Before going into details, let me say that I'm another of those readers who looked at some of the negative reviews before embarking and began to wonder if booking might not have been such a hot idea. As it turned out, I need not have been concerned. We had a great time and all aspects of the cruise were great. Onward. Embarkation, even for a couple of first-time cruisers with no idea of how the process worked ahead of time, was smooth and hassle-free.

If you've been in an airport, you've been in the Seattle terminal, except that everything's on a much smaller scale. Baggage check-in was a little confused, as there were no clear lines and people were just crowding around the tables, but even so we were able to make sense of things and got through it fairly quickly. The rest of the process was very smooth. Having all our forms filled out ahead of time helped, and the NCL staff was very organized and efficient. There were also plenty of staffers on hand to direct traffic, answer questions, and generally keep things moving. We completed the process early, so much so that we found out that it would be another hour before boarding commenced. So, we left, had breakfast at a place down the block, did some last-minute shopping, then came back and simply walked on board (well, except for the metal detectors and x-ray machines).

Finding our cabin---sorry, stateroom---was easy. It was small, but we'd known it would be ahead of time, and it was immaculately clean, comfortable and well-organized. We changed clothes and went off to explore the ship. Read more