Trip Report - May 16 Island Princess to AK

[Joyinthemouse]

Thank you so much for all your details, we are going on the Emerald Princess Alaska in September and first Alaska Cruise so this is so helpful.

 

Joy

 

 

 

 

 

 

One more day for tonight, and then I am going to have to hit the hay.

 

Our first sea day. This would be a sunrise morning, and one of the perks of having a balcony. Woke up a bit after 4 am, walked outside to this.

 

 

Today was mostly spent going to talks and classes. Husband took in two Go Pro classes and learned some things. I went to the photography class and some of things he said helped my comfort level with shooting manual on the DSLR I have. Here was the exciting part, my notes exactly:

 

At 11 went to a photog class & got lucky. We saw some whales. I saw the nose of a whale & a blow. Very fun. No pics, went by fast.

 

We were literally at a window for lighting and the photographer was talking, when one of the ladies in the class calmly says, there's a whale. We all ran for windows so we could all see (there was quite a crowd of us taking the class). I got there just in time to see the nose. I did see a blow, so I know there were whale's there. Whether the nose I saw was a whale is a mystery. There was a lot of talk on the ship about if they were whale's or dolphins. What I saw looked like an Orca. Which would not be typical in those waters at the time of year, it is my understanding from one of the naturalist talks. So I think I may have seen a Dahl Dolphin, which has coloring like an Orca (which I didn't know until College Fjord day when we saw some, and the naturalist talked about them!). My best, most uneducated guess, is that there were both whales and dolphins in the area. Husband saw them to from where he was.

 

I also took in two of the lectures by our naturalist, Mark Harris. He was great. Knowledgeable, funny, informative.

 

For those of you that like menus, here is the room service menus. We only ordered twice. A tuna sandwich and tea and a hot dog late one night when diner was a little light. And a salad and tea one afternoon after a day of being out and about. (Which reminds me of one of the food frustrations my husband had, and could not get over. We have only been on Carnival before where you could get food about any time of the day, with ice cream 24 hours, and maybe pizza. It drove him nuts that ice cream shut down, the pizza was done at 8:30, and the grill as well. It drove me nuts how slow the grill was.)

 

 

 

 

Evidently, I didn't get dinner menu and pics tonight. I do have the Platter.

 

 

 

I brought highlighters and we each had a color. I attached them to the cabin wall with a magnetic clip, and took pics so I had it on my phone. We also used the app. However, after being on land, and turning airplane mode on and off, it didn't always work so great.

 

We went to the show tonight, On the Bayou, and had portraits taken. I purchased the photo package before the cruise. So we got a lot of portraits. Sadly, they did not have photographers roaming the ship as much as on Carnival our last time, so didn't have many candid's. In fact, two days getting off in port, we did not see the typical port setup for a photo opp. I only know they had them, because we saw them on the photo gallery walls. Now, I don't know why, but it must have been a timing thing and actually irritated me a bit, because I actually wanted them this time since I could get them with the package.I did figure out on at least one day, there were actually two export points, so evidently we went out the wrong one, as the pictures were on ship and not at the end of the gangway. Oh well. We did get one port day. One dinner (didn't see them the other formal night, but again, did see where they were around as there were other pics), and three on glacier days.

[ErLee]

Thank you for the great review and pictures! We are going northbound on Coral next June. I do have one question - we have followed conventional wisdom and booked starboard for the northbound cruise, but I've seen some reviews that made a pretty convincing argument that port might be even better. I just wondered what your opinion is now that you've done the northbound in a starboard cabin?

[parentsof5]

Thank you for the great review and pictures! We are going northbound on Coral next June. I do have one question - we have followed conventional wisdom and booked starboard for the northbound cruise, but I've seen some reviews that made a pretty convincing argument that port might be even better. I just wondered what your opinion is now that you've done the northbound in a starboard cabin?

 

I haven't seen those reviews, I would be curious what they found even better. Then maybe I can judge.

 

What I can share, I didn't have any complaints about being starboard. We had great views. When we were in Glacier Bay, we did approach Margerie from the Port. This worked in our favor. I wanted to see from up top as we arrived, and even thought it was drizzly and colder, we continued with that plan. We watched for a quite a bit, went down to the Promenade to get a little lower, and protected. Then when the ship flipped, we went to our cabin. It was so nice to still be able to enjoy her, but be on our sheltered balcony for the last hourish we were there.

 

It seemed like we always had a view of something. And that was always beautiful.

[Unibok]

Parentsof5, thank you for this wonderfully detailed and rich trip report. Next year I am doing the opposite direction (Seward to Vancouver, with a pre-cruise trip to Denali and an extra 3 days in Vancouver at the end), but around the same timing as yours, and with many of the same stops. Your report is perfect for managing our expectations for that time of year!

