Review of Golden Princess Cruise to Inside Passage-Alaska, May, 2013

[lovelearnteach]

We get on our tour bus and we have a nice young man who does this job on his summer break while attending college. I was glad I got him over the other driver who was a little loud and obnoxious. Not that there's anything wrong with loud and obnoxious, but that early in the morning tends to grate on me, now later in the afternoon yes it can be great fun. It was a very short ride to Saxman Native Village, so we are herded off into a reception building. This Tlingit young man tells some lame jokes and a bit of history and what we are going to see and do. We then are herded through a rain forest to a cedar lodge where we get to witness some awesome dancing.

[lovelearnteach]

Loving it! Keep it coming!

Thank-you sweetie, love ya. I'm still seriously considering that Christmas cruise :p:D:)!

[lovelearnteach]

Thanks

Oh your welcome, I'll post the rest I have as I get to them in the review :).

[lovelearnteach]

I will be on the Golden in September. My first Princess cruise, so I'm enjoying your review and learning all about what is to come for me.

I enjoy Princess and in my 4 cruises with them I've found them to be very consistent. Good food, good service, good ships, good itineraries are all hallmarks of Princess in my opinion :).

[lovelearnteach]

The white guy in the doorway was the other tour guide/driver.

[lovelearnteach]

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[lovelearnteach]

That's me next to the totem pole, lots of totems all over the place to look at. The guy standing next to the Saxman sign was our tour guide/driver. We then go to the totem making building, and get to meet a master carver and his apprentice and more history of this tribe of Native Americans. So then we have time to shop around in the gift store, then we head back to the dock. There is a free shuttle that takes you back and forth from the downtown area where all the shopping is to the dock.

[cvpends]

Nice photos -- thanks for sharing :D

[lovelearnteach]

Nice photos -- thanks for sharing :D

Thank-you :).

[lovelearnteach]

The shuttle area is right near where the ship docks, and the free shuttle is across a parking lot and there are public bathrooms near the free shuttle drop-off/pick-up spot. The free shuttle runs every 20 min., you could walk into town, it is doable, if your a big walker, but we figured we are gonna be walkin enough this whole vacation, why not use it, it's free :rolleyes::D. So we get off at the first stop, which is basically the beginning of the shopping and restaurant area of town. By this time it has stopped raining and we are hungry, so we decide to eat at the famous Annabelle's Famous Keg and Chowder House, which is conveniently right here at the beginning. Nothing spectacular to look at on the inside, the menu's are on newspaper, kitschy, but cute. They have a special not on the menu, Fried Chicken-with mashed potatoes and gravy. We wonder are we crazy to order a southern trademark in the Salmon Capital of the World :eek::D? Turns out we aren't, it was one of the best fried chickens I've had. It just goes to show a good cook is a good cook wherever they be! We also got iced tea, very good, and house-made herbed bread, I liked it, Terry hated it, but he has an addiction to plain white bread.

[lovelearnteach]

Thus fortified, my first mission, the famous Creek Street. I loved it, just such an awesome place to stroll and shop and nature watch.

[lovelearnteach]

I have to tell you about this pic of my Uncle Terry. He practically threw a fit like one of my 4-year-old's, to have his pic taken with this cheesy waterfall, so hears his damn pic :rolleyes::D:).

[lovelearnteach]

After Creek Street it's off for all my free stuff. Some sights along the way. We end back up where we started by Annabelle's. By this time it's a little after 3, time to head back to the ship, so we wait for the free shuttle and viola, we are back on the ship :).

[lovelearnteach]

We go to our cabin to unload and unwind, and end up watching "Oz the Great and Powerful", it's a cute kid's movie. We take our time getting ready for dinner. Tonight I start with Melanzane alla Parmigiana, outstanding! Then Pasta Fagioli, very good, and for an entree I got the Scaloppine di Vitello al Marsala, very good. For dessert I have Tiramisu, so yummy!Terry got the Spaghetti con Polpette in Salsa di Pomodoro Fresca, which he say's is very good, and for dessert he got the Cassata alla Siciliana, which I tried and it was really good. Terry also turned in his voucher for a Birthday Cake, which Princess let's you celebrate as long as your birthday is within a month of your sailing. Terry is a June baby, so I went ahead and set it up through the cruise personalizer.

[Magellan321]

Great review! Thanks for all the food info, we will be boarding the Golden this Sunday. We will be in Ketchikan on my birthday....I'm so happy to see that it will be Italian night!

[melody hounddog]

The fried chicken looks amazing! Gosh, its been too long since I have had fried chicken. I think it was 2 years ago at my son's lacrosse game. Ugh, hate dieting.

[lovelearnteach]

That pretty much concludes Day 4 of our Alaskan Vacation. We head back to the cabin after dinner as the plan is to get up between 5-5:30a.m., as we pass the"Bar" at 6a.m. tomorrow morning. I loved Ketchikan, so cute and I had awesome fried chicken :D! Oh and when we were on our way to Saxman we saw a bald eagle swoop down and catch a fish out of the bay, I actually have seen a bald eagle catch a fish before, not in Alaska, but still an amazing sight.

[lovelearnteach]

It's May 15th, 2013 and we are at Tracy Arm Fjord, Sawyer Glacier and Juneau today. It's hump day for our Alaskan Vacation, wow I can't believe we are halfway in. Terry gets up about 5:15 a.m. and I snooze on and off until I hear the Naturalist talking at 5:30a.m. So I get up, and get dressed in layers, and we head off. First stop promenade, we see out first dolphins and our first icebergs and we pass the "Bar" and we are officially in the Fjord. Very cold but so beautiful, we then head up top for the view from there. We then went and sat in the covered pool area and watched the scenery until our tummies told us it was well past time for breakfast.

[lovelearnteach]

Great review! Thanks for all the food info, we will be boarding the Golden this Sunday. We will be in Ketchikan on my birthday....I'm so happy to see that it will be Italian night!

Thank-you, I hope you have a wonderful cruise :)! Happy Birthday :)!

[lovelearnteach]

The fried chicken looks amazing! Gosh, its been too long since I have had fried chicken. I think it was 2 years ago at my son's lacrosse game. Ugh, hate dieting.

Some things are worth cheating for and trust me this fried chicken was worth every bite :D:)!

[lovelearnteach]

We get lucky this morning and get a window table. Sorry didn't get a pic of the menu, but I got Eggs Benedict, ham steak and hash browns, all very yummy.

[lovelearnteach]

After breakfast it's a waiting game to get to Sawyer Glacier. I have to tell you the first time I saw Sawyer Glacier, or any glacier for that matter, it literally took my breath away. I had to grab hold of the railing as my knees got weak, and I came close to crying. I could feel the power of the Glacier in the air around me, it was an amazing experience. I'm kinda shocked that the top deck is not packed shoulder to shoulder, standing room only. In fact there doesn't seem to be very many people at all considering there are over 3,000 passengers. I never felt crowded and I was at the front of the ship the whole time the ship was at the Glacier. Even before because I said to Terry let's get up there and fight for a decent spot, and I thought oh we got lucky and beat the crowds, we can get a good spot. Well I had my choice of spots and as the ship moved so did I no problem. The island is called, aptly enough, Sawyer Island :D.

[lovelearnteach]

Okay CC is acting whacky tonight.

[lovelearnteach]

I don't know what happened to those pix, Let me try again.

[lovelearnteach]

So after it's time to leave Sawyer Glacier, we go to see the naturalist Kathy Slamp. Let me tell you if your lucky enough to get her, the amount of knowledge she has is astonishing. I really liked her style and voice tone also. We go to lunch in the dinning room and I get to gabbin with our tablemates so much that I didn't take any pix of lunch. We arrive in Juneau on time, we have several other ships in port with us today. Our plan is to go to Mendenhall Glacier so when we got off the ship we went to the first stand and we got the $8pp each way shuttle. It was a little confusing on where exactly to go to get on the shuttle, but we managed to stumble onto it :D.