kunta67

Royal vs. Princess...we shall see!

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We're here!! The tips to come early were the best. Early bird gets the worm #nolines

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Embarkation Day.

If you stay at the Grand Hyatt their sit down breakfast is actually in the Ruth Chris Steakhouse located in the hotel. The prices aren't too bad and are pretty reasonable for Downtown Seattle.

My wife had a Crab Cake Benedict

I had a boring American Breakfast

We'll be off to the ship in an hour.

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It almost feels like Christmas morning, but I call this Cruise morning. Hello Downtown Seattle!!

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Here's some pictures of Seattle while we've been out and about.

View of the Space Needle

We went into the Downtown Seattle NikeTown

We're heading to my cousins place tonight for a nice family BBQ.

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Thank You for your Ruby Princess Live Alaska Review...Looking forward to it.

 

 

 

I see you went on the Sky Princess...It was purchased from Sitmar Cruises where it was the Fairsky...Our first cruise was the Sitmar Fairsky in 1984 and we found that we really loved cruising...after the Sitmar Fairsky was purchased by Princess we went on it as the Sky Princess in 1989...we tend not to go on most ships twice...but we were curious how it would be under Princess...we enjoyed it. :):):):)

I still remember that ship and I'm amazed at how far cruise ships have come from there. Basically there were no balconies on that ship.

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RCI is a FOR-PROFIT company and there are a lot of high fixed costs associated with data transmission and the CAPEX in maintaining the equipment. This stuff isn't cheap and if you're in private industry everything has a cost associated with it. It's not like the price is unreasonable and budget it into your trip. In all honesty if you need to be connected that badly why even go on a cruise?

We're staying at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Seattle and decided to come here in style. Just as a FYI the cab ride from the airport to downtown Seattle is about $40 to $45 depending on traffic and where you're staying. However there's limos for hire right next to the airport taxi stand for a flat rate of $45 to downtown Seattle.

Limo to the Grand Hyatt

My wife and I

Our plane from PDX to SEA

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Here's our first obligatory food porn pictures at Portland Airport

My dinner

My wife's dinner

We're off!! Boarded our short puddle jumper up to Seattle

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I'm super excited, I'm barely functional at work right now.

Introduction

Hi everyone my name is Kent and I'm going to be taking you on our Alaskan cruise adventure. My wife and I will be celebrating our five year anniversary on August 21st and this is going to be her first cruise with Princess and my second cruise with Princess but I haven't been on a Princess ship since 1997.

We recently moved back from Denver, CO back to Portland, OR and the departure point of Seattle is a short hop for us. We're going to be coming into Seattle on Friday night after work with the ship leaving on Sunday. We'll be staying Friday and Saturday night at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Seattle. Hopefully on Saturday we'll be having lunch and dinner with family and friends as well as visiting the Boeing factory up in Everett.

Enjoy coming along on the adventure with us. This is my second live review and hopefully I'll be able to post everyday with the internet on board the ship. Although I've read that the internet on the Princess is relatively slow compared to RCI.

Was there any type of thermal spa packages for the week?

Does anyone know the cost of the thermal suite for the week? My wife and I are sailing on the August 16th cruise. We'd love to purchase the pass for the week.

Does anyone know on Ruby Princess if they have the Enclave Thermal Spa Suites? We loved the Thermal Spa Suites on Allure of the Seas and this is our first true time with Princess.

We just booked the Ruby Princess in August, does anyone know if you can purchase the drink packages online? I've been scouring the website and I was wondering if I have to call customer service to add on the drink packages.

I'm looking at booking the inside passage August 16th cruise departing Seattle on the Ruby Princess. We've mainly only sailed RCI and I know RCI will let you carry off immediately after the ship gets back into port. Does Princess allow you to do the same thing? The ship gets back into Seattle at 7 AM and there's a 10:45 AM United flight back to Denver that we'd love to catch instead of a 3 PM flight. Thank you for your help.

Central Park in the evening, especially the wine bar. Park Cafe for breakfast is perfect if you enjoy just a quick yogurt and fruit.

Huge fan of the Hyatt Pier 66 especially because it's on 17th and it has an Avis car rental location in the hotel. Allows you to get all your sundries, wine, etc. before you board the ship.

We loved Allure and I would love to sail Oasis, but we're still a little weary about the implementation of Dynamic Dining. I know they've postponed it but for how long? We truly enjoy doing the MDR and meeting other people. However the Oasis class ships are just so much fun and there's a ton of stuff to do.

I'd love anyone's input because my wife and I are really struggling on which Memorial Day week cruise to take. We're looking at the following cruises

1. 5/23 Oasis-WC

2. 5/24 Freedom-WC

3. 5/24 Indy-EC

We've been on Allure and Liberty before so we're both pretty familiar with both classes of ships. However on Freedom or Indy we could do a GS vs. on Oasis we would do a JS. If we do either WC itineraries we would be excited to experience Labadee and on the EC itinerary we would love to see Puerto Rico and Bassaterre.

We've never left out of Port Canaveral before so if we chose Freedom we're a little worried about that. We're pretty familiar with leaving out of Ft. Lauderdale and have our routine down.

We love being on cruises but also enjoy the entertainment at night on board like the comedy shows, broadway shows, etc.

Thanks for your input

If you're flying into FLL and want to be able to go to Total Wine and More, CVS or Walgreens, etc. I would recommend this hotel because of the Avis location in the hotel. Everytime we've left out of FLL we always stay at this hotel because of the Avis. This way we can pick up things at the different stores rather than carry it in our luggage.

I would look at staying at the Hyatt Pier 66. One good thing that this Hyatt has is a Avis location inside the hotel. So if you want to drive and run your errands at Walgreens or CVS and not be confined for dinner near the pier area then this might be an option

It looks like on google maps that the Hertz and Residence Inn in Port Canaveral basically share a parking lot. Has anyone stayed at that Residence Inn and returned a car at that Hertz before?

The hard part is my wife would love both destinations although she feels like Alaska is a bit more family (we're 34 and 32 going to be married 5 years in August). We've been on Liberty once before a couple of years ago for a 4 day Western Caribbean cruise. She's excited for the food on both voyages but possibly the NE/Canada cruise a little more especially for lobster rolls!!

On this cruise, we were wondering if we could get some sun on the cruise and just lay by the pool.