LIVE: Island Princess to Alaska and Back, June 19-July 3

[AF-1]

nice cabin

[CPASam]

Everything sounds great!!  Pictures of cabin are nice.  I love the big window!  Enjoy Mary Pippins movie!!  Wish I had the flourless chocolate cake for dessert last night.  I'm watching the bridge cam this morning!  It looks like wide open seas!  Enjoy the trivia!

[san diego sue]

Looks like your cabin is one of the new ones added in the remodel. Bathroom looks like the one on the Royal.

You really scored on your cabin upgrade. Enjoy your journey.Looking forward to following along.

[geoherb]

I woke up on East Coast time. My body will eventually adjust. The fitness center opened at 5 a.m. I made it around 5:30. There were several other early birds already working out when I got there. I spent a little bit of time on the bike and then some of the machines. I’d rather walk around the ship than on a treadmill, so I skipped doing that. My usual gym practice is to start with 30 minutes on the bike, then move to the machines, and then finish with 30 minutes on the treadmill.

 

My cabin steward left me the card for the evening cocktail event. It’s below. The drink menu and food specials are what we’ve had on previous cruises. The one that’s missing is a sushi night. That is always one of my favorites. They always have cheese, dried fruit, and veggies.

 

SeaofStars: The menus will be 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1-2-3-4-5-6-7. There may be some shuffling around the middle menus for formal nights. Our first formal night on the northbound cruise is tonight. The second one will be Monday night. I don’t know if they’ll be the same days of the week heading southbound. The assistant cruise director I spoke with said they’d be scheduling both the Heist and Escape Room this cruise.
 

[Texasnee]

I’m enjoying reading your posts. Very helpful to anyone planning an Alaska cruise or like me, booking a future cruise on the Island. I’m planning a Med cruise on the Island in 2020 and currently have balcony cabin 426 booked on Baja. If you should find yourself with time on your hands (yes, I know...not likely) I would love to know if this looks like a good location or if the “white space” across from it looks like cleaning cart storage or something else that might make the location noisy. This area is right across from the lifts and stairs so it would be convenient but I’m don’t want to sacrifice quiet for convenience. Thanks and have a wonderful cruise. Looking forward to future posts. Nothing beats Alaska!

 

[TM]

Very much enjoying your review.  We did this exact 2 week cruise last year on the Island and it was the best of our 4 Alaska trips.  Of course having spectacular sunny weather in Glacier Bay and College Fjord was the absolute highlight of the trip.

[CruzinNoony]

I am really enjoying your "Live From".  I'm interested in hearing how you like the cruise director, Natalie Costa.  Is she new?  Will she still be there the first two weeks of August?  It sounds like you have a fun table for dinner.  That makes a huge difference.  Have a great time!!

[wallyj]

I don't believe I have ever received Brandy in my mini bar, I think the other spirit is Cognac.

 

i was told regarding internet minutes on Medallion net cruises, the system knows the total days you are booked and will allot Platinum/Elite minutes as if you booked a cruise for that total number of days, regardless if you booked seperate cruises. This past February I booked b2b2b on the Ruby which were a 7 day, 5 day and 4 day. I was allotted minutes based on a 16 day sailing. The internet manager confirmed this is what the system will now do. I then spoke with the captain circle host who told me if I ran out of minutes, he would print my cruise history to show the internet manager so I would get the allotted minutes per cruise. I did use up the initial minutes and the internet manager added the additional minutes I should have received on a per cruise basis. If you use up the 250 minutes, almost certain the internet manager will add the 50 minutes you have been shorted. Since you should have receive 150 minutes per 7 day cruise.

[geoherb]

Yes, my cabin is great. I’m happy for the upgrade from an inside cabin. The only problem I’ve had is adjusting the thermostat. It’s either too warm or too cold. I haven’t been able to get it just right. The sisters at my dining table received an even better upgrade: from an inside to a balcony. They did not realize it until they got to the cabin. What a wonderful surprise for them! It’s their first time on Princess. They have sailed on Carnival and Royal Caribbean several times.

 

I ate breakfast in the Bordeaux Dining Room. I had a nice large table with six other people. All of them are on their first cruise to Alaska and staying on for land tours after the cruise. I’m excited for them. One woman used to work with someone I worked with at home. They started work at the same federal agency 30-something years ago. My friend left the feds and came to work for the state. The woman at breakfast moved on from North Carolina to Maryland and is now in Denver.

