Sunshine Gal

Have a great cruise Starshine.

We chose HAL Oosterdam because it fit our time constraints, we are only going to be in the U.S for 3 weeks at the beginning of May so we only had 5 or 6 options. I liked what I'd heard about HAL on these boards and word of mouth. We were tossing up between that one and Celebrity Mercury which was USD$1000 more so HAL it was.

Alaskita, I think you made a good choice. While the Celebrity Mercury does not have pods, so that problem is not an issue. The Mercury does suffer from a lack of the good maintenance, that she deserves.

My first choice would be Princess but I have also sailed on Hal and enjoyed that cruise also. The reason that I like Princess is that they have the most experience cruising Alaska and they, along with Hal are allowed to go into Glacier Bay. The Princess ships are also very well maintained. The over all cruising expereince is also better IMHO. As BQ said "it is what is outside that is important on an Alaskan cruise". That said, getting to all the ports is even more important, IMHO. This year the two cruise ships that I would avoid for an Alaskan cruise would be the Celebrity Infinity and Celebrity Summit. Both suffered from recurring propulsion (pod) problems last year in Alaska and the problem has not been solved. For both ships this resulted in missed ports and one cancelled cruise for each ship. IMHO, when cruising Alaska taking a chance on missing a lot of ports is not a chance that I think anyone should take. Last year the Infinity had problems through most of the Alaskan cruising season. As I write this the Infinity is again experiencing pod problems that have been going on for several months and she is not scheduled for drydock until May 20. I post this only as a caution from one who got burned big time last year in Alaska on the Summit.

Hope this helps.