Duluth was a great starting point for trip, although the weather did not agree with us very much with rain and grey, we made the most of it.

This was the first time the ship was docking at the port, and it brought out many of the locals, the news, and a slew of Duluth-ians? To welcome us to the town, which was very nice.

We were brought onto busses to go to our individual locations, the first of which was great, The Train Museum, which was a fun experience. Walking through old trains, fun gift store, nice videos, friendly staff, and then we went on a nice train ride with some of the old fashioned cars, a great experience even with the weather, this was the nice part of the excursion.

The second part of the excursions is what loses the 2 stars, Glensheen Mansion. This place needs some TLC, and also needs to learn how to manage cruise ships and tours of people, because it was clear they did not know how to. Our guide did not even want to give the tour really, and that was apparent. We were rushed through the house, told little to no information about it, and she didn't exude energy like she wanted to do it at all, I even mentioned it to her on the tour and she said "I'm in Collections, I don't do tours like this", so she was obviously thrown in last minute to manage the crowds. Which isn't great.

We also spent way too much time there, our tour was done in 30 minutes and we had like an extra hour to just mill about the location, and there wasn't much to do at the time, so this excursion can definetly be shorter.

Otherwise, Duluth, alright city, great to see Minnesota for the first time in my life.

Mackinac Island

The reason we took this cruise, Mackinac Island, the main event of all of the days, and we did what we could with it, even though this port was the shortest amount of time allowed on land out of all of them, which needs to be fixed.

So the other ports- Alpena and Duluth, we had the whole day to do excursions, but for Mackinac we only had about 5 hours to do things, which, because of the amount of things to do on the island, is not enough time. I'd say a solid 8-10 hours at Port here would be satisfactory for people to do more. It's the place to be!

We did enjoy the Horse Carriage Tour, which brought us up to the Grand Hotel, seeing the site of the Arch Rock, and seeing Fort Mackinac with a Mimosa Stop was fun too. But all of this felt rushed, because we had that time limit or time crunch, so it was hard to enjoy things when you're looking at your watch all the time, and needing to be in another place at a certain time.

We decided at one point, because we weren't enjoying this time crunch, to just take matters into our own hands, and skip lunch at the Grand Hotel, even though we paid for it, to do some shopping down in the main town area. Which was a lot of fun, and a better decision so I've heard because people were complaining of loads of kids and schools being on field trips on this day, and really messing up the dining room while they were trying to enjoy their experience.

Either way, the Island is a lot of fun, we brought back plenty of fudge, got some tshirts and gifts, and enjoyed our stay here.

For five stars, give much more time.

Completely Missed This Port, Awful Travel Issues, Headaches and Nightmares

Soo locks

This was a fun day, one of the days considered a "Sailing Day" and going through the Soo Locks was the only 5 star day out of all of them, because it was an experience to go through them.

We were on the top deck of the boat when this process was happening, and seeing the tip of the boat just barely going under the bridge was nerve wracking but fun, even the crew thought that way when they were taking pictures of the tip of the antenna going under the bridge, and squeezing through the Lock.

I've heard they even have a painting team that has had to paint the side of the boat because the measurements are so exact and so tight, the captain has bumped into the sides of the walls when going through the Locks.

The experience was great, and they even served Malt Wine while we were watching this happen, which was delicious.

We spent our day doing lectures, touring the Bay where all the cool boats and submarines are, and relaxing on the ship.

5 Stars.

Milwaukee, our last stop on the ship, Disembarkation day was actually a surprising fun and enjoyable day, because we did not know that we were going to be doing things on this day, we thought we would just be going to the airport.

We ended up having a later flight so they decided to give us a Bus Tour of the city, with a very insightful guide, who lovs his city, and is very good at talking to us about the history.

Our first stop was at a Museum which is honoring and remembering the Mining machines and workers that were in Milwaukee, an industry which used to boom here, but has been slowly leaving the city. They also provided a buffet for us to have lunch after viewing the museum, which was a lot of fun. So these were nice unexpected excursions for this trip.

Then we went to the airport, I had to make moves as I said earlier to get our flights fixed, and got home in a timely manner. So this day. 5 Stars.