Star Princess Alaska April 27 2019 review with photos/video.

[nf5894]

This review could get quite long, so I'll break it down into sections and post when I can!

 

We were not planning on doing an Alaska cruise this year at all. We had been looking at 'maybe' doing a 7 day Mexican cruise around this time, but saw the prices for this voyage and couldn't turn it down. We have been to Alaska before, and visited all of the ports but the weather then was really bad, plus this cruise did Glacier Bay which we hadn't been to before. This was our 2nd Princess cruise - 2 adults and 2 boys (13 & 10) one introvert and one extrovert (if you do watch the video you'll work out which one is which). Most of the cruises I've done have been on Cunard but after doing our first with Princess last year we decided we really liked it.

 

Embarkation & Sailing away -  We live in the Vegas area so are about 4 hours away from San Pedro. We drove approx 3 hours on the Friday night and stayed in a hotel, then did the last hour on Saturday morning. We'd received an email from Princess a few days before to say that boarding would not begin until 2pm, so were in no rush to get to the ship. My oldest wanted to see the Queen Mary, so we went to Long Beach first so he could have a look at the ship and get some photos. We arrived in San Pedro at approx 11am, and with the Royal and the Star in port, the parking lot was reasonably busy. As we were still pretty early, we parked up over by the USS Iowa and decided to tour that ship. It was a fun tour that we all enjoyed and it took about 2 hours. After that we 'tried' to find a parking space closer to the terminal. Notice the term 'tried'. On our previous Princess cruise there were 2 ships in port at San Pedro and we easily found a parking space. This time, not so easy! I presume it was because of the size of the Royal. After half an hour or so of driving around searching for a space along with lots of other cars, we had to park back over by the Iowa. This made for about a 10 minute walk across the parking lot with our cases. When we actually dropped off our cases and got inside, it didn't take too long to get through - maybe 20 minutes or so. Then we were given a number and asked to go to a waiting area before we could board. It was probably about another 45 minutes until we were called and we eventually got to our cabin just before 3pm. The Muster drill was due to start at 3.15 so we went straight to that. It was late starting and by the time it was finished our sailing time of 4pm had already passed. The Royal left port first and by the time we left it was probably about 5.30pm.

 

Cabin - We had an inside cabin on deck 12 Aloha. We were only a few steps away from the rear of the ship and the aft pool, so the location was really good for us. Plus only 1 deck up to the buffet. Was a little worried about 4 of us being in a small inside cabin but we only really used it for sleeping so it turned out to be fine! The room was spacious enough with good closet space. Beds were comfortable and didn't hear any noise at all from other passengers or from the deck above.

 

Food - We usually only use the buffet on cruises and on this ship the buffet was good. There was the occasional line at peak times but even then it was quite short. Never really had any problems finding a table either - which we did on the Emerald last year. Food choices were good and we were happy with the quality. We used the Amalfi dining room 3 times on this trip and again the food was very good. We didn't try any of the speciality dining but did use the International Cafe and the poolside burger and pizza places which were all great.

 

I will get to the Entertainment, ports, staff etc in later posts but I'm out of time for now. Here's a link to our youtube video and if anyone has any questions about the Star, Alaska or Princess in general, please ask.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

[tawlaw1526]

That was an excellent video and you have some incredible photos.    WOW!!!   Thank you so much for sharing and I am looking forward to your other posts.   Your boys are adorable.   

[KLTDRT]

What did your boys like best about the cruise?   Do you recommend an excursion that they liked? I am taking my 12 year old son on an Alaskan cruise in June.

 

[nf5894]

1 hour ago, KLTDRT said:

What did your boys like best about the cruise?   Do you recommend an excursion that they liked? I am taking my 12 year old son on an Alaskan cruise in June.

 

They both like just being onboard ships. Also the kids clubs are great and they spend time in there. There is one for 8-12 year olds and another for 13-17. Lots of video games, game tables and organized activities. Plus on this trip they both liked the 'Puppies in the Piazza' where some young husky puppies were brought onboard. Excursion wise, we didn't do any this time but we heard there was a good trip to do in Ketchikan where you could take a trip on a Bering Sea Crab boat. We heard good reports about that although we didn't do it ourselves. In Juneau they enjoyed the whale watching when we did it a few years ago. Plus the train to the Yukon from Skagway is good for kids. 

