Our cruise was a 14 days back to back starting from Vancouver. To keep it simple, everything went well for us, great service, good weather, and, awesome entertainments and, lot of foods. We had a balcony on the way up and an inside cabin (our first) coming back. Our balcony (6082) was on the right side (starboard) of the ship. The advantage of that is when we are north ward, we could see sunrise and sunset in our balcony which is great for photography (I am one of those who have few lens and trying to do fancy photo). However, with balcony, I found myself stay in our room a lot and not walking the ship as much. For inside room. we were less affected by the long daylight (20 hours in June) which could cause some sleeping problem. The upside was that I have to walk in the walking deck a lot looking for close up whale photos.

Food that I like: in Olympic retaurant, crab meat parfait, venison and rack of lamb. For evening regular dining room, beef tournedo ( very tender). apple and pear salad, and salmon confit. For buffet (fresh pizza right out of oven pair with a big chunk of sweet pineapple.) Sushi and Miso soup during dinner time (a great escape from having to dress up for dinner). Whale sighting. I walk around deck 4 in the morning of 5am and saw some close up whales within Icy Strait. Also there was a resident whale name Fredrick in Icy strait point. I saw him coming up on the beach near the tendering dock on 6am and then work his way to the town and doing a cirle back to the dock during the morning then disappear in the afternoon.

Eagle sighting. in every port, the eagles would check out the ship as it arrived. If you use binocular, look for a gulf size white dot within the forest, that would be an eagle sitting on the tree. Read more