Long Review - Crown Princess Southbound Alaska June 28-July 5

[xznwfd]

Alaska the Last Frontier

Alaska probably isn’t on the trip list for most teenagers, but ever since I was in high school and read James Michener’s Alaska it’s been at the top of mine. I love all his books, but something about the grandeur and vast space of Alaska really touched me and I’ve wanted to visit ever since.

Fast forward almost 40 (ahem) years. My best friend and usual cruise companion Joan had no interest in a long and expensive trip to Alaska (“who wants to go somewhere COLD in the summer?”) My sisters were also less interested. Thankfully, my long term boyfriend the Melancholy Italian gradually started to share my interest after watching some of the Discovery channel programs that have popped up on Alaska (especially “Flying Wild Alaska” and “Alaska the Last Frontier”). He one day suggested, after acknowledging my passion for this trip “let’s just go” and we began the long process of preparing for an almost 2 week trip – 5 days in the Alaskan interior and a 7 day southbound cruise from Whittier to Vancouver.

I did piles of research, both on Cruise Critic, Travelocity, and anywhere else I could find information. Most sources said if you are doing a land portion to your trip do that first, and they were spot on. The land portion, no matter how carefully planned, is exhausting. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see that beautiful cruise ship in front of me when we staggered off the train from Anchorage in Whittier. We flew into Anchorage on Monday from Detroit and arrived about 7:30 pm (11:30 am EDT time). We had a day to recover and explore that pretty little city, then were up early (6:00 am) for the 8:15 train ride on the Alaska Railroad up to Denali National Park for 2 days. We got to our destination (Denali Cabins) about suppertime, ate and fell into bed exhausted from left over jet lag and a 7 hour train trip. The next day we were up at 4:30 am to be ready for a 6:00 am pick up for our bus tour into Denali National park. That was not without issues (flooding, washed out roads, cold rain and snow) and we couldn’t make it all the way into the park. Lucky for us as it turned out, for those already in the park couldn’t get out and had to be airlifted back to their hotels. Our long tour was shortened quite a bit and we were brought back to our cabin for a late lunch. The next day it was back on a bus to Anchorage, arriving about 8 pm. We hunted down a reindeer dog for supper and crashed, and were up early (again) for another 3 hour train ride to Whittier. Trains, planes and automobiles, indeed!

We loved the interior of Alaska, but as a cruise girl at heart, our 7 day southbound cruise on the beautiful Crown Princess was the highlight of the trip for me. We got off the train right in front of the cruise terminal, and were 2 of the first 20 people on board the ship at about 12:30 pm. I’ve been on the Crown twice before so was familiar with the layout. The MI had only been on once cruise before the Crown and it was a less than stellar experience. It was back in the days of assigned seating and formal dressing and as an engineer both things went completely against the grain of what he considers a vacation. The only way he would agree to another cruise was if I promised anytime dining and no formal wear. I was happy to concede on both counts, and so our experience was probably a little less structured than some. However, he did have a splendid time and has agreed to a 12 day British Isles cruise next, so I consider this trip a huge success.

Once we were on board, we made our way to our cabin, E730, one of the covered mini suites on the Emerald deck. Through all my research I learned that this cabin has an extended balcony that gives you a view aft on the ship as well as out to the side, and I thought it would be perfect for Alaska. It was, with 2 drawbacks, both of which I had been warned of in advance. The first was that it is situated directly over Club Fusion, so every night we were treated to not the music, but the thumping bass from the club. It didn’t keep us awake, but it did wake me most nights. If they had turned down the bass we probably wouldn’t have heard a thing, but as it was it was annoying to say the least. There was also a lot of vibration at the aft of the ship, and that, too, would wake me from time to time. Other than that, it was the perfect room and neither drawback spoiled it for us. The balcony was fabulous, and we really appreciated being covered on a couple of cold and rainy days.

Once on board we met our room steward Mervin who was very sweet and like a stealth bomber when it came to cleaning the room. Our luggage was very late to be delivered, and he would not rest until he finally tracked it down and brought all 3 bags to our room. At first the only one he found was the one with the dirty laundry (of course) so I was in line at the front desk to try and search bags without tags and the MI was sent back to the room to start a load of laundry. When he made it back to the room dear Mervin had located both missing bags and had them waiting for us in the room. The MI dashed downstairs and pulled me out from the line and I was finally, after almost 6 days, able to unpack our suitcases and Put Everything Away. Only another woman with an array of cosmetics, creams and hair products will fully understand my joy.

