PurpleTraveller

The next time I'm on a Princess ship I'm going to check the carpet in every cabin I get to look into to! I'm glad that you bed was comfortable but a pity about your duvet. Sydney and Vancouver are very similar and the sail in and out of both ports are beautiful (though I could be a bit biased towards Sydney 😀)

Thank you, that's really good to know. $10 is very reasonable and worth every cent!

I don't know who is responsible but I think it is a combination of the terminal not being able to cope with the huge numbers of passengers, poor organisation, larger ships, maybe too many ships and probably a whole lot more than I can know or think of. I certainly don't blame Vancouverites who are lovely. We had a fabulous time in Vancouver and during our six week holiday were in Vancouver three times. I would love to come back again.

Saturday June 3 - Sea Day, Inside Passage Part 2 At 6.00pm we went to have dinner at Botticelli Dining Room. We had made a reservation for each night of the cruise for a table for two at 6.00pm. It was formal night and we were seated at table ten. We had a nice meal and as I have a food allergy arrangements were made to preorder my meal for the following evening. We asked if we could be seated at table ten for the remainder of the cruise so that I wouldn't have to explain my food allergy every night and was told to talk to the hostess at the front desk. On our way out we went to the front desk and made our request to be seated at table ten for the rest of the cruise. To our surprise the hostess asked us why we had been seated at table ten as we had been allocated to table 89. We replied that we had been taken to table ten when we had arrived at the Dining Room. She then said that we should have been at table 89 as we had been seated at table 89 the previous night. When we said that we had never been to the Botticelli Dining Room before she then told us that we had been seated at table 89 the previous night. Very confused I told her that I had cancelled our reservation in person the previous night at 5.00pm and had eaten pizza on the Sun Deck. Her reply that we had not eaten pizza on the Sun Deck but had definitely been at table 89 in Botticelli the previous night astonished us. We asked her if she thought we didn't know where and what we eaten the previous night. She stated again that we had sat at table 89 in Botticelli the previous night. She went on to say that she remembered us, our cabin number and name from the previous night. My husband and I looked at each other totally bewildered. All we could say was that we definitely had not been there the previous night. The hostess was getting quite abrupt with us and was adamant that we had sat at table 89 the previous night. Trying to lighten the tense atmosphere my husband joked that he hoped that whoever had sat at table 89 last night hadn't charged any drinks to our account. She replied that no-one else could have charged drinks to our account as we were the ones sitting at table 89 the previous night. By now she was speaking to us in a very terse and quite unpleasant manner and refused to accept that we knew where we had eaten dinner the previous night. It was all quite bizarre. My husband asked her where table 89 was in the Dining Room and she very rudely replied that it was the table where we had sat last night and where we would be sitting for dinner for the remainder of the cruise. At this point we said goodbye and left the Dining Room. We have never been spoken to by any crew member on any ship, Princess or any other, in this manner. By the end of the conservation she was being positively rude and was adamant that we did not know what or where we had had dinner the previous night because she was correct. What the....... !!! We have never made a complaint on a Princess ship before but we went straight to Guest Services to make a complaint about her completely unacceptable behaviour. The following day I received a phone call from a manager who apologised profusely and said that we could be seated at table ten for the rest of the cruise. I told her that I no longer wished to eat in the Botticelli Dining Room as I was so upset at the experience we had had and could we please eat at a different dining room. She put me on hold for a short time and returned to say that she had arranged for us to eat in the Michaelangelo Dining Room at 6.00pm for the remainder of the cruise and gave me the name of who to ask for when we arrived that evening for dinner so that they could look after us. She also apologised profusely again and said that the hostess would be spoken to. I feel that the matter was handled quickly and appropriately and I was satisfied with the result. When we returned to our cabin the Disembarkation Form was on our bed to be completed and left on our desk for our steward to collect. Clocks were turned back one hour that night.

Saturday June 3 - Sea Day, Inside Passage We were up at 7.00am and opened our curtains to the beautiful scenery of the Inside Passage. We went up to the Horizon Buffet for breakfast and ate on the back deck looking out over the back of the ship enjoying the view. After breakfast we went down to the Promenade where we spent hours enjoying the scenery. At one point we were delighted to see a full rainbow that arched across the Inside Passage. The colours were so vibrant that it did not seem real and at one stage it was a double rainbow. Even crew members were coming out to take photos. Simply magnificent! We had the pleasure of watching two seals catching fish as we glided through the passage and enjoyed every minute of our morning until eventually we got so cold that we went inside to warm up. We then spent some time in Crooners sitting by a window so that we could still see the scenery but warm up after being in the cold. After leaving the Inside Passage we went to the "North to the Glaciers and Wildlife of Alaska" presentation by Allan Conlin in the theatre at 11.00am. Lunch was in the Horizon Buffet which was very busy. At 1.30pm in the theatre was a presentation "North to Alaska" by author Brendan Jones who lives in Sitka. We then went to afternoon tea at 3.00pm in the Da Vinci Dining Room. The rest of the afternoon was spent at MUTS watching Hall and Oates Live in Dublin. The captain made an announcement that we would be two hours late into Sitka the following day due to leaving Vancouver late at our new arrival time would be 12.00pm rather than 10.00am.

I didn't know you could do that. Having your luggage transferred from the Pan Pacific would be a big time saver as it took us about 45 minutes to drop off our luggage. If we sail from Vancouver again we will consider staying there to get the luggage transfer.

I am glad that your embarkation was a lot quicker and easier than mine. We also found it confusing to work out where to go to get in line. Our line for US immigration was short so that was good.

I think that you are correct that the terminal facilities simply can't cope with the quantity of embarking passengers that have to be processed in a facility that wasn't built to manage such huge numbers. I'm glad your experience embarking your cruise was a lot quicker. Hope you had a great cruise. I always book fairly early when I am going to be in an obstructed oceanview cabin so I can get the best view possible. Some views are very obstructed! Thanks for reading my review. 😊

It didn't make any sense to us to have everyone from both ships in the same queue to do luggage drop off. Talk about creating chaos! No-one ever looked at our boarding group or time or whether we were "Green" or "Blue". A couple we met on board told us that they had a boarding time of 1.00pm but decided that they wanted to get on board earlier so came when they wanted, so I don't know what the point is to choose a boarding group and time.

The worst part of our embarkation was the queue and disorganisation to do luggage drop off. The US immigration for us as Australians was relatively quick as we were in a different queue to those from the USA which was very long. We were very pleased to miss the boarding hall as we walked straight through the Elite/Platinum/Suite entrance or our embarkation would have taken even longer.

Hopefully it will not be so busy in October and staying at the Pan Pacific will speed up your boarding. Hope you have a great cruise!

I felt desperately sorry for the unwell passenger and their travel companion/s to have their cruise cut short so soon and hope they have fully recovered. You are correct that it was a lovely evening to be at anchor in the harbour. We spent hours up on deck enjoying the evening and chatting to other passengers. We were very lucky with our good weather and it was a lot better than forecasted. I hope you enjoyed both of your cruises.

If I go back again I definitely will! At the time I booked the excursion I was trying to use some of my OBC and then after cancelling the excursion I wanted to use the refunded OBC. We did end up having a good time on our Wilderness excursion as the countryside was lovely.

That's interesting. I didn't notice different carpet in cabins as I was so busy trying to see what their view was like from their windows.😊

Itinerary I probably should have put this at the beginning of the review but here it is now. When I started looking at Alaska itineraries I was looking for a cruise that went to more than the big three of Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan and I didn't really want to do a B2B which visited the same ports both ways. This 11 day itinerary was just what I was looking for with six different ports, a full port day in Victoria, scenic cruising, returning to the same port and on a ship with a full Promenade.

Friday June 2 - Embarkation Day Part 3 We were supposed to depart at 4.30pm but we didn't sail on time. As I wanted to be on deck for the sail away to watch the scenery at 5.00pm I dashed down to Deck 6 to cancel our reservation at Botticelli Dining Room for 6.00pm. At 5.30pm we sailed away and we made our way through the harbour and under the Lions Gate Bridge. Just after we sailed under the bridge the captain made an announcement at 6.10pm, that there was a medical emergency and we would be stopping in the harbour so that a medical evacuation could take place by boat. While we were waiting we had pizza on the Sun Deck and chatted to a couple that we met. The view was great on a lovely evening. The medical evacuation took place at 7.10pm but then the captain made another announcement that a medical crew member had gone with the patient and we would have to wait for their return. At 7.50pm the medical crew member was returned to the ship by boat and at 8.00pm we finally sailed away from Vancouver. The scenery was lovely and we even saw an Orca.

The whole system of processing embarking passengers needs to be reorganised within the boundaries of the restrictions of the building to make it easier and more logical for everyone - workers, volunteers and passengers. I feel sorry for the people working there having to deal with the disorganisation every day.

I totally agree and it was definitely the worst embarkation we have experienced anywhere in the world by a long way. We won't be rushing back to do a cruise out of Vancouver.

We enjoyed this excursion and it was lovely to get into nature. Hope you have a great cruise and thanks for reading the review.

I'm really glad to hear this. It must just be random cabins which is better than all mattresses being bad.

Not good to hear. When we mentioned the saggy state of our mattresses to our steward he said there was nothing that he could do as there was already a mattress topper on the bed. We didn't think to ask for new mattresses. Sounds like there is an issue with the state of some mattresses on the Crown.

I really hope you get a better mattress than ours. Hope you have a great cruise in November!

After experiencing ours I wouldn't be surprised. When we on Crown in 2017 our mattress was very comfortable.

Sorry to hear that. Sounds like the Emerald deck mattress need to be replaced.

Friday June 2 - Embarkation Day Part 2 Our cabin was ready so we watched the muster video and checked in to our muster station. We then headed up to the Lido deck and got lunch at the Salty Dog Grill. We had a good view of Canada Place and the harbour. We hadn't been on Crown Princess since our Baltic cruise in 2017 so we walked around the ship to check it out. Our bags were at our cabin when we returned at 1.30pm so we unpacked. I checked our excursion tickets and was surprised to see that the meeting time for our 8.30am Whale Watching tour at Icy Strait Point was 10.45am. Thinking that there had been a mistake I went down to the the Shore Excursion desk only to be told that they had combined the four Whale Watching tours into one at 11.00am but not notified us of the change. This was after Princess had changed the tour previously from 9.30am to 8.30 am without notifying us and I only discovered the time change when checking my Travel Information. The new time did not suit us as the reason we had booked the first morning Whale Watching tour was so that we could walk into Hoonah and possibly go up the Cable Car if the weather was good. I asked if there was an afternoon whale tour that we could go on instead (and enable us to still do the other things we wanted to do in the morning) but was told that the 11.00am tour was the only whale watching tour. When in Ketchikan we met a couple who had done a Princess whale watching tour in Icy Point Strait at 2.00pm and their friends had done one at 2.30pm so I don't know why I was told there weren't any afternoon whale watching tours that even if they were sold out I could have waitlisted for. I thought the communication from the shore excursion department was very poor as we received no notification at all about the changes to our shore excursion (yet I can still receive marketing emails from Princess each week). After returning to our cabin and discussing the situation with DH we decided to cancel the tour and book the Remote Wildlife and Brown Bear Search at 9.30 to 12.00pm instead. So back to the Shore Excursion desk I went to organise this.