BACKGROUND INFO: My husband and I (and our kids) had cruised the Caribbean on Royal Caribbean and my mom had taken many cruises in the past as the owner of a travel agency. My mom now lives with us and is in her 90's but she had always wanted to take an Alaskan cruise, so we wanted to help her make that dream come true - PLUS it sounded like a wonderful experience for us, as well. I found this Holland America Cruise on the Zuiderdam by doing some online searches and it seemed to fit the bill. I made reservations about 6 weeks before the cruise by calling HAL directly. The agent I spoke with was friendly and knowledgeable and got us set up in short order. All paperwork was sent via e-mail & our luggage tags were mailed. It was very easy. We made our own plane reservations to fly from Texas to Vancouver, B.C. to arrive the day prior to sailing. I also made our own hotel reservations for that Friday night. With the internet, it's pretty easy to be your own travel agent.

TRAVEL TO PORT OF EMBARKATION: I highly recommend that if you are flying to a port city, you plan to arrive a day ahead. It was so nice to relax at the hotel after the long flights and anticipate the cruise without worry about any unexpected delays. We did have a weather delay getting out of Houston and it was nice to know that we had plenty of time to spare. Our party of 4 (my husband, myself, our daughter, and my mom) arrived in Vancouver late morning on Friday. It took us awhile to get through customs and the airport. My mom can't walk distances, so we had her in a wheelchair. Sometimes this slowed us down, but mostly it speeded things up because we got priority treatment whenever there were lines! Getting a minivan cab (wheelchair, 4 people and all our luggage) from the airport to the hotel was easy and relatively inexpensive.

HOTEL INFO: I had booked a Family Suite at the SHERATON VANCOUVER WALL CENTRE because they had a very reasonable price for their location and amenities. All went smoothly with our check-in there. Our corner suite with 2 bedrooms was lovely with 2 walls of floor to ceiling windows and a sweeping view of Vancouver. My husband & I walked to a market and bought a feast, stopped at a wine shop, and brought it all back to the room where we had a great supper. In the morning, my husband (a marathoner) ran around beautiful Stanley Park before we packed up for the cruise. We got another minivan cab (hotel staff very helpful) for the very short ride to the port. I would certainly recommend that hotel. Read more