Italy52

We were on the Crown to Alaska on July 14th. Looking forward to reading if your experience differed from what we had. Have a wonderful cruise.

We have eaten at The Fisherman's Daughter before --- great food.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question, I appreciate it. We are big fans of the Discovery Princess as well as Alaska --- enjoy your cruise.

Military OBC Follow-up. Just checked our account and I can see that my husband's military OBC has finally been applied to our reservation.

Thanks for the suggestion. We have already done that and we were told to submit our forms online. This is so frustrating as we have had the military benefits for a long time. Then, out of the clear blue a couple of years ago, the paperwork disappeared from the account and we were asked to resubmit. We did and everything was fine. And, for this latest Princess reservation, we were told that the information is missing again and to resubmit the paperwork. Funny, we have 4 outstanding reservations with Princess and three of them have military benefit without any problem and the latest one has a problem. I am so over this nonsense.

Just checking, have you gotten your military OBC yet? We have not.

Thank you for taking the time to post your review, I appreciate it. With regard to the pizza, it is still possible to split one pizza? My husband and I used to go to the restaurant and split one pizza; we are not very big eaters. Or, will we have to order one pizza each?

Thank you for the suggestion however it did not work for us. We used it on 8/3/23, instantly got a response from Princess that we had been verified --- as of today, we still have no posted military OBC.

Coral, thanks for your understanding about our fur-grandbaby. Unfortunately, we found out that he has to have his gallbladder removed and he has a tumor on his spleen. He is also dealing with high blood pressure. Once his blood pressure is under control, the vet team will go in and remove his gallbladder and then take out the tumor with the hopes that it is not cancer. We have a few challenging weeks ahead. The little guy is near and dear to my heart; it is heart breaking. With regard to the class of ship, I am with you. Our ship was completely full. The ONLY reason we went on the Crown was because of the itinerary. We made it work, but it did have its drawbacks. We've seen Libby Riddles a couple of times and have enjoyed her talks. I will have to remember Rachel Cartwright's name for future cruises. Who knows, perhaps our paths will cross on one of our future Alaska cruises and we will be able to listen to her presentation.

Thanks everyone for your responses, I appreciate it. My question was asked so that I could refresh my memory about the Royal app. Every cruise line has an app these days. We just recently cruised with Princess a few times and I was trying to remember how did I connect to the app for our last Royal cruise. We sail the Ovation on the 18th and I now feel more confident with the information you have provided.

We are not purchasing the WiFi package. What are the steps to using the free app on the ship? Also, will it allow us to do the muster drill on the free app? Thanks in advance.

Thanks Coral for the response, I appreciate it. I'm sorry for the late response, we had a medical emergency with a pet. The gardens are indeed gorgeous. When we were there, there were lots of caretakers working on the gardens. I am sure that they are kept quite busy with the seasonal changes. Too bad we don't live close enough to enjoy all the beauty the gardens have to offer. If we lived nearby, I am sure we would probably be season pass holders. Sea days are hard for us to handle as well. However, this time, we managed to just relax as much as we could on our balcony and just enjoy the experience. Decent weather and a nice, large warm blanket that was supplied by our cabin steward really did the trick. We found the Crown to be lacking in activities that would peak our interest. The ship seemed crowded and not a lot of places to sit. I don't know about your cruise, but we found quite a few people asleep on the couches and in the chairs. Lots of crowding near the photo gallery and the rather small plaza area. Another problem that we ran into was the walking deck on the Promenade. For some reason, every time we tried to take a walk, we ran into roped off areas so we would have to turn around instead of completing the full circuit. We realize that ongoing maintenance goes hand-in-hand while on a ship so we just adapted. As for naturalists/enrichment activities, there were some talks and films but we did not go to them. Because we have seen the presentations in the past, we passed on them. Here is a list that I took from the Princess Events Listing: Naturalist: North to Alaska, Enrichment: Alaska, What is Was Then and its Importance now, Enrichment: Lighter Side of Alaska and Steve Hites: "North to Alaska" show. There were Puppies in the Piazza for about 45 minutes and I don't recall seeing anything about Libby Ridddles. One more thing, I don't know if your cruise had any service dogs on it. On ours, we saw at least 3 of them. On the Princess Event Listing there was an attention box that stated the following: "Please be aware that we have working service dogs onboard this sailing. Service dogs are specially trained to mitigate a disability. Please do not pet, feed, or play with working dogs." Good job Princess.

