LIVE: Island Princess to Alaska and Back, June 19-July 3

[tothemall&beyond]

Hi GeoHerb. As always, Steve and I are enjoying your Live blog. We are booked on the Island for a short Caribbean cruise this December, and again for a TA in Dec 2020, so are particularly interested in your experienced assessments of the ship. I know you will miss Marcel and me on Broadway trivia night, but trust you are more than holding your own in trivia. LOL. Be well, my friend. NR

[tothemall&beyond]

BTW,  your pictures are awesome! And we do really appreciate the ones confirming that, even "post-chop" the Promenade deck is actually still better than on the Royal class ships. We have never sailed the Island, but did sail on the Coral in Alaska and loved her! 

Edited June 23, 2019 by tothemall&beyond

[geoherb]

It’s overcast today in Skagway. The people on the Carnival Legend I talked to yesterday in Juneau were telling how gorgeous a day they had on Friday, the same day we had such warm temperatures and cloudless skies in Icy Strait Point. The forecast for today is for scattered showers with a high of 57. The good news is that the forecast for tomorrow in Glacier Bay is partly cloudy. I’m glad it’s not supposed to rain there.

 

Tonight is the Italian menu in the dining room. I may have to try the always available Alaskan salmon dish because none of the main courses really appeal to me: spaghetti and meatballs, salmon with caponata, mixed seafood, veal scallopini, pot roast, and stuffed chicken breast. The Italian names make the dishes sound more appetizing. I miss having shrimp Fra Diavolo on the menu. That was always my go-to on Italian night.

 

I joined the brother-sister trivia duo’s table for breakfast. There was a couple who now live in Wisconsin at the table. They’re celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. A solo gentleman from Wales also ate with us. He’s also doing the back-to-back cruises. Like me, he booked the cruises separately. I let him know how I had recovered my extra 50 minutes of internet. He said he was told his coffee package would be good for both cruises. He did not realize he gets double cruise credits for sailing solo. From what he said, I think he might be at the top 40 luncheon on Tuesday, but I did not ask directly. He is still waiting for his cabin assignment for the southbound cruise. 
 

San Diego Sue: We have cheap phones with Virgin Mobile. They don't work in Alaska. 

[geoherb]

TotheMall&Beyond: Thanks, NR. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the Island. The width of the Promenade Deck helps make up for the space they converted to cabins. There’s still a little-known outside space at the back of the ship on the Emerald Deck where passengers can watch the wake of the ship. That’s always one of my favorite views while on a cruise. There are two other outside public decks at the front of the ship that many passengers don’t realize exist on the Caribe and Baja Decks. The naturalist, though, mentioned them in one of his talks, letting the secret out of the bag for those who attended that presentation or saw it on TV. I plan to move around a lot while the ship is in Glacier Bay tomorrow to get views from different perspectives. 
 

[tothemall&beyond]

3 hours ago, geoherb said:

TotheMall&Beyond: Thanks, NR. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the Island. The width of the Promenade Deck helps make up for the space they converted to cabins. There’s still a little-known outside space at the back of the ship on the Emerald Deck where passengers can watch the wake of the ship. That’s always one of my favorite views while on a cruise. There are two other outside public decks at the front of the ship that many passengers don’t realize exist on the Caribe and Baja Decks. The naturalist, though, mentioned them in one of his talks, letting the secret out of the bag for those who attended that presentation or saw it on TV. I plan to move around a lot while the ship is in Glacier Bay tomorrow to get views from different perspectives. 
 

Thanks for the update! I did know about the "secret" places on 10 and 11, but not the one on 8. So thanks. Glad you got your extra 50 minutes of internet. If they hadn't - you would have had a great counter-argument for the $250 OBC for CCL stock instead of $200. But sailing solo, those extra 50 minutes will help you in keeping in touch with the rest of us and most of all, your DH. Happy travels.

 

[scbusf]

Really enjoying all the info! We sail on the Island for a SB cruise in early September. 

