Star Princess 8/17 Alaska Review

I haven't posted here, but have been a long time reader and I gleaned a lot of information from everyone here before our Alaska cruise, so I thought I'd write a review in case it helps someone else. Just a little background:

We were a group of 12: me, DH, DS15, my 9yo twins (b/g), my parents, my MIL, my sister and her family (including 3 year old g/g twins).

We have cruised several times before, mostly on RCCL (our line of preference with the kids). Mom, sister and I cruised Princess once before on the Golden. While the cruise was great, the food was only so-so and that cruise became known as the Vanilla Sauce cruise (as every desert seemed to have vanilla sauce, or the same sauce with a little flavoring). We ended up eating mostly onshore, which was fine as it was a Canada/NE cruise and it was all about the lobster. ;)

This cruise was all about my MIL. FIL passed away last year and we wanted to do something for MIL. She always wanted to see Alaska and never was able to, so we decided this was the time to go. We chose Princess because I (the designated vacation planner of the family) read that Princess and HAL are best for Alaska and the only ones to go to Glacier Bay (which I read was a must). We decided Princess would be better for the kids so after some moaning about vanilla sauce, we booked the Star Princess. After all, we were going to see Alaska, not cruising for the food. :p

I decided that this cruise would also serve as the 20th wedding anniversary I never got (2 years late). :D So my parents booked one Vista suite on the Dolphin deck and we booked the one on the opposite side. I booked MIL and the kids in an inside and my sister booked an ocean view. We used the 2 suites as the main hang out for everyone which worked perfectly as we could easily accomodate 6 (or more) in the room or on the balcony.

My family (and MIL) arrived in Seattle a week before the cruise as DH is an outdoors kind of guy and wanted to see Olympic National Park. We spent a week hiking there before getting on the Star Princess. I have to say Olympic National Park was incredible. I've attached a photo of the view from Hurricane Ridge and one of the HAL ship that was leaving Seattle right behind us. The latter was taken right from our balcony. :)

A few more pictures from Olympic National Park.....

Just the review I'm looking for since I'll be on Star Princess to Alaska on Sept 14. Looking forward to the rest of the trip report!

Edit: Did you do any excursions?

Just the review I'm looking for since I'll be on Star Princess to Alaska on Sept 14. Looking forward to the rest of the trip report!

 

Edit: Did you do any excursions?

Yes, my family splurged and did the Whales, Bears and Glacier excursion in Juneau. MIL did the train in Skagway and mom and dad did the castle tour in Victoria. Excursion pictures coming in future installments. :p

One more post before I have to run errands.........

I want to preface this review by saying that you will see some comparisons to RCL on here as that is what we are most familiar with. I will start with one minor complaint that is a comparison - on RCL, my kids get their cruise card punched and put on lanyards the moment they board (they also get a wrist band with their muster station that stays on for the entire cruise). Princess does not do this. I really wish they did. After DS9 left his wallet at the dining room (with cruise card - fortunately remembered quickly and was able to get it back) and my daughter left her cruise card in multiple locations over the first 2 days, I started to worry that this was not going to end well for my little kids (DS15 was fine, but he is much older). Lanyards are about $5 a piece in the gift shop. I know, not a lot, but it was the principle of the thing. Had I known, I would have had my little ones bring their Adventure Ocean lanyards. Fortunately, it only took the first day for DS9 to figure it out and keep is wallet in a sealed pocket. DD9 was a little more of a challenge as most of her clothes don't have pockets. Thanks to the kind kids staff crew member who gave her a lanyard on the 2nd day to prevent disaster. :)

Ok - to prevent you all from thinking I am going to bash Princess for this entire review, I'm not. We had a GREAT cruise. The kids club was my minor issue and it was resolved after speaking to the kids club. And to kill the suspense about the food on this cruise - while I did not care for Horizon Court at all (for dinner and lunch anyway, never ate breakfast there thanks to Sabatini's ;) MIL and kids ate in HC everyday for breakfast and never complained, so I have to assume breakfast was fine) - the food in the dining room was the BEST food we have had on a cruise ship in the last 3 cruises. While we have had some great food on ships (Voyager and Adventurer of the Seas specifically), the food on RCL has been going downhill in the last few years. We were on Enchantment a couple years ago and the food was good, but not great. My mom was on Jewel last year and said the food was downright inedible. So - there you go - our maybe slightly biased food review. We did eat at the Crown grill the first night (suite perk) and my parents ate at Sabatini's one other night. Both restaurants were great, but the dining room was great for us as well. I particularly liked that when the dining room was open for lunch, it was a different menu each time (RCL has the same lunch menu when it is open). We also had one person with allergies and 2 people on dr ordered low cholesterol diets. The staff did a fabulous job of taking care of all of them. Oh - and by the way, there was no repeat of the vanilla sauce cruise. There was vanilla sauce on the souffle the first day, the the rest of the cruise had different desserts with a variety of sauces that were in no relation to the vanilla sauce. ;)

Ok - enough on food, I have to run then I'll be back with more pictures.... :)

Niiice! :cool:

Did you book yours through Princess or independently? Also, when I did my cruise to the Caribbean, there were plenty of local tours at every port where one can just walk up to them and book (usually much cheaper than the cruise line). Is it the same for the ports in Alaska?

