Tom Johnson
Google
Went on a 7-day cruise from Seattle to Alaska (my first cruise ever). Overall, Princess seemed like a good cruise company. Here's what I thought Princess did well:
- Beautiful ship and facilities. Imagine the most luxurious, massive hotel ever floating along the sea.
- Pleasant and abundant staff. There's something like 1 staff member per every 2 guests or something. People are helpful and friendly and always around. I even got to meet the ship's navigator on an excursion (she was awesome and super friendly).
- Decent food. Lots of buffet and restaurant options, including much seafood. There were always options for vegetarians/pescatarians like me as well. Nice variety of desserts.
- Good itinerary. We stopped in Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. Also Glacier Bay. Timing in each place was about right.
- Excursion options. We did several excursions along the trip that were fantastic. From biking to canoeing to ziplining, I really enjoyed getting off the ship to do these activities.
- Naturalist lectures. The ship's naturalist (Rob Raincock) is both knowledgeable and fun to listen to. I went to every one of his lectures (about salmon, bears, whales, rainforest, etc.) and enjoyed them immensely.
- Medallions. The wearable tech on the form of a medallion works extremely well. It lets you on and off the ship, in and out of your cabin, facilitates security, onboarding, dining, and more. The tech was seamless and reassuring (someone knows where I am and can find me if necessary, etc). We even got internet via the Princess app, and it worked well.
- Choice of restaurants. You can choose different restaurants to eat at, though the menus are mostly the same at all of them. The restaurant variety was fun to explore; you could also just go to the buffet on the Lido deck.
- Staterooms and balcony. The balcony view was beautiful and I loved seeing the ocean and hearing the breeze. The cabin rooms were spacious and comfortable. Bathrooms were clean.
Here's what I disliked:
- Casino. I hated smelling smoke near the casino. I'm not sure why there's a casino here. Aren't people into seeing the beautiful outdoors of Alaska? I avoided the areas by the casino due to the smell of smoke. (A few times, I also smelled smoke on my balcony due to a guest who was smoking in an unallowed area.)
- Jewelry stores, both on and off ship. There's nothing worse that disembarking from the ship in Juneau only to see jewelry store after jewelry store selling diamonds. I don't quite get why there are so many diamond stores, but I didn't need this.
- Ship activities. I'm wasn't interested in bingo or raffles or other afternoon cruise ship activities. Apart from the naturalist lectures, most of the activities on the ship didn't interest me. (They're more geared towards retirement-aged demographics, which was probably appropriate.) I even tried to play basketball, but it was nearly impossible due to the wind, rain, and the lack of other bballers on the ship. I did attend a music night, which had an amazing soprano opera singer. I enjoyed that. I heard the impersonator was also good. But most activities, I skipped.
Overall, I would prefer to travel on my own in a more self-directed way (rather than via a cruise) but I also appreciated traveling with friends on the ship. Our group included 3 couples, so we had many enjoyable dinners and excursions together.
Even so, I never got used to the feeling of being one of thousands of tourists when our massive ship pulled into port and we descended upon the city. I longed to go off-path where there weren't throngs of people and where locals wouldn't see me as just another cruise tourist. I could easily sense that locals disliked the cruise ships but relied on the economic boons of it.
I learned that it's pretty cheap to fly to Alaska, so if I do another vacation, I might just fly and do my own traveling. But a cruise is a great option if you want a more guided/handheld experience through Alaska, especially if you're traveling in a group.