Island Princess 6/4-6/11 Southbound Review

[AK Newbie]

Thanks to all who answered questions and for all the info on Alaska-it helped us plan our cruise. ;) Just returned from Island Princess 6/4 to 6/11 Southbound from Whittier to Vancouver. Great weather the whole trip only a few showers in Whittier (we made it before the heavy rain) and late afternoon showers in Ketchikan on Saturday. Temps in the 50’s some cloudy days. We did all our shore excursions thru Princess since we were first time cruisers and our first trip to Alaska.

 

Monday: Whittier: Took Princess transfer from Anchorage airport to Whittier. Driver/tour guide funny with some corny jokes and stories. Some good pictures out of the bus windows, surprisingly. Check in was a breeze.

 

Tuesday: College Fjord: cloudy and the fog rolled in and out quickly and repeatedly. Cool temps but still got some good pictures and the fog/clouds gave some special effects as they did not cover everything all the time.

 

Wednesday: Glacier Bay: Magnificent!! :D Calving numerous times @ Margerie. Hope we got some-switched to video on my camera because the focus wasn’t fast enough to catch it. Best day of the trip. Ship turned several times for views to be made by all sides. Spent lots of time topside, crowded, but most people polite in taking turns for picture taking spaces. Moved to Promenade deck during busy calving of Margerie, lots more space to take pictures and less people-“seemed” closer but probably just less crowded.

 

Thursday: Skagway: Sled dog musher’s camp (my personal favorite). :p Driver/guide Tabitha was funny and told us about life in Skagway (she has wintered there). Only a mile ride on a wheeled cart on dirt path, okay. Best part was meeting the musher’s and their dogs. (We’re serious dog lovers) Hearing the stories of how they trained and got addicted to mushing, (ones we talked with lived in Montana and Idaho during winter-some mush as a hobby/sport others do winter sledding for tourists). Lady musher gave a talk and answered all questions the group had-very interesting-she had good stories. There were 300 dogs and 10 mushers @ the camp-the puppies were cute too. We saw a black bear on the ride back to the ship; it ran onto someone’s porch, no pictures too fast! Afternoon we did the White Pass Railroad to the Summit (train both ways about 3 hours) Great scenery, lots of pictures, waterfalls, oh and another black bear on the side of the hill. Was a little long with the same scenery both ways, but caught pictures of stuff we missed on the way up coming back.

 

Friday: Juneau: Whale and Wildlife cruise okay. Saw several humpbacks, only tails and fins, crowded boat (yep probably should book independent for this). After our whale watching in Virginia Beach, VA in 2001 (we saw a juvenile humpback breech 15-30 times a once in a lifetime thing we now realize)-we got spoiled. Lots of harbor seals and eagles on the rocks (good pictures there). Rode the Mt Roberts tram up the mountain, visited the nature center then a little shopping in town. Weather started cloudy, got sunny and BEAUTIFUL. Ate lunch at the “Twisted Fish” near the pier-great halibut ‘burgers”. Got my best eagle pictures when one perched on a lamppost on the pier!

 

Saturday: Ketchikan: Eagle Islands kayaking-DH’s favorite part. Princess contracted thru “Southeast Exposure”(they have their own website and do zip lines and other tours too)-great guides-patient teachers (for me, hubby canoes all the time). Guides great at answering our questions about Alaska, they were natives. Saw an eagles nest. No whales that day, but they saw an Orca breech the day before (they had pictures!!) Shopping in town afterwards. DH found Ray Troll’s store (funny “fish” art, t shirts, etc) while we were shopping on creek street. DH is a big fan and it made his day. Ray Troll has lived in Ketchikan for the last 20 years and is a great artist-autographed his book for my DH, what a nice guy. We also visited the Alaska Nature Museum’s book store for some goodies.

 

Sunday: at sea- I think the captain was moving fast, I got a “little” seasick that morning :mad: but was better in the afternoon. We had couples massage @ Lotus Spa (expensive, should have cancelled the prebooking and waiting for specials that day-I’m learning….;) .)

 

We ate at the Horizon court all the time, DH’s second favorite thing. I have never seen so much food!!! We did make one dinner at the Cajun Café-the blackened chicken was very good-but didn’t think it was worth the extra expense.

 

DH and I really enjoyed the cruise and seeing Alaska. Karen Dodd was a naturalist on board and she was very good. She moved to Alaska when she was 20 and taught school in rural native villages until she retired. Her stories of rural life, living off the land, and native culture were very interesting. We saw several comedians @ nite shows and they were very good (very funny one night during the “blackout” snafu when power went out on the whole ship for a few minutes-the comedian did a great captains’ impersonation!)

 

Thanks again for all the help and info I got on cruise critic-especially on the Alaska and Princess boards.

 

PS we do think Princess needs new pillows!!! (they were like pancakes). Also, because of 10am arrival @ Ketchikan, the gangways were VERY crowded (could have used a little more crowd control.

[shamrockace]

Thank you for the review. I am living vicariously thru all you that have already made the trip.

[Xiabelle]

Thanks for the reviews!

 

We were originally going to be on that cruise ourselves, then my boss wouldn't let me off work in June... Oh well, we rebooked for July with Carnival.

[Fritzie]

Thanks for the great info! We're doing this cruise end of July--I can't wait! We're doing the musher's camp, too--very excited.

Some questions, if you don't mind...

What kind of cabin did you have?

How was the service on the Island?

Which nights were formal nights in the dining room?