[ceilidh1]

2 hours ago, KLTDRT said:

What did your boys like best about the cruise?   Do you recommend an excursion that they liked? I am taking my 12 year old son on an Alaskan cruise in June.

 

We have done Alaska numerous times and EVERY time we go, my kids beg to do the summer dog sled camp in Skagway. It is an amazing experience and I highly recommend it with kids - especially if they like puppies!

 

OP: Great review. I always enjoy reading how other people travelling with kids find their experiences!

[nf5894]

Review continued -

 

 Ports - As this trip was last minute and was more about relaxing and stress relief than anything else - we didn't book any excursions. We'd been to all of the places before so were quite happy to just have a look around the ports ourselves. Ketchikan is a nice small town with lots of shops close to the pier. We heard good things about the "Bering Sea crab boat' trip, so may do that if we go again. Also heard that the lumberjack show was quite entertaining. After leaving Ketchikan we did spot some whales and other marine life. Just after midnight the captain also announced that the Northern Lights were visible on the starboard side.

 

In Juneau we just had a walk along the waterfront. We've done a whale watching trip there before and that was fun. We saw a seal and bald eagles and visited a few stores. Skagway is probably our favorite of the Alaskan ports and we have done the trip up to the Yukon before so again just had a look around the town for a short time. 

 

Glacier Bay was what we were really excited about as we'd never been there before. Unfortunately for us, the weather was cloudy and drizzly when we were there. It was probably the worst weather day of the entire cruise but it didn't spoil the enjoyment. We got to see sealions, mountain goats, lots of birds, seals, sea otters and a whale. Getting so close to the Margerie Glacier was awesome. When we first got there a huge chunk of the ice fell off into the water. It was before any of us had our cameras ready which was disappointing but the noise it made was fantastic. We did see more calving although it was smaller pieces and were able to catch them on camera. It would have been nice to get some great scenery pictures with a nice blue sky in the background but it was still a great day.

 

Ship Crew / Staff - Captian Tuvo was amazing. This was only my 8th cruise so I'm not an expert but I've never seen a captain who engages with the passengers as much as he did. We saw him around the ship every day and he was always smiling and stopping to talk to passengers. I'm sure anyone who has sailed with him would say his personality is infectious and his signature announcements were fun! Cruise Director Fernando was also great. He was very friendly and entertaining and had a really good group of staff, especially Nat and Ramon. Our room steward was great and all bar and wait staff were extremely polite and professional. I only needed to visit the front desk once and there was no line and my issue was handled quickly and efficiently. The photographers too were extremely friendly and not pushy at all. The staff at the kids club were also very good. Overall, we thought all of the staff were excellent.

 

Will continue when I have more time.

 

 

 

 

 

[mpizza]

Thank you!  My husband and I are even more excited about our July sailing on the Star to Alaska!

 

Maria

[nf5894]

2 hours ago, mpizza said:

Thank you!  My husband and I are even more excited about our July sailing on the Star to Alaska!

 

Maria

 

Hope you have a great trip and it's probably too early to know for sure yet, but I hope you get Captain Tuvo and Cruise Director Fernando. Those two really were outstanding!

[AVCruzers]

9 hours ago, nf5894 said:

Review continued -

 

 Ports - As this trip was last minute and was more about relaxing and stress relief than anything else - we didn't book any excursions. We'd been to all of the places before so were quite happy to just have a look around the ports ourselves. Ketchikan is a nice small town with lots of shops close to the pier. We heard good things about the "Bering Sea crab boat' trip, so may do that if we go again. Also heard that the lumberjack show was quite entertaining. After leaving Ketchikan we did spot some whales and other marine life. Just after midnight the captain also announced that the Northern Lights were visible on the starboard side.

 

In Juneau we just had a walk along the waterfront. We've done a whale watching trip there before and that was fun. We saw a seal and bald eagles and visited a few stores. Skagway is probably our favorite of the Alaskan ports and we have done the trip up to the Yukon before so again just had a look around the town for a short time. 

 

Glacier Bay was what we were really excited about as we'd never been there before. Unfortunately for us, the weather was cloudy and drizzly when we were there. It was probably the worst weather day of the entire cruise but it didn't spoil the enjoyment. We got to see sealions, mountain goats, lots of birds, seals, sea otters and a whale. Getting so close to the Margerie Glacier was awesome. When we first got there a huge chunk of the ice fell off into the water. It was before any of us had our cameras ready which was disappointing but the noise it made was fantastic. We did see more calving although it was smaller pieces and were able to catch them on camera. It would have been nice to get some great scenery pictures with a nice blue sky in the background but it was still a great day.

