Katie333

We ate there on the Star and thoroughly enjoyed our meal. If the options on the menu don't suit, they also offer a 'make your own' pasta option that includes common favourites such as fettuccine carbonara. We took our server's advice and skipped the salad/soup course and were still groaningly full at the end. Loved the seafood options and the lamb skewer appetizer was really good.

Thought I would share some thoughts on the cruise we just disembarked yesterday .... overall we had a simply fantastic time, our first cruise in Alaska (despite having cruised 20 times before), with lots of first time cruisers. The scenery was awe inspiring and we thoroughly enjoyed all our tours and our time aboard the ship.

The Great:

Captain Michele Tuvo was finishing his run and exited the ship with us. So glad not to have missed him with his infectious happy personality and trademark, 'nevertheless bye-bye'. Really added to the experience, hoping to sail with him again. Again, the scenery and the ambiance was simply fantastic. Alaska is majestic everywhere you look. We were thrilled to see lots of wildlife, everything from bald eagles, to seals, to whales, bears, moose, I think we saw every native animal. Had a really special experience in Glacier Bay where we saw a mother bear teaching her 3 cubs how to cross waterways, and it was honestly like watching a nature show. So glad our travelling companions had binoculars so we could see it from a distance and close up.

The Good:

We enjoyed lots of good food (much better than our last HAL cruise), ate at both the Crown Grill and Sabatinis. Ship's crew were generally quite good and ship was in good shape in the public spaces.

The Bad:

We were disappointed with our mini-suite. We have sailed in minis before, and like the extra space and full tub. The recent drydock had not touched our cabin beyond the new bed and TVs. Worn carpet, threadbare couch, and we didn't even get the new lamps they put in many staterooms. But worst of all was the bathroom. Tiles were very grungy and dirty, tub was scuffed and ripped up, signage in bathtub (reminder to check temperature before entering) was so worn it was illegible. Our tub would not drain properly either. Very disappointing! Part of this may have been due to age/wear, and part of it may have been that, for the first time, we had a room steward who, while friendly, was not as diligent as we've had on every other cruise. For this reason, if we sail Princess again, especially in a mini suite, I'm going to make sure it's a new ship.

Our Tours:

We took ACT down to the pier from Anchorage - an excellent decision! We stopped at Alaska Wildlife Conservation area and saw lots of animals in a very natural setting, had some great photo stops, enjoyed the tunnel ride, and then made it to the dock on time.

In Skagway, we opted for the Mushers Camp and it was terrific! We loved all the dogs and the puppies, the unimog ride up the mountain, just a fantastic day.

In Juneau, we went with Harv and Marv's whale watching and had a fantastic morning with Brandon and Rebecca. Saw at least 5 humpbacks, many up close and lots of other marine life. So much fun on the smaller boat, with 10 passengers in total, snacks, binoculars, very well organized trip.

In Ketchikan, we did the Duck Boat tour. Now, while I will say we did enjoy this tour (and saw lots of bald eagles), we were horrified to learn what had happened in Branson. If I'm being honest, while I never felt unsafe and water conditions were very calm, the team did make light of the 'safety' protocols, joking that there may not be enough life jackets. The tour is very "schitcky" so this is part of the bad jokes and terrible puns. The company may want to re-think their model and save the jokes for the tour (or eliminate them entirely!). In light of what has happened, I don't think I would do another Duck Tour as it seems the vehicles themselves may not be safe.

Overall we did have a fantastic time - Alaska is such an amazing destination and since many ports and locales can only be visited by boat or plane, cruising is a great way to see everything.

This was helpful for me even though I wasn't the OP. 4 ships in port the day I will be there, so should be ok.

Note to OP, in the past when I have been somewhere that only requires a tender when there are a lot of ships present, this was not noted in my cruise personalizer, it was only made aware to me after boarding so they may not always provide advance notice.

We sailed with the 'Santas' - it was a group of professional Santas from around the world - who looked the part without the need for any costumes! It was fascinating, and you could recognize them throughout the ship at all times. They had a number of private events, mainly in the meeting-type rooms, though they did also take over a lounge or two for a couple hours throughout the week. I didn't notice many other disruptions and it was quite entertaining.

We've sailed HAL a few times on the same class of ship as you will be sailing. Generally we find the two lines very comparable.

I will admit our most recent HAL cruise (on the Nieuw Amsterdam which we have also sailed before), paled in comparison to our previous Royal Princess cruise. This was the first cruise where I well and truly felt the sting of the notorious cut-backs. I like that Princess has more variety in terms of places to eat, and in options at those same places. HAL seems to have done away with some of the few options they had (like lunch in the dining room even on sea days) and their hours for the outdoor grill were 11:30-5:00 - seems odd to cut this off as a dinner option? The ambience on HAL ships is nice, a little more sedate, and the crew have always been fantastic. Happy hours are lots of fun and well worth doing. Entertainment is generally better on Princess but HAL does have the enjoyable BB King Blues Club, and the various BBC Earth/Discovery options.

My Princess booking confirmations always list a day-by-day schedule for my specific cruise including arrival and departure times. If the OP was working from this information and Princess changed it on them without notice, I think they have a valid complaint.

Agreed.

I watch my cruise personalizer like a hawk, just in case there are any changes or notifications. Princess has gotten much better about putting updates there and including details such as credits etc.

While Princess can do almost anything per the contract, I think most of us would find it a big pain if we had any plans ashore that were made outside of Princess reservations. I typically book mainly private tours for example, and in most cases, well in advance and would suspect I would lose out on these if the dates changed dramatically.

For your price matching, did you call Princess or how did you tell them about the cheaper price? Thanks!

It's actually a very well organized process. There is a form you fill out and you email it to them with a link to the website where you found the cheaper tour. They then give you 110% of the DIFFERENCE in price back in OBC. So, I found tours for $20 less pp, and they gave me $46.10 back in OBC.

https://www.princess.com/learn/faq_answer/pre_cruise/shore_excursions_faq/best-price-guarantee.html

I wasn't a fan of this either, but I was happy to be able to use my OBC (including shareholder credit) to buy the excursions we wanted. We are travelling with friends so we all wanted to be on the same tours. 2 on Princess, 1 private and now we are all booked. And thanks to a poster on another similar thread, I did some price checks and found one of our tours online for less, and have now received the difference back as additional OBC. That was a great service though I wonder why this far out, they wouldn't just give me a credit card refund? Ah well, we'll use the funds to hit up Sabatini's for the first time.

This year you would have had a sunny warm cruise, we had a very warm fall and into October/November. I find the term 'cold' is somewhat subjective. My MIL visits us from Texas and finds it cold at 60F, where my husband has fully converted to Canadian weather and can't understand why she is so chilly.

Other note, if you are going for fall colours you are more likely to see them in the later part of the season. We didn't get all the leaves dumped onto our yard until almost December this year (that was much later than usual).

We will be boarding tomorrow for the 3 day down to LA and then staying on for the 15 day Hawaii. Not sure if things didn't get completed in drydock, or if they totally overbooked both segments but we have received moveover offers for BOTH in the past two days! I am tempted by the Hawaii moveover but my cruise partner isn't, so we won't be taking it...

Interesting ... definitely eager to hear more, it's bizarre Princess doesn't publish more official insights on what they did/are doing in these drydocks.

I've never stopped in Falmouth, seems like an Amber Cove (DR) situation where the cruiseline completed a purpose built port stop. My experiences in Jamaica are solely based on Ocho Rios and while the island looks so beautiful when you dock, I must concur that time spent there was not really pleasant. Mind you, not a big fan of Cozumel either, but might be ok for beaches. I love Grand Cayman, and we were so happy to be back there on our last cruise.

Thanks to all for replying, I can't say I am surprised about inconsistent application of the rules when the rules are not even documented. Princess goes so far as to call out Red Bull, Bottled Juice and pop, but only comments on the large size bottles of sparkling water, leaving an obvious gap in the inclusion/exclusion.

I'm going on the Star which hasn't been mentionned in this sampling so it might be yet another experiment to see what they do and don't include.

In situations where it was not included, was it clearly mentionned? My worry is that if I assume they can and should include it but then end up charging me every time without my awareness I'll have a surprise bill.

We've sailed in E729 below where you are looking, this is our absolute favourite spot. We love the aft side of the ship, love the combination of wake/side view and the extended balcony. I've had a Dolphin mini that was mid-ship and I did not care for the fact it was uncovered.

We've done a number of escape rooms on land, and had not heard of them on the ship, interesting. I appreciate that Princess is attempting to include a greater variety of entertainment options onboard (I went to their murder mystery theatre show on the Royal and that was a new one to me!).

We are definitely going to look for this on our next cruise!

So I've read the numerous other threads I could find as well as the Princess website. I'm aware that bottled water (500ML) is included, but not the larger bottles of sparkling or bottled, unless at a specialty restaurant.

What is still unclear to me, is the smaller bottles of San Pellegrino or Perrier? These are not 500ml, nor are they the large bottles, but there is no reference to sparkling small bottles.

