Star Princess Review – June 8th – 15th

This was our 7th cruise to Alaska. This was the best weather we’ve had in all of our 6 previous cruises to Alaska. The crew and the staff on the Star Princess are excellent. Overall we had a great cruise.

This cruise there were 2016 newbies or “Cruise Virgins” on the ship. 436 kids under the age of 18 314 Platinum members 39 Elite members

Seattle Embarkation – We arrived at the Armory Parking at around 11 am, we only live 40 miles from Pier 91. The shuttle at the Armory Parking Lot took us to the ship. Within 15 minutes of parking the car we were at Pier 91. There was a short line at the lower level to turn in your checked luggage, took maybe 5 minutes. We went up the escalator to the second floor. Got in line to go through security and have our travel documents, passports and boarding pass checked. There were signs to remind passengers that they are enforcing the one bottle of wine per person rule. There was a long line at the check in desk but we were able to go to the Platinum/Elite line and there were only a couple of people in that line so it went smoothly for us. We then got in the Platinum/Elite line to board the ship. We didn’t have a very long line but the other line was huge and stayed that way long after we boarded the ship. We were on board by noon and got to eat in the Portofino Dining Room for lunch. We asked several crew members but no one would tell us the dining room was open. They all said we had to go to the Horizon Court Buffet. We were seated at a table by the window so we could see the long lines to board the ship. It seemed pretty unorganized. I really felt sorry for all those people in line, it snaked around back inside the building. The sail away was good, partly cloudy 65 degrees. The ships have to keep the music down when they sail away as the music will echo up to the houses on the bluff above Pier 91. We had the prime rib for our sail way dinner, it was very good. I don’t for the life of me understand why they serve corn on the cob, it was terrible, it was terrible last year. I told the waiter anything but corn on the cob, I had asparagus.

Day 1 – Sea Day. Partly Cloudy mid 60’s. The seas were pretty rough in the night and in the morning, lots of people were sea sick, even those with the patch and those taking Dramamine. We had all most all of our meals in the main dining room. Breakfast is always good, nice to sit and be served and to meet interesting people. We played trivia with a couple from Ohio and a couple from Tacoma Washington, we almost won, but we had a good time. At lunch we met a couple from Portland who said they had to hurry to the Cruise Critic gathering. We told them that we had to hurry to it also. We all got a good laugh out of meeting like that. After lunch we went to Cruise Critic gathering. There were only 7 of us there but we had a wonderful time talking. This sea day is one of the formal nights, which I think is not really a formal night. Some people had on Tux’s but most had on suit jackets, ladies had on nice dresses but nothing too fancy. The dress code isn’t strictly enforced on the Alaskan cruises. I saw people in the main dining room at dinner wearing baseball caps, shorts, “T” shirts and jeans, I thought it was a little tasteless. After dinner we went to see Darrell Joyce the comedian, he was very good.

Day 2 – Juneau. Sunny mid to high 70’s, couldn’t ask for a better day. We docked at the Franklin street pier at about 11 am, it’s just short walk up the street to the Mt. Roberts Tram and all the other vendors on the pier. Since we were the first ship into Juneau we hopped on a Blue bus for Mendenhall Glacier for a short 30 minute ride out to the Glacier. It was perfect; there were only 8 of us on the bus. We hiked trails around the Mendenhall Glacier area and out to Nugget Falls. Hopped back on the blue bus back to town and did some window shopping. We ended up at the Blue Hanger for cod and chips and cold Alaskan beer. After we got back to the ship we went to the presentation of Libby Riddles’ Sled dogs and Adventures. It was interesting. We left Juneau at around 10pm.

Day 3 – Skagway. Sunny low 80’s. What a perfect day. We docked at the Ore pier which is pretty close to town. After a quick Breakfast we met with our Cruise Critic friends and went a tour up to Emerald Lake with Dyea Dave tours. This is one of the best tours we’ve been on in our entire trips up north. Barry our driver had a lot of interesting information and talked almost the whole day. Barry would stop whenever someone wanted to look at something. It was a long day; we left Skagway at 8am and didn’t get back until almost 5pm. We saw a large black bear foraging on dandelions alongside the road. Barry did a good job of staying ahead of the large tour buses. There were only 12 of us on our tour. We ate lunch on our own at a bakery in Carcross. It was a busy place. Barry stopped at the cemetery and told us the story of Soapy Smith and Frank Reid and showed us their graves. After we got back from our tour we did a little shopping and walked back to the ship. By that time it was about time for a snack up at the Trident grill, Burgers, Brats and Fries are great.