 

Ship Crew / Staff - Captian Tuvo was amazing. This was only my 8th cruise so I'm not an expert but I've never seen a captain who engages with the passengers as much as he did. We saw him around the ship every day and he was always smiling and stopping to talk to passengers. I'm sure anyone who has sailed with him would say his personality is infectious and his signature announcements were fun! Cruise Director Fernando was also great. He was very friendly and entertaining and had a really good group of staff, especially Nat and Ramon. Our room steward was great and all bar and wait staff were extremely polite and professional. I only needed to visit the front desk once and there was no line and my issue was handled quickly and efficiently. The photographers too were extremely friendly and not pushy at all. The staff at the kids club were also very good. Overall, we thought all of the staff were excellent.

 

Will continue when I have more time.

 

Quote

Your video was amazing--so enjoyed watching it-your boys are delightful!  Certainly agree with you about the STAR and Captain Tuvo; we have sailed twice with him.  Both times, his wife and son were along since it was a school vacation time for the son.  At Halloween, he and his wife were in costumes along with the son.  I even saw him clean up dishes and deliver ice cream.  He loves to "pop up" in your photos too especially on formal night.  I read where he will soon be leaving the STAR to be on the SKY--not sure how true that statement is.  

 

 

 

 

 

[AF-1]

Great review;  loved the music to go with your video.  Your boys looked like they had a great time;  thanks for posting and sharing.

[nf5894]

Review continued - 

 

Entertainment - We didn't get to see any of the production shows so can't comment on those, but I believe one of them was 'British Invasion'. The comedian on board was Steve Caouette, and we'd seen him before on the Emerald last year. He is very good and we made sure we went to see both of his shows. The first was in the Princess Theater and the other was in the Vista Lounge. Both shows were really good, we'd seen some of his material before but he's very good at interacting with the crowd and making the show from the information he gets from each individual audience. He's definitely worth seeing if he is on your cruise in the future. The magician was Alex Ramon and he was excellent too. He did two regular magic shows, plus a show where he showed the audience how to do some of his tricks. He also had his puppy MJ on board and did a dog training class in the piazza. Both Steve and Alex were very friendly and stopped to chat and take photos with passengers around the ship.

 

We enjoyed the game shows in the Explorers lounge that were done by the regular entertainment staff. We even got our oldest to volunteer for the 'Hollywould I' game along with his brother (who volunteers for everything).  There were probably 5 or 6 different gameshows over the 12 day cruise including the 'Marriage Match' show was is advertised as Pg16 in the patter, so we made sure the kids were at the kids club that night. The kids did spend some time in the kids club pretty much everyday but came along with us to various events too. There are 3 kids clubs aboard with separate rooms and age related activities and equipment in each. The staff are very good and the clubs are very well run. We always enjoy the Trivia contests and there were normally about 3 a day. The first 2 being General Knowledge and the evening one having a theme that was usually music related. We did ok at most of them but there was one team there at most of the trivias that had a very 'interesting' tactic! I'll leave it at that but if anyone was on this cruise and went to the trivias, they'll know what I mean. 

 

There were some guest speakers / entertainers that came on board from the Alaskan ports and those were quite good. One of them was Libby Riddles, the first woman to win the Idatarod Sled dog race. She bought one of her dogs aboard and did a presentation in the theatre that was interesting. There was a singer that performed in the Explorers lounge and sang about the history of Alaska which was fun too. 

 

I think there were about 4 Karaoke sessions over the 12 days that lasted about an hour each. Lots of different singing styles and levels of ability on show but everyone seemed to have fun and support each other. Ethan our 10 year old wanted to sing everytime so we were always there. There was an organized choir too for passengers which had a few practices and performed in the Piazza on the last day. They asked Ethan to join but when he gets on stage he does his own thing and wouldn't be very good at following co-ordinated dance moves so he decided against it. We went to the final of the 'Voice of the Ocean' which was well attended in the Theater. We'd never seen the tv show so weren't sure how it actually worked but we got a chance to vote for the best singer. A lady from San Diego that sang a Whitney Houston song won and she was definitely the best one there. There was also a guy called Darius who did really well singing a Bruno Mars song and I thought he was the 2nd best but he didn't get voted into the final. It was a fun event to watch though.

