviously, we understand that children are out of school at this time of year in many parts of the world and were not surprised to see them on board. However, for some reason, I assumed that people that cruised with kids would have better behaved kids than those we encountered. What a huge miscalculation on my part! We were so over being trapped on the ship with such people that we walked ten blocks to the hotel (7 bags in tow between the two of us) instead of waiting in the mile long cab line with them. The last night we went to the theatre for a show and a large family (parents and kids) sitting directly behind us talked loudly and ignored our pleas to quiet down so we had to get up mid-performance and move up to the balcony to be able to enjoy the show. Read more