Thank you and yes, more pictures please! :D

Niiice! :cool:

 

Did you book yours through Princess or independently? Also, when I did my cruise to the Caribbean, there were plenty of local tours at every port where one can just walk up to them and book (usually much cheaper than the cruise line). Is it the same for the ports in Alaska?

 

Thank you and yes, more pictures please! :D

We booked through Princess for the excursions. The only thing we did on our own was in Ketchikan. There, we took a $30 trolley tour to Herring Cove. It gave a little history of the town, went by the totem poles at Saxman, and then went to Herring Cove. The sole reason we took this is because I really wanted to see a bear on this trip. We didn't really get to see a bear on our bear watch (more on that later). I didn't want to fork over another $300 to go on a bear watch in Ketchikan (yes, we were offered to book one on at the visitor center), so we gambled on the $30 trolley. We did get to see 1 black bear sitting on the side of the river near Herring Cove. It wasn't terribly close, but it sat there for a while and I did get a picture so that checked that one box for me. :p

We spent the day prior to the cruise in Seattle (where, of all things, a hemp fest was going on down by the dock - weirdest thing I've ever seen and clogged up traffic for a bit). We stayed at the Maxwell Hotel, which was very nice. One of the things on MIL's checklist was to see the Space Needle. It was only a couple of blocks walking distance, so we took her to the top of the Space Needle. We got lucky and had a very clear day. We were able to see Mt. Rainier (though not well enough to get a picture). We saw a couple of cruise ships in the dock.

Thanks for posting your observations. Looking forward too reading more.....:):):)

Bob

We took the first shuttle available from the Maxwell ($7 per person) and arrived at the pier around 11:15. There was a line to check our bags which moved quickly, and a security line (also quick). There was a longer line to check in. Since we were staying in a suite, we went to that line, which was empty when we got there. After checking in, we then stood in a line just outside and waited to board. They started letting people in suites board around 12:15. At this point, I thank cruise critic for the tip about the dining room being open on embarkation day. I looked in the Patter and didn't see it (though my mom said she saw it so it must have been there somewhere). After dropping our stuff in our room and checking out MIL's room, we went to the dining room and had a very enjoyable and relaxing meal. What a great way to start a cruise. I now wish RCL would do this as well. It was much better than being herded through the buffet line. :D

I have to apologize for not taking pictures of the ship. I guess we were so excited about Alaska that we didn't think about it. I will say - this ship is beautiful and in great condition. The crew was amazing (special thanks to my cabin steward and my mom's for providing an endless supply of kiwis and strawberries for my kids and my sister's kids :p).

Oh this is so exciting as I am on the Golden on the 14th and staying at the Maxwell. They looked nice and a but funky. But I was told that the Maxwell didn't shuttle to the cruise terminal--so that is incorrect?

Oh this is so exciting as I am on the Golden on the 14th and staying at the Maxwell. They looked nice and a but funky. But I was told that the Maxwell didn't shuttle to the cruise terminal--so that is incorrect?

They will arrange a shuttle for you. It's not free. I believe it was $7 per person. You just have to ask the front desk when you check in. They are super nice there. And the afternoon cupcakes are yummy (I think MIL ate 5 :D)

Our first port was Juneau. Before I start, I have to explain something. This trip was planned as a once in a lifetime trip. I planned it as the only trip we will ever take to Alaska - which is certainly true for MIL. One thing I wanted to see was bears and whales. I did all my research and I know that the best way to see bears it to take one of the expensive fly in trips to Anan or Pack Creek or Traitor's Cover. All those trips were anywhere from $300 (in Ketchikan, where we didn't have much time) to $600+ in Juneau. DH decided that, as a trip of a lifetime, we should pay for the kids to come with us as well. Juneau is the best place to see whales and I was really hoping to see a brown bear, so we decided to take our chances and book the Whales, Bears, and Glaciers excursion through Princess. I know the bear part is only a bear search, but it is what we could pay. Paying for 6 was too pricy to do a separate bear search and whale watch. I will say that if I ever to get to go back, I would do the bear watch in Ketchikan and just do whales in Juneau. That out of the way............

