Cheapo Dad's Trip Report on the Majestic Princess (Maybe with few pictures added)...

[harryfat1]

Thanks for all the insights on Muster Drill and the screenshot on location.  I must have missed it on our app as I was focused on the lane color and boarding group priority.

 

I certainly concur with the comfort of being inside.  The only time I remembered being inside for a Muster drill was on the Allure where you have around 6,000 passengers.  There’s no way they can squeeze that many people on its skinny promenade deck, so it was done indoors watching the video as a large group.

 

[harryfat1]

Good thing you guys got connected on the roll call.  Nowadays with Covid, fewer people want to sign up for roll calls.

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

Back to the trip report:

 

Since we had time, we walked around the atrium level a bit and took few family pictures before heading for our 7:20 dinner reservation.

 

The dress code for the night is “Smart Casual” per the Princess Patter I posted awhile back.  Exactly what does that mean?  Being a contrarian, I always want to say the opposite of a word.  So what is opposite of smart casual – dumb formal?

 

Does wearing more fancy clothes make you smarter? If that’s the case, then all the GQ and Esquire fashion models must be Einstein level geniuses. Heck, the politicians all wear suits and proper clothes, how often do you associate that lot with higher intelligence?

 

Yeah, I know there’s a term “dress smartly” from the old days but this is the same warped mind wondering what it feels like to be a luggage so don't expect highly thought provoking ideas here...

 

 

[harryfat1]

Shipboard photography. I always associated with shipboard photography to be your crazy aunt that is locked in the basement that you feed to keep her alive but you can’t let her out as she will hurt herself or others.  The whole family knows she’s down there but nobody ever talks about her at any of the family gatherings.

 

That’s how I feel about shipboard photographers.  Every ship dedicated space for it as there’s profit/demand for them but very seldom mentioned in other trip reports. From the long lines of people waiting at various photography stations on formal nights, I know this venue is being utilized but seldom discussed on anyone’s cruise reports here on CC.

 

For the rest of the trip report, I will refer any shipboard photography related item as “feeding the crazy aunt in the basement”.

[harryfat1]

One pitfall in writing a trip report is sometimes you can come across as being too “whiny” if you express your opinion too strongly on what didn’t go right on your vacation.

 

On one hand you spent thousand of dollars of your hard-earned money to contort yourself inside an airplane for hours and risk catching Covid and other viruses to go on a dream vacation that you have planned for months (if not years).  Then if some things didn’t go perfectly, most people will cut you slack if you complain about it as in real life, things on vacation seldom go perfectly.

 

On the other hand, if you complain too strongly or too much, then you come across as a whiner that nothing is good enough for you.

 

I always found it fascinating that on CC when someone criticizes a cruise line/ship, some people take that personally as if their 16^th born has been disrespected and feel the need to get into heated exchange of postings to say how wrong the other person is.

 

Maybe it’s the above reason where you are spending $$ on your dream vacation and you don’t want someone else to rain on your parade.

 

I look at it from an economics point of view such that if someone write a negative comments about a cruise line/ship and 100 people read it and they tell 100 of their friends and they tell 100 of their friends, pretty soon the word is out on not to book on that ship. 

 

If that’s the case, there will be nobody booking on that ship and the cruise line will have to reduce the price on the cruises to attract new bookings such that Cheapo Dad can get a mini suit for $100/day! So yeah, in that sense, negative comments can be a good thing…😜

 

This is my very long about way of saying there may be some negative comments coming down the pike…

[harryfat1]

OK.  Dinner reservation.  Sigh.  Where do I begin? 

 

Guess we will start with the basics on the optional dinner reservation in MDR.  The idea is that the classic time slots on previous cruises of 5:30 and 8 PM dining is too much Goldilocks for you (too early or too late), by you pick your own time you can find a dining time that fits you.

 

The one drawback is for old school people like yours truly that wants the same waiter and same table nightly has to work REALLY hard for it. 

 

First, the easy part. Go to the Medallion app on the phone to pick a time for your party. The options given starts at 5 PM and goes up to 8:40 PM. Although if you are eating dinner at 8:40 in Alaska sailing, it’s pretty much a walk-in as it’s pretty empty by then.