 

They had a new event on board which lasted for about 5 days that was called "High Seas Heist". It was like a mystery type event where you had to solve various clues and work out who was 'guilty'. It seems like Princess has teamed up with Joe Kenda and this is going to be a regular thing on some ships as Joe appeared in many of the video clues.  It was a popular event as a lot of people took part but there are definitely some things about it that need to be fine-tuned by Princess if it is going to become a regular thing. The day before it started was a port day and the majority of passengers were off the ship. However there were a few of us on-board including myself and my oldest son who were sitting near the explorers lounge around lunchtime. There were a few other passengers there too. The entertainment staff did a rehearsal for the High Seas Heist event in the explorers lounge and went through all of the clues, eventually giving out the final answer. I hope this was because it was such a new event and they won't do this on every future cruise in a public area.  My son and I had no intention of taking part so we were not too bothered about it. However, to cut a very long story short, when the event ended only 1 team had the correct answer. It just so happened to be a couple who were sitting by my son and I when the rehearsal was happening so they knew the answer before it even started. A lot of people invested a lot of time into the game and were very angry at the outcome. I talked to a few of them and they said that it was impossible to work out the answer from the clues that they were given. The 'winning' couple had told these people that they didn't do any of the work on the clues and that they just guessed the answer! Obviously we know that it wasn't a guess as they'd seen the answer given out at the rehearsal.  As I said earlier there were a LOT of people upset about this game so if Princess are going to continue with it there are some things that need to be done better - including not giving out the answer in a rehearsal that's being done in a public area!

 

There were lots of other entertainment options on the ship too, including various singers, the ship band, musicians, bingo events etc plus the library where there were also lots of board games available. Overall, there's so much entertainment on board in various forms that there's always something to do.

[tawlaw1526]

Thoroughly enjoying your review.   

[nf5894]

Review continued -

 

Disembarkation - You are supposed to be out of your room by 8am. We left just after 8 and headed to our waiting area which was one of our favorite places - the explorers lounge. Our time for leaving was supposed to be 9.15am which suited us as we had to drive through LA, so by that time, most of the rush hour traffic would be gone. They actually called us about half an hour early and the disembarkation process went really quickly. We were through in about 10 minutes and had the long walk across the parking lot towards the Iowa. When we got to the car Ethan realized that the shark tooth necklace he had made in the kids club had fallen off him somewhere on the walk across! So we spent the next 20 minutes searching a huge area for something less than an inch long! Luckily we did find it and were on the road at about 9.30. Traffic actually wasn't too bad and were home in just under 4 hours!

 

Summary - We really enjoyed the Star Princess. It pretty much had all the things on-board that we enjoyed on the Emerald. The bonus was that were were about 1000 fewer passengers than the Emerald and that really made it feel a lot less crowded. I know the Star is an older ship and we're not cruise experts, but out of the few ships we've been on (including the QM2), the Star was our favorite. Also Captian Tuvo was by far the best Captain we've ever had. Hopefully we'll get to see him again one day and travel on the Star again before it leaves Princess in 2021.

[nf5894]

On 5/27/2019 at 1:26 AM, tawlaw1526 said:

Thoroughly enjoying your review.   

 

Thanks, did we meet you onboard? I know we talked to a lot of nice people on the cruise!

[tawlaw1526]

2 hours ago, nf5894 said:

 

Thanks, did we meet you onboard? I know we talked to a lot of nice people on the cruise!

I don't believe we did meet but I recognized your 2 boys from the video you put together.   I had seen them in Explorers/Vista and around the ship.   Like you and your family, we had a wonderful cruise on Star.  I agree with you that Captain Tuvo was wonderful.   

[nf5894]

28 minutes ago, tawlaw1526 said:

I don't believe we did meet but I recognized your 2 boys from the video you put together.   I had seen them in Explorers/Vista and around the ship.   Like you and your family, we had a wonderful cruise on Star.  I agree with you that Captain Tuvo was wonderful.   

Ok cool, I wondered if you'd recognize the boys as your profile says you are from Cleveland. We used to live in Ohio so the boys were sometimes wearing Browns and Indians hats - as well as their Golden Knights shirts!