66-69: "This is way easier than I remember"

At 67 Sethekk Halls finally got into my random dungeon rotation.  It's an interesting instance because the first half of it is ridiculously easy, a whole bunch of 2-3 pulls.  But then in the final two rooms before the boss you're faced with a series of ~5 pulls that contain some nasty mobs.  There are Sethekk Prophets who will chain fear the entire party if you're not careful, Time-Lost Shadowmage who will target a random player and pelt them with a handful of shadow bolts, Avian Warhawk who charges random party members and knocks them down, and a handful of other bird/human hybrids who want to kill you.

Having a shaman in the group makes everything a lot easier since a Tremor Totem trivializes the fear.  But if you don't have a shaman, you're going to have to rely on good dps to burn down everything quickly (or CC, but who uses that these days?).  My typical kill order is Prophet -> Shadowmage -> Bird.  The Prophet dominates you the most because when the entire party is feared no one can do anything.  The Shadowmage presents the biggest threat to randomly gibbing your healer so he's next.  The Bird is really only a threat because he will knock down your healer for a couple seconds, but if the prophet and shadowmage are dead, this isn't a big deal.

I enjoyed Sethekk halls more than Crypts or Tombs because it was faster and better XP/hour.  The big groups went down pretty fast, partially because I was fortunate enough to get grouped with good DPS, and I actually had a shaman in most of my runs.

Dinging 69 meant I was finally able to queue for "Random WoTLK" dungeons.  I consider this step the "beginning of the beginning".  I can finally start getting some badges, two per day for running a random WotLK dungeon, which means I'm starting the gearing up process.  Leveling with pugs hasn't been as bad as I expected, there were a few rotten eggs here and there.  But I think pugging heroics will be the most interesting part of my journey.

Leaving Outlad without getting to run any of the Tempest Keep instances, or Shattered Halls is a little disappointing.  Those were all really fun heroics at level 70.  Just like how the pre BC level 59-60 instances are being forgotten, I think the level 69-70 BC instances will have the same fate.