mevs904

Once again, thanks for the information,especially the tip about the last night's dinner. We also appreciate the tip that we may have to be persistent about changing our dining times. This is our first Princess cruise and we're learning the ropes.

We've heard a lot of negative reports about the Princess shampoo and conditioner and have decided to bring some of our leftover products from our Disney cruises. We like the H20 products that they provide.

We do enjoy dressing up and going to the MDR for formal nights so those probably won't be our first choice. I like DougH's idea of choosing a night when more passengers may still be ashore. Good thinking!

Some posters suggested that we go on a night when we don't care for the MDR menu. Is it possible to know this some days in advance? I did hear that we may already be assigned a night for our specialty dinner and hope that it won't be too difficult to change.

Thanks for all responses.

Thanks for the link to the map, Jamison. That's a great help. With any luck we can get from the Amtrak station to our hotel in a reasonable amount of time.

Casagordita, Tutta Bella sounds good. By the time that we get checked into the hotel it will probably be after eight so we won't be particular about what type of food that we're eating.

Seattle

Plane arrives at 7:00 pm. We will be staying at the Holiday Inn Express on Aurora Street. Thinking of taking Flat Rate Car for Hire. Is that a good idea? Also, can someone recommend a restaurant near the hotel for dinner that night?

Vancouver

Arriving via Amtrak on Sunday, Aug. 2nd. Around noon. From what we understand the parade will be going on at that time and many streets will be closed. What would be the best way to get to the Rosewood Georgia Hotel on the corner of Howe and Georgis streets?

Thanks to anyone who can offer suggestions. XLXO are you out there?

We will be on the 8/5 Coral Princess northbound to Alaska. We have a credit for dinner in one of the specialty restaurants and were wondering which night to choose. We are traditional dining so we would like to eat in the main dining room on the first night. I understand that one night will be the Alaskan Specialty Dinner and of course there are the two formal nights. Any suggestions?

FWIW we're used to fresh Maine lobster so lobster night is not a must with us.

We also never see the need to bring or buy bottled water on the ship. The ship's water is of excellent quality.

I've heard that on disembarkation day additional staff boards the ship to assist in turning around the cabins. The standards should still be the same and there should be some oversight, but this may explain some of the dirty cabin stories. It would seem that the regular steward would want to do his or her best to make a good first impression.

That's too bad. We much prefer Coke Zero. We're not big soda drinkers so we'll be happy skipping soda altogether.

Thanks to all for the clarification on packing cubes vs. compression cubes. We will definitely look into packing cubes. I suspect that the ones made out of fabric might be a little lighter as well.

I'm interested in this also. We were talking about using cubes, but wondered how effective they would be for the return trip when you don't have a vacuum to suck the air out.

What about the "flat rate" car services? They seem to have good reviews.

That was it! Thank you so much rotchill!

About a week or so ago I linked into an excellent video review of an Alaska cruise (I believe on a Princess ship). It was filmed by a passenger, but was of excellent quality and the background music was a Barbra Streisand song (I think). I can't seenm to find it again. Can anyone help?

We will be doing the cruise first and then the four night land tour and I think that we're going to just take one good sized roller bag each for the trip and back packs for our day bags. It's almost easier for us to handle that rather than two carry-on sized bags and a day bag each.

The great recommendations continue! Thank you, everyone for sharing your experiences. We are definitely thinking about renting bikes in Vancouver. We will have over two full days there. The McKinley Princess recommendations were especially helpful as we will only have one night there and weren't sure what we were going to do.

I appreciate everyone's responses. I'm thinking we'll switch to the earlier trip so that we don't take up such a chunk of time in the middle of the day. Budget Queen, I understand and appreciate your explanation of tendered vs. non-tendered disembarkations.

I' still curious though about my fog question.

Thanks, sweetsleep. We're definitely leaning in that direction. A couple of quick thoughts about your trip:

When you took the train down was there any narration describing the ride?

I'm happy to hear that you had lunch in Bennett and it was good. I had read a trip report from a poster who had lunch in Carcross and said that the food was not good and the service wasn't friendly.

The history aspect of the area is also interesting to us...currently reading Michener's Alaska.

We will be in Juneau on August 8 and have made a reservation with Harv & Marv for a 10:30 am whale watch. Since this would take up a good portion of the middle of the day we inquired about an earlier time and were told that we could switch to a 7:30 am watch. We like the idea of leaving earlier and having more time to explore Juneau after the whale watch. We are also very interested in being back onboard the Coral for Libby Riddles' lecture. (I thought I read that she spoke in the later afternoon.)

We have a couple of concerns about switching to 7:30.

1. Since the ship disembarks the passengers on their own excursions first would we have a hard time get off the ship in time to meet the Harv & Marv rep at 7:30?

2. Would a 7:30 trip encounter more fog in the bay since it's earlier in the morning? (From what I've read the time of day makes no difference as far as the whales go. I'm just wondering about the visibility.)

Finally, we were told that the stop at Mendenhall could be either before the whale watch or after it depending on the schedule for the day. We were hoping to get an excursion that ends with Mendenhall so we could spend more time there and take the bus back to town. Would the earlier tour be more likely to go to Mendenhall after the whale watch rather than before?

Thanks so much for any advice!

Thanks, Budget Queen. I've been following your posts with great interest and realized that we will have to head to the port side to take advantage of the commentary in Glacier Bay. We weren't planning on doing much viewing from our balcony on Glacier Bay day so we will probably go to the forward viewing area off of the Baja deck as well as viewing from the promenade deck. We do plan on bundling up as we don't want to miss anything. We will look into Elieson and yes, we do have two nights at the Denali Princess. BTW, I was brought up in central NY so I particularly like your post. We are in the Albany area now.

Sammiedawg, we will look into dyes Dave. We like the idea of something more than the same train ride up and back (as much as I love trains). Our time in Ketchican is pretty short so we may stick to exploring the town. WE are definitely committed to going o all of the naturalist's lectures and are really looking forward to Libby Riddles. Do you know if they sell her children's book on board and if it might be possible to have her autograph it? We would love to give it to our grandsons.

Hi Folks, newbie here! We are sailing on the August 5 northbound Coral Princess followed by a 4 night land tour to the Denali and McKinley Princess Lodges. Prior to our embarkation we will e spending two nights in Seattle and Three nights in Vancouver. We've been "lurking' on the boards for a while and have truly appreciated all of the wonderful information that the CC posters have shared. We are so excited about our trip and will continue to look for as many tips as we can.

A bit of information. We are a youngish couple in our 60s from upstate NY. We have previous cruised on Disney and RCCL. We have a starboard balcony cabin for this cruise and have already booked a what watch excursion with Harv & Marv and have extended the standard Denali tour to the longer Denali Wilderness Tour. Our next decision will be to book a White Pass Railroad excursion. We are considering the Chilkoot tour that includes lunch and Emerald Lake or just the standard train ride offered by Princess.

We'll be happy to hear any suggestions concerning any part of the trip that posters would like to offer.

TIA!