My wife and I were first time cruisers. We sailed in mid-July from Seattle to Alaska. Overall we had a great time and enjoyed our trip. One of the highlights was sitting the hot tub on the pool deck, sipping margaritas and watching ice flows go by in Tracy Arm Fjord. Was that cool or what? The biggest bummer was listening to seasoned cruisers who were accustomed to the way other lines did things. Probably their biggest complaint was Freestyle dining. More about that later. Since we had no frame of reference, it seemed fine to us. We were sorry to see our week on with NCL end.

EMBARKATION - Fairly orderly but quite slow. Another couple arrived around noon and zipped right on the ship. We followed instructions and showed up at 1pm and waited an hour to get onboard. The non-Latitudes lines where kind of like waiting for a ride a Disney World.

PUBLIC AREAS - Very nice!!! The ship is very attractive. The only area we didn't care for was the casino. That's because we're non-smokers and we were forced to be second hand smokers to spend any length of time in there. Every other area of the ship was great. Read more