REVIEW w/Pics: Rhapsody of the Seas - Alaska

Just returned from Alaska!

Following is a review of the July 12-19, 2013 Alaska sailing of Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas. Seven nights round-trip departing from and returning to Seattle with Ports of Call in Juneau, Skagway, and Victoria. I'll be throwing in some pics along the way.

First a little about us... We’re from Washington State, about a two hour drive from Seattle (near the Columbia Valley if you’re a wine person). Our first cruise was in 2011, a much planned for, carefully budgeted trip to Alaska to celebrate our wedding anniversary. My husband has been to Alaska before, but It was, we thought, a once-in-a-lifetime trip for the two of us and a rare vacation without the kids, so not only did we want to do it right, but we also wanted to make sure that every item was checked off the Alaska bucket list – a helicopter trip and ice climbing on the Mendenhall Glacier, float plane fly out salmon fishing, seeing whales, mountain goats, moose, bears, the whole experience. We stayed for several days after our cruise to play in Alaska, but the fantastic vacation onboard the Celebrity Millennium had us hooked on cruising. Since then, we’ve enjoyed several family cruises with our elementary aged boys and have future sailings planned. In general we are pretty easy going and like a mix of relaxation and adventure in our vacations, and we travel frequently. We appreciate good food and wine and like the option to customize our cruise experience.

This most recent trip to Alaska was a bit of a happy surprise in the form of a work incentive award. Who could say no to a free trip? Well, believe it or not, we actually thought about it. We’ve gotten a bit spoiled by Celebrity and Norwegian and even though we don’t have to pay for the tickets, there is a tax consequence as well as the use of precious vacation days and the itinerary and somewhat mixed reviews about the Rhapsody gave us pause. Since this is a group travel deal, we have to coordinate with the travel agent we didn’t choose, had no control over the choice of our room, dining time in the MDR, or the fact that we’re going with other people from work, when isn’t part of the fun of vacation getting away from one’s co-workers?

So is this the “dream trip to Alaska”? No. we did that already on the Millennium two years ago, this trip is a “what the heck, might as well”. So we’re approaching it from a different standpoint, not booking any excursions and looking for a more relaxed experience. We are still planners though and having been to both Juneau and Skagway before, thought ahead and reserved a rental car for Skagway and also considered what might be fun to do in Juneau and Victoria. The kids are visiting their grandparents this trip, but since we usually take them with us, I tend to view the ship also with the parent-lens as to whether this would be something that would be good to do with our two boys.

Our last visit to Alaska was also in July and I remember being surprised at the first Port of Call at how many of our fellow passengers got straight off the ship into the nearest trading post to purchase all the clothing that they failed to bring. Shorts and flip flops are probably not the best clothing choice in Alaska at any time of the year. Long pants, waterproof hiking shoes, layers to include a water-resistant shell, and an umbrella are all good suggestions. Sunscreen and insect repellant might also be a good idea, depending on what activities you have planned. Yes it’s July but it’s also Alaska, so be prepared for the worst, you can always take layers off but you can’t put them on if you don’t have them. Of course, you need to have clothes to wear on the ship too, so this isn’t a “pack light” type of trip. We got lucky with a lot of sunshine this trip, it was actually warm enough to use the outdoor pool and hot tubs on some days. I got a bit of a sunburn even.

I’ll try to mention any useful packing items as we go along and anything I wish we had thought to bring. We always bring refillable Brita filter water bottles when we travel so that tap water is more palatable. Celebrity supplied binoculars but they weren’t very good, we were glad that we brought our own, and we packed them again for the Rhapsody.

Since we didn’t have to fly to the Port of embarkation, we also brought our own fishing gear to use for a casual day of fishing in Carcross, as well as a daypack for tackle, first aid supplies, and hiking in Juneau (if the weather allows), We also packed passports of course, and the allowed two bottles of wine.

