Beautiful cruise, met HAL expectactions.
Westerdam Cruise Review to Alaska - Inside Passage
Sail date: August 01, 2006
Ship: Westerdam
Cabin type: Balcony
Traveled as: Family (older children)
Reviewed: 14 years ago
Review summary
Embarkation and Disembarkation: Extremely speedy, very well done. HAL has plenty of porters to take luggage off of your hands quickly, allowing you to board the vessel as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the check-in staff mixed up some identification information on my group's ship ID cards. This was easily fixed at the front desk, however (at which the staff was very friendly.) The disembarkation process is run very smoothly, unlike the messy and chaotic system on Carnival Cruise Lines. However, once we were off the boat, we had to wait in the airport for a total of 6 hours because the ship is cleared early in the morning for the next group of passengers. Itinerary: Juneau, Sitka, and Prince Rupert especially were not very nice sights. Victoria was beautiful, however. The outward appearance of these ports was made up for with the vast array of excursions and options ashore. Glacier Bay was BEAUTIFUL, and the captain did an excellent job navigating through there to get the best view of every glacier. Excursions: Excellent variety. The HAL shore excursions staff also is very helpful. My group did a glacier helicopter tour in Juneau, a nature walk through the rainforest in Sitka and a tour of the raptor center, a floatplane in Prince Rupert, and a scenic city tour in Victoria, all of which were beautiful, amazing, and well worth the money.Pros: Beautiful, luxurious, spotless ship; excellent dining; friendly, helpful, knowledgable crew; Spectacular evening entertainment!
Cons: Some itinerary stops substandard; inconvenient night stop at Victoria forces guests to rush that night's dinner or potentially miss it altogether.
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