You will probably hear before me then. Please let me know if you are successful and I will do the same if something happens at my end. Thanks.

Did you resend the documents today or recently? Keeping my fingers that it works out for the both of us.

I did use the Chat and was told to resubmit my request to the the military benefits link.

I am so sorry that you are having difficulties as well. Have you contacted Princess at all? I did contacted Princess again today and was told to send an email to customer service. Wasn't having any of that nonsense as I know Princess Customer Service has not been responsive in the past. I went on the Princess Chat site and was told by the person to resend all the information to the military benefits email that is listed on the forms. I mentioned that I had already done this but will do so again. She apologized on behalf of Princess and I told her I appreciated her help but it still does not dismiss the fact that Princess is not being responsive to their customers. Paperwork sent about an hour ago --- let's see how long it takes to get a response.

We just got off the Crown a few weeks ago. We did think the beds were a little lumpy. It didn't bother us at first but by the end of our 11-day cruise we were really missing our bed at home. Did that ruin our cruise -- not at all. No plumbing issues to report.

Thank you for your comments, I appreciate it. Have a great time on your upcoming cruise.

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate it. It is so hard to pick out a few pictures to share when there are so many to choose from --- don't want to bore people. As for Victoria, our shortened time at the gardens gave us a reason to return at a future date. We definitely will be back at some point.

For some reason, we are having a problem with my husband's military OBC. When I went to make our booking last week my husband's military information was no longer in the system with Princess (this is the second time this has happened.) The Princess representative forwarded another form to him to fill out AGAIN. My husband immediately filled out the form, sent it in and we are still waiting. We received a message back stating his submission was verified on 8/3/23 but OBC is not there yet. I will give them a little more time and then I will place a call. Hope your request goes smoother than ours.

Final thoughts: Alaska is an amazing place and it will always have a special place in our hearts. As many times as we have visited Alaska we can honestly say that each trip has been different and each trip has given us special memories that we will always cherish. We are not as young as we used to be when we first began our journeys to Alaska. As long as we are able, we shall return.

Here are a few pictures of the Butchart Gardens.

Victoria: We were very excited to visit Victoria. Normally, cruise ships only make a brief stop in this port. However, for our itinerary, we were thrilled to have lots of time to explore and see the sights. In the past, we have gone whale watching and walked around town; this time we booked an independent tour to the Butchart Gardens. We knew that we did not want to book a ship tour to the gardens as we wanted to be able to explore and not be tied to a short timetable. So, I booked our tour online with GrayLine Sightseeing Victoria. The cost of our tour was $176.00 CAD total. This cost included bus transportation, narration by the driver and admission to the gardens. The tour stand is located on the street outside of the Empress Hotel. We opted to walk into town to our tour location. The walk was about 25—30 minutes. Once at the tour stand, we gave the representative our ticket confirmation and in turn, we were given our Butchart Gardens entrance tickets and our bus passes. We were instructed on their use and to keep them available for presentation as needed. When our bus was ready, we boarded a nice motor coach. The driver gave a great narration of the area, and we were at the gardens before we knew it. Upon arrival at the gardens, we were given instructions about our return trip back into town. Unlike the cruise ship tours, we were not tied to any specific return time line. However, it was our responsibility to get on a return bus in a timely manner to get back to the ship. The buses were also on a first come first serve basis. The sky was a little cloudy on the day we went and we kept our fingers crossed that the rain would not disrupt our tour. Thankfully, there were stands that gave us access to free umbrellas for our use while at the gardens. We thought that was a nice touch. Although we were eager to start our visit to the gardens, we needed to stop and refuel our tummies. We found a nice little coffee shop and ordered a sandwich (which we split), two bags of chips and a soda; the total was around $21.00 CAD. We thought the price was very reasonable given the size of the sandwich and the rest of the meal. After lunch, we wandered through the various gardens for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, our time in the gardens was cut short as the weather was beginning to change and we knew that we had to catch the next bus back into town. We were happy that we came and will return when the next opportunity arises.