 

I walked several laps around the Promenade Deck. It’s brisk walking into the wind. The temperature is in the mid 50s but feels a lot colder with the wind. The high today will be 62. Sunset is at 9:49 p.m. 

 

I visited the internet manager to ask about my missing minutes. His explanation is that is how Princess does things for passengers on back-to-back cruises on the ships with Medallion Net—treats them as one booking even if booked back-to-back with separate cruise booking numbers. That’s not an acceptable answer for me. I’ll ask the Captain’s Circle hostess when I see her.

 

The morning trivia was hard. The winning team had 16 out of 22 possible points. My team finished in third place with 13 points. The second place team had 14 points. According to one of the cruise director’s staff members, they plan the trivias based on 14-day cruises so that those of us doing back-to-back northbound and southbound cruises don’t see repeat questions. The prize this morning was coasters.
 

[beckntom]

28 minutes ago, geoherb said:

His explanation is that is how Princess does things for passengers on back-to-back cruises on the ships with Medallion Net—treats them as one booking even if booked back-to-back with separate cruise booking numbers. That’s not an acceptable answer for me. I’ll ask the Captain’s Circle hostess when I see her.

 

 

The same thing happened to us on our B2B on the Royal in April/May.  That is, we only got 250 minutes.  But the internet manager quickly rectified the situation when we spoke to him.  You are certainly entitled to the remaining minutes, so keep asking.  I know you will. 😊

[youngkona]

Thanks for all the info!  We are boarding the Island on 7/3 for 7 days NB.  I was planning on purchasing the PBP, but seeing it now says 25% of bottled water in the patter you posted- whereas on my cruise personalizer it says bottled water is included.  That change may effect whether I purchase or not as I was looking forward to getting bottled water to put in room or have for later here and there and also sparkling water to have as well.  Thinking I should just prepurchase bottled water before hand and buy coffee package instead.  Can you confirm this change?

[1emerald1]

44 minutes ago, beckntom said:

 

The same thing happened to us on our B2B on the Royal in April/May.  That is, we only got 250 minutes.  But the internet manager quickly rectified the situation when we spoke to him.  You are certainly entitled to the remaining minutes, so keep asking.  I know you will. 😊

Hi Becky, If I'd known that I would have given you my 150 minutes!  Did not use the internet at all.  Hoped you enjoyed the coastal part of the cruise.

 

Your former neighbor,

Sheryl

[voljeep]

2 minutes ago, youngkona said:

Thanks for all the info!  We are boarding the Island on 7/3 for 7 days NB.  I was planning on purchasing the PBP, but seeing it now says 25% of bottled water in the patter you posted- whereas on my cruise personalizer it says bottled water is included.  That change may effect whether I purchase or not as I was looking forward to getting bottled water to put in room or have for later here and there and also sparkling water to have as well.  Thinking I should just prepurchase bottled water before hand and buy coffee package instead.  Can you confirm this change?

small bottles are included ... you pay for the  'large' bottles ... except you get one large bottle covered by the PBP in specialty restaurants

[geoherb]

My OBC loyalty credit showed up today in the travel summary for my second cruise. That’s good.

 

Texasnee: The deck plans don’t show a wall that is between your cabin and the lobby area in front of the elevators/stairs. That wall extends down to your cabin but not to B502. People exiting from the elevators/stairs can take a shortcut to the left of the wall to get to the corridor of the higher cabin numbers instead of walking by your cabin. The door to the restricted access area for crew members only is across from B504. There should be enough of a buffer considering the distance and the wall so that you wouldn’t hear crew members going in and out of that door. 

 

CruzinNoony: Natalie is very nice and energetic. She’s Australian. I spoke with her after the martini demonstration this morning. She’s said she’s been working on Princess ships since 2006. She’s been a cruise director for a few years now. She mentioned having been on the Emerald, Regal, and of course the Island. I probably missed a few. Her contract for this time ends in October. I did not get the exact date, but she’ll still be on the ship in August for your cruises. By the way, I was one of the volunteer shakers for the martini demo. My martini was the Sky Fall, consisting of Stoli vodka, triple sec, and blue curacao. I told her we should be dancing after we had the martini, not before. It was a fun demonstration. The other martinis were a sour apple, chocolate, and cosmopolitan. At the end, one of the bartenders poured seven martinis into glasses at the same time. They gave away those as well as for those of who shook and danced for our martinis.

