cruisequeen4ever

The first time we visit a place, we usually always do a Princess excursion to be safe. If we find that we have done all of the Princess sites that we want to see, the next time we may choose to do an independent tour but allow plenty of time to return to the ship, even if delays occurred.

if princess does offer an excursion to a different place, we haven’t been, then we still do a princess excursion again.

Basically, our rule of thumb is to stick with Princess as much as possible for peace of mind.

We have had wonderful experiences with independent tours, though, except for one out of Naples that had me extremely worried about missing the ship on the way back because the driver had people from three different ships on board and mixed up the departure times, and ours was the earliest and almost got missed. 
 

Well, I have to say, as someone who lives in Anchorage and who has sailed in and out of Whittier, I think you are correct with the available options. I wish I had better news for you. The Avis in Whittier is always extremely expensive and sells out early, but if you want to go straight to Seward, that would be your option, so book early. 
 

This would not save you any time, but it could be viewed as a fun idea. You could take the Princess transfer to Anchorage. Spend the day and night in Anchorage exploring. Then the next morning, take the train to Seward for the day, or even for one night, and take the train back to Anchorage. The train to Seward goes through a valley that is inaccessible by cars and it’s beautiful. The train ride does take longer than driving there, but it’s so relaxing and beautiful.

Glad you had a great transatlantic!

We have always been given a bag on Princess when we purchase merchandise, and my experience is as most recent as July of this year.

We did the boat tour to Camogli, Santa Margherita, and Portofino (in that order), and it was truly one of our most favorite excursions ever! 

Good to know

I love this! I hope it spreads to other cruise lines! It seems like NCL was first to offer Deal or No Deal, too.

The Princess transfers leave from Egan Center downtown and the airport. 
 

For least risk- do the Princess transfer with or without their hotel

For best views and legroom- Do the Alaska Railroad independently

EZ Air is a middleman, while providing some extra protection for cruisers and typically offering very competitive prices. It does add a layer of stress and inconvenience if something goes awry, though. I’ve been playing the airfare game for our upcoming transatlantic. I think you really have to book what you want from the start, or it may not be possible. 

I think I’d wanna do it once to see what all the hype is about, but I don’t see how it would be something to repeat. We were having dinner at Rudy’s while the people were doing 360. We kept hearing booming sounds coming from their room/theater, whatever you’d call it. 

I had timely returns on my Enchanted cruise in July and no damage. They did lose some of my apparel for a day but ultimately found it, thank goodness. Nonetheless, that may not help you at all because there could be way more Elites on your cruise and/or the laundry crew could be completely different. 

I live in Anchorage and am familiar with the vendor Celebrity uses for its land tours. It used to be that Princess really outshone them due to the quality of lodging. Your experience sounds like they’ve come a long way over the years with what they offer; that’s good to hear. The tour you chose covered so much good area, and the fact that your timing happened to be during the main salmon fishing season I’m sure enhanced the experience. Thank you for taking us along, and I’m glad you enjoyed this great state! I hope the taxi driver turned in your bag and that it will someday reach you! 

5 hours ago, Guindalf said:

Conclusions and final thoughts:

 

I'm not going to rate each item out of 10 or anything as it's the overall experience that counts. This was our 22nd cruise and first on Princess. It was our fourth in a suite on any line (one being on the NCL Dawn, one each on Celebrity Apex and Solstice). I have to say, and others told us before we sailed, that the suite experience on Princess is a LONG way behind that of Celebrity (our first, on the Dawn, was in 2015, and was not an equal comparison). The Retreat lounge is a real benefit, especially on the Edge class ship. Michael's Club is similar to the Concierge Lounge, but slightly better. On Solstice, we even had an exclusive close-up magic show in the Club one afternoon.

 

We didn't NOT enjoy our time on Discovery, but we didn't rave about it either. To use my theme statement, it was...

 

Good, but not great.

 

Our next cruise is to the Caribbean in February. We are booked on the Norwegian Breakaway in a Courtyard Haven Suite. We'll drive down to New Orleans, so avoiding any airport frustrations. After that, it's likely that we'll return to Celebrity as our line of choice. We're also just become Elite on that line.

 

DW turned 65 on the Saturday before we sailed and I reach that landmark next month. I had retired until a couple years ago and going back into the workplace allowed us to have a small amount of spare cash, hence the suites, but I suspect that before long, we'll return to balcony cruising. In the meantime we'll enjoy the suite life!

 

Would we sail Princess again? Yes, if the itinerary suited us. Would it be our first choice? No, not even our second or third. Would it be in a suite? Absolutely not. What we paid for what we got just wasn't worth it.

It’s funny that you had that choice of words because I literally said the same thing about my Celebrity cruise last spring. It was good but not great. That’s the beauty of having so many different cruise lines from which to choose, though. Everyone gets to have their favorite! Thank you for coming back and finishing.
 

14 hours ago, Guindalf said:

 

 

If it were true, I may agree with you! I've NEVER heard canned music on a Celebrity ship that I can recall. If it's been used, it's very subtle and at 7:00AM on the pool deck or something.

There was dance music being blasted through the main chopping area hallway on the M class ship we went on and at the martini bar on the S class ship. Now personally, I love dance music, so I was happy about it. There was plenty of live music though, too. 

That free meal idea is awesome!

I’ve kept a tab open with your review to follow along and hope you finish. 😀

On 9/19/2023 at 12:36 PM, loge23 said:

Apparently, according to several reports - including said cruise attorney on Social Media sites - there was an altercation between a couple (M&F) on a 12th deck balcony which resulted in the female (reported as 47 y/o) either jumping or forced off the balcony where she landed on a 9th deck balcony and suffered a fatal injury.

The male was taken away by authorities upon docking and the local (Miami) police and FBI are investigating the incident. 

 

That would explain a lot. That’s so tragic. 😔 

We had a fantastic dinner at Simons watching you guys sail away! So many people in the restaurant were taking pics of you literally sailing into the sunset. 

9 hours ago, shipgeeks said:

???

"from guest"..."incident"...

No real info here, IMO.

And crew are human, too; they can be subject to rumor and inaccuracies.

Oh goodness; I did miss the “from a guest” part. 

10 hours ago, rikitikitavii said:

The following was on Crew Center Facebook page:

Message from guest:

MSC Seascape approx. 9pm 
September 16th en route to Miami
passenger incident
balcony to cabin now covered in various sheeting
4 x police vehicles waiting for ship to dock
disembarkation delayed slightly.

That’s usually accurate, since it’s crew members posting. 

My friend and I will be watching your ship sail away from Anchorage over dinner Thursday. It’s always exciting when we get a ship visit. As for weather, I don’t know about the Southeastern ports, but we have had a very rainy, cold summer here.

14 hours ago, Torfamm said:

I thought it was a beautiful space on the Enchanted and the service was fantastic. The food was okay. If I’d known ahead of time that my first two choices for a main course were unavailable, I’d at least have had an opportunity to cancel. I was very frustrated at paying that premium for a meal I didn’t want. Hopefully my experience was a rare exception 

I should have specified that it was the food and the food alone that made it a less than experience for us. The service was excellent. 

I did consider INfamous. ☺️

I’m glad you’re enjoying your new job, and best of luck getting all the repairs done!

Did something bad happen on the Seascape this weekend? The famous cruise attorney shared a pic on another site of a cordoned off balcony and a report of screams heard last night. I see nothing in the mainstream news.