 

Sherry

[jwattle]

On 6/21/2019 at 5:52 AM, geoherb said:

One of them has the beverage package and the other doesn’t. According to the one who bought it, he was told by a Princess rep when he called that he could share the 15 alcoholic drinks. Of course that’s wrong info, but they’re doing it. 
 

 

 

I seriously doubt that a Princess rep would have told that they could share the PBP, even as inconsistent as they are...it is very clear in the T&C's. 

Breaking rules on that is why we can't keep having nice things and prices keep going up...😕😡

[geoherb]

I stayed on the Island until after morning trivia. There were just three teams playing. A woman from Michigan joined the brother-sister duo and me. We won by two points—another wine bottle stopper. I need to win at least two more to share with my tablemates.

 

Skagway is just how I remembered it from seven years ago. I walked to the Gold Rush cemetery and Lower Reid Falls. It was farther than I remembered, and last time we continued on to the Jewell Gardens and up Dyea Road to the overlook and over to the pedestrian bridge across the river at the airport. I saw two women on bikes when I stopped at the bridge overlooking the river. They told me they rented them in town for $20 for two hours. I found the bike shop on my way back. It’s on 5th Avenue. I may rent one next week if the weather is pretty. The sky cleared this afternoon and the air warmed up as I walked toward the falls. On the way back, though, it drizzled lightly and got cool again. I’m glad to have had a little bit of blue sky peaking from behind the clouds. 

 

Back on the ship, I ate lunch at the Horizon Court. They need more vegetable options. The only hot green vegetable was stewed okra with tomatoes. Several of the dishes were repeats from yesterday. I did get the rice with lentil dal two days in a row, but it would be nice to have more variety. 
 

[geoherb]

The pink flower is fireweed. I keep trying to get a good photo of it. It’s starting to bloom in a lot of places. I like how it will sprout up in nearly any growing condition, such as among the huge pieces of rusting iron at the train place near the cemetery. Lenient scoring by another team gave us 18 out of 21 points in afternoon trivia. We would have won with 17 as well if they had not scored us right for that one answer. We were off by just a few letters. A couple of sisters joined the brother-sister duo and me.

 

After trivia, I lined up to see the puppies in the atrium. Ryan Reddington, the grandson of the founder of the Iditarod, brought on four puppies that are between 6 and 8 weeks old. He's wearing the green jacket in the background of the puppy photo. I got to pet the female one, whose name is Ginger. She part of a Spice Girls litter. The three males were named after superheroes. I remember Iron Man and Captain America but don’t remember the third one.

 

Jwattle: I’m just reporting what he told me the Princess rep said. He even talked about arguing for them to find the recording of the conversation since they’re supposedly recorded. That was the lawyer in him coming out. I didn’t doubt his recollection of what he heard. On the other hand, two women I spoke with received the package as part of their booking promo. They misunderstood it. They thought it meant 15 alcoholic drinks were included for the entire cruise, not per day. They said they were flabbergasted to find out some people actually consume that many drinks in a day. One of them doesn’t even drink alcohol. She's enjoying the mocktails. 
 

[jwattle]

I'm not doubting you at all, just the conversation with the rep that he had. If the rep said that, Oh. My. Gosh!😜

I'm loving your review, and oh boy, the gals who thought they got 15 drinks for the whole trip!

😃

[geoherb]

[MissP22]

Do you know what the cutoff was for the cutoff for the top 40 luncheon?

[geoherb]

Having few Elites on board has been great in terms of laundry service. I have sent out a few items every other day. My cabin steward delivers the items he picks up in the morning the next evening. If I had known how efficient it was going to be, I could have packed even fewer clothes. 

 

It’s a beautiful day for Glacier Bay. The sun rose at 3:59 a.m. Even with my curtains closed, I’m still waking up early. Today it was 4:30. Once I do, it’s hard to go back to sleep. My body is sticking closer to Eastern Time than it has on my previous cruises to Alaska. I napped yesterday morning before trivia and may have taken a little nap during last night’s show by comedian Steve Bruner. He did a good show, but I was tired after walking about 10 miles in Skagway and around the ship. Once the show was over, I walked out on the Promenade Deck. It was nice to see so many other passengers out on it to watch the gorgeous scenery as we sailed away from Skagway. Sunset was 10:23 p.m. It’s at 10:21 p.m. tonight, so the days are already getting shorter.