 

If you look back at start of Day 1 where I uploaded the Princess Patter, you will see that MDR hours are 5 to 9:30 PM.

 

 

I do want to point out that not all Princess ships have the 5 to 9:30 PM dining time.  The 5 to 9:30 time open times seem to be more for North American sailing from the various Patters people have posted this summer. I was part of a thread discussion that had European sailings with 6 to 9 PM time slots so check your app on when the MDR opens for your sailing.

 

For our sailing, the 7 PM slot was not an option on the medallion app couple of months prior to sailing.  So you must think, huh, that’s almost fully booked?  Not so fast, scroll ALL THE WAY to the bottom and you will find 7 PM.  Yeah, 7 PM comes after 8:40 PM on the app.  That makes perfect sense.

 

Think the app wants to hide the 7 PM as to have people pick either 6:40 or 7:20 as to avoid a long line at the podium at 7 PM as by default people prefer to select “on the hour” schedules.

 

OK, you can't select 7 PM dinner time.  It must be fully booked, right?

 

Not if you go ALL THE WAY to the bottom - you will find it there

 

 

I picked 7:20 with thinking that we go in after the big rush but in hindsight, I should have picked 6:40 or sucked it up and picked 7 but arrive early to beat the rush as dinner was S-L-O-W. Only one time did we get out of there in less than 2 hours. Yeah, in theory I could have told them to rush it at the beginning but when you see the servers running around working hard, it’s not like they can go that much faster.

 

If you are not a big phone app person, go ahead and reserve it online using the PC.  Works even better as the PC gives you more info than the app such as telling you the very popular slots might have to split up a bigger party.

 

See that you have more detailed info with the PC in getting warned that they may not be able to accomodate your larger group.  Also note that 6:40 has more open slots versus 7 PM. 

 

If you click on each time slot, you wil have a vague idea on where the crowd will be during your dining time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

Or if you don’t want to be locked into any dinner time, you can just walk up between 5 and 9:30 PM when MDR is open and see if they can seat you.  Depending on the size of your party/when you walk in, you might encounter a wait.

 

During our cruise, as we were only sailing at 60% capacity, the Majestic Princess only opened up 2 of the 3 MDRs.

 

In the beginning of the cruise, I saw some parties being turned away from our Concerto Dining (MDR on deck 6 toward the middle) when they wanted to do a walk in and was told the MDR was full.  They had to go to the MDR in the back of the ship which is less popular as it’s not “just next to the piazza” where people just walk right up.

 

Of course, with the kitchen in the middle between the two MDR, you “can’t get there from here”.  You have to go up one flight of stairs and go across on deck 7 and then down a flight of stairs on the rear set of stairs to get to the rear MDR.  Some people were less than pleased go the extra distance to go around but the Concerto dining room is partially reserved for the higher Club Class folks and there’s just no space for larger parties at peak times.

 

So if you prefer to walk up for your dining time and have large party/dining at peak times, you might try the back MDR as that one may have more available seating just because it’s remote location.

 

See how the 2 MDR is not connected as the kitchen is in the middle so to get to the back MDR, you need to go up one deck and go down one flight of stairs.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

So we picked 7:20 nightly for party of 6 in the same dining room on deck 6 (easy walk as it’s just 2 flights of stairs down and right in the middle section). Went down and check in by tapping my Medallion device on the podium and we were assigned table 352.  Our server was Noel from the Philippines.

 

Guess now is a good time to talk about food allergies.  A family member is deathly allergic to peanuts and mildly allergic to tree nuts.  I put down in the app the various food allergies and even went to the web version on Princess site to submit the allergy condition.

 

Then a week before the cruise, we got this email about the allergy info we submitted online.  Yeah, thanks for this non info. These people are worst than me in writing a whole paragraph of words and tells you nothing of value and I thought I was bad in my ramblings…

 

+++++++++++++++

Good Day,

 

Thank you for your request. It has been added to your booking.