We researched the different beverage packages and RCI’s wine list and it really seems like we’re better off skipping the beverage package, bringing our own wine and just paying alacarte for coffee and cocktails. We don’t drink soda anyway and none of the packages included specialty coffees, unlike on Celebrity where we found the drink package to be “all inclusive” and a good value. One upside to the group travel things is being able to have a non-wine-drinking coworker “escort” one of my extra bottles onboard in exchange for a sample, of course. In the end, having a great bottle from the home collection is worth the $25 corkage fee, especially when compared to the by the glass house wine or a mass-market brands – ClosduBois, Kendall Jackson, etc.. Also as an aside, you don’t pay the corkage fee if you drink your wine in your stateroom, although I’ve often wandered around a cruise ship with a wine glass in hand and no one has ever said anything so I don’t know why you couldn’t pour it in your room and enjoy it elsewhere (I wouldn’t recommend walking around with an open bottle though!). Maintaining your bottle(s) at the right temperature could be a bit of a challenge, we only brought reds and our stateroom wasn’t hot, so it wasn’t really an issue this trip.

Another big difference for us on RCI is the whole Main Dining Room thing with a set dinner time. On Celebrity we had a table for two and could adjust our dining time at will, and Freestyle Dining with NCL worked very well with our kiddos. We like to check out the specialty dining options and we like to spend time together on vacation, rather than chatting with a whole group of people that we don’t know. I realize that for some people making new friends is part of the fun, but we have a ready made group along already – just add booze for fun.

We stayed the night in Seattle on Thursday evening at the Arctic Club, which I would recommend- the room was extremely comfortable and the service superb. Friday morning after coffee and a light breakfast at a corner Starbucks (just walk a few blocks in any direction and you’ll find one), we headed over to the car park and shuttle to the pier. Rhapsody was docked at the “bad pier” Pier 91 Smith Cove which is not near downtown so there’s nothing nearby and no one to wave bon voyage during sail away.

First impressions – super easy boarding, onboard in about 15 minutes. We were early getting on the ship, we like to wander around and get our bearings and also take some pictures without a lot of people in the way, but the crew didn’t seem particularly glad to see us, and a few mumbled “welcome aboard” but most just ignored us. Also there was no boarding party like NCL has, and no washy washy girls spraying hand sanitizer. I know a lot people don’t like this, but at least during initial boarding if they can erase some of the germs people bring on board with them initially it might help to prevent the spread of illness. We wash our hands constantly and use the sanitizer stations every time we encounter them – haven’t been sick on a cruise yet (knock on wood…). The Rhapsody OTS is a smaller ship, but the public areas are nice.

More to come, but first: laundry!

I can't wait for more.

We will be on the Rhapsody in April sailing from Sydney, Australia to Hawaii, so we very much appreciate your review. Waiting anxiously for part two!!

Carolyn

Instead of a chronological review, I’m going to break it up by topic. We ate at all of the specialty restaurants twice (but skipped the Chef’s Table) and found the food to be pretty good, I’ll post more about dining next, I’m going to start with our stateroom experience.

We were in Stateroom 8039. This is a no frills inside stateroom and it is the first stateroom in the hall. We only had one neighbor sharing a wall with us, but a lot of foot traffic from people walking by. It was good in the sense that it was right near the central atrium of the ship “Centrum” and it was bad for the same reason. Usually by about 10 pm the music in the Centrum stopped, but a few nights the party was late and loud. We got to enjoy every moment of the Rock Britiania show well into the night even though we were in our room with the door closed. We can also hear the pool chairs being dragged around overhead too.

The staterooms were ready at 1:00 on the day of embarkation. I had low expectations, but I suppose they were too high. The stateroom is DITRY! We found a hairball on the bed and the duvet cover didn’t appear to have been laundered, there were stains all over it and a coin between the duvet cover and the green throw they put at the foot of the bed –hmm, where did that come from?

The full length mirror was all smudgy and there was stuff on the floor- hairpins and other small debris, which made me think it hadn’t been vacuumed (at least not well).

There were also leftover voicemails from the previous tenants still on the phone. One of our two bags was delivered – the one that had my Colorox wipes so I got busy cleaning the room, behind the sink was completely gross, obviously the room only had a cursory wipe down. And there were NO toiletries at all, other than the ubiquitous wall mount of bath goo – soap? Shampoo? What? We had no soap or shampoo or anything. Thankfully I brought my own toiletries, but no hand soap?

I asked our stateroom attendant to change the duvet cover and it did seem that the cleanliness of the room improved a bit over the duration of our sailing. To be fair, 8039 is the last cabin in the line and the 1:00 deadline probably doesn’t allow for much time to thoroughly clean the rooms.

