This was our first cruise, and trying to read ratings, reviews and make a decision on which cruise line to pick can be daunting. I read one reviewer that noted some of the poor reviews were from pretentious cruisers with expectations that were beyond reasonable. I witnessed that first hand more than once. We cruised on the Westerdam from Seattle to Alaska. We had a balcony, which is a must when you have such amazing scenery. The rooms are dated - however they were clean, someone was always making sure our beds were made, fresh towels and ice all the time. The guest list ranged from young families to older cruisers, definitely a variety of ages. Dress ranged from yoga pants to suits.

The Lido food is meh....Lido had several different stations, lunch included hot choices of meats and vegetables plus a pasta bar, sandwich bar, fruit choices, dessert bar, oriental food, pizza and salad bar (salad bar was excellent). The food in the dining room was excellent. Room service was fine, we ordered a couple of late snacks, one not so good was the cheese tray which was a few different varieties of cheese served with graham crackers, but we survived. If you starved, well that would be almost impossible as there are tons of options.

The entertainment that we went to was a comedian, an illusionist and the Westerdam singers/dancers. Comedian and illusionist were great, the singers/dancers were okay. We did the bar crawl (fun), played trivia (fun), hit martini night every night! (fun), and the blackjack tournament (fun). During the Glacier Bay excursion there was a spotter on the ship pointing us to the different wildlife (bears, whales, otters, sea lions and eagles) along with a forest service guide talking about highlights and history of the area. Read more