Since we didn’t leave Whittier until 8:30 pm, both the Crown Grill and Sabatini’s were closed the first night. I made reservations for the Crown for the second night and Sabatini’s on the last. I also tried to (and was told I had done so) make reservations for the Crab Shack on the next to last day. More on that later. We next reserved the Ultimate Ship Tour for the MI as a birthday gift, and finally headed out to explore the ship.

The MI’s first cruise was on the Brilliance of the Seas, which is very lovely but much smaller than the Crown. We started at the top and worked our way down, and he was most impressed with the beautiful gym, the specialty restaurants, the Piazza, and ultimately the International Café. The MI has a few guiding principles in his life and one of them is “No Waiting on Line”. As a result, the International Café was perfect for a quick lunch and allowed us to avoid the lines in the buffet. We had the wonderful chicken salad with a little sandwich on the side and my usual start-of-the-cruise cocktail, the Beverly Hills Iced Tea. The ice might not be as necessary as it is on a Caribbean cruise but the liquor filled tea hit the spot and started us out on a great note.

Our explorations done, we headed back to our room and settled in on our beautiful balcony to watch everyone else board the ship. The highlight of the afternoon was when a large, stern bald eagle landed on the phone tower right across from our balcony and spent the afternoon moving from the tower to a nearby tree keeping an eye on all the proceedings below. Even better, he was soon joined by his lovely wife, and the 2 of them kept us entertained all afternoon. They would soar around in fine eagle fashion, always coming back to rest on the phone tower and look right at us as if to say “do you mean you require this giant behemoth to get your from place to place? Why not just use your wings?” An excellent question, actually.

Eventually we headed to the buffet to battle the crowds for dinner but it was a non-event – no lines really, and we had a fine meal. The food in the buffet was always very good; hot, well-seasoned and a wide variety of choices, and we had no complaints. We made our way back toward our room with a brief stop in Crooners for a martini before bed. Crooners became our regular nightly stop and James took excellent care of us. He remembered our names, our drink preferences, and my need for either spicy snacks or sugared peanuts. We loved him, and made sure to fill out a consummate host card for him at the end of the trip. We then retired for the night, ready to leap out of bed the next morning for a day of glacier viewing in Yatakut Bay.

Sunday dawned cold and foggy as we crept up Yakutat Bay for our first glacier viewing at Hubbard Glacier. We had a nice breakfast in the buffet and then the MI went to work out, while I returned to the room to read and keep an eye out for icebergs. We didn’t start to see much ice until about 3 pm when the bay started to fill with small floaters. Some were white, some dirty grey, and some, the best, were a deep cobalt blue. We listened to the naturalist on board explain that the beautiful blue ones were the newest, and the oxygen deprived glacier ice would eventually turn white or dirty white as it was exposed to air. We also started to see harbor seals on some of the icebergs; chubby little sausage rolls that would slip silently into the water as the ship approached. We finally approached the face of the glacier just as it was time to head to the Crown Grill for dinner. We hastily dressed (the MI consented to wear a button down shirt and kakis for dinner) and were among the first diners at the lovely Crown. They gave us a fabulous window seat and we had a wonderful meal while watching the glacier calve and admiring how carefully the captain nudged that giant ship through the ice filled waters. I’m not much of a meat eater so I enjoyed the mussels, and the MI growled his way through the New York Strip. We shared the chef’s choice for dessert, and waddled happily back to our room giddy with the thought of another day when we didn’t need to set the alarm. It was finally starting to feel like a vacation!

The next day we woke up to find ourselves in Glacier Bay, one of the biggest days of the trip. We spent most of the day either on our fabulous balcony or in the bow of the ship looking for wildlife with the ship’s naturalist. She was awesome and pointed out several groups of otters (my favorite) gallivanting through the water. There were also whale sightings (not by us sadly) and soon the icebergs were coming up thick and fast. We made it to the Margerie glacier by early afternoon and were treated to a 360 degree view of it by the captain. Thanks to the great info provided by the ship’s naturalist, we stayed outside as long as possible listening to the “white thunder” and watching chucks of the glacier break off and tumble into the sea. This was what we came to Alaska for and we were not disappointed. The scenery all day was amazing, with the Takishna Mountains and the Chilkat Range stretching up into the sky around us and the giant glacier showing flashes of that brilliant cobalt blue in its depths. In spite of the cold and mist, it was an absolutely amazing experience.