 

As we have transitioned to our MedallionClass App (available on Apple and Android devices) we are advising our guests to download the MedallionClass App 90 days prior to your voyage and enter any dietary requests and/or food allergies that they may have. The information you enter will be communicated to the ship's onboard staff. Once onboard, please communicate your dietary requests and/or food allergies to the dining staff. The MedallionClass App allows you to personalize your vacation with Princess Cruises in every way. Please explore and enjoy all the new features of the MedallionClass App! We continue to make improvements regularly. If you need assistance with the MedallionClass App, please contact our Reservations Department.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dietary Department

 

+++++++++++++++++

 

If there’s a Google translate of “English” to “Harry-Speak”, it would translate the above paragraph to this:

 

+++++++++++++++++

 

Dude,

 

You are wasting your time emailing us.  We discontinued that email request link eons ago.  Never thought anyone was dumb enough to send stuff in via email until you came along.

 

Go use the medallion app that we paid millions of dollars in pretending we are a high-tech cruise line but it doesn’t work in reality.  It just looks nice and pretty in blue on your phone but doesn’t do anything as it doesn’t connect to any actual server tablets.  They have no idea if you are allergic to stuff when you sit down.

 

Put down your dang phone and go talk to a live person on the ship with your concerns. Stop dreaming that we can do anything for you remotely from the Princess Corporate back office.

Edited September 7, 2022 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

So we explained the allergy situation with our server and he was very diligent in checking with the kitchen that night and the rest of the cruise to point out whatever items are off limits.  For that effort, I gave him high praise in the post cruise survey. I’m the only one in the family that completed the survey as the rest are too lazy to care.

 

Anyway, for us, having a regular table/server the entire cruise is super important.  I don’t want to explain this 7 times on a weeklong cruise to 7 different servers.

 

Unlike others, I don’t mind eating at the same time nightly.  Us bean counters like routine and consistency. First week in class of Accounting 101 is they drill into your brain that there must be consistency in the profession and that spills over to personal life for many.

 

I understand Princess wants to follow the cruise trend to allow flexibility of dining people.  Fine.  Set aside one dining room or section of one for those folks and let the rest of us that wants a set up have our set time. Carnival (parent company of Princess) and RCI have both set time and flex time seating on their cruises.  I don’t understand why Princess is 100% into the flexibility dining.

 

In case it’s not obvious by now, for us, we cruise to obtain different experiences you can’t get from land-based hotels.  Such as towel animals in cabin or assigned tables where I feel “special” in having our table and waiter nightly.  Can’t get that on land vacations.

 

OK, stop babbling and show some food pictures.

 

I got the shrimp appetizer and French onion soup and the beef ribs. I’m not a picky eater.  Ate everything on the plate. No complaints.

 

My wife got the beef as well so there’s no variety of food to show.  I didn’t take pictures of what the boys ordered.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually I want to point out that the Princess version of French onion soup was very good. Some other places makes it way too slaty that I felt like I need to have a defibrillator standing by after drinking them but with the Princess version, you can actually taste the sweetness of the onions.  Very nice.

 

For dessert, we wanted to try the classic Princess Loveboat Dream as we have seen it many times on YouTube so had to try it.  For variety’s sake, my wife got the vanilla mascarpone.

 

 

 

 

 

And you all get to see the "fam" as the waiter took this picture for us.  Nowadays with Covid, you don't know if you are imposing on people when you ask them to take a picture of you.  

 

Pre-Covid, it was easy to go anywhere and everywhere to ask people take a picture of the family and in return, you take a picture of their family.  Things are more murky nowadays on whether to ask or not to ask...

 

[harryfat1]

Oh, I forgot to mention while we were eating dinner, we realized the ship has sailed as it was past the 8:30 sail away time. That’s another disadvantage of sailing from Whittier instead of Vancouver or Seattle for Alaska sailing is that due to the sailing time at 8:30 with many of the people still at dinner, there is no sail away party.

 

That’s a big disappointment for me as I love sail aways. There’s excitement in the air and they have song and dancers out on deck as this signifies the start of vacation for everyone. Only on cruises do you have this.

 

Thus, I really-really hope there are no first time cruisers on these Alaska south bound sailings.  You have no big cruise terminal to greet you.  Have to walk up the servants entrance to get on the ship and will not experience a sail away party.

 

Do yourself a favor and go on another cruise first before this one so you get a more full pre-cruise experience.

 

Here’s a Princess horn video as I’ll pretend that they sounded off while we were eating dinner for our sailing.