[1threadshort]

On 6/3/2018 at 5:22 PM, parentsof5 said:

Port 2 - Juneau

 

We had reserved a car with Juneau Car Rentals. They are a local company, with older cars to rent. They have dings, they have miles, and they get you where you want to go for a decent price. It was $67 all in for the day. It was on the next dock over from where the ship was. They had let me know Princess usually uses that dock, and they were near the next dock. You walk off the ship, the road is right there, and walk up the road to the right. But it isn't "just to the right" it is a bit of a walk because you walk on around the outside, then take a right on the next road and walked a ways back in and have to watch the signs to guide you. It is a doable walk, there is some uphill on the road, but want to paint a picture if you have mobility issues. We would use them again.

 

From there we took out for Mendenhall Glacier. It was an easy drive (they gave us a map at the rental). I believe it was $5 to park. It is a short walk to the visitor center up a switch back sidewalk, or follow the path down closer to the water and at the side of the building you will see a covered area from the building, down that walk you can get an elevator up.

 

We didn't hit the center until after. We first walked a pretty flat trail to a shore area closer to the glacier. What I didn't know would be there, was a large, forceful waterfall to the right of the glacier. It was beautiful. We spent some time just looking at it all. Make sure you look around Nugget Falls! There are mountain goats in the area. We were able to watch two of them. They were pretty far up, and I unfortunately couldn't get a great shot, but it was super fun!

 

 

The below pic is not the best one I have ever taken, but I love it because it shows the scale with the people at the base of the fall.s

 

After we spent some time at the visitor center looking at the exhibits, some ice from the glacier they had brought in earlier that day, and a short film, we drove further (North, I believe) to Eagle Beach. Unfortunately, there weren't any Eagles, but it was beautiful. I had read about it on here, as well as the Rental Car Employee mentioning it. It is kind of like a park area, and you can walk out the inlet to the ocean.

 

 

It was lunch time by now, so we set out to find Sandbar - a local bar that was mentioned I post I started requesting "local" things not on the typical tourist path. It was very much a bar where we ate (I think there may be more of a restaurant area, but I am not positive.) We had the fish and chips. Haddock and fries. Super good!

 

 

We had a later lunch, and waking up very early every morning since starting out trip, was starting to hit me. It was about 1:30/2. Husband took me back to the ship, and he set out to find the trail up Mt Roberts to hike. While planning this trip, I had shared our plans for the day. At that time I had thought we would take the tram up, and hike around. Someone shared with me this was not a good idea (I am paraphrasing again) because we were too early and it would be muddy and not good hiking conditions. Neither on the trail up, or at the top, was this the case. My point is, you cannot pigeon hole how things are going to be. Just like at home, weather is not always the same from May to May - or August to August. So check the conditions closer to arriving, or when you arrive, and adjust your plans accordingly. Don't knock something out based on how things have been other years, or in others experience. (Did I mention how nice the weather was for us - we were so blessed!!) If you hike up, and buy something small worth $10 (the naturalist said a $5 beer, but it must have gone up since the last time he checked) from the gift shop, you can ride the tram down for free.

 

Something to keep in mind, there is a Fred Meyer's in town (grocery store) if you need something, and it is a $50 taxi ride there and back. Don't ask me how I know, just sharing information...... (I was not the one that took the taxi!) I am sure if you really did need something, there would be options closer, and not requiring a taxi surely.

 

After some rest in our cabin, I felt much better. It may have had something to do with all that fried food as much as anything. Not my regular diet. The husband got back to the ship after returning the car, etc. about 5. We cleaned up not long after and went to dinner. Yummm.

 

 

 

Tonight's show was a country artist, and not really our genre, so we went and watch a performer that was becoming our favorite, Mary Simon. She was a solo performer who played piano and guitar and sang songs from the 70's and later. We watched her several times in the afternoon of sea days and in the evenings.

 

And then, the fuddy dud (that would be me) went to bed. We were so out of sink, I needed to go to sleep at night, and a flip for us, the husband wanted to sleep in the morning and I would be up and sometimes out the door.

 

Something to mention. We did watch a couple of the movies in the cabin. The first night we set out to watch the Black Panther at Movies Under the Stars. We went to the second show. They didn't have any blankets, only towels. About 1/4 of the way in, when I decided this was not fun (the wind had picked up as the ship speed picked up I think), and we were walking back to our cabin, we saw them hand someone one. I don't know if they had to wash and dry between movies?? But it would have been nice to have one, not sure I still would have stayed. They had a few movies I had not seen, so we did watch a couple of them in the cabin.They replay them the next day on the on ship tv system. Don't let people make you feel guilty that you enjoy down time in your cabin! You are on vacation, do what you want to relax. You do not have to be go, go, going every minute. Or so I keep trying tell my husband!

can you bring back food to the ship i.e. fred meyers? thank you for a wonderful write-up.

