Oosterdam /SB7093/09/10/2017/Inside Passage, Alaska

Just got home from our week long journey on the Oosterdam/SB7093 through the Inside Passage, here are some of my thoughts. Not an 'expert cruiser' by any means.

Pier 91, Seattle. It's a mess. Mass chaos, both embarkation, disembarking. Someone needs to figure this whole

scene out and fix it. We were able to drive to the pier from our home (live in Seattle) and couldn't

believe the mass chaos. Leaving this morning, all these transportation drivers just parked their

vehicles where folks were waiting to be picked up and blocked all the traffic. They were being told to

move along but would just move up some and then pop open their trunks like they were actually picking

someone up. It was bad.

Our Suite (SB7093). We had 3 adults in the room (hubby and I and one of our adult kids). Plenty of room, for all of

us and all our 'stuff'. The window next to the door out to the balcony was cracked, the entire

length, from the floor to the top. I let the powers to be know, hopefully it will be fixed quickly.

Room Service I requested a pitcher of water, was told the ship doesn't have any pitchers for water, instead

received 8 glasses of water........... yea, right, no pitchers. Next cruise, will bring our own

water containers.

Suitcase Jail Yep, my suitcase was put in jail for awhile. I had a power strip in the deep, dark cervices

of my suitcase I had forgotten about.

Food Food was fine, no complaints. The Crows Nest spot where food and mochas are made

had the best chocolate chip cookies on board. It was really obvious, they were gone

almost as quickly as they arrived. Was surprised how filled the Crow's Nest was every day.

Dive In As I had read, good food and really, really popular. Nice to have the ability to just eat

something simple and greasy.

Coffee Plain and simple, it just sucks. Drank lots of cappuccino's from the Neptune Lounge.

Staff They were all very friendly and worked so very hard.

Overall, nice cruise to Alaska, relaxing. Zero rain for us. Ran into several couples who had booked trips to the Caribbean but was canceled due to the terrible weather and chose to go to Alaska instead.

The Bear Refuge in Sitka sucked. We had grabbed an excursion in Sitka who was selling his trip in front of the Visitor Center in town, glad we could help the local economy ($30 pp). After about 15 minutes of watching the bears stare back at us, was ready to leave, had to sit there for an hour. The Rapture Center was wonderful, as was the trail in the area. Highly recommend.

Northern Lights!!!! Had asked our concierge in the Neptune Lounge if there was any way we could be notified if the Northern Lights appeared, sure enough there was. Got a call about midnight and ran up to watch them. Couldn't see the colors, but amazing anyway. This was the evening when we left Juneau and was headed to Hubbard Glacier.

Wine. After looking at the prices of the wine on board, we brought our own (helps a lot not having to fly). From my reading,

took our wine to the wine guy while checking in. He kept saying, "no, take your wine with you". Between the

language barrier and what I thought we were supposed to do, he put a blue dot on the bottles and charged us and then

proceeded to hand all our wine back to us. Boy, we were confused. When we wanted a bottle, would just take it

down to the dining room. What we wanted to do was to have it stored in the wine room on the ship. At the end of the

of the cruise, we asked and got a refund for the wine we did not consume in the dining room. Still confused.

Like I said, no expert, just opinions on our trip.

You shared the port with a big Princess ship, yes? When we were in Seattle two weeks earlier, I saw the Oo and a large ship that appeared to be Princess. We were on Amsterdam, and had the place to ourselves. A smaller ship and the only one in port made it smooth and easy both embarking and disembarking. Perhaps two ships are more than the facility can manage comfortably. I have to say, I looked around the waiting area and couldn't imagine double (or more) the number of people that were waiting to board

Sorry the ends of your trip were chaotic. At least you had good weather. We had rain, rain, and more rain!

Interesting that they couldn't give you a pitcher. Maybe that explains why someone took one of the ice water pitchers from the taco bar. I saw him just pick it up and walk away with it, like it was put out there just for him!

Thank you for taking the time to write your review.

We also do not like pier 91.

Glad you didn't have any rain on your Alaskan cruise.