 

 

[Happiest when cruising]

8 hours ago, dides said:

No the roll call was a bit quiet and we've got a lot of hurdles to get through before we get on. First flight in almost 3 years, first trip over the pond in 3 years, having to get from Seattle to Vancouver (we were so hoping for Amtrak to re-start their train service and it's now starting 2 days after the cruise!) and doing our proctored test in our Seattle hotel at 2pm UK time, 7am US time! All booked and lined up now but we don't want to tempt fate by getting too excited!  

 

Oh and going on Discovery Princess will mean we would have cruised on all 6 Royal Class ships - we're calling it our Royal Flush lol.

 

 

I’m guessing you are staying on and cruising  somewhere fantastic…

[harryfat1]

As we prefer the traditional dining, I want the same table/waiter for the rest of the cruise. As suggested on CC, I went to the front podium after dinner to request that we have the same table 352 as the one we had tonight.

 

The gal at the front podium pushed back right away – “I’m sorry, Sir, I can not guarantee you the same table the rest of the cruise. We will see where we can seat you tomorrow.”

 

I told her I have reserved 7:20 at the Concerto Dining Room for the entire cruise so we will be there every night so why can’t I reserve the table I was just assigned the rest of the cruise.

 

“I’m sorry, sir, that’s the system”

 

Sigh. I asked to speak to her supervisor to reserve our table if she can’t do it.

 

“Sir.  There’s no need to speak to my supervisor. He will tell you the exact same thing.  We cannot reserve a table”

 

By then I was getting annoyed and I explained to her that a member of the family has severe peanut allergy and I do not want to explain this to 7 wait staff nightly if they keep assigning me to different table nightly even though I signed up for same time slot every night.

 

After that, she soften her tone and said, “Well, the system should be able to remember your table number and assign you to the same table number tomorrow”. Think she just want to say anything at that point just to get rid of me.

 

Spoiler alert – she lied.  We didn’t get the same table next day…

[Happiest when cruising]

25 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

As we prefer the traditional dining, I want the same table/waiter for the rest of the cruise. As suggested on CC, I went to the front podium after dinner to request that we have the same table 352 as the one we had tonight.

 

The gal at the front podium pushed back right away – “I’m sorry, Sir, I can not guarantee you the same table the rest of the cruise. We will see where we can seat you tomorrow.”

 

I told her I have reserved 7:20 at the Concerto Dining Room for the entire cruise so we will be there every night so why can’t I reserve the table I was just assigned the rest of the cruise.

 

“I’m sorry, sir, that’s the system”

 

Sigh. I asked to speak to her supervisor to reserve our table if she can’t do it.

 

“Sir.  There’s no need to speak to my supervisor. He will tell you the exact same thing.  We cannot reserve a table”

 

By then I was getting annoyed and I explained to her that a member of the family has severe peanut allergy and I do not want to explain this to 7 wait staff nightly if they keep assigning me to different table nightly even though I signed up for same time slot every night.

 

After that, she soften her tone and said, “Well, the system should be able to remember your table number and assign you to the same table number tomorrow”. Think she just want to say anything at that point just to get rid of me.

 

Spoiler alert – she lied.  We didn’t get the same table next day…

I find this quite interesting. We cruised in April of this year, for 14 nights.  The first night, even with reservations set for the same time all cruise, we waited. The next night the same thing..we waited. So…we politely said we could not under and what was happening. There was no podium to check in at, just long lines of people, coming through both doors. Not one door, for those with reservations, just a mishmash of everyone. 
So, after dinner that night, as we were leaving, we explained how we had waited about 40 minutes both nights, and wondered if that was going to be the standard. We explained  we’d like to sit at the same table, as the server and assistant were great. No problem…after that, we showed up at our time and we went straight in and our table was waiting. 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Happiest when cruising

[nini]

Strange..... many people were able to get the same table and time each night when we cruised this last May on the Emerald. Strange..........

[RNRcruisers]

11 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

As we prefer the traditional dining, I want the same table/waiter for the rest of the cruise. As suggested on CC, I went to the front podium after dinner to request that we have the same table 352 as the one we had tonight.

 

The gal at the front podium pushed back right away – “I’m sorry, Sir, I can not guarantee you the same table the rest of the cruise. We will see where we can seat you tomorrow.”

