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Trip Report - 3 Wonderful weeks in Alaska on Star Princess and Nieuw Amsterdam


Italy52
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We recently returned from three consecutive cruises to Alaska: Two on the Star Princess (northbound and southbound routes) and one on Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam (Vancouver-Vancouver route.) We decided last year that we would make our 2017 Alaska cruises all about the glaciers; mission accomplished.

 

About Us: My husband is 71 and I am 66. Counting the above cruises, we have enjoyed 21 beautiful cruises to Alaska. We are not loyal to any one cruise line; itinerary and port times are priorities for us. Our Alaska sailing history includes the following cruise lines: Princess (4), Royal Caribbean (8), Celebrity (8) and Holland America (1). We have had balcony cabins and inside cabins during our sailings to Alaska; this time we had inside cabins for all three cruises.

 

 

For now, I have incorporated a few relevant pictures throughout the narrative. Keep checking back as I hope to attach a link below my “signature” that will provide a more in-depth look at our beautiful memories.

 

Flights: We flew Alaska Airlines from Sacramento to Seattle to Vancouver without incident. Our goal was to arrive in Vancouver with a nice time cushion so we could do a little sightseeing and have some relaxation time; mission accomplished.

 

 

Vancouver Airport: Upon arrival in Vancouver we departed our plane and followed the clearly marked signage to Immigration. At Immigration, we followed the verbal instruction by one of the representatives and we took our place in line for processing. Although the lines looked very long, the whole process was quick and painless. After Immigration, we made our way down to the baggage claim area to retrieve our luggage. One nice thing about the Vancouver Airport is the availability of “free” luggage carts to use while retrieving/hauling your bags. We estimated we waited in the Immigration line about 20 minutes and 15 minutes at baggage claim.

 

Transportation to the Hotel: With all our luggage on our cart, we followed the signage directing us to the ground transportation area. Just outside the door, there was a taxi line that moved very quickly. Taxi to the Marriott Pinnacle was $35 plus tip. We were very thankful that the ride from the airport to the hotel was a fixed rate as construction caused extensive traffic delays. We estimated that our ride to the hotel took 45min-1 hour.

 

Hotel: During our past visits we have stayed at the following hotels: Pan Pacific, Hyatt Regency, Fairmont Waterfront and Marriott Pinnacle; all are wonderful hotels. For this visit, we used Marriott points so we opted to stay at the Marriott Pinnacle for both our pre-and post-cruise stays. We had a wonderful room with a view of the water so we could see the cruise ships come and go.

 

I will try to post more tomorrow.

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One nice thing about the Vancouver Airport is the availability of “free” luggage carts to use while retrieving/hauling your bags.
Yes a lot of visitors are confused by the concept...

 

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The following trip report will focus on the weather/itinerary/excursions. At the end of the report, I will comment on the ships: Sun Princess and Nieuw Amsterdam. I will try to post as much as I can on a daily basis so please have patience as I gather my thoughts and pictures and put them onto paper.

Sun Princess-July 1,2017 thru July 8, 2017 (Northbound Itinerary)

 

 

Vancouver: Embarkation Day. We knew ahead of time that this day would be a hectic one as we tried to make our way down to Canada Place. We woke up early enough to see the Star Princess and Nieuw Amsterdam ships cruise past our view. We decided to grab a quick breakfast at the hotel and then make our way over to the terminal for our Star Princess embarkation. Since today was Canada Day, as well as the 150th anniversary of Canada, traffic in and around the terminal was a mad house. We would have taken our luggage down to the terminal ourselves except for the fact that I had hurt my back prior to the cruise and we didn’t want to aggravate it anymore by attempting to transport our own luggage. So, we opted for a cab from the hotel to Canada Place. Our cab driver did a remarkable job trying to get us to the terminal. What became maddening was people ahead of us that asked cab drivers to stop and let them out thereby backing up the rest of traffic --- rude and inconsiderate they were. Anyway, instead of the usual approx. cab fare of $8 to the terminal it wound up being $20 including tip.

 

Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are finally at the cruise terminal and we are turning over our bags to a luggage handler. Following luggage turn over we were directed to follow the crowds as we went through what seemed like an endless series of processing lines and holding areas. We arrived at the cruise terminal at 9:30 AM and didn’t make it onto the ship until 12:30 PM. The upside to all the idle waits was that our cabin was ready (within 15 mins. after our boarding) and our luggage was delivered to our room (within 30 mins. after boarding). After the pre-boarding requirements, a bite at the buffet, finding our cabin, unpacking our luggage and attending the mandatory life boat drill, we immediately began our search of the ship to see if we could find a good vantage point for taking pictures while viewing Glacier Bay and College Fjords. Fortunately for us, the Star Princess offered lots of uncrowded viewing spaces which made us very happy photographers. Since we have never sailed on the Star before, we spent the rest of the day exploring the ship and taking in the views as we sailed away from our home port of Vancouver. According to the ship’s log, the weather was 57 degrees with partly cloudy skies.

