It went pretty well. I was pretty intimated by using the stones and free-handing it, but I managed to make all of the knives sharper than they were when I started. I did a cheapo cleaver, a cheapo chef's knife, a cheapo paring knife, the Shun santoku, and the Shun paring knife. The Shuns were the hardest to sharpen, I'm not sure if it was because of the shallow angle, or the hard steel. The cheap knives were all pretty easy to sharpen.
I kind of eyeballed each knife as I was sharpening, and tried to end up with the point of the blade in the center of the knife. All of the cheap knives easily cut a ripe tomato when I was done. The santoku wasn't evenly sharp, so one part was pretty good, but another portion wasn't great.
None of the knives got sharp enough to shave with, but they all (except the santoku) could easily cut through onions, and handled ripe tomatoes pretty well too. So you don't really need to do that good of a job for them to be "sharp enough."
I'm sure they'll get sharper as I get more practice. I can definitely see why people like the waterstones. After one or two knives, the ceramic stones would load up with metal shavings, and lost their bite until I washed them out.
EDIT: After I posted this, I read Euge's advice. I didn't know you're supposed to use the steel after you sharpen the knives. Once I hit them with the steel, they were all sharper, and the cheap paring knife was sharp enough to cut hair.