jeromep

I would gladly take the train to a cruise port over flying any day. We've looked at some cruises departing out of LA and thought about taking the train down there before the cruise, and maybe after, but it would make for a very long vacation. The Empire Builder is one of the most scenic routes in the U.S. I wouldn't hesitate to take it, but ensure that your arrival day is at least a day before your cruise. Things happen on the route of the Empire Builder and delays are common. I would also strongly recommend booking a sleeper. When you book sleeper service on long distance trains all your meals are included. Last time I checked I think the Empire builder from Chicago to Seattle was listed as 44 hours; in reality it is usually 48-52 hours when there are no extraordinary circumstances on the route. Most of the delay is attributed to freight trains on the route. In the U.S., passenger service on shared track is supposed to give passenger trains priority over freight. But that goes out the window when most of the freight consists are longer than the sidings that were built to give freight trains a place to pull off to allow the passenger trains through. The irony is that the sidings are more than long enough for the typical passenger consist. So, that means that the shorter train gets to pull off and wait, and that happens quite a bit. Getting from King Street Station to anyplace in Seattle is as easy as taking an Uber or Lift. I wouldn't consider trying to use Seattle public transit as a tourist. Pier 66 is located near some downtown hotels. The Edgewater is next door and they will walk over to the Pier with you and your luggage. The Edgewater has rooms with excellent views of the bay and is at least a 4 star property. There is also the Seattle Waterfront Marriott, which you can lug your luggage down to the Pier with not too much difficulty. These are about the only two locations where you could limit your use of rideshare to just getting from King Street to your pre-cruise hotel. Otherwise you'll need to consider a rideshare from King Street to your hotel, and then another from the hotel to the pier. I don't think getting around Seattle is your biggest issue. I think you'll need to ensure that you have a pre-cruise overnight to accommodate for any delays on Amtrak, which means starting your journey out west a day earlier and some additional lodging and ground transportation expenses.

I agree with @Ferry_Watcher on all points. If you feel a shuttle service will work better for your group, the service in Seattle is called Seattle Express. https://seattleexpress.com/ I'd recommend calling them and having a chat to determine how they will handle your special needs. With 7 people, and one with limited mobility, I would expect that you'd want to schedule a private transfer and not share with others. It will also make your trip to and from the hotel and the port more organized and more timely.

Funny, I recall my mom telling me that if I had nothing nice to say I shouldn't say anything at all. I suspect you didn't get such advice. I recommend that you think before you post something rude and mean.

Not only is that a fire door, but you are the last cabin in the section. Note that your next door neighbor is B601? The new number sequence indicates a new bulkhead section. There are fire isolation doors between every section on every deck of the ship. Also, I've never seen a roll away bed in a cabin. The occupancy number of a cabin indicates all the bed spaces that are already in a cabin. Notably, a cabin that can sleep 4 will have some combination of a convertible bed (it converts from king to twin) and some combination of bed that is made out of a couch, basically a hide-a-bed, or bed(s) that fold down from the walls or come down out of the ceiling. For Inside/outside cabins that sleep 4, I've seen the room configured with the king bed split into two and the upper berths either are attached to the wall and fold down or come down out of the ceiling and have ladders to access them. The reason they have to split the double bed is because there has to be access to the upper berth, which is right above the regular bed. Mini suites and full suites usually sleep 4, but there is a bit more space and the configuration is such that the double bed doesn't have to be split because the 3rd and 4th berth are the couch and a ceiling drop down bed above the couch. I don't claim that this encompasses all 3rd and 4th berth situations, but it covers most.

The Patter isn't what it used to be. In years past the daily Princess Patter was a tabloid cut, double sided and folded document, printed fresh each afternoon, and distributed by the cabin stewards to every cabin, which had a little daily blurb from a deck officer or the cruise director, usually a weather report for the next port day, a spotlight section that featured one of the notable staff members on board, and a detailed daily schedule along with little box "ads" for different venues and services on board highlighting the spa, or a particular show or singer. If it was a port day there would be a tabloid cut double sided print and folded Port Guide inserted in the Patter, which had local port information, port agent information, some curisory information about the port and the overall location, and a lot of shilling for Effy Jewlers on shore, and maybe Diamonds International. Because we all know that when people cruise, the second thing on their mind is buying jewelry. Not! Anyway the Patter would also be filled with little half sheets and quarter sheets of freshly printed ads and promotions for on-board shops and for the spa. Currently the Patter is nothing more than a daily schedule. It is now a letter sized, double sided, printout that is just a day's schedule along with a listing of venue, and restaurant hours, and the office hours for places like the Future Cruise Desk or when the Internet Cafe is staffed. Much of the old Patter has made its way onto the Princess app, so you end up relying on the app for the day's activities and schedule. I miss the Patters because they were a nice keepsake from a cruise. Now, all I end up bringing home is the daily schedules which is not nearly as interesting to look through as the old Patters. Movies Under the Stars in Alaska is almost always a bit chilly. At the main pool they will take the loungers and cover them with padded covers that have little pillows on them. They will also hand out blankets or have them available at the towel desk during the movie. They also serve popcorn and warm cookies and milk. The bar at the pool will also be open and the grill and pizza stand will usually be open during the first hour or so of the film. We've done MUTS in Alaska at least twice, and it can be a chilly and windy experience. Some folks are smart and hang out in a hot tub to watch the movie, but it is a great experience and the movies are usually either topical to the cruise, or fairly recent run. On our last Alaska cruise we watched "Independence Day" on Independence Day.

