Thanks for making our trip special!

We disembarked this past Saturday and flew home Monday and had an awesome time, thanks in no small part to everyone on these boards! While I normally inhabit CC before a cruise, We booked over a year ago for this "bucket list" trip, so I spent a little extra time pestering everyone!

Anyway, an overview:

Flew into SEA out of CLT - flight delayed due to remnants of Hurricane Harvey, so arrived close to midnight rather than 8pm

Seattle Express to Pier 91 - arrived at 10:30, boarding group 5, in our stateroom by 12:15 and then to MDR for lunch.

Ports

Juneau - rainy day but prepared for it. Awesome time on our whale watch cruise and at Mendenhall. Tracy's for dinner - pricey but tasty.

Glacier Bay - partly cloudy and AWESOME! Saw calving at Margarie and John Hopkins and tons of wildlife.

Sitka - drizzly. Walked the National Historical Park, Russian Bishop's house, Russian cemetery and St Michael's

Ketchikan - warm, mostly sunny day. Walked Creek Street and Tribal Fish Hatchery. Came within 75 feet of a black bear crossing the street. Shopping, shopping and more shopping

Victoria - beautiful city. Cab to Chinatown and walked back to Inner Harbor.

HAL Eurodam

Our first experience with HAL was nothing but positive. Check-in and boarding was a breeze. The E-dam is a beautiful ship and just the right size for us. Our first experience with Anytime Dining and loved it. MDR food was good but in many ways Carnival seemed better. Tamarind was excellent. Dive In was very good. Loved the offerings at the Lido Marketplace but overall it was just OK. Room layout was excellent and spent a lot of time out on the verandah. Our stewards, Dewa and Ady were top notch and the entire staff was extremely friendly. Room Service was much more prompt than on any of our Carnival cruises. Our one problem with a slow draining tub was addressed immediately. You can stuff an awful lot of clothes in the laundry bag!

Enjoyed America's Test Kitchen, Abrie's port presentation and Lincoln Center Stage. Tried to stay up for BB King, Staff show and magician James Cielen but too tired at the end of the day (time change and running around in port). Caught Cielen's matinee but while he was entertaining and the magic he did was good, it was nothing more than an infomercial to hawk his magic kit. Lost at Bingo and didn't use the casino.

While we are in our early to mid 50's, we did notice that we were on the younger side of the demographic. There were some families and a few younger couples but since school had begun in most parts of the country, it was a relatively child/teen free cruise. Everyone we met was very friendly and nice with the exception of one "high maintenance" woman we met at breakfast that couldn't find one thing nice about the ship, staff or cruise overall.

Seattle

Moore Hotel is awesome - clean, inexpensive and great location but beware of rock concerts as you will hear them, even 7 floors up. Saturday was cloudy and cool, Sunday warm and sunny. Pikes Place, Skyview Observatory, Argosy harbor cruise, Spiedel's Underground Tour, Bruce/Brandon Lee's grave, International District. Pikes Place Chowder worth the wait. Lyft was the way to get around town.

Due to remnants of Hurricane Irma, we changed our 1:05pm flight home to a 6am - good thing as when we landed, most flights in/out of CLT were cancelled. So hurricanes affected our flights outbound and inbound! We do hope for the best for those directly affected, though.

And......the best thing is that we came in around $30 under our budget due to good planning!

Again, thanks to all that helped make this trip special. We had a great time and while we said it was going to be a one time, bucket list trip to celebrate our anniversary, we are in the process of planning a land/cruise trip and heading into Denali!

Thanks for your review. Like most cruisers, once is not enough to Alaska.

Glad you had such a successful trip. You put a lot of thought into it and it certainly paid off !

What would you say was the highlight of the trip for you?

And thanks for posting your review. Please attach a link to the 2017 Trip Report List to benefit those travelling next yr !

So glad you had a terrific cruise/trip.

Thanks for sharing this with everyone.

Keith

Thanks for taking the time to post your comments.

Glad you had a good cruise.

Glad you had such a successful trip. You put a lot of thought into it and it certainly paid off !

What would you say was the highlight of the trip for you?

 

And thanks for posting your review. Please attach a link to the 2017 Trip Report List to benefit those travelling next yr !

I think, and my wife would agree with me, the highlight would have to be Glacier Bay! The time we spent at Margarie and John Hopkins along with the calving as well as the beauty of the bay in general was just awesome! We also saw a ton of wildlife - bears, moose, mountain goats, seals and sea otters!