Can anyone share their experience if these smaller bottles were still available, and if they were included?

I suspect they have sunk millions into this roll-out, as a shareholder, I'd like to know the figure actually. They decided to take the lead in the industry and build an in-house proprietary technology and an 'innovation' capability - it is not a surprise this has had bumps, though, again, as a shareholder, I'm disappointed it's had such a very rough start. To have to retract the ***** from their website, from already-booked sailings, even though far into the future, just does not suggest even Princess has confidence they can fix this issue within a short timeframe. I don't think they will scrap it but I think they are strongly re-thinking their plans.

This is a recent change by the way. I've had the package in the past as a result of Sip N Sail promotion, and cans were included. It's weird I can get an elaborate mixed alcoholic drink but a can of Diet Coke, that's prohibitive for them. Even weirder when cans of Energy Drink are included ...

Thanks to all, and especially runner for your website content - we are on the Star next year and eagerly look forward to the updates. We've sailed here before and as long as the IC stays (which of course it will) and the cabins get a refresh (we're in a mini, so looking forward to the new tubs), we'll be happy. :)

I was just looking at the ***** page on the Princess website. https://www.princess.com/ships-and-experience/ocean-medallion/

 

In the "DISCOVER OCEAN MEDALLION CLASS DESTINATIONS" section, they show the Regal, Caribbean, Crown, Golden, and Island Princess as having ***** cruises. Click on any of the destinations an you'll find cruises with the banner shown. The Royal is gone completely from the pick list as others have noted but this would imply that it's not going to get ***** in the foreseeable future. I wonder if they learned something on the Regal that proves problematic for that class of ship?

That's interesting, I would have thought the newest ships would be the best possible shape to take on this new capability. We are sailing the Star next year and while apparently it is getting some pre-***** capability (whatever that means), it's not being listed as a potential future ***** ship ...

As ***** was getting hyped, I was getting interested in what it had to offer. Then I read the live threads and it was clear, the ships were just not ready.

It's great to want to innovate, but innovation without a strong foundation, copious amounts of technology and process support is just bound to fail. The roll out should have been much softer, smaller and selective.

Agree with vickie bernie and others, as an investor, this puts a pallor on the overall concept. Very few new technologies work seamlessly and perfectly the first go-round, but Princess seems woefully unprepared for the disaster this has been. :(

We were on the NA cruise before last and agree with OP that meals were bland and sub-par in many cases. We found options we liked (and breakfast was consistently good), but even our meal in the Tamarind had disappointing elements.

Some things were also downright wrong - chicken yakitori is supposed to be chicken on a skewer, not a soupy bland 'stir fry' with zucchini. This hasn't been our experience on HAL and even on this ship.

Overall, we found a huge amount of inconsistency in the food onboard, the most we've ever had on a cruise, on any line.

I am a very avid reader and I have completely converted to reading books on a tablet. Being able to bring 20+ books in a single, light, multi purpose device vs. finding that space in my luggage is a blessing. If they are truly doing away with books on a cruise (which is silly because reading on a cruise is a very popular pastime and as this thread will attest, not everyone likes eReaders), then I hope they replace it with something else - a wider game/card game offering? Ability to download books/movies? Likely they will just put another jewelry shop in!

PS - I am game to try Oceania and I seem to be their target demographic as I get CONSTANT flyers from them - like 2-3 times a week! Where they got my name and info, I'm not sure, but this aggressive marketing is turning me off.

We've been to all of the ports (originals + replacements + new replacements) and I will say that the Caribbean is lovely no matter where you go. Sitting on deck or on your balcony enjoying a sunset, watching the blue waters, savouring a delicious dinner together. We visited Amber Cove for the first time on our last cruise. It's a lovely, somewhat sanitized cruise pier. We booked a great tour that went to the cigar factory, through Santiago and to various other interesting sites - was a great day! I admit Nassau is probably my least favourite stop, but you can either stay on the ship, book a spa treatment or something like that.

Do these bookings require full advance payment as well? We have a nice amount of OBC for our upcoming cruise but would like to book the specialty dining now ...

Oh no! It's been a while since we sailed HAL, and one of the things I loved on the NA (sailing her again), was the freshly made sandwiches. In fact, I had a chicken salad sandwich as lunch multiple times. I just cannot bring myself to make chicken salad at home (DH hates it), so I've always associated it with cruising or eating a diner lunch. It's not the type of sandwich that survives pre-made because it can be goopy and would make bread and veggies go very limp. :(

Lizzie, you mention you could still get this on the NA, any chance one of the limited options was chicken salad??