1sttimeAlaska

We were just on the Discovery Princess for an Alaskan cruise July 2-9 RT Seattle. I have a few notes about the ship itself that others may find helpful. 1. The lights in the mini-suite. There are four switches as soon as you walk in the room. We found that there was one switch that controlled BOTH the light over the bed and the light in the closet area. No way to turn on the closet area light without also turning on the light over the bed. Oh, sure, you can open the door to the bathroom and use that light, but then you don't have access to the shelves and safe, which are directly behind the bathroom door if it is open. I don't know if the lights are the same in other types of rooms, but if traveling on the Discovery, you may want to bring some kind of portable light for the closet area if you go to bed at a different time than your cabinmate! 2. The elevators. There are anywhere from 4 to 8 elevators in a bay. The forward elevator bay has four elevators, and all four are controlled by the up/down buttons. I think the Aft elevators are the same. No problem here. However, the mid-ship elevators have 6 (or maybe 8, I'm not sure) elevators. And they are on different controls from each other. The two (or 3) on the back left have their own buttons. The two (or 3) on the back right have their own buttons. The 1 on the forward left has its own button, and the one of the forward right has its own button. So when a person walks into the bay to request an elevator, they will walk around and hit all the buttons, to get the quickest elevator. It comes, and the call for that particular elevator(s) is fulfilled. But the other 3 buttons in the bay still have a request for an elevator. So this means whenever you get on an elevator, you can be sure to be stopping at almost every floor, because the button has been pressed, but the person needing it is already long gone, going on another elevator. Very poor design. 3. Make sure you make dinner reservations to the MDR as soon as you can (when the app opens this up before the cruise) especially if you have a party greater than 4. We had six, and made the mistake of not doing this. Getting a table for 5 or larger is harder, so it takes longer. Even with reservations, the line could be very long and take a while. 4. ALL the staff was fantastic. Not ONE single problem. All enjoyed our 2 grandchildren (7 and 3), and made them (and us) feel special. 5. The entertainment was also wonderful. I wish I could have cloned myself to see more of the shows, and just sit and listen to the performers. 6. The captain and the cruise director have a fun love/hate relationship that was entertaining.

I agree, the production show Spotlight Bar was fantastic. Unfortunately, we did not see Rock Opera due to conflicts with family members. We just got off the ship on July 9th. We enjoyed all of the entertainment. We sailed on Carnival in 2017, and this was much better than that was. One of the performers in the Spotlight Bar did her own show later in the week, which was also great! We also enjoyed the meet and greet they had with some of the cast members.

Had every one who posted here reserved Seattle Express before the cruise? Or is this something that you can just decide at the last minute when you disembark? Can you take Seattle Express without reserving it ahead of time? We have 6 of us, which includes a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old. We will have car seats for them.

Thanks for the replies. I did not know about the 'Unforeseen' vs 'Foreseen'. Now that I know, I realize I can't switch. Also, I am honest to a fault, so I have no doubt when trying to change this to CFAR, I would have told them there was a possibility of cancellation, so I'm sure would have been denied the insurance for this reason. Cruise is paid in full, purchased through a TA, and is not HAL. This is our first time buying travel insurance, so new experience for us. Also nice to know, as we also have another cruise that we have made a $100 deposit on. We haven't bought any insurance for it yet, and probably would not want CFAR anyway, but again, nice to know.

We purchased a summer 2023 cruise to Alaska for our extended family in February. We purchased a standard travel insurance policy that covers medical for any of the travelmates. We now have a situation where one of the travelmates may not be able to travel because of personal reasons, not because of medical. Nothing is definite yet, but it is a possibility. None of the rest of us want to travel if one of us can't go. Can we either change our existing insurance to CFAR, or cancel this policy and purchase a new one? Has anyone ever needed to do this? Or am I dreaming?