 

The ship is scheduled to view two glaciers today: Margerie and Lamplugh. When we sailed on the Sapphire Princess on our southbound cruise in 2012, we saw just Margerie Glacier up close. The captain announced that it was calving so actively that he decided to give us longer there. 

 

I attended the evening cocktail event again last night for the first time in a couple of nights. There were very few people there—no more than five at any one time while I was there. They are having the Captain’s Circle party tonight, so they won’t have the cocktail event. I had the Mayan mule the first night I attended the event and a deep blue sea martini on the rocks last night. Both are enjoyable drinks.

[geoherb]

3 hours ago, MissP22 said:

Do you know what the cutoff was for the cutoff for the top 40 luncheon?

 

I haven't heard yet. The couple who I talked with at the cocktail event last evening said they'd received an invitation to it and they are Elite with fewer than 150 days.

Edited June 24, 2019 by geoherb

[MissP22]

5 minutes ago, geoherb said:

 

I haven't heard yet. The couple who I talked with at the cocktail event last evening said they'd received an invitation to it and they are Elite with fewer than 150 days.

Wow. I haven heard anything that low in a long time. 

It sounds like almost all the Elites received an invitation. 

[erber]

We have been on  quite a few cruises to Alaska the last 7 years and have been invited 5 times to MTP event - 2 times were lunches, 2 times were cocktail parties, and once it was a dinner in specialty restaurant as they did not do an event on that cruise. We are now up to 213 days on Princess after the last 7 day cruise in June. And on that cruise we were number 20 and 21 on the top 40 most traveled passenger list. Alaska is mostly Blue card cruisers. We have never been in the top 40 on a cruise in the Caribbean or Panama Canal ! We have a cruise to South America and Antarctica in December. I expect that will.have a multitude of elites with far  more days than us!

[Alaska0799]

3 hours ago, geoherb said:

Having few Elites on board has been great in terms of laundry service. I have sent out a few items every other day. My cabin steward delivers the items he picks up in the morning the next evening. If I had known how efficient it was going to be, I could have packed even fewer clothes. 

 

It’s a beautiful day for Glacier Bay. The sun rose at 3:59 a.m. Even with my curtains closed, I’m still waking up early. Today it was 4:30. Once I do, it’s hard to go back to sleep. My body is sticking closer to Eastern Time than it has on my previous cruises to Alaska. I napped yesterday morning before trivia and may have taken a little nap during last night’s show by comedian Steve Bruner. He did a good show, but I was tired after walking about 10 miles in Skagway and around the ship. Once the show was over, I walked out on the Promenade Deck. It was nice to see so many other passengers out on it to watch the gorgeous scenery as we sailed away from Skagway. Sunset was 10:23 p.m. It’s at 10:21 p.m. tonight, so the days are already getting shorter.

 

The ship is scheduled to view two glaciers today: Margerie and Lamplugh. When we sailed on the Sapphire Princess on our southbound cruise in 2012, we saw just Margerie Glacier up close. The captain announced that it was calving so actively that he decided to give us longer there. 

 

I attended the evening cocktail event again last night for the first time in a couple of nights. There were very few people there—no more than five at any one time while I was there. They are having the Captain’s Circle party tonight, so they won’t have the cocktail event. I had the Mayan mule the first night I attended the event and a deep blue sea martini on the rocks last night. Both are enjoyable drinks.

So enjoying your detailed posts!  Hope you're having a fabulous day in Glacier Bay.  Love watching for marine mammals around the mouth of the Bay--the waters always seem to be teeming with life!

 

Quick question re: laundry.  A few cruises ago the ship's laundry service shrunk a couple of our shirts (polo-type) so we've been hesitant to use them again.  We'd take fewer clothes if we could rely on the laundry service to not shrink any items.  Are there special instructions you can suggest that may help prevent that problem?

[CruzinNoony]

Love your photos!  I believe you mentioned that Juneau night was not open seating.  How about Skagway?