Did you do Princess Air? If so, did everything go smoothly?

I'm trying to decide whether to do Ultimate Balcony Dining. Was it kinda windy and cool--perhaps too much so to eat outside?

Did you get a coffee card? How was the coffee?

Feel free to give any other tidbits of info--I'm obsessed with knowing as much as possible! :)

And if you have a copy of the Patters to share, I'd love to see it!

[AK Newbie]

Fritzie:

 

We had cabin B733-aft balcony cabin. We didn't use the balcony much.....if I had it to do over again....would probably get an oceanview. (However several fellow cruisers saw more whales and dolphins because they were on their balcony more than we were) I liked aft because we could run out on the end of the ship quickly-lots of aft space on sunny days in loungers even above deck 14-Baja.

 

Our room steward was very good. We ate @ the buffet all the time (service there was good too, but sometimes it was very crowded). The one thing I didn't like was it seemed Princess was always trying to sell us something-which is their job-but still a little irritating. The crew and everyone we encountered were friendly and helpful.

 

I think the formal nites were Tuesday (second nite) and Saturday nite.

 

We did use Princess air and everything went well. When I printed our travel summary I didn't get a confirmation number for our Northwest flights however (snafu??) Couldn't preprint our boarding passes. When we got ready to disembark, ship couldn't get our luggage prechecked in either ($15 charge per person they don't tell you about but well worth less time waiting in line @ airport). So we went out in the second group (Red One) @ 745am when our flight wasn't until 230pm. It takes about 2 hours to get thru checkin and customs (but we had no problems). Busdriver gave us clues on how to fill out the US customs form. We were worried about just fishing our luggage out of the Red One pile, but it was pretty small and didn't take long. Our TA did warn us that sometimes Princess makes your return flight a "red-eye" but we got home by midnite (only 1 connection both ways). Do everything on Princess personalizer well before your cruise, because within 5 days of cruise you can't change any information on their website.

 

In July, maybe Ultimate Balcony dining would be good because it would be warmer-maybe put the question to someone else who has done this-we didn't. Heard you get lots of food and we didn't think it was worth the extra expense. (you could just bring some food from the buffet to your balcony if you want to :) )

 

I did get a coffee card.....we didn't use it all up. I thought their coffee was okay. The coffee card is only for the bar in the Buffet and the bar on deck 5 (near pursers' desk) or so they told me. Did use it to get hot chocolate on glacier day, but had to run from top deck to buffet bar. DH got a soda sticker and we didn't end up using that up either. I would skip both if I did it again....heard that coffee cards are reusable though.

 

The ship was very nice and clean. It does take a while to learn your way around since the 3 banks of elevators don't all go to the same floors. Just explore all the areas when you get a chance because you might find a nook or cranny you really like that nobody else ventures into. I am surprised no one told us about the really nice Promenade deck-great place to walk, less crowded on Glacier day, lots of lounges. Also the solarium is great with the loungers when you're @ sea for relaxing, reading, sightseeing (alot of people used blankets they provided because it was cool)

 

Have a great cruise and let me know if you have any more questions.

[AK Newbie]

I did keep copies of all the patters, not sure how to get any copy to you?? maybe email. We did grab them whenever they got put out usually after dinner for the next day-to plane what we would be doing.

[maureenk]

Glad to hear that you and hubby loved the kayaking. We kayak a lot near home, so we were thinking that it might not be that exciting of a trip since part of the excursion would be fun of doing something different (for most people). You said your DH is a canoer so it sounds like you guys might be like us in terms of being regular paddlers. Could you elaborate a bit on why he (an you) liked the excursion? Thanks for your help! I'd like to plan something in Ketchikan, but for now we are thinking of walking around town and hiking Deer Mountain trail. Considered the kayaking and also considering renting bikes.

[AK Newbie]

Dh is a regular canoer-I am NOT. We kayaked @ the Outer Banks a few years ago and we both liked it. I think kayaks are easier to paddle than canoes. The guides did say we were paddling "divorce boats" since we had double kayaks. They do offer single kayaks for people with experience.

 

I think DH and I liked it so much because it got us out of town to see some of the area, and the guides were native Alaskans and answered any questions we had (info, politics, lifestyle, etc). They also do other things (see their website "Southeast Exposure.com" for info).

 

I did hear another couple talk about biking in the Rainforest (it sounded great and they liked it) but that was in Skagway.

 

hope this helps

happy cruising to Alaska

[Alaska05]

How was the bedding? I know you mentioned the flat pillows. Do they have top flat sheets or just the duvet? Our past cruise on the Sun had the duvet and I had to ask for a top sheet. The duvet is way too warm for me?

 

We had Karen Dodd on our 2005 cruise on the Sun. I hope she's still on the Island next month when we sail. I really enjoyed her.

[Maddle]

We are going at the end of July, too (See you there, Fritzie!) Can you tell me more about the coffee card?

 

Husband will like the pancake pillows, but that could be a problem for me. Any suggestions?

 

Maddle

[Alaska05]

Husband will like the pancake pillows, but that could be a problem for me. Any suggestions?

 

Maddle

 

You can ask your room steward for some additional or different pillows.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thanks for taking the time to write your review. So glad you had a great cruise.

[Quilting_Cruiser]

Thanks for posting your review! We've got 60 days until our cruise and I'm so glad the season has started and reviews are being posted. It increases the anticipation! :D

 

Glad you had a great cruise!

Jayne