Island Princess Review (with pictures!) 7/26- 8/2

[lisapow]

Backstory

 

What a whirlwind week and a half! I got married 9 days ago (horray,

fastest night of my life! I think the whole night lasted 15 minutes!).

We got home on Sunday and had a few hours to pack. Because time also

seemed to exist in a warp before our wedding, we ran out of time

beforehand and never prepacked for the cruise. Several weeks ago I

started a very fine and detailed packing list from all the wonderful

suggestions found on cruisecritic; a list which I promptly lost while

attempting to pack 8 hours before departing for our cruise. Cruise

advise tip #1- Don't sweat the small stuff. Items on the list which I

forgot to pack and never once missed: power strip, long underwear, and

baseball hat. Items I forgot that were easily replaced: gloves and

knit beanie (7.99 and 4.99 in Ketchikan, as a bonus they say Alaska on

them). One item forgotten which I wish we had but in no way ruined and

or took away from our experience: DH's (yea! I can say that now) very

nice pair of binoculars

 

 

DH and I have never before been on a real cruise, as I don't count

weekend booze cruises as a cruise experience. Alas, be gentle as this

is my first online review. We planned this cruise as our honeymoon

trip for several reasons. Firstly, my DH and I have very different

travel styles, while I enjoy "seeing it all" and have had to learn to

take it easy and enjoy vacations knowing I can always go back to see

more instead of cram in every possible experience and never feel that

I have missed anything, my DH enjoys relaxation and decompression. A

cruise, we felt, would give us both what we needed out of our

vacation. We choose alaska because we both enjoy nature and beautiful

scenery; I was fortunate to grow up in the sierra nevadas and DH

worked in Yosemite part time. Also, we now live in a place where the

summers get hot and didn't particularly feel like laying on a tropical

beach for the week. We chose the Island Princess in part because it

gave us a travel day after the wedding (one of the few cruises that

departed on a Monday) and because the itinerary included glacier bay

and college fjord, a couple of musts for me after reading other

peoples reviews. Another fine tip that worked very well for us was a

wedding registry for our honeymoon cruise. We were able to breakup

our vacation into many little parts and our wedding guests contributed

for which I am eternally grateful as we spent almost all our money on

our wedding. Let me wrap up the backstory by reassuring you all what

an increadible time we had on our trip!

[lisapow]

Day 1-Travel Day.

Our morning started off fairly well albeit it very early around 430

in the morning. We had a tense drive into the bayarea for our flight

as the traffic was heavy all the way in. DH and I did well putting on

an act for each other that all was well and there would be plenty of

time, in the end the airport was very empty and we arrived to our gate

10 minutes before boarding. A little hassel at the gate with our carry

on garmet bag ( I say carry on because it was purchased specifically

because it was advertised as carry on size) which the gate agent

declarede 1/2 inch too tall to carry on and checked in for us. DH

smiled pleasantly and shrugged and we went on with life. This little

hassel turned into a moderate sized worry as we made our way off the

plane to catch our next flight and the bag did not come with us. Per

several airline employees, it ended up being sent to baggage claim. I

have to say I'm usually just fine with little mishaps like this

excepting that our connecting flight was in 30 minutes and our cruise

departed several hours after that. Oh well, better us getting there

and missing the luggage than missing the boat for a piece of luggage.

Cruise advise #2- don't sweat the small stuff and place cruise luggage

tags on all articles you are taking to the ship even if you plan on

them being carryons. I spent the short hop to Vancouver thinking up

cleaver ways to dress up my jeans, tshirts and tennis shoes for the

dinning room and imagining what sort of formal wear the ship has

availble for rent in such circumstances. I thought perhaps they might

lend me a tux and I could bring back the trend of ladies in mens wear!

The flights were very pleasant and along the way up I was able to

view the tiny Butte Mountain range and lake oroville, Mount Lassen,

very clearly saw crater lake NP and Mount St Helens on the way into

Seattle. In Vancouver we opted to take a taxi to the cruise dock.