I'm seeing some abbreviated but good advice here, and some very poor advice here. So, when on a coastal cruise the ship will go offshore into international waters. You are a long way from the coastline. They do this so they have no issues with serving alcohol untaxed, and not having to deal with individual state liquor laws and taxes, so they can open the duty free shops, and so they can open the casino (again, because being in U.S. territorial waters subjects the ship to U.S. and state law). Cell tower signal propagation is very short. Not much more than a mile or two. If you are in a moving vehicle making a call you will pass through numerous cell sites as you drive, with your call being handed off from site to site as you move. And while there are cellular towers along most populated areas on the coast, and along coastal highways, they do not propagate that far out into the ocean. There is a bit of an advantage in terms of getting cell service while off the coast because once on the ocean there is nothing in the way of obstructions to block a line of site radio path, but distance from the cell tower is still a factor. 1. Contact your service provider and determine if WiFi Calling is part of your cellular plan. If not, find out what plans have it and consider upgrading. WiFi Calling is a no additional charge feature of most cellular plans, mostly because when your phone is connected to WiFi, the calls route over the Internet instead of to cell towers, which preserves bandwidth for other cellular customers. It is in the cellular provider's best interest to offload as much traffic as they can to terrestrial and wired connections, like high-speed cable, fiber, and DSL, whenever possible. When I'm at home my phone defaults to WiFi calling when the device is connected to my home network. It is turned on and just occurs in the background. 1a. Generally speaking, WiFi calling is an option on your phone's settings. If you see it and can turn it on, it is included in your calling plan. Again, check with your provider, but in my experience, if WiFi Calling is not part of your plan it will not be visible in your phone's settings. 1b. On iPhone go to the Settings app, choose Cellular, on my phone there is a section for AT&T services, in that section is a line labeled, Wi-Fi Calling. It will show if the feature is on or off. Tap on that line and then use the toggles on the subsequent screen to turn on Wi-Fi calling. One option is Wi-Fi Calling on This iPhone, make the switch green. Below that is Add Wi-Fi Calling for Other Devices. I choose to turn this on because it allows me to make and take calls on my iMac, iPad, even my non cellular Apple Watch. 2. When you are on board the ship, the first thing you do with your cell phone is to turn it to airplane mode. Airplane mode turns off all the wireless transceivers on your phone, this includes the cellular transceiver and the WiFi transceiver. Generally Bluetooth is not impacted. You then need to turn on WiFi manually. This will allow you to join the onboard WiFi provided by Princess, but your cellular transceiver remains off. Your cellular transceiver needs to be off when on board because there is cellular at sea, but it is really expensive and charges start accruing to your cellular bill almost immediately upon any data being carried on that system. 3. Do you have Plus or Premier. If so you have Internet access included, so use freely. If not, you'll need to purchase a plan when on board. From a value perspective, the Internet access that comes with Plus helps to justify the cost, in my eyes, so do consider an on board package. 4. Assuming that you have a package or have purchased Internet service from Princess. When you phone is connected to the WiFi and you are further connected to the Internet, WiFi calling will give you a seamless calling and SMS texting experience. I've made numerous calls with WiFi calling from the ship, received numerous calls, and sent conventional text messages (those of us in Apple land know them as "green" messages). When connected to the onboard Internet, "blue" messages sent with iMessage operate totally normally, with or without WiFi calling, since native iMessage messages are carried on the Internet not over cellular or WiFi calling. There is no need for any additional apps or services if you have WiFi calling turned on, and have an Internet package with Princess.

Unless there are outstanding circumstances, formal nights, such as they are or are not, are always on sea days. Check your itinerary, if it is a sea day, it is likely a formal night. We have an Alaska cruise scheduled this year and on our itinerary there are 2 sea days, typical for cruises that are RT Seattle, so those likely the two formal nights. Formal nights are not scheduled on port days mostly because, if the spirit of the formal night were as it was 10+ years ago, some folks would need some time during the day to get their hair done and face all fancied up in anticipation of the evenings frivolities. A port day would definitely hamper that. Additionally, we have some port days with dinner time and late evening departures, so a formal night might cut short a port day for some folks. Either way, lots of other people are going to lean toward specialty restaurants on formal nights, so either book early or remain flexible. But as others have shared, formal night might be documented a particular way on the Princess web site, but in practice, what happens in the dining room on formal nights is not that much different from any other day.

As @Glaciers stated, you will be dropped off in front of the departures entrance, ideally at your airline's check in location, on the departures level. But for reference, if you are arriving in Seattle and picking up a rideshare, you have to go to level 3 of the parking garage, and ride share pickup is there. https://www.portseattle.org/sea-tac/ground-transportation/app-based-rideshare

I don't do cabs at all when traveling. Most of my usage of Uber and Lyft have been when traveling for business, but when we cruise we always need to get from the airport to the hotel, and from the hotel to the port and back again, same as everyone else. I also use Uber or Lyft for personal travel needs. We've never had a bad experience with Uber or Lyft. The cars are cleaner, the drivers are more personable, and at the end of the ride the driver isn't impatiently waiting for me to pay, or glaring at me because I want to use plastic, or plain outright telling me I must pay in cash. A party of 4, with no checked luggage, just hand baggage, can fit in a typical regular Uber or Lyft, which is typically a Prius. The middle passenger in the back seat will be in pretty tight, but you'll get there just fine. If you want more space, a Uber XL will likely be a Suburban or maybe an Expedition Max or other long full size SUV. More than enough room for 4 passengers plus all their luggage, even though you won't have all the checked bags with you. I wouldn't even waste your time worrying about yellow cabs. They do exist, and hotel front desks will be happy to hail you a cab ride, but things are just so much cleaner and easier to do through an app. The rideshare driver gets a ride request from the service when you request one through the app. You have already specified in the app where you are going. The app shows you the driver's info, the car they are driving and license plate number. The driver has a bit of information about you to help them identify you from the curb. You can see where your driver is before they arrive, the app will tell you when they are approaching, and you can follow the ride on the app when in the vehicle. You already know the price of the ride when you book it, and you tip inside the app, so the entire cost of the ride goes to your card. I'll do rideshare every day over taking cabs and paying the old fashioned way.

Downtown Seattle hotels are the most expensive in the area. Better hotel value can be found by staying around the airport or south King County. If you do sufficient hotel research you will save on your hotel stay many times the cost of a rideshare from the SeaTac area to Pier 91. A regular Uber will run you $45-55 from the SeaTac hotel area to Pier 91. An UberXL will be closer to $75. I avoid shuttles because there is a lot of "hurry up and wait". I have stories about shuttles. I think I've recently expounded about my shuttle experience on the boards. I think your choice of location all has to do with what your plans are. Have you built in time in Seattle to explore? If so, it will be easier to do if you have a Seattle city hotel, but you pay the in-city prices, and you'll still probably have to spend money on Uber or Lyft to get to some attractions. I don't consider public transit in Seattle to be tourist friendly. While cost effective, it is not for the faint of heart and its connections to what you will want to do as a tourist are marginal. If Seattle is merely an embarkation port and you are flying in the day before and flying out immediately after the cruise, then there is not much reason to pay the downtown hotel premium and focus on hotel properties down near SeaTac.

Well, that is good to know. Might try that. That is certainly better than me sitting there looking pretty while my wife shovels food into her mouth.

Ok, so, is this an actual situation where a couple goes into a fee dining venue, one eats and the other just sits there looking pretty? The situation doesn't seem very plausible, but I suppose it is possible. I can definitely state that I've never been out to dinner with my wife and sat there and watched her eat while I told the wait staff, "no I'm not going to eat, I'm economizing."

The transfer, like anything that uses a motorcoach, is going to be a lot of hurry up and wait. And depending on your flight times, may not actually work out. You'll have no issue with using Uber/Lyft for your ground transportation. At Pier 91 there is a dedicated ride share pickup area and a dedicated shuttle that makes the 2 minute drive out of the pick-up/drop-off lanes out to the rideshare waiting area. It is all very organized. You can walk to the rideshare area, no problem, but that is a bit slower. On our last cruise, from the time we picked up our luggage in the baggage hall till we were in the Uber headded toward SeaTac, maybe 15 minutes. I booked the Uber while in transit on the shuttle.

I'm fine with the real menus. They are more than clear enough to read.

As we will be on the Majestic later on this summer for an Alaska cruise, I was thinking the same. We were on Discovery and really liked Take 5, but the Double Down isn't really like Take 5. Plus Discovery also has a Crooners. Does the Crown Grill Bar, since it has a piano, act like Crooners, with a piano singer in the evening?