I’m not sure what updates our room received during the refurbishment, it sure didn’t feel very fresh. We did have a flat screen television, but not an ipad to be found anywhere. Maybe the sink got an update? The cabinetry is old and dinged up and one of the cabinet doors was broken. There’s not much room for storage, not even under the bed, so we’re feeling a bit cramped. We did have a small safe in the room and there was a hairdryer. No mini-fridge or ice bucket though so the soda and water that made up the mini-bar is just sitting out at room temperature.

The bathroom is teeny tiny and doesn’t seem to be the best use of space. I don’t think that the shower could be smaller and the curtain keeps sticking to me when I’m trying to bathe and the temperature of the water changes constantly, especially when the next door neighbor flushes their toilet. I did eventually figure out a little bit of a trick for the shower curtain for the tiny shower: there’s a piece of piping in the curtain that fits into the metal slot on one side. If you press the curtain into that and then pull it taught and stick the leftover wet curtain to the glass opposite wall it is less apt to wave around and stick on you – only took me two days to figure it out!

The room is completely dark with the lights off, which was actually sort of nice given that sometimes the sun didn’t set until after 10 pm and it rose before 5 am. I can’t believe I forgot to pack the alarm clock! It seems like no matter how many lists we make, something always gets left and this trip it was the alarm clock. Our room is so black you can’t see anything, so waking up it is a bit disorienting because it’s so dark and one has no sense of time. In spite of all that, we did sleep okay, the bed wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either. I really wish the television showed the deck camera to outside. It isn’t the same as a window, but it’s better than nothing.

In spite of the state of this stateroom, the rest of the ship is pretty nice and the crew is constantly cleaning. Almost every time I was in a washroom somewhere on the ship, there was a crewmember cleaning. We enjoyed most of the public areas and didn’t spend much time in our room.

I know I promised food, but I wanted to be fair to the Rhapsody by talking about some of the other spaces onboard, since I sort of dogged on our cabin. In general, the public areas around the Rhapsody, while limited, are very nice and you can usually find a band playing somewhere.

We discovered the Viking Crown Lounge and decided this would be a good place to hang out, there are lots of windows and seating, and a bar. It is a little tricky to find, if you’re coming up the stairs you walk into Izumi and unless you happen to turn right and see the sign, it would be easy to miss the entrance to the Crown, maybe that’s why it is never crowded. Two elevators open right into the middle of the bar, which is a little weird, but it is another way to get there – the trick is to get on the correct elevator since not all of them go up to 12, or take the stairs. The bar staff in the Crown is great and they got to know us right away. They are attentive but not annoying. Our guy in the bar, Anil, is AWESOME, he knew our names after the first day and makes a terrific adult beverage.

Centrum is the center of the action a lot of the time, there are even mid-air shows here.

Most of the washrooms look like this, they are all very clean and bright.

The Broadway Melodies Theater

In addition to the Main Dining Room, Edelweiss, on the Rhapsody there is also the Windjammer Buffet and the Park Café for casual fare. For an additional cost, there are three specialty restaurants as well, Chops – the “signature” American Steakhouse venue, Giovanni’s Table for upscale Italian, and Izumi which is a limited menu Asian restaurant. Rhapsody also has a specialty coffee and ice cream counter. The Chef’s Table is held in the Main Dining Room and was the only dining option that we didn’t try.

We ate dinner once at the Main Dining Room with our large group. The mojo pork chop on the first night was very good. The salmon also looked good and received rave reviews. I thought the seafood spaghetti was a bit bland and had the tiniest scallops I’ve ever seen. The service could have been better- our waiters seemed unfamiliar with the wine and beverage menu and it took a long time to get drinks. The second to last night of the cruise was when they served rock lobster in the MDR.

The Park Café is in the solarium and is good for a light lunch or a snack, although the variety is limited, there are few crowds. It was an especially good choice on embarkation day.

Both Chops and Giovanni’s Table are “Smart Casual” suggested attire, a bit dressier on the formal nights, but a shirt and tie or a blazer for men and a skirt or cocktail dress for ladies is sufficient. Chops being the “American Steakhouse” you can’t go wrong with filet mingon, the crab cake appetizer and roasted potatoes side dish was very good too. Our server, Anthony, was fantastic and we requested him again the second time we ate at Chops.

As good as Chops was, I actually preferred Giovanni’s Table, which has a lower cover charge and is a great fine dining experience with a seemingly unlimited offering of good eats, including an amazing scallops appetizer, delectable pasta course, and to-die-for tiramisu – you’ll want to be sure that you come hungry.

Izumi was a little bit of a disappointment. The sushi was excellent and Izumi probably should just be a sushi bar because you pay a cover charge, but that goes against your tab and everything is alacarte, so the concept is a little weird.

There is a “hot rock” plate option where you cook your own meat and veggies at your table but there isn’t a lot of meat and the first time we ate there we didn’t get any rice with the rock. The menu is pretty limited to hot rocks and sushi with a few other items. We did love the fried chicken appetizer. The service was less than outstanding and the pacing of the meal was off, we got our food at different times so someone was eating and someone was waiting, for what seemed like a long time given how uncrowded it was. We ate here twice, and while the second time was slightly better than the first, we probably would not dine at Izumi again. We skipped paying for Izumi dessert thinking that we’d get some off the buffet, but as it was later in the evening, we found those offering to be less than appetizing and not worth the calories, so went to the coffee stand instead to order real ice cream. Unfortunately my “hot fudge” ended up being room temperature chocolate sauce – not great, but the Ben and Jerry’s was a nice option. The coffees were always well made for those of us who have to have a Starbucks fix.

We had breakfast and lunch once each at the Windjammer, nothing special about this buffet but the food was decent. The regular coffee wasn’t too bad either.

In all, Giovanni’s Table is one dining experience not to be missed and it was a real standout in terms of food and service. If you only do one specialty restaurant, do Giovanni’s Table! Dining options are very good on the Rhapsody overall, we thought.

Oh keeeeeep it coming!

We are going on this cruise in a month!! :D

Wow, while your pictures so far show the ship to be in very good shape, those stateroom pix are NASTY!!! I hate to complain, but weren't you tempted to go to Customer Service to see if you could get your stateroom seen by the Hotel Director?

Thanks for the review! The Giovanni’s Table looks great, I might make a reservation for this restaurant for our cruise on the Rhapsody in September!

Looking forward to hearing more. What nights where the formal nights?

It's obvious by your pictures that your cabin wasn't cleaned at all. I've never had a cabin in such a state of filth, but if I had, I would have had a word with my cabin attendant first. I'd have let him know that my cabin was not cleaned and given him 1 chance to get in there and change out all the bedding, dust, vacuum etc. If the cabin was still not cleaned to a satisfactory level, then I'd have escalated it higher up.

I was onboard the Rhapsody last year for a ship tour after the refurbishment, and I think they did a great job with the ship. I'm enjoying reading your review as I have yet to sail her since she's been out of drydock.

One thing to mention.. The specialty restaurants do not require "Smart Casual" dress. You can pretty much wear anything except shorts and t-shirts.

Also, have you tried Giovanni's Table for lunch? For $15.00 pp is a fantastic deal and the food is fantastic... they only open for lunch on sea days, but it's a nice alternative to the MDR or WJ.

We did ask the stateroom attendant to vacuum and change the duvet cover, which he did. I always wipe everything down anyway with colorox. I hadn't thought to ask for the hotel director to see the room, and I should have! I was disappointed with the general state of disrepair almost as much as the cleanliness, especially since the rest of the ship looked brand new.

It may be just the nights that we ate at Chops and GT, but the card in our room specified Smart Casual, we did the dining package twice, so we got to eat in each specialty restaurant for dinner twice and thought it was a good value, if we hadn't done that or if the cruise was longer we probably would have eaten lunch at GT.

On our sailing the second night (the first sea day) was a formal night and seemed to be the one that most people really dressed up for. The ship also had a Captain's reception party with photos. The second formal night was on our glacier day (Day Five), this was also lobster night in the MDR. But it wasn't as "formal" as the first formal night and there were quite a few people wandering around in jeans and t-shirts, more so than on Day Two.

Back to work today, so hard to come back to real life after being on a cruise! What? I have to make my own bed and cook dinner? And my Seapass card doesn't work at Starbucks? Geesh! Time to plan another cruise, hopefully one where the stateroom attendant doesn't hate us.

I think he must be mad because I asked him to change the dirty duvet cover and vacuum. I asked nicely and said “please” but I don’t think it mattered. Oh, I also asked for soap for the bathroom.

Anyway, not only did we not get soap, we didn’t get the note from our travel agent that everyone else in the group got about an onboard credit, we didn’t get the note with our dinner reservation confirmation for Giovianis Table until the day AFTER our reservations either. Not once during the week did he call me by name, and I even introduced myself.

One day he gave us a ripped towel, which in and of itself isn’t the end of the world, but it was one more little thing with a lot of other little things. And speaking of towels, I was shocked on the third day of the cruise when we had a towel friend in our room! Of our seven nights, we had a towel friend on three of them, they were great, but on other cruise lines we’ve had them every night. We’ve had soap too, but I digress…

I know he’s a busy guy and stuff with many rooms and guests, but we are so EASY! We keep our room tidy and don't ask for much, all I expect is that the room is clean and that we get whatever paperwork we’re supposed to have.

I always tip over the automatic gratuity, in cash, directly to our guy, but this is the one cruise that we didn’t, obviously. The really funny thing is that my co-worker is our next door neighbor and it’s like a frat party over there. Usually they have the door propped open into the hallway and he’s completely loud and demanding, and messy, they order room service constantly and are always asking the steward for stuff, yet the steward seems to love the guy and he hates us – and we don’t ask for anything. What’s the deal with that? :confused:

Alaska is amazing! It is too bad that the Rhapsody only stopped at Juneau and Skagway, but we had the most fantastic weather so we were really able to make the most of those two days. We also saw a lot of whales on this sailing, mostly humpbacks, and several pods of dolphins as well.

You just can't pack light for Alaska - we brought hiking boots, daypacks, a first aid kit, fishing gear, as well as formal wear and everything in between!

We docked in Juneau at about 11:00 at the “far pier” that is a bit of a walk to town. But on the upside, we had a nice view of the city and the other ships. We walked to town and rode the Mt. Roberts tram up ($31 per person, and the pass is good all day) to the top of the mountain, hiked around a bit up there and then did the 2.5 mile hike down to town, it was a nice way to work off some of the dinners we’d been enjoying! We ended up at the Red Dog Saloon, which, yeah, it is a bit of a tourist trap, but it’s a fun place to go have a beer after a big day outside in the mountains and sunshine.

Skagway had FIVE ships in port when we were there- we figured to get out of Dodge as early as possible to get away from the hordes of people. If you bunched Skagway up, the entire town would probably fit onboard the Rhapsody, but it is very cute and nestled at the base of some amazing mountains. So we brought our own fishing gear and rented a car and drove up into the Yukon – beautiful scenery, even if the fish weren’t biting. Carcross is getting a bit more developed since the last time we were there and now has a visitor’s center and some shops and places to eat going in. Seems like last time it was a train stop and a gas station. Getting a Yukon fishing license proved a bit challenging, hopefully they will be available in Carcross sometime in the future. It was a gorgeous day and great scenery and when we made it back to town the crowds had thinned so we wandered around a bit before going back to the boat.

Here's a few more photos from Skagway and Juneau. I'll try to post about Dawes Glacier tomorrow...

Arriving Skagway

In the Yukon Territory

Good morning Rhapsody!

Steaming into Juneau - large pod of whales spotted in the morning

Mt. Roberts Tram in Juneau

Back to work today, so hard to come back to real life after being on a cruise! What? I have to make my own bed and cook dinner? And my Seapass card doesn't work at Starbucks? Geesh! Time to plan another cruise, hopefully one where the stateroom attendant doesn't hate us.

 

I think he must be mad because I asked him to change the dirty duvet cover and vacuum. I asked nicely and said “please” but I don’t think it mattered. Oh, I also asked for soap for the bathroom.

 

Anyway, not only did we not get soap, we didn’t get the note from our travel agent that everyone else in the group got about an onboard credit, we didn’t get the note with our dinner reservation confirmation for Giovianis Table until the day AFTER our reservations either. Not once during the week did he call me by name, and I even introduced myself.

 

One day he gave us a ripped towel, which in and of itself isn’t the end of the world, but it was one more little thing with a lot of other little things. And speaking of towels, I was shocked on the third day of the cruise when we had a towel friend in our room! Of our seven nights, we had a towel friend on three of them, they were great, but on other cruise lines we’ve had them every night. We’ve had soap too, but I digress…

 

 

 

I know he’s a busy guy and stuff with many rooms and guests, but we are so EASY! We keep our room tidy and don't ask for much, all I expect is that the room is clean and that we get whatever paperwork we’re supposed to have.

 

I always tip over the automatic gratuity, in cash, directly to our guy, but this is the one cruise that we didn’t, obviously. The really funny thing is that my co-worker is our next door neighbor and it’s like a frat party over there. Usually they have the door propped open into the hallway and he’s completely loud and demanding, and messy, they order room service constantly and are always asking the steward for stuff, yet the steward seems to love the guy and he hates us – and we don’t ask for anything. What’s the deal with that? :confused:

WOW, you were too kind on that cabin attendant. He obviously didn't give a damn which is a shame because in all of my RCCL cruises, I've yet to have a bad cabin attendant. My parents on the other hand haven't been as lucky. When we were on Freedom last year.. they were just down the hall from us, but they had a different cabin attendant. He started off the cruise by introducing himself to my parents and then went on to immediately tell them about all the things they will no longer get due to "cutbacks". Funny thing is, we got all of those amenities in our cabin without asking. He also did very little in the way of cleaning. My Mom threw a piece of paper in the middle of the cabin floor to see when or if he would pick it up with the vacuum and it stayed in the same exact spot for 7 days. They also had to go in search of their luggage down the "crew only" hallway and drag their own bags to the cabin at 7pm.. obviously getting luggage delivered by your cabin attendant is another casualty of the "cut backs" :eek:

Like you, my parents are easy. They just want a clean room and towels.

If I had your cabin attendant, and he didn't improve or appreciate me giving him a chance to clean properly, I'd have gone to the Chief Housekeeper and registered a complaint.

It sounds as if you enjoyed the rest of the ship so i'm glad it didn't ruin your trip!

WOW, you were too kind on that cabin attendant. He obviously didn't give a damn which is a shame because in all of my RCCL cruises, I've yet to have a bad cabin attendant. My parents on the other hand haven't been as lucky. When we were on Freedom last year.. they were just down the hall from us, but they had a different cabin attendant. He started off the cruise by introducing himself to my parents and then went on to immediately tell them about all the things they will no longer get due to "cutbacks". Funny thing is, we got all of those amenities in our cabin without asking. He also did very little in the way of cleaning. My Mom threw a piece of paper in the middle of the cabin floor to see when or if he would pick it up with the vacuum and it stayed in the same exact spot for 7 days. They also had to go in search of their luggage down the "crew only" hallway and drag their own bags to the cabin at 7pm.. obviously getting luggage delivered by your cabin attendant is another casualty of the "cut backs" :eek:

 

Like you, my parents are easy. They just want a clean room and towels.

 

If I had your cabin attendant, and he didn't improve or appreciate me giving him a chance to clean properly, I'd have gone to the Chief Housekeeper and registered a complaint.

 

It sounds as if you enjoyed the rest of the ship so i'm glad it didn't ruin your trip!

We were always lucky to have great room stewards on all of our prior cruises. I've read horror stories here of the occasional bad apple (all cruises lines) but had never experienced it until this trip. If we had paid a lot of money (this trip was a freebee) I'm sure we would have felt different but we were too busy enjoying ourselves to really complain about it. Despite the issues we still had a great time as always.

Great review and beautiful pictures. Please, do tell us about the cruise director and shows. Were there any type of deck parties? I'm used to the warmer cruises amd wonder what they do for excitement. :confused:

17 more days until Rhapsody! :beer:

Arleen

We are sailing on Rhapsody in September from Vancouver to Hawaii. The lack of soap is kind of freaking me out. The thought of being on a cruise ship for 12 days with passengers who may not even have soap in their cabin bathrooms is not appealing. Maybe it comes from having an epidemiologist for a daughter, and recently sailing on the Disney Dream with her, where she approvingly pointed out the in-cabin hand washing instructions, but that's just gross.

You talked me into it . . . I'm packing my own soap and shampoo. :rolleyes:

Arleen

I normally see a wrapped bar of facial soap at the vanity, and the dispenser of shampoo/body wash in the shower stall itself that does the job.

We did eventually get some bar soap, but had to ask the steward for it. My friend next door had soap, one more reason I think the steward either hated me or just ran out of time to do our stateroom on embarkation day.

I always pack my own shampoo and conditioner, since the quality of the bath products when traveling can be a bit uncertain. :)

As a side note, when we were on the Millenium two years ago, we had a full stock of bath items, the usual bar soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, as well as q-tips, cotton balls and other items.