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At Sea: To us, water is water. For some, it matters where they are. So, for those that want to know where we sailed on the sea day I will quote from the ship’s log: "During the early hours of the morning Star Princess continued her passage through the Strait of Georgia and at 00:30 we transited the tight and twisting Seymour Narrows. With the Narrows safely negotiated we continued on various Westerly and North-Westerly courses and transited the Jonstone Strait.

 

At 07:55 we disembarked our Canadian Pilots at the Pine Island Pilot Station and set a northerly course out into the open Waters of Queen Charlotte Sound and the Hecate Strait towards Dion Entrance, the gateway to South-East Alaska.” According to the ship’s log, the weather was 55 degrees with an overcast sky.

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I think you were on the Star Princess :) . Having memories of previous cruises? Thanks for the thorough review!

 

Hi Coral. No, we have never been on the Star Princess -- only the Island Princess and the Sapphire Princess. We did enjoy the Star Princess very much.

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Hi Coral. No, we have never been on the Star Princess -- only the Island Princess and the Sapphire Princess. We did enjoy the Star Princess very much.

 

You had a typo a few times and listed the Sun Princess on your review. :cool:

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You had a typo a few times and listed the Sun Princess on your review. :)

 

Thanks for letting me know. For some reason, I am having a heck of a time posting things --- I guess the frustration got to me.

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Ketchikan: We didn’t have an excursion planned for this port so we decided that we would just wander around town and keep things low-key. After disembarking the Star, we made our way over to colorful Creek Street and Ketchikan’s Salmon Ladder to see if any of the salmon were running; nothing was spotted. We then went over to the Cape Fox Lodge Funicular ($2 fee per person, if I remember correctly). At the top of the funicular we had some beautiful views of the ships, the Inside Passage, and some totem poles that were outside the Cape Fox Lodge. Rather than take the funicular back down the hill, we decided to go down the “Married Man’s Trail” which is a beautiful and scenic walk. Many years ago, the “Married Man’s Trail” was a discrete way to reach the bordellos of Creek Street. I wish we were able to take lots of photos during our stay in Ketchikan. Unfortunately, the weather was not the best. However, we did manage to sneak in a few photos from time-to-time.

 

enhance A blueberry bush found on Married Man's Trail.

 

enhance A photo of a young eagle that we found in a tree during our walk around town.

 

enhance A photo of a tree that we found interesting during our walk around town.

 

enhance A picture of the fish ladder.

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Juneau:Today, we are in Juneau and that means we will be whale watching. In the past, we have gone with the following companies: Harv & Marv (multiple times), Orca Enterprises and Weather Permitting; all good experiences. For our northbound and southbound Juneau trips, we decided to book our whale watching tours with Jayleen’s Alaska.

 

We first met Jayleen in 2008 while on board one of the vessels that her father (Jay Beedle, one of the founders of Harv & Marv) was the captain. Jayleen’s love of marine life and photography was evident and hasn’t changed over the years. When we found out that Jayleen had started her own company we gave her a called and booked our whale watching trips. Jayleen’s professionalism and desire to ensure her clients have the best possible whale watching experience is the foundation that we believe will make “Jayleen’s Alaska” a name to remember.

 

Jayleen (Owner/Operator) and Emily (Captain/Operations Manager) provided us with two memorable whale watching experiences.On 7/4/2017, Emily, picked us up at the cruise dock and took us to Jayleen’s boat. Emily greeted us with a warm smile when we met and was very engaging. Once at the excursion dock we met up with Cpt. Jayleen who immediately welcomed us and went over the safety protocol for the vessel. Before we got underway, Jayleen explained that we would be the only two passengers on the vessel as there was a cancellation due to unforeseen circumstances of the other guests. To our amazement, Jayleen said we would have the vessel to ourselves; other vendors would have cancelled us; not Jayleen. Jayleen told us this was our excursion and asked where did we want to go. We were very appreciative of the fact that Jayleen wanted to ensure we had a good time whale watching and that we did. Although the weather was a little drizzly and the whales not as abundant, we did manage to find a mama humpback and her calf and stayed with them for quite a while. The usual whale chatter was going on between various captains of boats on the water; whale sightings were either too far out or the whales were just traveling on the surface. We were very happy with our mamma and calf as we know that whales are transient and are not “command performers.”

