One of our friends chose this cruise to celebrate his 70th birthday. We drove to Seattle from Richland, Washington and stayed the night before the cruise and the night after the cruise at the Red Lion Seattle Airport. The embarkation and disembarkation went far smoother than our previous cruises. The scenery was beautiful. We loved our ports of call. We wish that we hadn’t taken the whale watching and salmon bake excursion. Although we saw quite a few whales and the food was excellent, the excursion took so long that we didn’t get to see Juneau. At Skagway we took the White Pass train excursion. It was fabulous and we still got to enjoy Skagway. We also thoroughly enjoyed Ketchikan. Everyone was so friendly in the ports. We’d been to Victoria before, however it was amazing how much it has grown. The ship was incredible as expected. Our mini suite stateroom with private balcony was very nice. We were a bit disappointed with the special dining package because it was difficult to make reservations. We could only use two of the three that we had paid for. Service was good as far as being available, but many of the severs were rude or inattentive. Tips were prepaid, so it seemed that this may have affected the desire to please the customers. This Cruise was very good, all cruises are pretty awesome, but it didn’t measure up to our previous experiences on the NCL Norway and the NCL Seaward from years ago. It far exceeded our experience on the Carnival Jubilee however. We would love to go back to Alaska, although we may check out other ships.
The stateroom was very nice, clean, and our room steward was awesome!