 

Wallyj: Thanks for the info on the internet package. I’ve been typing up my comments offline and then copying and pasting them into this Cruise Critic thread. I’m always behind in reading any responses before I post. I may stop posting the menu photos because uploading photos is using up my minutes. I’ll try to keep going with the activity pages of the Patters.  I noticed I can still purchase the unlimited internet package for my second cruise on the cruise personalizer. I wonder how the internet manager would treat that. Cognac is a type of brandy. I didn’t want to have to look up the spelling of Courvoisier. 
 

[beckntom]

1 hour ago, 1emerald1 said:

Hi Becky, If I'd known that I would have given you my 150 minutes!  Did not use the internet at all.  Hoped you enjoyed the coastal part of the cruise.

 

Your former neighbor,

Sheryl

Hi, Sheryl!  Missed you on the Coastal.  Could have used those minutes because I "burned" mine several times when I forgot to log off.  Internet manager reinstated them, even though he did roll his eyes a time or two.  Hope to see you on another cruise! 

[1emerald1]

36 minutes ago, beckntom said:

Hi, Sheryl!  Missed you on the Coastal.  Could have used those minutes because I "burned" mine several times when I forgot to log off.  Internet manager reinstated them, even though he did roll his eyes a time or two.  Hope to see you on another cruise! 

Don't want to hijack the thread, but yes, me too!

[SeaofStars]

12 hours ago, geoherb said:

 

SeaofStars: The menus will be 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1-2-3-4-5-6-7. There may be some shuffling around the middle menus for formal nights. Our first formal night on the northbound cruise is tonight. The second one will be Monday night. I don’t know if they’ll be the same days of the week heading southbound. The assistant cruise director I spoke with said they’d be scheduling both the Heist and Escape Room this cruise.

 

 

Thank you for all the info! I’m enjoying your Live!

[texasaggie97]

This is very useful information. Like some others in this thread my wife and I will be boarding for the nb trip the day you get back to Vancouver. This will be our first cruise on the island princess. 

 

I thought for medallion.net cruises, with elite status, you could switch to the daily plan instead of per minute and get 25% off. It's that not how it works? 

 

We can hardly wait to be where you are now! Looking forward to your updates. 

 

[CPASam]

Enjoying the updates!!  Watching the NBA Draft on ESPN tonight!  Zion went 1st as expected.  A bunch of UNC and Duke players got drafted in the 1st round!  CPASam

[geoherb]

Lunch in the dining room was delicious. I ate with a couple from Alabama and two women traveling together from Florida. The husband of one stayed home to work. He’s also a CPA. I had an appetizer portion of the spinach fettuccini with mushrooms, the vegetable burrito, and pecan ice cream. Fortunately, one of the Florida women ordered the chicken korma. Our waiter brought around a tray of condiments for her. The fresh cilantro and fresh minced jalapeños were just what the burrito needed.

I joined the father-daughter duo from my table at trivia along with a couple from Georgia. We did very well—tying for first place with 19 out of 20. But we lost the tie-breaker question. I did not see what the prizes were since I had to hurry to get the paper to make my airplanes. I missed the hula hoop. I think there were five winners out of the four or five dozen people who tried.

 

I took a little nap in the afternoon and set a wake-up call to get up in time for the evening cocktail event. On the way, I stopped by to visit the Captain’s Circle hostess. I made the top 40 and needed to hand in my RSVP for the luncheon plus ask her about the internet minutes. Unfortunately, she repeated what the Internet Café manager had told me. I was too excited about the luncheon to put up much of an argument because it was obvious she was just going to repeat what she’d been told.

 

The evening cocktail event was sparsely attended. I stopped by La Patisserie to use one of my coffee card punches for a cup of ginger tea. I joined some friends at the Wheelhouse Bar and ordered a Beverly Hills iced tea up there. It was tasty. One of them has the beverage package and the other doesn’t. According to the one who bought it, he was told by a Princess rep when he called that he could share the 15 alcoholic drinks. Of course that’s wrong info, but they’re doing it. The bartenders in the Wheelhouse enforce the policy, but they’re managing to get around it by stopping at one bar along the way and then ordering another at the Wheelhouse. The champagne fountain before dinner was enjoyable. I had a few glasses of champagne there. I’m loving my cabin location. It was so convenient to go back to the cabin and then walk back over to the dining room for dinner.