So the first part of our tour was the whale watch. Some people did this in the opposite order, so if you do plan this tour, be aware your order could be different. The whales where AMAZING. The boats on this tour only hold about 15 people. We had 12 people on our tour. The view was perfect. We were surrounded by whales. There was one younger whale who kept jumping out of the water for us and a small group of bigger whales circling the boat. It was fabulous. Hard to catch a good picture on a boat that is rocking, but here are a few of the shots we got.

Thank you for the review and pictures. We are on the Star in September to Alaska. With just a few weeks to go until our cruise, can't think of much else.

Great to hear you were so pleased with the Star Princess. I just booked a Hawaii cruise on the Star and will be in a Vista Suite. Do you have any pictures of your cabin and balcony? I'm curious what the balcony furniture looks like. Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

I just booked a cruise to Hawaii on the Star for February. I'm very glad you enjoyed your cruise. It's great to hear good reports about ship you are booked on.

Great to hear you were so pleased with the Star Princess. I just booked a Hawaii cruise on the Star and will be in a Vista Suite. Do you have any pictures of your cabin and balcony? I'm curious what the balcony furniture looks like. Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

I didn't take any pictures of the cabin, but my mom uploaded her pictures yesterday (we are getting a photo book made of the trip) and she has a few. Here they are. I also included my only picture that shows balcony furniture which is MIL enjoying the lounger. ;)

After our whale watch, the boat docked in the town of Hoonah. There, we got into vans to start our bear search. I had a bad feeling when they said the morning group heard a bear, but did not see one. They took us to a couple of different locations to find a bear. No bear from us, but I have to say the guides were very interesting. They were native to Hoonah and gave us a lot of information about the area and bears in general. It was still a good tour, even without the bear. Here are a few pictures of that part. The bear below is a wooden bear near the platform we were at looking for real bears. :p

After our failed bear search, we were driven to the small airport in Hoonah for our glacier flight seeing portion of the tour. While we were waiting to board the plane, we saw a brown bear running across the field on the other side of the runway. It was too short a glimpse for anyone to get a camera out. As we took off, the pilot and guide told us to look down to see if we could spot him again. We didn't see that bear, but we did spot a bear on the road we had just driven on our bear search (thanks, bear, a bit late, don't ya think? :rolleyes:). We also spotted one on a beach we flew over. So I guess we did see brown bears on our tour, just not as up close we I was hoping for. :p

DH was lucky enough to sit next to the pilot for our flight to Juneau so he took all the pictures on this leg. We flew over the spot we had been whale watching and saw the whales from the air, which was pretty neat. We then flew over 3 glaciers, including Mendenhall Glacier. By the time we got to Mendenhall, rain was moving in and the clouds were getting pretty low. We were able to get some great pictures of the other 2 glaciers.

After arriving back at Juneau, we decided to stop at Tracey's Crab Shack on the way back to the ship. We just wanted a taste of Alaskan crab since the kids don't eat seafood (their loss :p). We got the special that was 1 King Crab leg, 4 crab cakes, a cup of chowder, and a roll. I will say I wasn't impressed with the crab cakes, but we are from the east coast and used to Maryland crab cakes with huge lump crab. That said, the king crab leg was the biggest and tastiest crab leg I've ever had. The chowder was good as well.

After finishing that snack, we went back to the ship to feed the kids in Horizon court and head off to bed. The next day was Skagway............

DH was lucky enough to sit next to the pilot for our flight to Juneau so he took all the pictures on this leg. We flew over the spot we had been whale watching and saw the whales from the air, which was pretty neat.

I love the different perspectives. Your second photo (of the house and lighthouse), is the aerial view of what we saw from the whale watch boat.

Since we spent so much money on our tour in Juneau, we had decided not to do a tour in Skagway or Ketchikan. DH decided he wanted to go hiking. I had read about popular trails to Lower Dewey Lake or Upper Dewey Lake. Our waiter in Sabatini's told us he did the Upper Dewey lake hike and it was really hard and took a while. DH had picked a hike in Olympic National Park that went up 3000ft in 4 miles. I only made it to 2.5 miles before I had to turn around. The upper Dewey Lake hike was similar so I knew there was no way. DH wanted to go so he took the twins and I took DS15. We went to lower Dewey lake while DH went on the longer hike.

Even the hike up Lower Dewey was steep, but it wasn't terrible. The lake is beautiful. We could have hiked on a 2.5 mile trail around the lake, but we decided to go back and do a little shopping.

A few pictures we took in town.................

I love the different perspectives. Your second photo (of the house and lighthouse), is the aerial view of what we saw from the whale watch boat.

 

 

 

That is a beautiful picture as well. I love all the mountains in AK and how they make a beautiful backdrop almost everywhere we went.

Meanwhile, from the top of the mountain and Upper Dewey Lake...........