[Kevin's girl]

On 6/2/2018 at 10:03 PM, parentsof5 said:

Day 3 brought our official anniversary. We woke up early for Vancouver time, since of course we are on Central time. This did throw me off the entire trip. Mornings were nice, because I was awake and ready to go, however, I was also super tired in the evening and was an early to sleep person.

 

We had seen a breakfast spot on, you guessed it, on Denman, and conveniently called The Spot Cafe. So we headed that way. Denman is a block or two from the hotel as you are going toward Stanley Park. You can head out the to the harbor, walk along it (can't go wrong with that!) and then take a left on Denman. The owners were super nice and funny. You order at the counter, and they bring the food to you. We sat outside again, and people watched. I had a yummy Eggs Benedict and the husband had a delicious waffle. Also enjoyed some wifi.

 

We went back to the hotel to firm up our game plan. We were going to take the bus on/off tour and realized we could purchase tickets from our concierge. I am so glad we did. She was super helpful. She convinced us this was really not worth the cost. We changed plans and walked. I really was not wanting to walk again all day, however, it really did sound like a better idea. And we did not regret it. We had a nice walk to the False Creek area, through a lovely (I like using that word, but it really was lovely.) tree lined neighborhood. We caught the ferry, purchasing a day pass, and went across to the Maritime Museum. Now, it is all relevant what you like to do. The concierge obviously wasn't so in to this museum, and thought it was an hour visit at best. We really enjoyed it. You get off on a pier with several different boats berthed. They had signs that told a little about them, and we found interesting. It is a short walk to the museum, then. We stopped along the way to watch some dogs and their owners play on the shore in this area that also is residential. We probably spent 2 hours here and enjoyed it.

 

 

The ship it was all built for, was pulled on land and a structure built around it. It was interesting to hear and read it's story in the museum, and walk its decks.

 

 

We hopped back on the Ferry to taxi us to Granville Marketplace. We walked around for a bit, and checked out a couple shops. Then we found the main market building that houses the food stands: meat counters, fresh fruit and vegetables, locally made items, candy, the list goes on, as well as food booths - everything you can image to have for lunch. I had Mediterranean that was super yummy and the husband had a burger and poutine (a Canadian dish of fries, cheese curds, and a gravy). Way too much food, and we had to throw some of it away. We enjoyed some musical entertainers. However, the company we had sharing our picnic table outside was the best. When I first sat down, there were 3 ladies who were on a 6 week vacation from Britain to celebrate one of their 60th birthdays. Then a couple from Australia joined us. We had a really nice conversation with them and their life in Australia. It was very interesting. We did a little more shopping before catching the ferry to the Plaza of Nations where we would get off, and have a maybe 2 mile walk to Gastown. With all of the stopping and doing things, nothing of the walking felt like too much (compared to the day before when I was pooped). Another 20,000 + step day. While in Gastown we did some shopping, and stopped to watch the Steam Clock for a short display and then the long that takes place on the hour (meaning, it plays music when it hits the 1/4 hour marks, and then the hour).

 

 

 

 

 

Our concierge made the reservations after hearing where we had chosen to go. She definitely recommended making them. I had asked either here, or on TA, as well as read about Cardero's, which was also close to our hotel. Good comments, as well as one of the suggest places. Let me just say, for an anniversary dinner, especially a special one like 25 years, this was not the place I would have chosen for us. It is VERY loud. It is a more pricey establishment - which is perfectly ok, however, we did not find our meals that great. In fact, my husband had a fish dish that was not flavorful, sadly. I honestly cannot remember what I got, it was ok. We had to wait for water to be re-filled. The waiter was very nice. And he kindly brought us a Creme Brulee' for our anniversary that was very good. Did I mention it was really noisy. We made the best of it though, and we went for a walk along the harbor after.

 

Thanks for posting this info. I remembered reading your review when planning our first Alaskan cruise last year, but we sailed from Seattle. Now that I have booked Alaskan cruise #2 leaving from Vancouver, I knew you posted info I wanted to check out again. It for some odd reason took a couple days to find your review. So glad I did. This is exactly what I was looking for in a pre cruise trip.

[land lover]

...enjoyed review, video was great...thought I was riding along with you...thanks again...

[Anyislandwilldo]

Thanks for sharing your review.