 

The first formal night menu: French onion soup, barramundi, shrimp “Daniele,” Cornish game hen, medallions of beef tenderloin, and roasted leg of lamb. Four of us ordered the shrimp and two ordered the beef. I also ordered a salad and an appetizer portion of the tagliatelle with chicken, broccoli, and pesto. One of the head waiters prepared bananas Foster beside our table. It was not tempting to me since they had Norman Love’s chocolate hazelnut dessert on the menu. That’s two nights in a row that they’ve had some of my favorite desserts.

 

The production show cast performed Encore last night. There were plenty of seats available at the 9:30 performance. The singers and dancers were all good including the guest soprano. I still find it funny to watch the instrumentalists play along with the soundtrack as well as the dancers “singing” along with it as well. I’m sure they fool some people into believing that everything they’re hearing is being performed live.

 

Yesterday morning we were sailing in the Inside Passage with land close on both sides of the ship. In the afternoon, the ship was farther away from land with open water on my side of the ship (port). I’ll get the better view on the southbound cruise. We’re back to being close to land this morning. I can see snow-capped mountains from my window. We arrive in Icy Strait Point around noon, so we should have a lot of good scenery between now and then. With our late arrival, they’re opening the dining room for lunch. That makes me happy. I’ll walk to Hoonah after lunch. Tonight’s dining is anytime for all. Our waiter let us know last night that we could ask for our table if it was open but I’ll probably go earlier and ask to share. The father/daughter/boyfriend trio are going to the Bayou Café tonight. 
 

Edited June 21, 2019 by geoherb

[sunsetbeachgal]

Hope your weather is good.  Our mutual friend  Sungirl did a Facebook live yesterday from her Alaska cruise on Carnival and they were at Tracy Arm and it was clear and beautiful.  

[CruzinNoony]

Congrats on making the top 40!!!  Great to hear that they are having the MT luncheon, as opposed to a cocktail party.  What day is it on?  What number are you?  Meredith

[geoherb]

It’s a gorgeous day as we sail toward Icy Strait Point. I was up early (around 5:30 Alaska time), and so were a lot of other folks. I had a cup of tea and an orange at the Horizon Court, then walked around the Promenade Deck. I looked for whales as I walked. I haven’t seen any yet. I did see a small pod of dolphins (or perhaps porpoises—I’m not sure of the difference). I don’t mind cutting through the ship where they added the extra cabins. The only thing I miss about the ship is the Universe Lounge. When we sailed on the Island on our Panama Canal cruise, they held the trivias there. Yesterday afternoon’s was in the Wheelhouse Bar and was standing room only.

 

Holland America’s Volendam has been following us. I’m not sure where it’s headed, perhaps Sitka. When I looked at the port schedule before leaving, there’s only a small ship supposed to be docked with us in Icy Strait Point. 

 

I ate a larger breakfast in the dining room. I ate at a table with a couple of women traveling together from Louisiana and Texas, a father and son from Los Angeles, and a man traveling solo from Australia. One of the women grew up in Raleigh, so we had a lot to talk about. She moved away after graduating from high school.
 

[geoherb]

SunsetBeachGal: I’ll be in Juneau with Sungirl on Saturday. I followed along her early Facebook posts before I left—the ones she posted from Seattle. I’ll have to wait until I get back to catch up on her crazy exploits. 

 

TexasAggie: I’m not sure what the discount is for those of us getting the free minutes if they purchase the package. I was offered $59.99 for unlimited internet for one week if I booked it before the cruise. That offer is still showing up for my second cruise. I don’t know what would happen if I purchased it for the second if they’d try to make me get it for this cruise as well. I liked when we sailed on the Regal and got unlimited internet for free, but I guess those days are over. I am being stingy with my minutes. I’ve used 27 out of the 250. Most of the time, I’m able to post in a minute. The ones with photos take three or four minutes. When I downloaded my hometown paper today, it took just two minutes.

 

CroozinNoony: Thanks. I’m thrilled to make the top 40. I don’t know what number I am, but the Captain’s Circle hostess said that there were many with fewer days than I have, which is below 200. The luncheon is going to be at Sabatini’s on Tuesday, our last day of the northbound cruise. 
 

[TM]

Enjoy your lunch with the most traveled passengers.  We were invited last year on the nortbound segment and it was very nice.  We sat at the table with the food and beverage manager.  On the couthbound voyage it was just a cocktail party but also done very nicely.