When we were driven indoors we decided to try the dining room for dinner. The MI was a bit concerned but when we were immediately ushered to a nice table for 2 (with No Waiting and No Sitting With Other People) and we had a wonderful meal. We went to the Michelangelo dining room that first night and the DaVinci on subsequent evenings and had excellent service and food in both. We never waited even a moment to be seated, and I think that is what finally turned the MI from a Cruise Loather to a Cruise Appreciator. I will be forever grateful to the beautiful Crown Princess for that.

Day 3 was Skagway, and our first excursion of the trip. We had signed up for the Dog Sled tour, mostly because we were promised play time with the sled dog puppies at the end of it. We spent the morning wandering around Skagway in the shops and took a brief hike straight up the mountain to Dewey Lake. That turned out to be a bit more than we bargained for, so we headed back to the ship for lunch and were bouncing on our toes on the dock at the assigned time for our sled dog ride.

It was about a half hour trip from town up into the mountains where the sled dogs were kept. Our guide told us that they had 250 dogs, and there was no way they could have kept them in town due to noise complaints. As we approached through the spectacular scenery in first a bus, then something called a Unimog (which gave new meaning to 4 wheel drive) we could see why; as soon as the dogs heard us coming all 250 of them started barking wildly to show us the way. We finally came around a corner and saw there were 5 teams tied up to large aluminum sleds that each sat 6-8 people. Each team had between 14 and 16 dogs attached and they were all eagerly ordering us to climb on board and get going already! We were divided into teams of 6 and loaded onto the sleds and then we were off!

Our guide had explained that the modern day sled dog is no longer a Malamute or Husky. Instead, they are cross bred with faster dogs, mostly hounds, for speed and are known as Alaskan Huskies. They retain the thick, double layered coat that allows them to survive the frigid cold which was another reason the dogs were kept high in the mountains surrounding the town. We learned the tour is actually cancelled if the weather gets too warm since these dogs are not bred for warm weather and are happiest at about 10 degrees below zero. They would have really enjoyed our Michigan winter last year.

After an exhilarating race around the track those noble dogs brought us back for the next part of the excursion. We got to pet them and take some photos, then were treated to a talk on the Iditarodby one of the dog team owners. That was very interesting, but next came the best part, a half hour of play time with a 5 week old litter of puppies. Young and old on our tour all ooohhhhed and ahhhhhed over their chubby little selves, and we all had to have our backpacks examined to be sure they weren’t squirming before we headed back down to town. We were soon back on the Crown and got back just in time to hear a talk in the ship’s theater given by the 1985 Iditarod winner Libby Riddles. She was told fascinating stories about sled dogs and sled dog racing and took a lot of questions from the audience. Kudos to Princess for managing to get her on board.

The following day in Juneau dawned cool and cloudy. We got right off the ship with a backpack full of gifts we had purchased for our loved ones back home. Since our suitcases were filled to the bursting point we decided to mail some things back. It was about a 20 minute walk to the post office, and 2 priority boxes later our load was light and our suitcases would be able to zip up again. Then we headed back to the pier for the MI’s favorite excursion, a glacier tour on a float plane. He is a pilot of his own small aircraft and I knew we would have to do a flight tour on this trip. Our flight scheduled for Denali National Park was cancelled due to the miserable weather, so we regrouped by changing our whale watching excursion in Juneau into the float plane flight there. We were quickly boarded onto a 10 seat DE Havilland Otter float plane and took smoothly off for 40 minutes of the most beautiful scenery of the trip. There are 5 glaciers around Juneau and we flew over all of them. The air was clear and we could see for miles; it was absolutely amazing. The pilot then brought us back, landing softly on the water and taxing us to the dock. After that, we headed up to the Hanger Bar, an actual former airplane hangar which we had seen on one of the Alaska shows on TV. We had a nice lunch there, then headed back to the ship. We enjoyed another great meal in the dining room (not dressed up) and a little time in the casino before heading off to bed.

