Background

We traveled with a total of 11 family members to Alaska on the Westerdam for the July 30th cruise to celebrate my fathers 60th Birthday. There were 4 children in our group ages 3, 5, 7 and 10 and my mother was in a wheelchair having broken her foot 3 weeks prior to sailing. While my parents have cruised before on both Crystal and Princess, nobody else in the party had and HAL was a new experience for everyone. Over all we had a fantastic experience and would easily travel on HAL again.

We arrived on Thursday, the 27th to explore Seattle for a few days before the cruise. We stayed at the lovely Doubletree near the airport and enjoyed the hotel as well as its self serve laundry which we used twice to start our cruise with clean clothes. We took our girls 7 and 10 to the Space Needle, (great views), Science Center (one of the best in the country), Pikes Place (we bought little sculptures made from Mt. St. Helen ash, the girls loved that) and Pioneer Square. The others in our party went to the Museum of flight instead of the Science center and enjoyed that experience. Read more