harryfat1

Felt a lot of ship movement middle of the night as we hit open waters in Alaska but getting more smooth as the morning goes on. We are 1 hour behind Pacific standard time or 4 hours behind East Coast. In case anyone is interested in following along with us, go to www.cruisemapper.com and type in majestic princess and then click on "position" and you can track us via live GPS. Today is day 2. We are scheduled to see Hubbard Glacier at 3 PM Alaska time. Heading for breakfast soon. No need to rush as it's a sea day. Getting 2 mbps upload and 4 mbps download this morning. Not as good as southern part of the globe but just enough for texts and email.

Thanks. Just looking forward to days when I don't have to pay for 2 kids in college... Princess has interesting blend of modern technology with traditional ship design. Their medallion technology opens your door automatically when with 6 feet of cabin. All staff knows your name when you wear your medallion and all drinks charged to your account without you even have to say who you are or take out your cabin card. Their ipad has your name and face. Went upstairs post sailing to see the ocean and got blasted by the cold and rain and wind. Toto, I don't think we are in Caribbean anymore...

Hi, Patti, Still enjoying the retirement life? Yeah, in laws with us on this sailing as we got 3 cabins together. Princess willing to sell me 3 cabins with 2 of them being connecting. Royal wouldn't assign me to a triple room with 2 people in each room but princess was ok 4 of us in 2 triples that were meant for up to 6. See our dinner pic at MDR tonight as well as what I had for dinner.

Here on the Majestic Princess. Wifi on ship not good for cruise critic uploads. Might not be able to upload more pictures after tonight until first port. Here are some sample pictures but without detailed explanation for now. We got 3 obstructed balconies and cabin steward came and was open to open all connections as well as inside connection with the boys.

Here's the menu. Top choice is noodles of the day. Bottom 2 are always there daily. Will try later in the cruise.

Is that the ABC island sailing minus one of the letters? If so, I am eyeing that one as well. We must be family men that can only sail when kids are out of school. Will start thinking about that cruise early next year. You and I might end up being on the same cruise after all these years...

Thanks, Dani, it's good to chat with you once again in these forums. I'm like the distant relative that only shows up once a year. Appreciate all the warm greetings from everyone. Feels like "Norm" in Cheers and as the song says, good to have people know your name. The group of cruisers in this thread is special. Outside in the other forums, things are much less friendly. I always enjoyed my visits here...

Hi, Ken, Nice talking to you again. Yeah, its been too long since we last cruised. We went to Disney world in 2018 and Japan in 2019 and then covid hit. So we are trying to get back on the regular cruise schedule. Maybe Odyssey of the Seas next year?

Yeah, will try to upload when possible. We will be on the Majestic Princess and she's unique even within the Princess family as she was built specifically for Chinese market with Chinese writing everywhere and even has free Chinese noodle house instead of pizza to suit the Asian taste. Since I'm Chinese and eats both western and eastern food, I'm interested to see what the ship has to offer. Speaking of food, here are couple pictures from the Korean restaurant we visited tonight as it's next door to the hotel in Anchorage. Here are few pics of Alaska scenery from above

Yeah, this topic has been followed closely on the Princess boards as they have 3 ships directly impacted by the rock slide in not being to dock there with our ship being impacted in not being able to dock there at all. Another Princess ship had to tender into Skagway on Thursday.

We plan to do the same when we will be in Juneau next Wednesday in taking the blue bus to Mendenhall Glacier. Last time we were there 11 years ago, we didn't go all the way down the Nugget Falls trail but plan to do it this time.

Thanks. Will upload what I can. On the Princess all inclusive package (got it on sale) where in theory we have daily wifi and drinks package but haven't heard good reviews on the connection. Will see what I can do. Here at the airport waiting to board while eating cheapo dad style brown bag lunch with various food bought from Costco...

This is my third Alaska cruise. Seems like we go every 10 years. ISP will be new to me as I'm used to the big 3 standard ports in Alaska but with recent rock slide in Skagway, we won't be docking there.

Thanks, Bob. Did you move to Florida? I thought you were out in Ohio somewhere in the past? The line shots could be tricky for Alaska sailings as their docks are not as accessible as the ones in Caribbean. The Princess ships don't have the same size buns as the Royal butts...

Thanks. No live review per the strict definition. I will try to upload pictures to extend the ship's wifi allows us but I read that satellite signals are better near the equator versus northern and southern ends of the globe. If my buddy Biker is reading this, he will tell you more about satellites than you care to know. It won't be my typical Cheapo dad trip report as I can't vacation and write the same time (same concept as too dumb to walk and chew gum). I will do the lengthy write up after I get back home but it will be on the "other board" over at the Princess as we will be on the one way sailing on the Majestic Princess from Whittier down to Vancouver.