 

I told her I have reserved 7:20 at the Concerto Dining Room for the entire cruise so we will be there every night so why can’t I reserve the table I was just assigned the rest of the cruise.

 

“I’m sorry, sir, that’s the system”

 

Sigh. I asked to speak to her supervisor to reserve our table if she can’t do it.

 

“Sir.  There’s no need to speak to my supervisor. He will tell you the exact same thing.  We cannot reserve a table”

 

By then I was getting annoyed and I explained to her that a member of the family has severe peanut allergy and I do not want to explain this to 7 wait staff nightly if they keep assigning me to different table nightly even though I signed up for same time slot every night.

 

After that, she soften her tone and said, “Well, the system should be able to remember your table number and assign you to the same table number tomorrow”. Think she just want to say anything at that point just to get rid of me.

 

Spoiler alert – she lied.  We didn’t get the same table next day…

 

Ugh I hate this so much. Why did Princess mess with traditional dining? 

 

We were able to have the same table and server on our cruise in January but had to ask, almost beg, and there was no guarantee. I don't want to have to do that. We are bringing new cruisers with us next February and I want them to be able to experience TD. So frustrating.

 

[Cali Viajera]

Harry, I am so enjoying your report! You have such a dry wit! Keep the reports coming. Your family looks lovely. How old are your boys?

[harryfat1]

19 hours ago, nini said:

Strange..... many people were able to get the same table and time each night when we cruised this last May on the Emerald. Strange..........

 

20 hours ago, Happiest when cruising said:

I find this quite interesting. We cruised in April of this year, for 14 nights.  The first night, even with reservations set for the same time all cruise, we waited. The next night the same thing..we waited. So…we politely said we could not under and what was happening. There was no podium to check in at, just long lines of people, coming through both doors. Not one door, for those with reservations, just a mishmash of everyone. 
So, after dinner that night, as we were leaving, we explained how we had waited about 40 minutes both nights, and wondered if that was going to be the standard. We explained  we’d like to sit at the same table, as the server and assistant were great. No problem…after that, we showed up at our time and we went straight in and our table was waiting. 

Not sure why we encountered problem.  

 

I tried to follow what CC folks suggested - go and request at the podium after first night and you are good to go or so I thought.  For our cruise, the lady effectively told me to go away as they can't save tables so not sure if it's ship specific as some ships are more willing to “lock-in” a table for passengers than other ships?

 

Just from the various posts I have seen on CC, there seems to be more of a discrepancy on policy implementation of Princess ships versus other cruise lines.  Maybe since Princess ships are located in various parts of the world, the hotel staff have more autonomy to vary the official policy of Princess Corporate office to suit the needs of the ship?

 

But it doesn’t sound like we are the only ones that can’t lock in our table easily as RNRCruiser had to work hard on their past cruises to request a table.

 

Unless CC creates a sticky on the top and people drop in their experiences from their cruise and someone creates a database/spreadsheet from that to figure out which ship is more "table saving friendly" than other ships.

[harryfat1]

9 hours ago, RNRcruisers said:

 

Ugh I hate this so much. Why did Princess mess with traditional dining? 

 

We were able to have the same table and server on our cruise in January but had to ask, almost beg, and there was no guarantee. I don't want to have to do that. We are bringing new cruisers with us next February and I want them to be able to experience TD. So frustrating.

 

I hear you.  Trying to get the Princess staff to assign you the same table nightly is not an easy task.

 

We didn’t get our table for 2 of the 7 nights so we were playing musical tables on guessing where we would be seated nightly. 

 

Forest Gump of table assignments - you never know what table you will get every night.

 

As for your new cruiser friends, I think traditional dining adds something special that they can’t get on a land-based restaurant. You feel special that you have a reserved table the entire cruise and after the first day of checking in, the rest of the cruise you just walk in and the wait staff knows who you are and what you like to drink after couple of days.

 

I’m fine with options to have flexible dining time option.  People should have option to select when they want to eat.

 

Other cruise lines have a hybrid system where you can select set time and flexible time dining when you first book the cruise. Princess wants to go “all in” the flex dining a la NCL.