This summer most of the cruise ships sailing Tracy Arm Fjord are going up Endicott Arm to Dawes Glacier instead of over to Seward Glacier. The warm weather has caused a lot of calving and our Captain advised that it has been choked up with ice in the water, making it hard to get close to the glacier.

We had an early morning arrival and it was a beautiful morning for checking out the scenery. We got about a half mile away from Dawes and did several 360 degree turns so that everyone on the ship had an opportunity to see it. Awesome!

I do have a couple of gripes though.

First, we had no naturalist onboard the ship, and the enrichment speaker we did have wasn't scheduled to give a talk about the glaciers until AFTER we'd been there. I think it would have been more beneficial to have scheduled it beforehand. We overheard a lot of conversations along the lines of - Why is that chunk of ice blue? Why is that ice pink? What are those dirty lines? Where are we? What glacier is this? So some educational programming would have been nice.

Second, but sort of along the same lines, is the fact that there was very little Alaska-specific anything on the Rhapsody. They have this huge big screen outdoors and the entire time we're in Alaska it is showing pictures of caribbean beaches, turtles swimming, and coral reefs. Oh and the same 10 trivia questions over and over and over. Really? They can't find some pictures of mountains, bears, salmon, and other Alaska-type stuff? Or how about the ship cam even? They had it on in Seattle and then we never saw it again. It would have been nice to have on a channel in our windowless room too, so at least we could look and see if we need a sweater or jacket to go out on deck. This struck me as a huge missed opportunity.

What's wrong with this picture?

Third, they didn't adjust the schedule for the food venues or cleaning and maintenance for glacier morning. We got to the glacier shortly after 6 a.m. and many people had been up for a while to catch the scenery and wildlife coming into Endicott Arm. Meanwhile, the crew is swabbing the deck as well as the solarium so the floors are all wet and slippery and there's nowhere to get a cup of coffee because everything is still closed. Then, when they did start putting out coffee, there were no hot water carafes. Why? I think because they were selling hot chocolate and if the hot water was out, you might be tempted to make your own. Never miss the opportunity to sell you something on a cruise, right? Too bad if you like tea. I did finally track down a hot water in the solarium but there were none on deck by the coffee as there usually are.

Oh about the buffet – I like that you don’t have to walk through it to get to everything else – but it is closed a lot and instead of just closing off the food area they close the whole thing- where there are a lot of good windows and views. In Alaska it can be cool and windy, especially when we’re moving and it would be nice to be able to hang out in the buffet, even if there isn’t food service happening, just for the view. The pool deck is enclosed on the sides with big windows, some do open, but this is the smoking area, so it is hard to find a place outside that is both out of the wind and out of the smoke. It would have also been nice if the buffet opened early for breakfast on glacier day too.

Officers on this ship are invisible, you never see them, or if you do, they have mastered the art of “be carrying a file folder and walk quickly so you look busy”. Other than the Activities Staff – who were very visible and personable, no management came to the CC meet and Mingle or roamed about the ship much at all. Maybe they were at the Captain’s reception thing, but we were eating and missed it. They were at the Wishes Walk on Glacier day though, but they didn’t bring the file folders this time! The Captain did make appearances as scheduled and we enjoyed his Q&A Session and the daily announcements great deal. He did a great job getting us super close to Dawes and giving everyone onboard ample opportunity to get a good look or two.

That just goes to show that now 2 ships, even within the same cruise line are the same. I was on the Radiance to Alaska sharing some of the same ports as Rhapsody, and our experience was totally different. On Hubbard Glacier Day, they had the ship cam broadcast over the poolside big screen and on the cabin TV's. They also had a naturalist onboard who gave several nice lectures on the Yukon, Alaska, Whales etc and did a total narration as we entered Hubbard Glacier.

Additionally, on Radiance, the officers and staff were very visable and personalble.

These are just a few examples of why people should not try any cruise line just one time before they pass judgement. I'm not implying you're doing this in your review, but mearly making a general statement. I've seen so many posts where people say "I was a loyal cruiser on ______ line and decided to try ___________ line and it was horrible. Even the quality and taste of the food can vary drastically from 1 ship to another and it can happen even on the same ship, if they have a staff change.

I'm glad you had a good cruise.. it's hard not to when you're surrounded by Alaska's beauty. I just feel bad that you obviously didn't get the best RCCL has to offer.

I'm enjoying reading your review and look forward to the next installment. Your pictures are beautiful.