Go to Alaska!

This cruise was my gift to my daughter for her high school graduation.  Alaska is an amazing sight to behold... if you have the opportunity to go...  GO!!  It's a beautiful place and pictures can't hold a candle to the actual sight of it!  Although this was our first RC cruise, it was our 2nd cruise experience.  We traveled with some of our other family members who had a great experience with their first RC cruise when they went on a 9 day Carribbean vacay so we decided to give RC a shot.  All-in-all, the cruise was great...  but... there were a couple of things that should've been better.  First, although the food was great in the main/Captains dining room... our service from the waiter and waiter assistant were more than lacking: water/tea glasses went unfilled even after asking for refills, they repeatedly placed the wrong orders in front of the wrong people at our table so more than once we had to play "musical plates", and the service they gave the table was very slow.  As a matter of fact, the service the first night was so poor, the family of 4 we were to share a table with for the week didn't return after that first night.  The second issue...  soda package drink availability:  soda package costs ~$70 for the 7 day trip, numerous soda packages sold on the ship based on the number of package glasses seen among passengers- - only 6 soda dispensing machines on board on a vessel that is 14 decks high.  In addition to that, 2 of the machines were located in the dining room that was blocked off for private use more often than not and then, of the other 4, 2 were usually out of ice or not working correctly so the dispensed liquid was not cold/refrigerated... definitely not giving the consumer $70 worth of service with this.  Let me just end by saying...  these 2 issues were the only real complaints we had with the trip.  Overall, it was a great experience and we would definitely repeat it.  Our room attendant, Nestor, was AWESOME!!!  The food was great and plentiful!  The staff friendly.  The music varied and fabulous... and did I mention that Alaska was AMAZING!!?!