Because all luggage goes directly to the cruise ship from the airport

I was left in suspense about the garmet bag :-) Theres nothing like a

little drama to keep life interesting. The taxi was an easy way to

transfer and I thank those who suggested this on CC, it cost as noted

by others $35 and was convienient as we didn't have a lot of wiggle

room time before the cruise departed. Canadian customs was very easy

to get through. We arrived at the Vancouver cruise terminal around

2pm and had no wait to board. My aproximately 2-3 hour impression of

Vancouver is that it is an immaculetly clean and comfortable city and

I would dearly love to go back and spend some time seeing it. We did

not have time to eat prior to arriving on the Island and so after

dropping off our backpack went straight to the horizon court. I don't

know if it was low expectations from reading others review of the

buffet, the beautiful views that always existed from the buffet

seating areas, or our luck with the crew and ship but I found the

buffet to be pretty ok most of the time! That first lunch I ate a

slice of cheese pizza (yum on a scale of bleech to bliss) and a salad

while DH made mini sandwiches which I tasted and were good. We

returnedto our room and found that luggage was not yet there ( no news

is good news) so we grabbed our camera to head out to explore.

 

 

After a cursory wandering we made our way to what became our special

secret place! that I will let you all in on now. If you walk very

forward on deck 10 and make your way through a nondescript door with

no windows or writing on it you will find your way out to an amazing

deck on the front of the ship just below the bridge. This spot also

exists on deck 11. This is an amazing place to be when you leave

vancouver and any other time the ship is not moving quickly or in bad

weather (it does have a tendency to get very windy). Our second

favorite spot was on these decks all the way back with the added bonus

that the back decks had loungers on them. After watching the last of

Vancouver fade away into the distance we went back to our room and

there in the middle of the hall was our bags, all of them!! I took

this as a sign of very good things to come while DH grunted and said

not to take it as a good sign, "they just did what they were supposed

to do, thats all". We unpacked and placed our luggage under the bed

(the empty luggage fits just fine there).

[lisapow]

Our room was totally awesome (on a scale of eww to holy ship!). We

had room P530 under the casino. No problems what so ever with noise.

It was oceanview port side and we never felt we were missing a lot of

view being on the port side. A lot of the trip is inside passage and

so you get a lot of coast on either side to look at. I especially

enjoyed this view coming out of college fjord and was able to see

several more glaciers and waterfalls in gorgeous valleys from the room

after we came back in thinking most of the viewing was over! The room

is pleanty roomy, while small it is well designed and functional. The

closet is huge (bigger than the one in my first apartment). After

organizing the close and shoes I moved the end table into the closet

area and it became our drop spot for the camera as well under the

table turned into our dirty close pile. Not having the little glass

table in the room gave us even more room around the bed. The bed was

mostly comfortable, as noted by others, slightly on the hard end of

the spectrum, but nothing that we felt needed an egg crate or

anything. I brought my own pillow but on the last night when my bags

were all packed had to use theirs and had no problems sleeping. In

fact I had no trouble sleeping the whole cruise.

The bathroom was slightly small, but again functional. I did not

bring a hanging bag for the bathroom and instead found pleanty of room

on the shelf under the sink for my toilitries. As many have said the

shower area is small, worked fine for me, but I can see were some are

uncomfortable in the space. I do think its a good size for being on a

boat! It made up for the small by having good water pressure without

being hard and stinging. I did find it awkward shaving my legs but

was on vacation anyway so only shaved them once (TMI!)

