Another WONDERFUL Princess cruise!  Alaska is just what I had imagined... absolutely breathtaking!  I would recommend this cruise to anyone of any age there is something for everyone!

 

One of the best features about this cruise is that it departs and returns from Seattle, Washington.  So there's none of that expensive airfare stuff - flying into Vancouver and out of Anchorage.  I guess the one draw back is then you don't have the option of doing post-cruise land packages to see the interior of Alaska, such as Denali National Park.  But for my first trip to Alaska, I thought the in and out of Seattle was great!

 

This trip was a Travel Agent Familiarization Trip, so I had to go myself, and met up with other travel agents on board.  What was neat about this FAM trip was that it wasn't a whole ship of travel agents; it was a regular sailing with regular passengers - only about 30 of us agents.  Many times, these trips are ships full of travel agents, and I don't think you are able to get a good feeling about the ship, as all of the crew knows they are dealing with their sales force!!  But this was a true test as they didn't know who we were!  (The service was great, as usual!)

 

CABIN

I shared a room with another travel agent.  We had a cabin with an "obstructed view" - our window had the life boats hanging on either side of it.  This didn't bother me at all - we still had a great view!  The only time I am ever in the room to look out the window is in the morning - to see if it is raining or not!  This obstructed view was able to show me that!

 

The room was pretty good size - plenty cabinet/drawer space and closet space - even enough to tuck away all of the luggage.  The bathroom was typical ship size - SMALL.  I did not care for the extremely small shower, with shower curtain - it was constantly clinging to you and if when you pulled it off you, you managed to pull the bottom of the curtain outside the little lip of the shower, you flooded the bathroom!  They did have a nice assortment of shampoos/lotions etc. 

 

CABIN SERVICE

Our cabin steward was very nice and helpful.  Because my internal clock was off by 3 - 4 hours and my roommates was off by 4 - 5 hours, we had weird sleeping hours, so he had a hard time figuring out when to clean our room - it seemed that one of us was always getting ready to go somewhere or taking a nap (we were on vacation after all!), so there were a few days that the room didn't get made up until we were at dinner.  When we called for extra towels etc, he was very efficient.  We did order room service a couple of times for lunch and even though there was a very limited menu, the food was good.  There were numerous times that we just ordered pitchers of ice water - came quickly and was very refreshing.

 

ENTERTAINMENT

This was some of the best entertainment that I have seen aboard ANY ship!  Especially the "Vegas-Style" dance/singing shows - which are typically pretty cheesy on cruise ships!  These were FABULOUS!  VERY talented performers!!  The comedians weren't that great.  But the naturalists they had on board that held talks during the day about the Alaskan wildlife and native people, more than made up for the bad comedians.  There was an excellent, what I would call Piano Performer at one of the bars in the main atrium area - he would play popular songs from the 50's, 60's, and 70's and have the whole crowd singing and dancing!  We stopped and joined in a couple of times during the week.

 

DINING

Our group had traditional fixed seating, and it worked out really well.  I like having the same wait staff every night - they get to know your likes/dislikes, and have your favored drink waiting at the table when you arrive for dinner.  The dining room was beautiful - almost identical to the dining room we were in on the Grand Princess a few years ago.  Princess also offers "Personal Choice Dining", which we were able to try for one evening.  They had 4 themed restaurants that you could choose from, and theory is that you can eat wherever you want, whenever you want for dinner - you are not restricted to a specific time.  I talked to MANY passengers that were extremely confused by this dining experience, and many that ended up eating very late meals, as they found out too late in the cruise, that if you want to eat at a specific time, you need to make reservations for the entire week, as soon as you get on the ship.  The theme and menu is also a little mis-leading I thought... For instance the Santa Fe was southwestern style, so I assumed that everything on the menu was going to be southwestern.  Not so.  You actually get the same menu that the main dining room gets, and then you get a supplemental menu (VERY limited selections) for that specific restaurant - example: chips and salsa, taco's etc.  Now, in the main dining room, we of course received the regular menu, and then each night they gave us the supplemental menu from one of the themed restaurants to order off as well, so we got to try the different cuisine.  If you have never experienced dining on a ship, this is all probably very confusing for you - if you want to know more, contact me directly!!!  All in all, my recommendation is go with traditional FIXED dining.

 

As I found on my last Princess Cruise, the food looks terrific, but tends to be a little bland.  This continued to be the same on this cruise.  Don't get me wrong - I still gained weight!!  But things could be tastier.  I was EXTREMELY disappointed in the buffet - awful selection!  Only went there for a quick breakfast of fruit and yogurt in the mornings, but ended up steering clear of there for all other meals.  This is where the pizza bar and burger grill by the pool came in handy - had some good lunches there.

 

PUBLIC AREAS/POOLS/SHOPS

Everything was always neat and clean, everywhere on the ship.  The ship is EXTREMELY large, and unless you have a pretty good sense of direction, you could wander for hours!  By the end of the cruise you are just getting the "lay of the land"  (or is it ship) figured out!

 

I didn't use any of the pool areas or hot tubs due to surgery I had just before going on the cruise.  The hot tubs ALWAYS had people in them, and the kids onboard loved the "indoor” pool - it has a retractable roof, for those cooler rainy days.  All the water areas always looked very clean.

 

There were you typical cruise line shops on board.  Each day of the cruise, they always brought out new products to entice to you buy more.  I was disappointed in their selection of normal tourist items such as t-shirts and hats, but there was plenty of that to choose from at each of the ports of call.  They had a lovely jewelry store, perfume shop, liquor store, souvenir shop, and collectibles shop.

 

PORTS OF CALL

I could go on for hours about the ports of call and the excursions I took.  If you want specifics and/or recommendations please contact me directly.

 

 

I LOVED Alaska - would like to go back in a few years and take my husband and family, and share it with them.