Day 4 – Glacier Bay. Sunny mid 60’s. OH MY GOD!!! The place is absolutely awesome. The weather was beautiful and the Glaciers were breathtaking. We picked up 3 Park Service Rangers as we entered Glacier Bay. They give a nice narration during our time up in Glacier Bay. We have been up to Glacier Bay before but this time was unbelievable. There wasn’t a lot of ice in the water so the captain was able to get within 300 yards of the Glacier, we have never been that close before. Last year in June when we went up Tracy Arm we couldn’t see the Glacier because of all the ice in the water. Shortly after the Rangers disembarked as we were leaving Glacier Bay we saw a number of gray whales around Icy Point.

Day 5 – Ketchikan. Very cloudy mid 50’s. We arrived in Ketchikan around 6:30am and were off the ship by 7am. We had a tour arranged “Lighthouses, Totems and Eagles” excursion. http://lighthouseexcursion.com/ it was a good tour of the harbor and of Totem Bright Park from the water. We got back just in time to do the walking tour of Creek Street and get back to the ship for a 11:30am departure. After lunch they had the “Veterans Get Together” in the wheel house bar. If you’re a veteran these get togethers can be informative. Princess as always had a champagne toast for the veterans. I’m surprised at the number of veterans who don’t know about the ship credit they can receive from Princess. I think there were about 10 or 12 veterans at this get together. This was the night of the Captain’s welcome back cocktail party and the last Formal night. The Captain’s cocktail party went well and drinks were good this time. The winner of the most sailed award had 621 days at sea; the runner up had 590 days at sea. We were impressed with Captain Todd McBain from Canada. He was always so kind to look out for his crew and make sure he thanked them over the p. a. system in some of his afternoon announcements. He also announced Philippine Independence Day on Thursday and for the passengers to wish his crew from the Philippines a Happy Independence Day. After dinner we went to the show “British Invasion”. We enjoyed it very much even though we had seen it before.

Day 6 – At Sea and Victoria. Partly cloudy with a nice sunny evening in Victoria. The Culinary Show was today in the Princess Theater. It was funny and interesting. The Chef Eric Batema and the Maître d’ Angelo Balbiani did a very entertaining cooking show followed by a tour of the galley. The ship naturalist was Michael Modzelewski. We didn’t attend his lectures as we have seen him before but he drew a big crowd and everyone seemed to enjoy his daily lectures. We had the 8pm seating for dinner in the Amalfi dining room, but on the last day this dining room was closed so we ended up in the Capri dining room. After a nice Turkey dinner we went for a long sunset walk along the sea wall in Victoria, it was a beautiful evening for a walk. Canadian customs just nodded as we walked out the door, never asked for anything. Coming back we had to show our cruise/room key to the security guard to gain entry to the pier. After we got back to the ship we finished packing our bags and set them out in front of our room so they could be taken off the ship in the morning.

Day 7 - Disembarkation Seattle. Sunny and warm. At 7am we went to the Amalfi dining room for breakfast. It was nice and quiet, not busy at all. On previous cruises the last day breakfast can be very busy. After breakfast we went back up to our room and gave it the last once over and went down to our disembarkation mustering point at about 8am which happened to be the Wheelhouse Bar with our carry-on bags. We were Brown 2 and within 15 minutes they called for Brown 2 to disembark. We went off the ship, no crowd and down into main terminal. Found our bags very quickly in the Brown 2 line and off to customs to turn in our custom declaration form and show our passports. The nice customs agent waved us on. Out to the shuttle parking area to get the shuttle back to the Armory parking lot. We waited about 5 minutes for the shuttle and within 10 minutes we were on the road home. At 9:50am we walked in the door.

A couple of pointers.

