Which Princess ship best for Alaska? One way from Vancouver 2021?

[Paula_MacFan]

On 2/20/2020 at 9:04 AM, RedE2Go64 said:

 

The Coral was departing on a Wednesday. This may not be a factor for you, but we needed to be able to utilize both weekends to be able not use up all of our vacation days.

 

Same here -- we have the Star booked for this same reason. When I read these frequent questions asking which ships are best, I wonder if people have looked at the schedules first. Doesn't really matter which ship is 'best' if it doesn't work with your schedule.

[John99]

I’ve been on all the ship mentioned.

In order --  my preference for Alaska:  Coral, Grand, Sapphire, Royal

 

Coral Princess General Stats

2000 passengers

895 crew

Refurbished January 2019

Decks 12

Promenade Deck

Length 965 feet

Tonnage 91,627

Draft 27 feet

Star Princess General Stats

2600 passengers

1100 crew

Refurbished December 2017

Decks 17

Promenade Deck continues on Emerald deck (deck front of ship)

Length 951 feet

Tonnage 108,977

Draft 27 feet

Star will be transferred to P&O Australia Fleet in Oct. 2020

Grand Princess General Stats

2600 passengers

1150 crew

Refurbished March 2019

Decks 17

Promenade Deck continues on Emerald deck (deck front of ship)

Length 949 feet

Tonnage 107,517

Draft 26 feet

Sapphire Princess General Stats

2670 passengers

1100 crew

Refurbished March 2018

Decks 18

Promenade Deck continues on Emerald deck (deck front of ship)

Length 972 feet

Tonnage 115,875

Draft 28 feet

Royal Princess General Stats

3560 passengers

1346 crew

Refurbished December 2018

Decks 19

Promenade Deck none

Length 1083 feet

Tonnage 141,000

Draft 28 feet

Source:  Princess.com and Vacationtogo.com

Edited February 21, 2020 by John99

[PandaBear62]

I sailed on the Royal last year to Alaska. We booked it early, before I started reading posts about how terrible the Royal would be for Alaska (I say "would be" because it hadn't sailed to Alaska yet). We loved the Royal. We never had a problem finding an outside viewing area and loved all the amenities.

 

I certainly can't compare the ships, but for those people who choose the Royal (for whatever reason), it's not as terrible as many people here feel it can be. I would sail again in a heartbeat.

[From Air to Sea!]

11 hours ago, Paula_MacFan said:

Same here -- we have the Star booked for this same reason. When I read these frequent questions asking which ships are best, I wonder if people have looked at the schedules first. Doesn't really matter which ship is 'best' if it doesn't work with your schedule.

Same with us also - I would have loved sailing on Coral but hubby just can’t do that with his work schedule so we are also booked on the Star! I loved the Royal on our Mexican Riviera cruise a couple of months ago but now I can see why it wouldn’t work so well in Alaska. Even though I was very happy in Mexico I did miss the promenade deck.