HaveDogWillTravel

September is very very different than the first days of May. I’ve sailed here in late august. There’s no snow but still rain. I wore everything from shorts to parka. Ymmv It is so true when folks say the weather in Alaska is variable. I always take selfies of myself so I can see what type of clothing I was wearing on a particular cruise. Really helps when packing to do a repeat.

I found two more US outlets. I also want to say that the loveseat does not convert to a bed. There is no bed in the ceiling nor in the wall. The balcony has incredible vistas but has been really windy most of the time.

We are due at Hubbard in about 4 hours. Around 1 yesterday the weather turned to this and hasn’t budged. The heat didn’t work in my cabin but I didn’t report it until yesterday morning around 8 when I woke up to icicles in my room. They fixed it by 3 and I’m am really happy to be warm again. I’m glad I have my waterproof and very warm Columbia Parka. I’m doing the Birds of Hoonah walking tour in Icy Strait. The weather is supposed to be cold and wet but I’ll be dressed for it.

When you pay corkage a sticker is affixed to the bottle. A bottle brought to the MDR without a sticker would be no issue at all. The staff would simply charge you the corkage there. That said, in my experiences sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Yes I only drink good wine. I’ve never had a bottle get lost when left with the MDR. If I brought an exceptional bottle however that I would be very sad if it got lost, I wouldn’t leave it. But then if it’s that exceptional there’s probably none left. The wine selection on board with respect to whites sucks. Beyond bad. Unless of course you drink Chardonnay, ughhhhhhhh. I spoke to the new sommelier last night and asked if he was planning on reviving the wine list. But then Francesco our DORO walked over with the executive sous chef to chat and we all got distracted. To be continued. I would love to drink the wine supplied on board if it were only decent.

If you want a cheese plate for room service but don’t want to pay the 5 bucks, order a chef salad with no turkey or ham. This is what I got yesterday. Thank goodness I brought ziplock bags to store that cheese in.

We have a group of 5 with standing reservation every night at 6:20 in Savoy. I made the reservations a long time ago and they’ve never been changed. I’m sorry others had had trouble with that. Our waiter, Sirirat, and jr waiter Ryan are amazing. Sirirat makes us origami every night. The service is perfection, professional and quick. Ap, salad and main completed by 7:45. Desert done by 8:15. Francesco the DORO came by each table tonight with the executive soup chef to chat. Vasco our restaurant manager is excellent going above and beyond to make our evening great. The wild coho salmon ap was outstanding. There are two new wine sommeliers. More cvs on that later. I’m pretty tired and will just post a few pictures.

Yes you take it to your cabin. They put a sticker on the bottles’ neck showing corkage is paid. You can take it into any dining venue if you want. They will hold any that’s left for another night if you want. It will follow you from one dining venue to any other dining venue.

You can bring more and just pay the corkage. It is charged to your stateroom account at the wine table. So you can use OBC to pay it. The corkage has increased to $20 since the restart. But this is not always what they charge. Sometimes I am charged $15 sometimes I am charged $20.

I have sailed 30 times with princess between 2015 and today,18 of those have been since the restart, so lots and lots of recent experiences. I just boarded Sapphire 2 days ago in Vancouver with 8 bottles and the wine table was set up. Security scanned my bag and told me to go check my wine in with the crew. The crew did not read the labels on my bottles. I sail out of SF, San Diego, San Pedro, Seattle, Vancouver and Miami/ft Lauderdale ports on princess. My experience has been just as @Steelers36describes. I bring on anywhere from 4 to 12 bottles at embarkation and have never, not once, had the wine table crew actually look at the bottle and read what it is. As long as it looks like a wine bottle as opposed to hard alcohol bottle I would be pretty shocked if they read the label.

Here’s a picture of how the room is supposed to kept.

Thank you! Off topic but I’ve been wanting to let you know I’m on the Crown for the Nov 26 run to Hawaii this year again. We just missed each other last time. When it gets closer let’s email and see if our schedules match up.

Sandra Schemmp

This is it

Our naturalist has been with princess 20 years or so and I had a very nice time chatting with her prior to her 9 am well attended talk this morning. Here’s a map with key information about our particular sailing on it. Princess has the best Alaskan programs!

This is our itinerary and dress codes. The Alaskan Cod ( my appetizer yes I had an entre as an appetizer don’t judge me lol) and beef short ribs as my main were both excellent. Here’s the officer board too.

This morning was really cold wet and dreary. Full parka to walk the decks. It’s cleared up nicely and am now wearing leggings a thick tshirt with a tank under. Seas are smooth, smooth, smooth.

Our sail away was scheduled for 4:30 but we didn’t leave until 6. We were told there were delayed flights. We lost 1.5 hours of daylight sailing thru the San Juan’s. But we still had a great sail away. The meet and greet was really wonderful this morning thanks to loves2cruise (I think I spelled your handle wrong please forgive me!)

There’s a live from for this sailing where people are posting. Ask over there and I’m sure you’ll get answers!

These show the choke point when the queens are made. also the balcony is completely open. Everyone can see you and you only have shade off the sun is on the other side.

Well it looks like all of this posted so maybe I AM using the best wifi at sea. Lol. This is where I am posting from.

That’s the only shelf space you get in the bathroom. there are three lamps with that USB connector in it. I can’t use them as my newer iPad and iPhone use the smaller type. I can only find the one outlet by the hairdryer on the desk. Do the European adapters I brought to utilize additional outlets are useless. Thank goodness I brought my extension cord too. If I find more outlets I’ll post later.

While the bathroom and shower are large, the bathroom has very little shelf & counter space. The walls are not magnetized, only the door is. Make something to put your stuff in and bring magnets to use on the door.

There’s a lot of storage in the closets and shelves and drawers. The walls are magnetized so bring magnets to put stuff.

The desk is huge. The couch is comfortable and there’s even an infamous barrel chair!

I’m using the best internet at sea and don’t want to try and load too much at once so I’ll post a couple of photos at a time.