 

After the conclusion of the tour, Emily asked us if we wanted to be dropped off in town or go back to the ship; we opted for the ship so we could unload our cameras. Below are pictures of whales and an eagle we found flying around the dock.enhanceenhanceenhanceenhance

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(Continuation of Jayleen's Alaska Whale Watching tours.) Since we went with Jayleen twice, I decided I would post both excursions one right after the other. On July 12, 2017, we took our second whale watching tour with Jayleen. Today, the whales were more abundant. Jayleen and Emily were constantly searching the waters for whales and providing valuable marine life information. I tell you, these two women were on a serious mission to ensure we saw every possible whale that could be found. Safety conscious, determined, personable and client-oriented are just some of the words that describe Jayleen and Emily from “Jayleen’s Alaska.” We thoroughly enjoyed our excursions and were sad to say goodbye. However, we are very excited to say that we will see both Jayleen and Emily next year when we return for another two whale watching trips with them. I would also recommend visiting TripAdvisor for additional comments about this company. Below are photos of this particular visit with Jayleen's Alaska. enhanceenhanceenhanceenhanceenhance

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Skagway:Last year, while in Skagway, we took the ship’s sponsored photography tour and enjoyed it very much. Our photographer-guide took us to a beautiful place called Dyea where we took many wonderful photos. For this year, our photographer-guide took us to the Summit. As the small group of 14 photographers with various levels of expertise made our way into the van, our photographer, Mischa, introduced himself and explained where he was taking us and why he thought our route would give us the best possible photographic opportunities. We had a great time with Mischa and learned a lot from his advice. Mischa was all about reflective photography --- below are some of our novice pieces.

 

 

Temperature was 64 with sunny skies.

 

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Glacier Bay: Cruising Glacier Bay was included on all three of our itineraries. It had been many years since our last visit to GB; I am glad we had the opportunity to go back. The scenery at Glacier Bay was stunning. Our weather conditions were sunny to mostly sunny skies. Weather temperature was 59-61 degrees. I guess you can say that we overdid it a bit by going to Glacier Bay 3 weeks in a row; we didn't mind one bit as we found our experiences changed from one week to the next. The GB transit was rather long; we stayed outside for most of the time. The Glacier Bay National Park Rangers provided interesting narratives of the park. We found the bay stunning as we looked at the vast display of landscapes from snow-capped glaciers to beautiful lush greenery. We even managed to find a group of clouds with multiple color brushes inside of it. Below are some pictures.

 

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Glacier Bay - Continued Besides the scenic landscape, we managed to see some glacier calving and wildlife. See pictures below.

 

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As you can see, Glacier Bay is truly worth a trip. I have many other photos but will leave those to the 2017 Alaska photo link that I hope to post when I am all done with the review.

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College Fjord: The scenery at College Fjord was not as impressive to us as that of Glacier Bay. However, we did enjoy the transit time we spent there; probably would not be a priority for us in the future. Below are some pictures.

 

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Weather was 61 degrees with partly cloudy to overcast skies.

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Love the pictures! You are a great photographer.

 

I think College Fiords is better with blue skies.

 

Thanks Coral for your kind comments. I am just a novice photographer and don't get a chance to use my camera much. The three weeks in Alaska gave me lots of practice time. I agree, I think College Fjord would have been much better with blue skies.

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Whittier:Today, is disembarkation day for those doing the northbound itinerary. Since we were continuing our cruise southbound, we opted to take the 26 Glacier cruise for our day excursion. We booked directly with 26 Glaciers as it was cheaper than going through the ship.

 

Unfortunately, the weather was not in our favor today; overcast and rain. However, we decided to make the best of the situation. On previous trips to Whittier we had taken glacier tours with another vendor, Major Marine. For this trip, we decided that we would go with 26 Glaciers and see what they had to offer; we were not disappointed. The boarding process was well organized, lots of viewing spaces on the vessel, the food we received was just right for us and the staff very professional and accommodating.

 

Given the weather conditions we were not too sure what we would see on our trip. We never gave up hope that we would see calving and as luck would have it, we did see calving. Below are a few pictures.

 

This is a picture of my husband clearing the windows so we could see out. People were very kind on this trip and a lot of them often jumped up to clear windows so everyone could see out.

 

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Some of the scenery as we made our transit to the glaciers.

 

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and of course, calving glaciers.

 

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