It had been a number of years since I had last sailing with NCL, and was escorting a small group of eight people. We flew into Seattle the day before and spent the night at the very best hotel ever. If you ever need a hotel in Seattle, I highly recommend the Cedarbrook Lodge.

I had pre-arranged a shuttle service from Seattle Express to pick up our group at the hotel, but after waiting 40 minutes and having to call their office twice, finally two cars showed up to take us to the port. I had originally arranged for a 12 passenger van with trailer, but at this point we were going to take anything that showed up.

At the port, embarkation was very disorganized. NCL has a new program for travel agents to be recognized and receive special treatment, but no one apparently knows that they are supposed to be getting special treatment. Since I have had 2 knee replacements, I needed a wheel chair to get on board. This was done promptly, we were showed the way to the counter to check in, after checking in and the gentlemen going to get our keys, we were told we were in the wrong place and he could not give us our keys. We were then taken into to the VIP suite, not told anything except to wait and then someone else brought us our keys, That was all, and sorry you had to wait in the wrong place. All the other man had to do was to hand us our keys, and we would have been on our way, but no, we had to be taken to another room in order to get them. Then a very nice waiter push me up on board. At first he took us to Cagneys where he was told we were in the wrong place. After that we tried to go to the room, but NCL does not let anyone go to the rooms until they announce that the rooms are open at 2pm. So we were then taken to the Summer Palace dining room where we were finally treated great and offered a very nice lunch. Read more