Which Princess ship is the best for an Alaskan Cruise?

[TPotthast]

We are planning a 12-14 day Alaskan trip package with 5 - 7 days land and 7 day cruise for our 40th anniversary in July 2025.  So far we have gotten a quote for a 12 day that the cruise would be on Sapphire and a 14 day that the cruise would be on Caribbean.  We haven't been on a cruise in nearly 30 years and never been on a Princess Cruise.  Would anyone have a recommendation of which ship might be the better choice?  Thank you.

[Aquahound]

Sapphire.  She is an early Grand Class ship that was built before they expanded the ship design by adding an extra deck and creating crowd problems.  

 

From reading the Alaska boards, Sapphire seems to be a favorite among regular Princess cruisers.  

[zdcatc12]

I'm not sure if this class is still doing Alaska, but I took the Island Princess in 2012. That was a great ship for the itinerary.

[Cruzaholic41]

2 hours ago, zdcatc12 said:

I'm not sure if this class is still doing Alaska, but I took the Island Princess in 2012. That was a great ship for the itinerary.

Ah, yes. Coral and Island are 2 old time favorites. 
 

OP - Go with Sapphire for the reasons Aquahound mentioned. Caribbean is a very crowded ship. 

[capriccio]

I just answered a similar question on this current thread:

 

I posted 3 recent threads from the Princess board answering this same question that you might find useful.

[Hlitner]

Given a choice we would choose one of the ships that has an all-weather pool.  And we will never, again, cruise on the Caribbean Princess.  Princess took their excellent Grand Class design, added another passenger deck (with hundreds of more passengers) and did not really expand the public spaces.   As you can imagine, the ship can feel very crowded and just doing simple things like going to an evening show can become a fiasco.

 

Hank

[Heidi13]

On 3/7/2024 at 2:27 PM, TPotthast said:

We are planning a 12-14 day Alaskan trip package with 5 - 7 days land and 7 day cruise for our 40th anniversary in July 2025.  So far we have gotten a quote for a 12 day that the cruise would be on Sapphire and a 14 day that the cruise would be on Caribbean.  We haven't been on a cruise in nearly 30 years and never been on a Princess Cruise.  Would anyone have a recommendation of which ship might be the better choice?  Thank you.

 

Princess used to have their best 4 ships in Alaska - Diamond, Sapphire, Island & Coral.

 

Of those ships, I believe only Sapphire remains in Alaska. She is a traditional Grand Class that was built in Japan, so has vastly superior build quality to the Italian & French built ships. She also doesn't have the additional deck with 500 extra pax that started with Caribbean Princess.

[TPotthast]

8 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Princess used to have their best 4 ships in Alaska - Diamond, Sapphire, Island & Coral.

 

Of those ships, I believe only Sapphire remains in Alaska. She is a traditional Grand Class that was built in Japan, so has vastly superior build quality to the Italian & French built ships. She also doesn't have the additional deck with 500 extra pax that started with Caribbean Princess.

Thank you for this information.

[TPotthast]

Thank you all for the information you provided.  From what I now know we will for sure book on Sapphire.  I can't wait!