 

Princess should be able to lock in tables for people that reserved the same dining time nightly. They can have a timer in the software such that if you are 15 minutes late, they will release that table to someone else as it’s your fault in not showing up on time. Since the dining times are 20 minute intervals, if you reserve a table for 7 PM and don’t claim it by 7:15, then the next set of reservations at 7:20 can take your table.

 

As for your upcoming cruise, use the PC version of reserving a table as shown in post #181 to have vague idea on how busy the time slot you have chosen could be.  Especially if you dine in larger group and you see the message “your group might be split up”, the software is warning you the demand for your table size is high for that MDR at that time slot.

 

Depending on how full your sailing will be, they may or may not open all the MDR.  For us, they only open 2 of the 3.  Maybe reserve the “back” MDR as that is less popular and you have fewer “walk ins” from the atrium to compete for your “reserved table”.

 

We were never able to speak to the “white coat” supervisor level people.  Maybe you will have more luck to hunt one down on first night for them to make a note on your reservation to lock in the table for you.

[harryfat1]

5 hours ago, Cali Viajera said:

Harry, I am so enjoying your report! You have such a dry wit! Keep the reports coming. Your family looks lovely. How old are your boys?

Thank you very much for your kind words.

 

The boys are both in college – Cheapo Dad goes into anaphylactic shock ever time I see the college tuition bills.

 

Speaking of college – early programming announcement: Next weekend (9/16 and 9/17), I have to go down to Southern CA to help my son move into his apartment ahead of his new school year.  As such, I won’t be uploading any vacation pictures for couple of days as I have to do my daddy duties.

 

Before I go, I will just make some outrageous comment on something controversial like MDR dress codes or masks or vaccines.  Then for the weekend, people will have bunch of angry posts and hurling insults at each other such that nobody will even notice I was gone in the interim…🤪

 

Appreciate the “dry wit” compliment but you know being Pavlov’s Dog, my knee jerk reaction is to look for the opposite of dry wit – what would that be?  Wet stupidity?

 

Like the “Small World” song from your neck of woods, this search for opposites will be lingering in my head rest of the day…

 

As an added bonus, besides the catchy Small World song, you get the Jingle Bell overlay during Christmas period so even more rhythmic songs you can’t get it out of your head.

 

Ho-Ho-Ho

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Walking around the atrium, the band is playing CCR.  Here’s a partial recording as to limit the size of the attachment:

 

 

Here’s the whole song:

 

 

 

 

OK.  Way, way, way back to my introduction post from what – 6 weeks ago or so it seems – I mentioned one thing we look for in our vacation is to be entertained. After being on various cruises, I must say the Princess entertainment venue is the least appealing for our demographics/background.

 

For our cruise, Princess had the same comedian be a headline in the Princess theater for 2 nights and the ventriloquist/impersonator for another 2 nights.  On the other ships, where they have comedians, they were on the back lounges or specially designed comedy club section.  But Princess using them for 4 of the 7 nights strikes me a bit too much of cost cutting as it’s easier/cheaper to just hire one person to headline the main theater for 2 nights than have a bigger production group.

 

Princess is also not taking into account not everyone speaks English such that these acts are of no value if English is not your primary language.

 

Prior to our cruise, I had read some negative reviews from CC on Princess entertainment venue (or lack thereof) and I already tried to tone down the family’s expectation prior to the cruise but I guess I’m even surprised on how low I needed t bring it down.

 

Here are few examples of prior cruise entertainment venues our family sorely missed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Now that we have set sail, let’s talk about the one way south bound itinerary for a moment. 

 

Princess advertises this sailing to be “Voyage of Glacier” in that either north or south bound, they plan to take you to see glaciers on 2 of the 7 days. 

 

If South bound, you get Hubbard Glacier one day and Glacier Bay (GB) on another day.  If North bound, you get College Fjord and GB.

 

Technically we are closer to College Fjord than Hubbard Glacier but with the ship sailing at 8:30, we won’t arrive at College Fjord until late at night and not many people want to see glacier late in the evening.

 

Back at Whittier post earlier I provided a link to the excursion you can book to see the College Fjord without Princess.  If a private excursion boat can take you there in an afternoon, you know it’s not super far:

 

https://phillipscruises.com/glaciers/

 

Since we were on the south bound voyage, we get the Hubbard Glacier next day. Here is the Google Earth to show where we are and where we are headed (Can’t use Google Map as to quote the movie, Back to the Future – where we are going have no roads).

