My wife and I just celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary by taking our very first cruise...and it won't be our last one. We just returned from Alaska, and the trip was unbelievable.

We flew from Dallas to Seattle, went out to dinner with some wonderful friends and spent the night at The Westin, which is a convenient $10 cab ride from the Seattle port.

There the Holland America Line personnel guided us quickly and easily through the embarkation process, and from the time we walked across the gangway onto the ms Noordam, we received white glove treatment. They have approximately two employees for each guest, so the service is impeccable. By the second day, those employees that met us the first day...the waiters, cabin attendants, hostesses...knew our names and where we were from and by the third day they knew our likes and dislikes (every evening when Cathy and I went down to dinner, our waiter had our ice tea waiting...he even remembered that Cathy liked extra lemon in her tea). Read more