Embarkation: My sister and I took a wonderful landtour (saw Denali!!) before the cruise and thus arrived at whittier on the McKinley Express after a 5 hour ride from Talkeetna with a wonderful tour guide in our car. Check-in was on board and there were no delays or problems with embarkation. However, since we arrived at approximately 7 PM, there was no time to explore the ship that day.

Stateroom; Our stateroom was very comfortable and spacious (obviously, excluding the bathroom) and loved having a balcony (our first). We worried about the location (next to children's Kid Zone) but did not really notice any noise until the last couple of days when there was a lot of running down the hall during the day. Our room steward (Nikki) was great.

Ship: The public areas of the ship are very inviting - lots of places to sit and we never felt crowded. The library has a great selection of books and very comfortable chairs. The card room was also comfortable but people had a tendency to take the board games to their rooms instead of leaving them where others could enjoy them. We did not use the pool or hot tubs but had wonderful massages, facials, manicures and pedicures at the Lotus Spa. Read more