The last tour day was Thursday in Ketchikan. We had been told it rained every day there, and we were not disappointed. We had a rain forest tour scheduled and the rain did stop long enough for us to get through that, then the downpour returned. The tour itself was great – we had an excellent guide with a great sense of humor. After the rainforest we visited a sawmill, saw a native carver working on a totem pole, and saw both reindeer and injured raptors; a bald eagle, a horned owl and a beautiful white snowy owl (Hedwig). That was amazing, and we got some great photos. There were also at least 10 other eagles flying around the area, and we got a wonderful shot of a tree with at least 8 eagles arrayed artfully on the branches. In spite of the wet and gloom, we had a super day in Ketchikan.

That night was supposed to be our dinner in the Crab Shack. We were quite dismayed when we got to deck 15 and were told that the dinner wasn’t offered that night! Somehow the Dine line had gotten our reservations mixed up, but you’ll be glad to know we didn’t starve and had another fine meal in the DaVinci Dining room.

Our last day was a sea day, so we lazed around and did a bit of packing. The MI very much enjoyed his Ultimate Ship’s Tour and got to see the engine control room, the bridge, backstage at the theater, the kitchens, and even the room where the anchors and tie lines are stored. They took pictures at each tour stop and those were delivered to our room before dinner, along with a beautiful Princess robe, picture frame and even an apron! We dined in Sabatini’s that night and it was absolutely fabulous meal and the perfect way to end our trip.

A couple of miscellaneous points:

1. We thought the wine prices on Princess were very reasonable. We found a bottle of wine we adored for only $34, and when I got home I saw it was the exact same price at our local supermarket! The MI did however find the mixed drinks to be a bit pricy in the bar. He would have considered it reasonable if the drinks were priced about ½ of what they were. As it was, it made it a nearly $20 proposition to sit down at the bar and have one drink each. The MI had the notion of relieving this burden on his cruise card by ordering a bottle of vodka from room service to drink in our room. That also proved to be a bit of a disappointment when he was charged $30 (which is the normal price for a premium 750ml bottle in a liquor store) for a 335ml bottle of Absolute. Life is just full of small disappointments. ;)

2. The laundry on the ship was a great option. After our land tour we desperately needed clean clothing and it was fast and easy to just throw in a load when we wanted.

3. There were only 2 places where smoking was allowed on the ship, the cigar bar off the casino and the casino itself. For me, an asthmatic, this was awesome.

4. The chicken salad wasn’t available every day in the International Café, but there was always something we liked so we did not go hungry.

5. The gym was great – lots of machines and weights and everything was in good order. They did not publicize the times for the classes however, which was a disappointment to me.

We had an early flight (11:30 am) out of Vancouver, so we elected to do the walk off with our luggage. We were assigned group 3 so were off the ship at 7:35 and in a taxi by 8:00 am. Vancouver was beautifully organized and there was no milling around and fighting for cabs like there is in Ft. Lauderdale. We got to the airport by 8:30 (what a beautiful city Vancouver is!) and made it through all security by 9:00. It was great to get to go through customs on that end and not to have to do it when we arrived home in Detroit. It was a very pretty little airport and our flight was right on time. We got back to Detroit Metro by 6:40 pm, and were home before 8:00. All in all, it was a wonderful trip in every detail, and Alaska was even more spectacular than I even imagined. If you’re thinking of an Alaskan cruise, all I can say is (just like the MI said) “Just Do It!”

[Colo Cruiser]

What a fantastic review!! :)

 

Love those CG mussels! :D

[ggprincess2004]

Very enjoyable read! Thanks for taking the time to post a review.:)

[Grammyluvs]

Loved your review and your optimistic approach when things went wrong. I love Alaska as well. We did a land tour on our own and then sailed south. I agree, it is the best way to do it. We also did a 3 month tour in our RV later and it was amazing. I would go back in a heart beat. WE have traveled extensively and I have to say it is one of my favorite places on this earth. I agree with MI, “Just do it”.

[onefine89]

Great review of your cruise in Alaska........brings back recent memories of our Alaska cruise on the Sapphire Princess in 2012...........thank you;)

[beanersts]

Thanks for all the great info. Looking forward to our south bound trip on the Crown Sept 6th. My wife and I are also doing the anytime dining, which one did you prefer do the MDR or DaVinci?

[Cruiserkenn]

Thanks for your great review.

 

I appreciated your thoughts on E730, which I have for a future cruise.

 

Also loved your description of the eagles!