People have your checked baggage tags stapled to the bag handle like it says to have it stapled. The longshoremen will not take your checked bag unless it is done right. This will hold up the line.

Have your travel documents in your sweet little hands when you turn in your bags and when you are upstairs just prior to going though security. Here you will have to show them your boarding pass and passport. If you don’t have these out it will hold up the line.

When you disembark again have your travel documents out and have the customs declaration out to hand to the custom agent, again this will hold up the line if you aren’t ready.

Note: There are NO PORTERS at Pier 91, they are longshoremen.

Great review and I can't wait to get on this ship next month for my first Alaskan cruise. We have done a dozen Caribbean cruises and are so sick of those islands, so you can imagine our excitement to cruise to a new destination. One question. Does the bus to Mendenhall Glacier take you right to the visitor center? Thank you.

Thanks for taking the time to post your review. You had great weather!!! How fortunate!!!

Great review and I can't wait to get on this ship next month for my first Alaskan cruise. We have done a dozen Caribbean cruises and are so sick of those islands, so you can imagine our excitement to cruise to a new destination. One question. Does the bus to Mendenhall Glacier take you right to the visitor center? Thank you.

The shuttle buses (the blue bus and the white bus) take you right to the parking lot near the visitor center at Mendenhall Glacier. They were $8 each way. The city transit bus stop is at least a mile from the visitor center.

Thanks for the great review !

We will be on the Star in 3 weeks !!!!! So excited !

What great weather you had, I could only hope for the same !

Thanks again !

"People have your checked baggage tags stapled to the bag handle like it says to have it stapled. The longshoremen will not take your checked bag unless it is done right. This will hold up the line."

I have cruise critic luggage tags to attach to the bag handle ...are you saying that will be a problem at Pier 91?

I have cruise critic luggage tags to attach to the bag handle ...are you saying that will be a problem at Pier 91?

The Cruise Critic Luggage tag holder http://www.cruisecritic.com/store/product.cfm?ID=46 should be OK as long as all the information on your printed luggage tag is visible that you printed from the Princess web site. There is a lot of information the printed luggage tag from the Princess web site. Just to be safe I printed extra copies of the luggage tags and put them inside of my bags just incase the tags got ripped off in handling.

This luggage tag wouldn't be suitable http://www.cruisecritic.com/store/product.cfm?ID=20

The people in front of us had their Princess personalized baggage tags taped to the front outside of there bags with scotch tape. When the longshoremen at the scanner wouldn't take there bags it was a big deal, they were like little sheep lost in the woods and just stood there, they wouldn't move out of the way. Finely a Princess representative showed up with stapler.

Thank you for your review.

Keith

The shuttle buses (the blue bus and the white bus) take you right to the parking lot near the visitor center at Mendenhall Glacier. They were $8 each way. The city transit bus stop is at least a mile from the visitor center.

Thank you very much for the info. This is what we plan on doing.

Thanks for the great review, lots of information. What night or nights would you suggest going to the specialty restaurants. What was your least favorite MDR menu and what night was it on?

Thanks for your help

Doug

Thanks for the great review, lots of information. What night or nights would you suggest going to the specialty restaurants. What was your least favorite MDR menu and what night was it on?

 

Thanks for your help

Doug

We ate in the MDR every night so can't give you an answer on the specialty restaurants. The Crown Grill didn't look very busy whenever we passed by it. The menus are a matter of personal taste. If we didn't like something on the main part of the menu they had a nice selection on the left side of the menu of items that were always available. The Tri-tip Steak was very good.

Thanks for the review! Interesting that there is a different captain from just a couple of weeks ago when we cruised on the Star.

Thanks for the review! Interesting that there is a different captain from just a couple of weeks ago when we cruised on the Star.

Who was your captain? We sure liked Captain McBain.

Captain Vincenzo Lubrano of Italy. Maybe it was time for his vacation.

"People have your checked baggage tags stapled to the bag handle like it says to have it stapled. The longshoremen will not take your checked bag unless it is done right. This will hold up the line."

 

I have cruise critic luggage tags to attach to the bag handle ...are you saying that will be a problem at Pier 91?

Where do you get the stapler for disembarkation tags?