Just got back this weekend from our cruise on Ms. Noordam to Alaska out of Seattle. Overall, the trip was fantastic. This was our second cruise, the first being a Western Caribbean cruise on Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas. So, this was my basis of comparison. My husband and I were traveling with my sister and brother-in-law, who had the inside cabin next to ours. We are all in the 40-plus age range.
Embarkation was pretty smooth and orderly overall. We had gotten our boarding passes and registered our travel documents on line in advance, but apparently so did everyone else. Although the "Internet Check-in" line was rather long (we arrived there about 1:00 p.m.), it moved relatively quickly. We were able to go to our rooms right away. My sister and brother-in-law had gotten onboard the ship when check-in opened (around 11:30 a.m.)and had been on the ship about an hour or so before my husband and I arrived. They said that their check-in was really quick. We checked out our rooms and went to the Lido for some lunch, which was pretty good.
The first night of our trip (Sunday night into mid-day Monday)was very, very rough as we hit some rough seas. My husband got seasick as did my brother-in-law. After a while it calmed down and it was pretty smooth sailing for the rest of our journey. We commented that it would have been nice if the Captain or someone on the crew could have given us some early warning that they were expecting rough seas so that we could have been prepared and taken our Dramamine in advance. Also, we were sleeping in a little bit Monday morning due to the "rough night" but a loud emergency bell woke us up in the morning. We thought it was a real emergency - until the captain came on the loud speaker to announce that it was a drill for the crew. ("NOW THEY DECIDE TO HOLD A DRILL!")