 

Thanks so much.

[xznwfd]

Thanks everyone! It really was the trip of a lifetime for us.

 

As to the anytime dining room, we ended up prefering DaVinci's, but had great service in both.

 

And yes Colo Cruiser, the mussels were amazing. I was just in Washington DC for work and had some wonderful mussels there, but these were equally great.

 

Cruisin'Rabbit - you will love E730, fabulous room. If you're more of a night owl than we were even the booming bass won't bother you and the balcony makes it worth it.

 

:D

[RickEk]

Thanks for the review! You have a wonderful writing style.

 

Quick question. It sounds like you arranged the tour portion independently? Not through Princess?

[JimAOk1945]

I have a couple of questions.

 

First, how did your luggage get from the train to your stateroom?

 

Second, is it a long walk from the train to the cruise terminal?

 

Thanks in advance for answering my questions. This cruise is on our bucket list and your beautifully written review will help us with planning.

[Julia’s Journey’s]

Great review, makes me want to go back to Alaska wth all it's awesome excursions and scenery.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[nurse@sea]

Thank you so much for you wonderful review. I sailed the Golden to Alaska in 2011 and cant wait to go back. A beautiful and magical place!

Edited July 9, 2014 by nurse@sea

[xznwfd]

Jim AOK - you check your luggage at the train station in Anchorage, and they tag it with the name of your ship. You don't see it again until it (finally) appears in your room on board. It's a very short walk from where the train drops you off in Whittier to the ship, so no worries there. You pull up right in front of the ship, it's all you can see when you get off the train.

 

RickEk - we did do the tour portion on our own. I had enough hotel points that our 3 nights in Anchorage were covered (the night we arrived, 2nd night, and the night after our Denali portion before we took the train to Whittier). The MI does not approve of being shuffled around by tour guides so we shuffled ourselves around instead. ;) It was about $1500 less than if we did the Princess version which he also appreciated. The Alaskan Railroad and the cabins/hotels by the park are very well organized for independent travel so it was very simple and low stress doing it by oursleves.

 

Cathy

[Coram]

This makes me less nervous since we are 7 days away from our first cruise.

[SoCoCruiser]

Thank you for posting the review of the Dog Sledding Excursion in Skagway. I'm booked on it for my Star Princess cruise. I'm looking forward to it.

[Cruiserkenn]

Thanks everyone! It really was the trip of a lifetime for us.

 

As to the anytime dining room, we ended up prefering DaVinci's, but had great service in both.

 

And yes Colo Cruiser, the mussels were amazing. I was just in Washington DC for work and had some wonderful mussels there, but these were equally great.

 

Cruisin'Rabbit - you will love E730, fabulous room. If you're more of a night owl than we were even the booming bass won't bother you and the balcony makes it worth it.

 

:D

 

Thanks again for the good words about E730 :)

[greenie082756]

Thank you so much for your review. I found it to be very delightful and interesting. Alaska is on our bucket list. You even made floating ice sound beautiful. Thank you again. :)

[xznwfd]

Thanks everyone, I much appreciate all the kind comments!

 

SoCo Cruiser, you will love the dog sled excursion. It was very informative, lots of fun, and a nice bonus for pet lovers missing their pets.

 

:)

 

Cathy

[timmink]

We are doing the same cruise as you in a couple weeks and also flying from Detroit. You mentioned that you walked off with your bags for your 11:30 am flight. I am a little concerned about making this flight. I'm curious how many bags you had that you walked off with. Thanks.

[xznwfd]

timmink,

 

I had one large roller bag, a backpack and purse, and the MI had a very large roller bag, a carry on roller bag and a backpack. We managed just fine getting off the ship with that amount of luggage, no worries at all. We were at the airport and through check in by 9:00 so had time for breakfast and time to use the free wireless at the Vancouver airport. You should be fine!

 

Cathy

[Colo Cruiser]

timmink,

 

I had one large roller bag, a backpack and purse, and the MI had a very large roller bag, a carry on roller bag and a backpack. We managed just fine getting off the ship with that amount of luggage, no worries at all. We were at the airport and through check in by 9:00 so had time for breakfast and time to use the free wireless at the Vancouver airport. You should be fine!

 

Cathy

 

Was at YVR a couple of weeks ago and was really disappointed with the wireless, I finally gave up. :rolleyes: