Trip Report - June 13 Island Princess Vancouver to Whittier

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)

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:

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.

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).

Hubby here...I'll add a few things from a geek perspective...I have seen conversations on here about hooking up your own HDMI to the tv in the stateroom. It can be done but you'll need to bring a universal remote and use the input button to change the input to HDMI. Make sure to change it back when you leave.

The wifi was solid for the most part but can be slow at times. I didn't try to stream movies or anything like that so I can't speak to it. If you buy the wifi before you leave, you get a better deal than on the ship.

Since I'm a photographer I can speak to what kind of lenses you may want to bring....I had a 8mm fisheye, 85, 105, 20, 24-105 and 200-500. Only used the 24-105 and 200-500. If you have a 70-200, that's the sweet spot lens for glaciers. 200-500 is great for glacier detail but if you want the option to zoom out and capture the full scope of what you're looking at, it's too long for that. You might be thinking, why not just stop at 70-200? You'll want the longer lens for bears, whales, eagles and close ups for the glacier. If you bring a longer lens, bring a monopod. Handholding a lens that long is a bad idea.

I'd recommend bringing lots and lots of SD cards. I had 2 64 gb and 2 32 gb. I used most of 3 of those cards and didn't use the last 32 gb card. You'll be tempted to shoot a lot as the scenery changes. Ease up on that urge, your goldmine awaits you at Glacier Bay. I used up an entire card on just that place.

If you buy the photo package, go all in. I spent 200 and walked away with over 2000 dollars in photos (calculating 25 dollars per photo if we bought every one of them). The photographers got to know us since they saw us nightly and suggested different poses to change things up.

Lastly, the onboard deal they offered for future cruises seemed to be a good one. On it's face it doesnt sound great but once you find out it's stacked on top of any other offers you get, that makes it more appealing and the deposit is fully refundable.

There's my 2 cents. Got technical nerd questions, ask away.

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?

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

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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!

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!

I fully understand typos and being tired. I just wasn’t sure how current the information was. Sadly, I have never found a way to correct a typo in the title.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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.

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.

Thanks for the reply. Sounds like a great trip!

Thanks for the review!

Thanks for sharing the info.

A couple quick questions. Do you have the details on the photography tour out of Hanes? How was the tour as the non-photographer? I really enjoy photography, my wife not as much, but she likes nice landscapes... And I'm assuming your lens information is based on using a full frame camera, correct?

Thanks for sharing the info.

 

A couple quick questions. Do you have the details on the photography tour out of Hanes? How was the tour as the non-photographer? I really enjoy photography, my wife not as much, but she likes nice landscapes... And I'm assuming your lens information is based on using a full frame camera, correct?

The tour was through Rainbow Glacier Tours. Our guide was Dena. As far as how the tour is for a non photographer, my wife says the excursion was mainly for me but she enjoyed the sights. Yes, my lens information is for a full frame camera. I use a Nikon D610.

Thank you for this review. It was VERY helpful and answered a lot of questions for us as we'll be on the exact same cruise, boarding 25 Jul. I'm by no means a professional photographer but I like to take tons of pictures so I'm renting a 28-300 for my Sony A65. I wanted to rent a 50-500 but it's not a good "walking around" lens. You had mentioned the sweet spot being 70-200 but I'm curious how often you used your 500? Once we make it to Anchorage, we are renting a car and driving to Denali for a 12 hour bus ride into the park. I think the 500 would be beneficial there but still to long (and bulky) for animals reasonably close to us. I only have 1 camera body and I hate changing lenses in the middle of a shoot because I'll miss something important. In your professional opinion, is the 28-300 enough lens or should I go ahead and rent both lenses? Thanks!

Thank you for this review. It was VERY helpful and answered a lot of questions for us as we'll be on the exact same cruise, boarding 25 Jul. I'm by no means a professional photographer but I like to take tons of pictures so I'm renting a 28-300 for my Sony A65. I wanted to rent a 50-500 but it's not a good "walking around" lens. You had mentioned the sweet spot being 70-200 but I'm curious how often you used your 500? Once we make it to Anchorage, we are renting a car and driving to Denali for a 12 hour bus ride into the park. I think the 500 would be beneficial there but still to long (and bulky) for animals reasonably close to us. I only have 1 camera body and I hate changing lenses in the middle of a shoot because I'll miss something important. In your professional opinion, is the 28-300 enough lens or should I go ahead and rent both lenses? Thanks!

Good questions! My answer will be the universally loathed "depends". I was photographing a lot of different things on that trip. I covered landscapes which is my typical work along with a small number of portrait shots, animals and close ups of the glacier. Animals will require a longer lens and 300 might work but it also might not be close enough. The other thing to consider is your safety. I personally would rather photograph a bear from as far away as I possibly can. Most of my longer lens shots were of bald eagles and the glacier because I wanted to get close ups of both. I also captured some shots of a humpback whale doing a breach and I had my longer lens for those as well but I wasn't fully extended. I know the longer lenses suck because they aren't very portable but there's nothing quite like capturing a photo of a glacier calving so it looks like you're right in front of it. The problem I ran into is that spread between 105 and 200. As far as how often did I use the 200-500 lens, I used it a lot on this trip but normally it sits patiently in a bag on most days because it's overkill for most things I shoot. You can see my work and get a sense of whether the longer lens is right for you: https://500px.com/aaronbachler One caveat, most of those photos are cropped down, some quite a bit so even with a longer lens, I still had to crop the photo down. There's no way the bald eagle shot looks like it does at 300mm. Hope that info helped out. Let me know if there's any other questions or scenarios you want to know about.

Your photos are fantastic! I really hope to get some good shots. Your suggestions helped a TON, thank you! I own a fast 24-70 so I think I'm going to cancel my 28-300 and just suck it up and rent the 50-500 beast...and take my monopod definitely. If I need a wide angle, the 24-70 will have to be wide enough or I have my GoPro - only 12MP but will do in a pinch. Thank you for taking the time and coaching a regular joe.

Your photos are fantastic! I really hope to get some good shots. Your suggestions helped a TON, thank you! I own a fast 24-70 so I think I'm going to cancel my 28-300 and just suck it up and rent the 50-500 beast...and take my monopod definitely. If I need a wide angle, the 24-70 will have to be wide enough or I have my GoPro - only 12MP but will do in a pinch. Thank you for taking the time and coaching a regular joe.

Happy to help. 24mm is plenty wide for the cruise. I had a 20mm on me and never used it. Most of my landscape shots were pushing the limits of the 24-105 because I was trying to minimize the water in the shot. With the longer lens, bump that ISO up to 400 or even 800 (if necessary) and if the lens has it, use vibration reduction because it's hard to keep them in focus once extended. I look forward to seeing what you come back with.

How was the ship overall? What deck where you on? I will be on this ship August 2019but southward bound. TIA

Hello, thank you for the report. We willl be on a Princess cruise in May 2019, the ship will arrive in Glacier Bay at 6:00 am.  Did you get up at 6:00 am to see the bay? Will we miss something nice if we get up a bit late or still having breakfast at 6:00 am?

4 hours ago, sskate said:

Hello, thank you for the report. We willl be on a Princess cruise in May 2019, the ship will arrive in Glacier Bay at 6:00 am.  Did you get up at 6:00 am to see the bay? Will we miss something nice if we get up a bit late or still having breakfast at 6:00 am?

I was on the identical ship & itinerary as the OP just two weeks earlier in May 2018. Here are the rough timings from Glacier Bay:

6:00 AM Arrive Bartlett Cove, pick up rangers from ranger station.

8:00 AM Commentary on deck begins as ship passes Queen Inlet

8:00 AM -- Noon Information desk at indoor pool deck with rangers on duty

10:00 AM Arrive at Margerie Glacier, ship cuts engines and idles for 1 hour

Noon Arrive at Lamplugh Glacier, ship cuts engines and idles for 1/2 hour

1:00 PM Presentation by Rangers in Princess Theater--but must arrive 45-60 minutes early for a seat.

3:00 PM Return to Bartlett Cove to drop off rangers

Actual time turning back north in Gulf of Alaska could be 4:30 or after. So lots to see even if not up first thing in the morning. Best strategy may be to eat a big breakfast at your usual time as you may be hard pressed for a lunch break especially if you plan to stake out seats for the 1:00 presentation.

Hi fishywood, thank you for your response, it's very informative.  May I know what's the presentation about? 

On 6/24/2018 at 11:14 PM, KamAZ said:

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).

Hello! I know this review is from last year.. but it was so informative and I have a few questions if you don’t mind.   I’ll be on Island Princess at the end of May (next month) & doing this same itinerary.  The hubby and I are getting the Soda & more package and I’m getting the coffee package.. as we can share the 15 coffees (but not the teas, etc).  The picture you posted of the coffee board.. is everything on that board what’s available for the coffee package?  And those are the teas that are included?  Is that the only place where we can use the coffee package or are there other areas on board?   

On Port days we should expect to be a little more relaxed at dinner? How about the first night? If we're scheduled for dining at say, 7:15pm, do they try to stick with that or does everyone just do open seating? Do we dress up the first night out of Vancouver or just wear what we wear to board?  I'm wondering now if I need to cut back on my dress clothes!  (I don't think I'll need a bathing suit either??)

You mentioned ordering plastic tag holders from Amazon.  I checked Amazon and wow... there are many to choose from. Does Princess have a specific size for tags or would any cruise ship tag work? 

As for wifi in ports..   we have Unlimited with Verizon. I’m wondering if we’ll even need wifi while in port or if Verizon has towers there?   Did you ever use your phone on the ship?   It’s my understanding that Island will have MedallionNet by May 15, 2019. I sure hope so. We want to be able to check in with family at least once a day for a few minutes.  I’ve been reading that if we use Facebook Messenger then video calling would use wi-fi and be included in the ship’s wifi package. Otherwise.. Verizon will charge us $2.99 per minute to use our cell phones for calling while on the ship.  CraZy!

***Bringing our National Parks passport to get stamped for Glacier Bay as well as Klondike Gold Rush (thanks for the reminder)

On Mendenhall Glacier...  I’ve been wondering if it’s worth it to take the time to see it since we’ll be going through Glacier Bay?  I have several things I’d like to do in Juneau and I feel like I don’t have enough time. I’ve also thought about not booking an excursion for Mendenhall but to take one of the buses that leaves our and returns every 30 minutes. Planning this cruise is overwhelming me. I’m not used to having to pack for cold weather & WHAT to wear! Glad you mentioned the long underwear.   

Did you see any whales or animal life in the Glacier Bay area or at anytime you were on the cruise ship? 

Sorry this is SO long!  
Thanks for sharing your pics & review! 😄 
 

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. 

😀  Thank you for all the info!   If I or my husband have any further questions..  I'll ask. Thanks for offering. 
Enjoy your cruise in a few weeks!