The journey through the Alaska panhandle was great. The ship experience was only mediocre overall. Problem areas were the Sanctuary, Lotus Pool, arcade room, library, International Café, the naturalist, and the food. I also have minor complaints about the outdoor movie experience and stargazing.
The Sanctuary cost $40/day and charged $3 to get drinks delivered, which already have gratuity added. Thus, it was no surprise that it was always empty. It proved to be a wasted use of space on top of the ship. It also doesn’t help that the Sanctuary is located by the ship’s horn, which blasted loudly every couple minutes when it was foggy (presumably as a safety precaution to avoid ship collisions).
The Lotus was roped off for 6 of the 7 days. Apparently it was going to be repainted, but that never happened despite decent weather for 5 of the 7 days. It’s a shame, but at least I did enjoy the pool briefly on the first day before we departed when it was open.
The cabin was good overall. Plenty of hooks in the bathroom, good view from the deck, and great service from the steward. But the cabin TV needs improvement – in particular, the ship navigation channel, which ran on Windows 2000. The graphics were poor and the information was given much too slowly. The channel would occasionally list off crew positions with no names or photos. The aspect ratio of the TV was broken. Fix it.