 

On the upper left is Anchorage in red arrow.  Then there’s Whittier in yellow (kind of hard to see but at about 4 o’clock from Anchorage).  Then there’s Hubbard Glacier WAY on the far right hand side in green.  So if you know Anchorage to Whittier is around 60 miles, you have an idea how far we need to travel overnight before getting there on the afternoon of day 2.

 

[harryfat1]

OK, so now what?  We typically go to the show after dinner but for first night, Princess made it almost impossible to attend as they made it a one show only at 9 PM. That would be fine if you ate dinner early anywhere from 6:30 or earlier as even with a leisurely 2 hour dinner, you can make it to the 9 PM show. 

 

 

Nearly impossible to catch the 9 PM show when you have later dinner.  Not that you even know the ship would only have one show on first night that would conflict with your dining time.

 

 

With no show to attend, we decided to check out the fountain show up on deck 16. I knew it would be cold up on top so I went back to the cabin to get my big jacket and so did my wife.  The boys thought they didn’t need it and they were soon sorry that they didn’t listen to their old man…

 

They have the music to synch with the water fountain.  Like a mini Bellagio water show.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the Vegas version from our 2019 trip:

 

 

 

 

But with the ship sailing close to 20 knots as she heads toward open waters and the wind blowing, it’s pretty cold outside.  Not too many people out and about.

 

Baby, it’s cold outside.  

 

Not exactly Holiday season yet but we are from California so our tolerance for cold is less than folks from other parts of the world.

 

 

Toto, I don’t think we are on a Caribbean cruise anymore…

 

 

The color of the picture is off as the whole top deck was in neon lights, so you get the color scheme of the area. I take way too many pictures to want to edit them prior to posting online.

 

 

[cr8tiv1]

Thanks for putting faces to your posts.  

 

I never understood the draw of the skywalk (or whatever they call it) or the Royal Class water shows.   One and done deal.  

 

BTW...I (and one other passenger I know of) were able to get towel animals by special request.  I know that it is a very time consuming task for our already overworked steward so did not ask for anymore.  

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2022 by cr8tiv1

[harryfat1]

1 hour ago, cr8tiv1 said:

Thanks for putting faces to your posts.  

 

I never understood the draw of the skywalk (or whatever they call it) or the Royal Class water shows.   One and done deal.  

 

BTW...I (and one other passenger I know of) were able to get towel animals by special request.  I know that it is a very time consuming task for our already overworked steward so did not ask for anymore.  

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I have seen others reporting that if you ask the cabin stewards, then they would do it as a special request but that kind of defeats the special feeling about it if you had to ask for it to be done.

 

The guy still cleans our bathroom twice daily so that’s more important to me on a daily basis than the towel animals as I also read some people had to ask for twice a day cleaning. 

 

Between no towel animals and no traditional dining time and lack of big time entertainment venue, I’m wondering if Princess really wants to cater to newbie cruisers as these little things makes newbie cruisers feel their first cruise is something special that they can’t get from a land vacation.

 

Maybe Princess assumes the newbie cruisers will start with Carnival/RCI/NCL and then mature and migrate over to Princess when they become empty nesters/retirement age.  As such, these newbie “wows” are wasted on them.

 

We don’t cruise often – once a year at the most so for us (me), we/I really crave the “Wow, I’m on a cruise and experiencing different things from a land vacation” on every cruise.  It’s a struggle to find that with Princess versus other cruise lines that caters more to newbie cruisers.

 

Speaking of first time cruisers, here’s Madonna:

 

 

 

As luck would have it, Sky walk is next on my list as we were up there...

 

[harryfat1]

Our late sail away pictures at around 10 PM - about 1.5 hours after the official sail away.

 

By being this far up north in the summer time, even with the stormy clouds, it was bright outside at 10.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we have officially begun our cruise vacation.  Time for a Rolling Stone song to kick start this vacation - I want to drink whatever the girl drank to have that much energy:

 

 

Since we didn't have our sail away party, I will create my own song list.  This seems appropriate for seeing the frontier of Alaska on our new carpet ride for the rest of week: