KamAZ

My husband and I are on this sailing too, and things have been a bit weird for us. We were assigned a cabin that was nowhere near where we wanted, but we were advised to go to Guest Services once on board to request a different cabin. We did, and we opted to pay for an upgrade to a mini-suite - which was great. 

 

But word of warning - if you change rooms on the first day, expect things to be a little wacky. The system did not update to our new room location until late last night, which created some problems. We couldn't get an ice bucket if our lives depended on it. Asked the room steward, he forgot (but apparently he was rather preoccupied looking for his master key that he somehow lost). We then ordered through the app, to the point where we saw that it was delivered, but it never arrived. Tried again, also showed delivered, never showed up. Called Guest Services, who said she would call and have someone deliver it. Nope, not delivered. This morning, tried again, since the app was showing our room as correct now. Showed as delivered, but no ice. Same thing when my husband tried. Finally got it after going to guest services. There were some other weird things too, like ordering a couple of things from room service last night (pizza and chocolate cake, via the phone, not the app), and they didn't send any utensils to eat the cake with. 

 

My spa appointment for 8:45am was also messed up - their system had it for 8:45 tomorrow, even though the print-out placed in my room showed 8:45 today. They had an available slot at 12:45pm that they offered me, since they didn't have any openings at the time I booked. 

 

Then I'm at tea and my husband sends me a message that our excursion tomorrow was cancelled (technical issues). We were really looking forward to snorkeling, husband even bought corrective-lens snorkeling goggles. They have another snorkeling option, but that only had 1 spot left, so now I'm searching for a non-Princess snorkeling option (and not having much luck, given its less than 24 hours away). 

 

I don't mean to be a negative nelly, but after our messed up Alaskan cruise last fall (2 of 3 ports cancelled due to weather) I was hoping this one would make up for it. And on that cruise (same ship) we didn't have other issues like this, just the weather. This one seems more like Princess is missing a beat. Anyone else on now think that things are just a bit off? 

The Port Valet was a mixed success for us. The suitcase we put out before dinner didn't make it on our flight, but the one we put out after dinner did. So, not sure if I'd use it again. At least the airline is delivering it later. 

 

Does anyone else feel a bit like you're still on a moving boat? 

Not sure if my fellow cruisers have seen the weather update for later this week yet, but we might be facing some rough seas after Ketchikan on Friday. Here's what the weather channel is saying in a special weather statement: 

• "High wind gusts of 60 to 70 mph are possible from the southern Inner Channels including Ketchikan northwest along the coast to Baranof Island and Sitka all the way to Yakutat. The threat includes Prince of Wales Island as well. Friday night is the most likely threat, but the winds could persist longer, especially into Yakutat Saturday morning. High wind watches have been posted from late Friday afternoon through Saturday morning. Should the storm move inland across the northern Panhandle, other areas may see gusts to 60 mph as well, including Juneau and Gustavus. Should the storm track closer to the coast, Wrangell and Kake could receive stronger winds. As confidence grows, high wind watches could be extended elsewhere.
• Over the waters, we now expect storm force winds of 50 to 60 kt over the Gulf of Alaska from late Friday afternoon through Saturday morning. Seas are forecast to reach 30 feet plus for much of the gulf during the same time period. Widespread gales are a strong possibility for much of the Inner Channels."

 

The weather for Ketchikan during the day isn't looking too great either: "Rain and wind. High 51F. Winds SSE at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected."  

 

We're just happy that we're here, regardless of the weather. I'd probably be disappointed if this was our first Alaskan cruise though. Not disappointed in anything under the control of Princess though - that has been phenomenal. There's nothing they can do about the weather. 

We're on the ship with you and are also frustrated with the wifi speeds. We tried to stop by the internet cafe when we returned to the ship today to ask about it, but it wasn't staffed at the time. 

 

Overall having an enjoyable time though. 

On 4/24/2019 at 7:08 AM, tonamie said:

Thank You for such thorough coverage of your itinerary. We will be on the exact same tour on the Island Princess in July, 2019...northbound, Vancouver to Whittier.  My question is about the ship. Last year we did an Alaskan cruise on the Golden Princess, similar to the Island so I am a little familiar with the layout.  We have a balcony on the Dolphin deck -- a quiet deck!  After doing some research here at CC, we have learned that some open seating space on the Island was transformed into staterooms, so that open seating, viewing area is lost forever.  Would you please offer your opinions of the ship?  Much appreciated.  

Having not sailed on the Island prior to the re-do, and having never sailed on the Coral (the sister ship), I don't have anything else to compare it to. In fact, it is the only ship we've sailed on Princess (until next week, when we board the Ruby). 

 

That said, I didn't notice any problems with it. I guess you can't miss what you've never had.  It didn't seem overly crowded, which is one of the things people complain about. I know people also complain about the lack of an International Cafe, but I hadn't been on a ship with one, so nothing to compare it to. I would just say it seemed fine to me. 

Re: Coffee/tea - you can get speciality coffees at dinner too (I never did, but I remember seeing it on the menu), and I think the buffet had a coffee counter too - for speciality coffees. The only place I ever got specialty coffees was the little place at the promenade level (I can't remember what they called it). I think that if you had a request that wasn't on the board, they could probably figure it out, and they did have a pretty good selection of flavored syrups, so you could have a bit of variety that way. I didn't really try out any of the teas (just chai) so I'm not sure what the variety was like there. 

 

I remember that dinner the first night was more casual (we didn't change for some reason), but at the set time. For port days, you don't get your assigned dining - it is all anytime dining. We normally would dress up a bit from what we wore that day, and then we did fairly fancy on the formal nights. But we also got the photo package, so we wanted to get our photos taken. Even given that, I had a dress or two I didn't end up wearing, so you would probably be fine to take a bit less in the way of fancy clothes. We did bring swimsuits and we did do the hot tubs one night - I think it was as we were pulling away from Skagway. It was pretty nice scenery for the hot tub :) 

 

If you do a search on Amazon for cruise luggage tags princess, it should take you to the right ones. they are the shorter/wider type (Celebrity and someone else have longer/narrower ones). Definitely a good investment. 

 

I think the only port where the cell coverage was bad was Icy Straight Point,  because that's where I remember trying to get on the wifi that was available in the port visitor building. Phones seemed to work fine elsewhere (I have Verizon too). But yeah, definitely make sure you go back to airplane mode as soon as you get back on the boat. So excited that Princess is moving to the MedallionNet plans. We're taking our next cruise in a couple of weeks on the Ruby, and sooooo looking forward to staying connected while on the ship. 

 

I was honestly a little underwhelmed by Mendenhall Glacier. Looking back, I would have been fine to skip it. 

 

I know we saw some seals (I think that's what they were) on the floating pieces of ice. but they were pretty far away. I don't remember seeing whales or anything else from the actual cruise ship (now I'm wondering if we did see something like dolphins). Husband says we saw otters. But the main time we saw wildlife was on the excursions - the whale watching from Juneau, and our photography trip to Haynes (from Skagway) where we saw a ton of bald eagles. That said, we didn't have binoculars, so other people might have seen stuff that we didn't. 

 

Have a great trip! and feel free to ask any other questions. 

20 hours ago, lightasafeather said:

The Ruby does have "Medallionnet Premium Package 7-Day" - for $59.99 (pre cruise) I just ordered it for our sailing on May 11.  I've heard it is fairly fast and you can do streaming. Not the true full meal deal - Ocean Medallion yet that has all the cool bells and whistles.

I don't see this as an option on my personalizer, and I'm on the cruise just before yours (May 5-10, actually I think there's a 1-nighter in between). So weird! I'm only seeing options for 240 minutes for $100 or 680 minutes for $200. 

We booked a tour through Viator that ended up being with LandSea tours. It was a good tour, even though we were unfortunate to have really rainy weather for the first half of the tour.

 

The one place I would caution you about for limited mobility is the lunch stop at the public market (I can't remember now what it was called). It was rather crazy the day we were there (and it was a Wednesday!) and very hard to find a seat to eat lunch at, and my step-dad (who has Parkinson's and struggles with walking a bit) was a bit overwhelmed. We eventually found something outside, and it wasn't the fault of the tour company, just warning you of it. You might look for an actual restaurant in the area rather than trying to do the market.

