Diamond Princess July 18-30 Review

[mringenoldus]

Review Part One

 

My friend and I have just completed a 12 night Alaska cruisetour on the Diamond Princess. I hope some of what we experienced will help others still planning their trip. This is a remarkable part of our country. Since there are no language or currency issues, the traveling is very easy!

 

Preplanning

We took a great deal of advice from the Alaska CC board. Here is what we found:

 

Warm jacket and good walking shoes were essential. I used the LL Bean fleece lined jacket with a hood (rated for 20-40 degrees) and was very comfortable on colder days. As noted on the Alaska board, you can purchase a nice fleece lined jacket for $19.99 in almost every port.

 

Brought the multi plug extension cord. This was very well used.

 

Brought my own little mini coffee brewer – but while Princess still uses syrup, it seemed to taste OK this time. Maybe they changed brands??

 

Brought the Wal-Mart $ .88 throwaway rain ponchos but with my jacket, I never ended up needing them. I did offer one or two to people who weren’t so lucky – but wet.

 

Made private excursion reservations with Harv and Marv and Sourdough Car Rental. Bought the Murray’s Guide online for Skagway.

 

Ship Review

We arrived in Seattle at 9:00a.m. the day of the cruise. We were greeted and our bags taken by Princess personnel in baggage claim. There are information and shuttle assignment podiums for each cruise line using the Seattle port. We were on our way to Vancouver in a very comfortable coach. We crossed the border with ease and only had to show our passports to the immigration agent who boarded the bus. It was a beautiful sunny day in Vancouver and I wish we could have enjoyed the city a bit longer but we boarded straight from the coach – never had to touch our luggage. There was no need for platinum check in as the majority of the passengers had already boarded.

 

We had booked a gty mini and were assigned mini suite on Dolphin across from the laundry. This proved to be a very nice, convenient location. We went to the muster drill in the Princess Theater and the ship was soon underway. Our bags were delivered by the time we returned from muster drill!

 

The only complaint regarding the uncovered balcony was the used, soggy cigarette butts thrown onto our porch each day from the deck above. The mini has plenty of storage space.

 

The staff was polite and cheerful, particularly in both the buffet and main dining. Our steward was terrific – but for reasons we never understood, only one of us would get a candy on our pillow or the good spa towel as opposed the thinner type. Maybe a Princess cut back :)

 

I really appreciated John from the cruise director staff and the pianist for running a very well planned nondenominational prayer service on Sunday while we were at sea.

 

The production entertainment was very good. The naturalist onboard was pleasant but sometimes the information seemed repetitious. The typical trivia, newlywed game, karaoke were all available but not heavily attended. The comedians were both very funny and had very large audiences. One was a former LAPD and is coming to a casino in our area - I would definitely go see him again. The only small issue I had was that the production show and comedian was repeated two nights in a row leaving fewer options for evening entertainment.

 

The pools were open and used off and on during the trip. It was funny to see a bikini-clad teen standing on deck with the glaciers in the background. Unfortunately the indoor pool was closed for a day since a child had an accident in the pool. I assume some people were unhappy that this occurred in the adults only area. I think having the deck blankets for checkout was a nice touch.

 

I admit – I love a casino – just not this one. It was never heavily used as the machines are very outdated. I thought that I would like the Players Bank concept but found it cumbersome to be punching in codes and amounts every time I wanted to use the funds or cash out. It would be OK to access funds through your cruise card if coupled with the paper ticket like on RCCL. It was just a pretty boring spot.

 

Movies were shown almost every afternoon in the Princess Theater.

 

There is a soup station in the morning and a waffle station in the afternoon outdoors on the Pool deck. I stayed away from those waffles – they looked and smelled too good! Ice cream (soft and hard) was also almost always available. I should have put it on the waffle with some chocolate sauce – yum!

 

I don’t drink so I won’t be of much help on the bar-related questions. I would have enjoyed a dedicated, enclosed piano bar with a singer like we experienced on an RCCL ship. It was a lively crowd and a lot of fun with “Name that Tune” and music trivia type of activities.

 

The Sapphire and Diamond have wonderful internet spaces – but oddly no one ever opened the coffee bar inside the area on this trip. It always had nice coffees and snacks on the Sapphire.

 

We thought all of the food was very good to excellent. We didn’t feel a need to use specialty dining and heard one couple express disappointment in their steak at the Sterling Steakhouse. We had PC dining and always chatted with those seated next to us. We met wonderful people (I’ll never forget 90+ year old Roy, a former Marine, who had driven solo from Virginia to Vancouver and then planned to continue traveling in Canada on his way back home). We only made a reservation one time because we joined another couple we had chatted with on an earlier evening. There was little to no wait at around 8:00 when we went to dinner. I highly recommend PC for Alaska as the ship is in port quite late in Skagway and Juneau.

 

I have kept copies of all the Patters in case you are interested in specific days and events.

 

In part two of the review, I will cover the ports and land tour portion.

[firefly4423]

thanks for sharing, Ill be looking forward to part 2!

[Hank1468]

where can we view your Princess Patters?

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for the review.

 

Did the comedian use his flashlight? :D

[yyzatcqq]

Review Part One

There is a soup station in the morning and a waffle station in the afternoon outdoors on the Pool deck. I stayed away from those waffles – they looked and smelled too good! Ice cream (soft and hard) was also almost always available. I should have put it on the waffle with some chocolate sauce – yum!

 

Soup in the morning and waffles in the afternoon??? That seems backwards.