Packed our suitcases for flying out to Anchorage on Friday for the upcoming Alaska cruise – first cruise in 4 plus years. Super excited but also stressful to be traveling nowadays. Took our online proctored Covid tests today (all negative) before we finally feel like we are “allowed” to cruise. In case anyone needs to cruise in near future, we booked OnPoint proctoring ($15/pp) on Zoom meeting using the free Covid kits you get from the government. This has been a cruise with many changes as both departing and returning flights were cancelled by airlines after we booked them and we had to rebook both. Then with the landslide at Skagway, we lost that port two weeks stop two weeks and had to do a crash course on YouTube to see what’s happening at Icy Strait Point. Very sad as we had an excursion planned and my kids have never been to Skagway. But as the great philosophers Beatles once said, life goes on. Guess as long as I have enough clean underwear on the cruise, I’m good…

As others have said, you can order your medallion in advance but they won't process your order until few weeks before your cruise. If you pay extra to customize your medallion, you will see the charge hit your credit card 3 weeks prior to sailing (there's no charge if you opt for the default Princess logo). Then in a few days after the payment, you will get an email notification on shipping status of the medallion. We got our medallion on July 25 for our August 6 sailing - so the OCD/CDO/DCO/DOC in you can count the number of days on when you might get it... One final note - Princess is in southern CA so you might need to factor in an extra day for the snail mail to get to Illinois as they ship via USPS (we are in northern CA).

Thanks. No hurry. Have a wonderful day at Skagway.

How's the tendering process? Long lines? Any more activities from yesterday's slide?

For 8/13, it looks like the Zuiderdam will need to move to another dock from RRF as there is only 3 ships in port that day so the Grand Princess will be able to tender in. For 8/27 sailing, that may not work as there will be 4 ships in town. The Grand may not be docking at Skagway that day.

Hi, I'm trying to complete the ArriveCan app for our southbound Alaska southbound cruise that starts in Whittier and ends in Vancouver. I have completed most of the questions in the app but I'm stuck at the part where it says "destination in Canada" (see screenshot below). We will be flying home to US after disembarking from Canada Place so we don't have hotel stay or friends stay info. I tried to say we are "returning home" but all the addresses are in Canadian provinces. So do I check "other" and use "Canada Place" even though technically we are "not staying" there as in the hotel in Canada Place? Thanks in advance for any assistance. Harry

Here is the link to this topic that has been discussed the past few days: But to answer OP's question here - the working theory is that if you are on the one way southbound Alaska cruise on either the Royal or Majestic, you will be stopping at Icy Strait Point (ISP) on any given Tuesday. For example, today being Tuesday and the Royal Princess is docked at ISP instead of Skagway. If northbound, then any given Wednesday, either the Majestic or Royal will stop at Sitka. Things are more complicated with Discovery as on alternating Thursdays (8/4 and 8/18 and so on), they can dock at Skagway as there is space for Discovery to "scoot over" to the dock space behind the rock slide and tender people in. But that only happens on alternating Thursdays when there are only 3 ships in port. Doesn't apply when the port is full at 4 ships. On the other Thursdays, Discovery will probably be going to Sitka. I would suggest you check the Princess cruise planner web page daily under the "itinerary" tab to see when (if) Princess has revised your sailing info. Also start looking at YouTube channels to see what available at the alternative ports. We are sailing on the Majestic Princess this Saturday and I had to be educated on ISP really fast over the weekend and cancelling our private excursion to Skagway as we won't be there next week.

You may not hear from Princess until you get on the ship. We are sailing this Saturday on the Majestic southbound. On the cruise personalizer, under the "itinerary" tab, Princess swapped out Skagway with ISP for our sailing but officially Princess hasn't told us a thing on the port change. No one from our roll call has received any communications from Princess on the port change. I suspect we will get a letter in our cabin when we board in 4 days telling us that they have switched ports. Someone from our roll call is on the similar back to back Majestic sailings from Vancouver that departed last Saturday. On their itinerary, on the north bound sailing, Sitka was swapped for Skagway and the southbound sailing (the one with us) will be stopping at Icy Strait Point. If you look at cruise mapper online or Princess bridge cam, you will see that the Royal Princess is docked at ISP today instead of Skagway. You might want to have a backup plan for going to Sitka and ISP for those 2 dates in case this pattern holds true for your sailings. I had to do a crash course on ISP last few days watching YouTube videos on what to do at ISP as I was all prepared for Skagway. We also booked independent tours for Skagway and I have been in contact with the owner telling her it's unlikely we will dock there next Tuesday.

Yeah, I'm a CPA so I feel your pain as I have to deal with taxes daily. The tax rates at some states could be 3 parts - state/county/city where state could be 6% + 1.5% + 2% city. But a different city in same state but different county could be looking at 6% + 1.25% + 1.38%. Different by city and all based on where the product is delivered to the consumer. Sometimes you do not end up not with a nice clean number like 20% VAT but in cities like San Francisco, it's 8.625% sales tax or San Jose at 9.375% a city that is 50 miles south. That's how you end up with over 10,000 different sales taxing jurisdictions in one country. The key part is in the name "United STATES of America", the key word is states. The country is set up with each state having controls of their destiny so the state/county/cities all are free to set their own tax rates on top of the Federal government imposing income tax rates (but no sales taxes on the Federal level). More info than 99.9% of the people cares to know about taxes. We now return you to the regular Princess forum...

So if the theory/pattern holds that Princess ships can dock at Skagway only when there's no other ship using the RRA dock, that would only leave the Discovery Princess going there every other week on alternating Thursdays. Whereas Royal and Majestic are likely going to Sitka or ISP, depending on if they are going north or south bound. Royal Princess is at ISP today instead of Skagway as the south bound ships have been going there on Tuesdays and Majestic will go to Sitka tomorrow on her north bound voyage instead of Skagway.