 

But the tour guide was great about retrieving his walker from the back when we were going to be out and about for a bit. They handled the luggage transfer for us, and the tour guide was friendly and helpful.

We did northbound and we're glad we did so. The reason is that the scenery gets better and better as you go. We look back at the photos we took from our balcony early in the trip, and we thought it was great scenery then. But then compare that to what we saw on the Glacier Bay and College Fjord days, and well, there's no comparison really. I guess what I'm saying is that we would have found it somewhat of a letdown to start off with a bang and then get less interesting from there on out.

As for what not to bring, I second the too many dress clothes. I had two dresses and a nice dress outfit that I never wore.

 

The other thing that I didn't need was an over-the-door shoe organizer for stuff. Everyone swears by them, and maybe if you have a whole family traveling they are good, but for just the two of us I found that the cabin drawers and shelves were enough.

 

I also brought warmer clothes/pjs for wearing in the cabin and I didn't need those - just a regular night gown was warm enough (the bedding was really warm).

Didn't wear the dress/heels I took, didn't really need all of the jeans I brought, could have worn each more than twice.

 

I *wish* I could find a shoe that is more stylish than tennis shoes but just as comfortable for daytime wear. Bonus if it's water resistant! In Ketchikan last time it was a downpour with strong winds. We ended up going into a kind of old time department store near the port where I bought a pair of Born boots because my feet were so wet, and I still wear them all the time.

 

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My favorite water-proof nicer-than-tennis shoe is a the Dansko Paisley. Wore them on my most recent cruise - definitely a multi-purpose shoe (and they are slip-resistant!).

Thank you so much for taking time to share this information and the great photos! We're on the July 11 NB Island Princess.

 

Question re: luggage drop-off on Embarkation in Vancouver--What was your experience? Would you know if it was possible to hand over luggage to handlers that were designated for your ship?

 

Unfortunately this is something I didn't have experience with, as the Viator tour we were on handled the luggage drop-off. We stayed on the bus while they offloaded everything, and it turned up in front of our stateroom door after we set sail. My understanding is that there's a place where you drop off luggage, but you need to make sure you have your luggage tagged correctly. There were some people on our tour who didn't have theirs tagged right. We had printed our tags and purchased plastic tag holders designed for them on Amazon, so we were all set.

The title of the thread says July 13. Did you mean June 13 or did you take your trip last year?

 

 

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I apparently was tired when I typed the title. I went June 13 - now I need to figure out if there's a way to edit the thread title. Thank you for the heads-up on it!

Trip report for the Island Princess from Vancouver to Whittier, departed Vancouver June 13. Stops in Icy Straight Point, Juneau, Skagway, and viewings of Glacier Bay and College Fjord.

 

Traveling was myself and husband (early 40's, no kids) and my mom and step-dad (early 70's, some mobility issues) though the trip report is mainly from my perspective, not theirs.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2648962

Overall tips and advice:

We brought insulated water bottles (the double-walled kind, probably 30 oz) and they were great for soda with the soda and more package. The bartenders had no problem filling them up for us, and it meant being able to easily carry our sodas around.

We got the coffee package, and I'm not sure it was worth it, now that they've change the coffee card. Not sure I'd do it again.

Photos of the coffee place menu board:

We probably brought too many dressy clothes, because at least two nights (port days) we just wore nice jeans and nicer shirts to dinner. I came back with several dresses that I never wore.

I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has, and if there's interest, I can post the patters too. I'm not sure if they are much different from what someone posted a few weeks ago, but I have them all if anyone wants to compare. I'll see if DH wants to pop in and offer any additional advice (though he already told me this is too long).

Glacier Bay

Princess considers Glacier Bay a port, but you don't get off the boat. Instead, a couple of park rangers board the cruise ship and give talks throughout the day. And they bring on the National Parks Passport stamp, so we were able to get our passports stamped (a major selling point of this cruise for us). We lucked out with amazing weather. It was just a gorgeous day. We started out on our balcony, and the view was great. We were on the port side, and people say that starboard is better for cruises going north TO Alaska, but honestly, I think our view was great from the port side. In Glacier Bay we got to see Marjorie Glacier first. They basically slowly went into the bay, stopped and watched Marjorie for a while, turned around and sat for a bit, then headed to a different area and sat for a bit. After awhile we headed to Deck 7 so we could see the view from each side. We started off the day with long underwear, long sleeve shirts and jeans, and jackets and hats, but my mid-day we were able to lose the jackets - it was actually pretty warm in the sun. But it could have easily been a cloudy day and much chillier.

I'm really glad that we chose a trip with a stop at Glacier Bay. It was the highlight of the trip for me.

That evening was formal night #2. We saw a show called Encore that night. Husband really liked it, and I enjoyed it, but not as much as he did.

As we left Glacier Bay and headed out into the open waters, the ride got pretty bumpy. Other people said it was nothing, but it was the kind of thing where you looked like a drunk walking down the hallway. We put on our sea bands, which probably weren't needed, but we didn't get sick, so I'll take it.

Last day :( College Fjord

You don't get to College Fjord until late in the day. We had a relaxing morning, finished off picking up our photos and did some shopping on board. That was the only day we had lunch in the MDR, and we probably should have before, as it was really good. The naturalist on board gave some commentary as we headed into College Fjord, and we lucked out again with clear weather when we got there. We did some photos from the balcony, and others from Deck 7.

Disembarkation - Whittier

We booked our transportation through Alaska Cruise Transportation (ACT Big Bus) and got off the boat with those leaving with externally-provided transportation. We got the direct ride to Anchorage, while my folks got the full day that included a tour around Anchorage. Everything went smoothly, though we were definitely sad to leave the ship behind.

Port 1: Icy Straight Point

We weren't excited about this port, and didn't book any excursions for it (we were thinking about a black bear excursion, but it was pretty pricey, and of course no guarantee that we'd see bears). Before we got off the boat, we had lunch at the pizza place that is the Italian specialty dining at night. At lunch it is a pizza place (but I don't think it is open every day), and it was very good - fresher than the stuff up on the Lido deck. After that, we left the ship for a bit, walked around and got some souvenirs, took a few photos, and got back on the ship. The first building there offers free wifi, but only for an hour. And if you use 30 minutes and come back later, you'll find you are timed out (it is one hour from when you first start, not actually an hour of use).

Cool view of the ship through a log:

Some more food photos:

That evening we saw the stand-up comedian (Phil Tag), and he was really funny. Definitely enjoyed that show.

Port 2: Juneau

We did a combo Whale Watching and Mendenhall Glacier tour, again through Viator. I wanted one that would give us more time at the glacier, but what wasn't mentioned during booking was that the last shuttle from the glacier back to the port was at 3pm, so we didn't get as much time there as we wanted. The whale watching was great. Somehow we got super lucky and saw a whale breach, and DH caught it with his camera, so he was a happy guy for a while. It was fairly gray and threatening rain, and when we got to Mendenhall it was raining. We decided to do the hike to Nugget Falls, and it was an easy hike, but it did take a little while. The glacier was cool, but not as beautiful as what we'd see in a couple of days in Glacier Bay.

My husband's great whale photo:

 

 

Port 3: Skagway

As I mentioned, my husband is a photographer and he came across a photography tour out of Hanes, so we signed up for that. He wanted a tour where someone would tell us the great sites to go to for nature/landscape photography, and we lucked out and ended up being the only two people on the tour. The boat ride over to Hanes took about 45 minutes, and it was pretty scenic (lots of waterfalls). Hanes was a great place for bald eagles, and he got some great photos of some, plus great landscapes. A couple of my photos of the area are below. My mom and step-dad did a combo with the train and a bus tour from Skagway. They really enjoyed it, even though the train broke down and delayed them a bit.

 

My photos:

Day 1: Vancouver and Embarkation

Our group consisted of myself and my husband (early 40's, no kids) and my mom and step-dad (early 70's, some limitations with getting around, due to step-dad's Parkinson's disease). We were coming from Oregon, the folks from Arizona.

For the night before the cruise, we all stayed at the Days Inn by the Airport. I didn't feel like spending a lot of money on a hotel, and it ended up being around $150 USD. They did put a $250 hold on my credit card in case of damages, but other than that, it was a sufficient hotel. Walking distance to a liquor store where I was able to buy some wine to carry on.

 

 

We had arranged for a tour that would take us to the port, after spending 4 hours sight-seeing around Vancouver (through Viator). In some ways I'm glad we did it, because I've never been to Vancouver, but it rained a good part of the morning, which made sightseeing a bit frustrating. By the end of the tour, the weather had cleared, and had a great view of the city from our last stop, the Vancouver Lookout. We spotted our ship and started getting really excited.

 

 

 

 

We got to the port around 2:30pm, and went through the process of checking in and going through customs. It was completely uneventful, maybe took 45 min all together. Then it was on to the ship where we found our cabin and dropped off our carry-ons, and made our way to the Lido deck for sail-away (and thankfully the weather was perfect for that). We decided to have a little fun and wear Hawaiian shirts and leis, just to be goofy (my husband's idea), so we have some really fun embarkation photos. We splurged on the photo package (pre-cruise, for $199) and we're really glad we did. My folks did not, and they said they would do so next cruise. After sail-away, we went back to our cabin, and our suitcases had been delivered. We didn't really feel like changing clothes right then, and I had read that casual was okay for the first day, so we went to dinner in our Hawaiian shirts.

Cabin and balcony:

I forgot to take photos of the menu that night (I remembered for the dessert menu), but someone in an earlier trip report posted them, and I don't think they had changed. I had a creamed artichoke soup and a pork belly entree. It was really yummy. Husband has some challenging food issues, so he had a burger and fries. One challenge with the burger is that they want to add odd speciality toppings, which change every night. the first night was stilton and mushrooms, so he just got it plain. He was hoping for a bacon cheeseburger at some point, but no luck with that. The folks decided they wanted anytime dining, and we wanted a set time, so we didn't eat with them much. We did learn that both dining rooms become anytime dining on port days, which was something I didn't know before we got on board.

My dinner:

Day 2 was a sea day, so we mainly just relaxed. That was also the first formal night. We used the irons in the laundry room to get husband's dress clothes ready (mine thankfully traveled well and didn't need ironing). For those interested in the photo package, they had five different photo backdrops on the first formal night. You can get photos done at all of them, and you get all of the prints to take home. I know we wouldn't have purchased all of them individually, but it was nice to have a variety of photos to commemorate the trip. Plus, we got all of the photos when we got off the ship at each port.

We were going to go to the show that night, but it looked like there was potential for a nice sunset, and husband is a photographer, so we grabbed his gear and went up to the top deck, but then it fizzled out.

 

 

(ports and excursions will continue in next post)

I have never done a live report before, so please bear with me!

 

We have embarked in Vancouver. We arrived early at 0930. There were plenty of porters available to take our luggage. We checked in with Princess and then went through security. That all took about 30 minutes. We then cleared customs and went to the EPS waiting area. We started boarding at 1120. We were first in line at passenger services and first to sign up for the UST! We are currently enjoying an espresso while our room is being readied. I'll keep posting. Please ask any questions you might have and I'll do my best to answer them!

 

I'm wondering what you thought of the ship tour - was it worth it?

No Coke Zero this week and no Diet Coke from the US. They are using their leftover Diet Coke stock from their South America voyage. Coke sin azucar is definitely not tasting the same.

Ok, thank you for this info. I imagine they'll be done with South American diet coke by the time I board (in just over 3 weeks), but I'll probably pick up some coke zero in Vancouver. Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

 

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Thank you for posting these. I've been looking them over, and reading through your blog posts as well.

 

I have a question for you or the other person on the Island right now. This is probably silly, but I want to know if they have Coke Zero. If not, I'll drag some cans on with me, but if they do, I'll just get the soda package. I figure their soda offerings are pretty limited, but I know Coke has been pushing Coke Zero lately, so I figure there's a chance.