Our cabin steward was very good, frequently out of sight out of mind

but kept the room neat and tidy and turned down our room everynight

while we were at dinner. We simply alternated between service please

and privacy please sign in our door at all times and there was no

oppertunity for missed signals. We were always stocked with ice, and

did use several sodas and water from the fridge. I was surprised when

these weren't automatically restocked, but Im sure if I wanted more I

could have asked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lisapow]

Ok, so now we get to the part where we dress real pretty and go to

dinner. We had anytime dining as that was all that was left as an

option when we booked. In the end it worked well for us because first

you get to eat when your hungry, second you get to eat around your

activity schedule, and third you get to chose to sit just 2 or with a

group. Our first night we made it out to dinner at prime traffic time

about 715, so there was a line (around 10 peeps or so). We were asked

almost immediately if we would be ok with sharing. Because we easily

succomb to suggestion when faced with a line and stares of those

around us we said us and so were escorted to the elevator with the

couple in front and behind us in line. Turns out we made a good

choice and met some awesome people at dinner. One couple in

particular also got married last saturday and we ended up meeting them

up again later in the week for drinks and dinner. As I was saying we

got in the elevator and ended up upstairs in the provence dining room

and had a gorgeous view from our table. I surprised myself by

ordering the chili instead of my go to primerib, DH had the prime rib.

The food was good, not the most amazing but definately satisfying.

For desert I managed to hold myself to one choise banannas foster

while DH got the floating islands. He absolutely didn't know what he

was getting into because DH is not really a sweets type guy (can you

imagine people like him actually exist). What arrived in front of him

was literally diabetes in desert form, eating the desert was like

enjoying pure sugar (to be honest it was a bit much even for me and

thats saying a lot!). We finished our lovely diner and snuck up to

our secret place.

There is no description for what we got to watch over the next hour

from our secret spot. I shall attempt to call it a sunset, but really

it was so much more than that. The water had turned to still

reflective glass that echoed the scenery back up to the myriad of

oranges reds and yellows. In the far distance were purple and black

mountains covered in trees in every direction and the view was so long

I swear you could see the curve of the earth. It was absolutely

silent out and I imagine we were the only 2 people in the world in

that space and time. Of course the camera wasw down in the room but

to be truthful I dont regret it at all. There is no way we could have

capturede the moment the wasy it existed, and it would have distracted

us for mearly watching the moment. I will prize that evening forever

as one of the greatest of my life :-)

 

Maybe tonight I'll start on day 2

[Clutterlady]

First of all, congratulations on your wedding!! The last part about the sunset brought a smile to my face. These are memories that you will have forever:)

 

Can't wait to read the rest of your review!!

[senior lady]

great review!!! We love the Island and sister ship the Coral.

Welcome to the wonderful world of cruising and Princess.

Looking forward to the rest of your review:D

[Starshine95123]

Thanks for posting where to find your review, and I can see these pictures. Looking forward to the next installment.

[Colo Cruiser]

Congrats on the wedding.

[lisapow]

I actually put off writing this day, because truthfully, I can't really remember what we did. I even dug out the patter to try and jog my memory. It wasn't that long ago? Suffice to say that even on sea days we stayed busy and I was really impressed by the range of options open to us. We really could do as little or as much as possible. I have about 5 items circled on out patter for the day and I think we made it around to 2 of them, I slept in till around 930 or so which set the vacation on a great pattern of contented blissful hobby-like sleeping. I hadn't been sleeping well in the weeks leading up to the cruise for various reasons, and banking my sleep hours was a particular joy on this vacation! We skipped breakfast this one and only time because it just happened to work out that way. By the time we languidly exited our cabin and explored several nooks and crannies of the ship including the library, it was time for lunch.

We found the Bayou Cafe for pub fare and DH was especially proud of me as "nothing on this menu looks like your standard fare and you still look excited to try lunch!" He likes to joke that I am afraid of flavor. It was true that I'd never really had anything on the menu before, and I picked the Scotch Egg and it was yummy!

 

 

I had iced tea with lunch as I'm a regular iced tea drinker, it was a barely passable on a scale of wait is this oil I'm drinking to yummmmmmm. I switched to coke for the rest of the trip (hey at least I don't have to fit in that wedding dress ever again!)

 

We wandered over to see the art in the first art auction. Our house has some very plain walls and we've had fun recently figuring out what we like. Well we found we liked quite a few things. DH especially liked a picture of Einstein that would have looked really cool in his office. Trouble is its original, "wow really we could get a piece of art that no one else has and may be worth something again one day?" But we work on more of a print pricing budget and don't mind that others also have a copy in their homes. Alas our first souvenir was not purchased from the art gallery but we had some fun. Wow this doing as little as possible stuff was really wearing DH out so he went back to the room for a nap.

 

I wandered up to the library. I really liked the chairs up there but so do a lot of people and they were rarely vacant. In a section at the end the window is magnified for viewing out of, how cool is that? I found some great reference books on Alaska and sat and read one for an hour or so. (like any other library you can't check out any of the reference books)

 

At 4pm I met a sleepy eyed DH who was working with some caffeine in an attempt to perk up. We saw our naturalist Kathleen Slamp and her presentation Rendezvous with Majesty. I don't have a lot to compare her too, this being our first Alaskan cruise and first naturalist, but I thought she was great and went to most of her other presentations as well. She grew up in Alaska and had some great stories and pictures from her childhood. The pictures were especially great when she showed us pictures of the glaciers during her childhood and how they've changed. This presentation was on glaciers and greatly added to our experience. Cruise advise #3- don't sweat the small stuff and if you can fit it in make tie to see the naturalist on board.

 

After the presentation I found my way into the gift store and purchased the cruise companion book, which I greatly enjoyed through the cruise. It was 20$ and well worth it. I liked being able to follow the route and pick up little tidbits about the area and history behind nearby areas. I read through parts of the book until it was time for dinner.

 

This was our first formal night and unfortunately I ran my stockings and didn't feel my dress was flattering and so poor DH had to wait for me while I changed again so that I could be on par with his handsomeness in his suit =-) Finally satisfied we made our way to dinner and got a pager as we wished to dine just the 2 of us in the evening. We wandered over to the patisserie and had a drink. Side note-I was looking for the patisserie that I saw on the map for like 30 minutes that morning thinking I was looking for a french bakery type place with yummy pastries and breakfast sandwiches. I was a little disappointed to finally see the sign on the side of the bar i had passed half a dozen times. Oh well. Anyhoo, I ordered a glass of house chardonnay, and this quickly turned into a regular nightly routine. I don't even know what the house chardonnay was but it was super yummy! As I was served my wine another server came around with free champagne (something about a waterfall?) and moments later were paged into the dinning room (I think our wait was a max of 10 minutes). So I two fisted it into the dining room, very impressive trick in heels on a moving boat by the way.

I ordered for dinner the little bird that looks and tastes like chicken, but isn't really chicken, can't remember what it was called. And it was pretty good. For desert I had the cheesecake, IMHO the best dessert on the whole ship! After dinner we ran into the other honeymooning couple from dinner the first night and agreed to meet them for drinks after changing out of monkeysuits and uncomfortable heels. Had a great time over drinks and then showed them our secret spot on deck 10 forward- by the way this spot is a bit spooky at night as there in no light out there at all!

 

We then retired for the evening :o

 

Tomorrow Ketchikan!

 

[BalconyGal]

Congrats on the marriage! Welcome to Princess, I am loving your review.

 

The champagne waterfall is fun, you can pour champagne over a pyramid of glasses and have your picture taken. You should check it out at least once.

[luv2scrapdeb]

I am so enjouring your review. We are leaving this Sunday for your exact same cruise. Can't wait to read more on what to expect. Thank you for going to the time for this.

[lisapow]

Sooooo, 7am rolls around and that annoying wake up call comes through. I have to say it's a much more endurable sound to wake to when you're excited for the day. While DH jumped in the shower I peeked out the (thankfully very dark) curtains to see.......Sunshine...???!@# Really in Ketchikan? Really?? What??? but I bought a brand new raincoat just for this trip!! When we were all ready, and after I packed my raincoat in my bag (I was sure it was going to poor at any moment) we ran upstairs and got some quick to go breakfast from horizon court. Food service bagels are not so bad when you put cheesy ham and scrambled egg in them and wrap them up to go. We got through the debarkation line and had a cheesy picture taken of toothless loggers and me trying to stuff the rest of my breakfast in my mouth (not purchase worthy I assure you). For future reference you can't take food off the boat, you have to eat it first.

 

We knew we were supposed to meet for our Island Wings float plane tour at the rain gauge which I had heard was fairly obvious. We walked and walked and walked and asked 2 or 3 people along the way who kept assuring us that it was just ahead. When we got there for sure it was quite obvious. We were met by a shuttle who pretty much drove us back to our starting point right next to the ship which was pretty funny as Michelle's (the pilots) birth is the first past the cruise ships. There was a total of 7 of us. A family of 4 with 2 kids me and my DH and a third passenger.At first I was sad that it seemed like such a big group but truly there is no bad seat in her beautiful immaculately cared for plane. I'll put up some incredible pictures from the windows so you can see what our views were like.

 

This tour was AMAZING!!!!! Michelle is wonderful. We had the 8am flight and it was wonderfully calm and silky smooth takeoffs and landings. Thats plural 'cause we got to do more than one!! We flew out into misty fjords and enjoyed the dramatic high cliffs and mountain faces and the beautiful views of alpine lakes and then landed in one ourselves. The weather was freakin fantastic!!! There was just a bit of misty clouds and fog parting as we made our way out so we got a sense of the mystical misty mountain feel while having the best views and visibility. It was completely clear when we landed at the lake. DH and I wondered the shore a bit. It felt like we were there for 10 minutes but I m sure it was closer to 30. The tour never felt rushed or hurried. On the way back we switched seat and DH sat in the front. Like I said though, there was no bad seat it just changed perspective.

 

Michelle advises the earliest morning flight as turbulance can get worse in the afternoons with the heat rising. Our flight was smoother than a jumbo jet! Michelles next flight was to Anan bear watch and she was telling us there were approx 15-20 bears out there right now. We tried to reassure here she didn't need to stop and pick up the next tour group that we were more than happy to continue on with her, but to no avail. Oh well, next time for sure!!

 

After we landed we exited the plane and were handed DVDs, I expected the sales pitch to start right in but no, these were for everyone and they were free. It felt like a trick, I must be so preprogrammed to the cynical. I wholeheatredly endorse Michelle and Island Wings in case you couldn't tell. I'll add some pictures and then will catch you up on the rest of the day in Ketchikan next. Just to ease your anticipation...it did not rain all day!! (Or all trip for that matter

 

 

 

 

 

[jeeper2]

Thank you for taking the time to post this wonderful review and photos! Your photo with the float plane actually brought tears to my sentimental eyes. What a wonderful honeymoon memory.

 

Very good friends of mine were on your cruise. It was their first cruise and they are still on the land portion of the trip. They called me from Denali the other day and said the trip has been nothing short of exceptional. The Princess portion of the trip ends today or tomorrow but they will not be returning home until Wednesday. I am very anxious to see their photos and hear all the details, and I will be sure to direct them to this thread to relive their voyage from another persons perspective!

 

Thank you, again, and may you and your hubby have a lifetime of wonderful memories to be made.

[jeeper2]

Thank you for taking the time to post this wonderful review and photos! Your photo with the float plane actually brought tears to my sentimental eyes. What a special honeymoon memory.

 

Very good friends of mine were on the Island with you. It was their first cruise, and they are still on the land portion of the trip. They called me from Denali the other day and said the trip has been nothing short of exceptional. The Princess portion of the tour ends today or tomorrow, but they will not be returning home until Wednesday. I am very anxious to see their photos and hear all the details, and I will be sure to direct them to this thread to relive their voyage from another persons perspective!

 

Thank you, again, and may you and your hubby have a lifetime of wonderful memories to be made.