[tothemall&beyond]

5 hours ago, geoherb said:

Having few Elites on board has been great in terms of laundry service. I have sent out a few items every other day. My cabin steward delivers the items he picks up in the morning the next evening. If I had known how efficient it was going to be, I could have packed even fewer clothes. 

 

It’s a beautiful day for Glacier Bay. The sun rose at 3:59 a.m. Even with my curtains closed, I’m still waking up early. Today it was 4:30. Once I do, it’s hard to go back to sleep. My body is sticking closer to Eastern Time than it has on my previous cruises to Alaska. I napped yesterday morning before trivia and may have taken a little nap during last night’s show by comedian Steve Bruner. He did a good show, but I was tired after walking about 10 miles in Skagway and around the ship. Once the show was over, I walked out on the Promenade Deck. It was nice to see so many other passengers out on it to watch the gorgeous scenery as we sailed away from Skagway. Sunset was 10:23 p.m. It’s at 10:21 p.m. tonight, so the days are already getting shorter.

 

The ship is scheduled to view two glaciers today: Margerie and Lamplugh. When we sailed on the Sapphire Princess on our southbound cruise in 2012, we saw just Margerie Glacier up close. The captain announced that it was calving so actively that he decided to give us longer there. 

 

I attended the evening cocktail event again last night for the first time in a couple of nights. There were very few people there—no more than five at any one time while I was there. They are having the Captain’s Circle party tonight, so they won’t have the cocktail event. I had the Mayan mule the first night I attended the event and a deep blue sea martini on the rocks last night. Both are enjoyable drinks.

Our friends who almost always make MTP Top 10 taught us a laundry trick a few years ago: put it in AT NIGHT when your cabin steward does the turndown service. On most cruises, you'll get it back the very next night. So instead of waiting 2 days (as you do if you submit in in the morning),  you'll have it back in 24 hours. 

 

[tothemall&beyond]

1 hour ago, Alaska0799 said:

So enjoying your detailed posts!  Hope you're having a fabulous day in Glacier Bay.  Love watching for marine mammals around the mouth of the Bay--the waters always seem to be teeming with life!

 

Quick question re: laundry.  A few cruises ago the ship's laundry service shrunk a couple of our shirts (polo-type) so we've been hesitant to use them again.  We'd take fewer clothes if we could rely on the laundry service to not shrink any items.  Are there special instructions you can suggest that may help prevent that problem?

I've only had that problem on 2 occasions - with souvenir tee shirts. They had been adult medium and came back children's-sized. No real way to avoid unless you write a direction on the sheet to "tumble dry on low only".

[tothemall&beyond]

3 hours ago, erber said:

We have been on  quite a few cruises to Alaska the last 7 years and have been invited 5 times to MTP event - 2 times were lunches, 2 times were cocktail parties, and once it was a dinner in specialty restaurant as they did not do an event on that cruise. We are now up to 213 days on Princess after the last 7 day cruise in June. And on that cruise we were number 20 and 21 on the top 40 most traveled passenger list. Alaska is mostly Blue card cruisers. We have never been in the top 40 on a cruise in the Caribbean or Panama Canal ! We have a cruise to South America and Antarctica in December. I expect that will.have a multitude of elites with far  more days than us!

Wow - you've made MTP 5 times with just a little over 200 days? I have more than that and have NEVER made MTP. But most of our cruises are Transatlantics or Caribbean, both of which tend to be Elite-heavy. My friends with over 500 days routinely make Top 10 MTP,  but even they rarely make #1.

[Keikidoc]

GeoHerb:

Thanks for posting the patter. I am interested in the production show times. I see that they are listed at 7:30 and 9:30 pm. I've been on the Island P for the Panama Canal Ocean 2 Ocean and the Production show times were 6pm and 8pm. Would you happen to know if the show times change once they get out of the Alaska voyages?  I will be back on the Island Princess in Dec 2019 for the Panama Canal and Costa Rica cruise and am trying to decide which dinner I wanted to reserve. Early or late. If the shows stayed at 7:30 and 9:30, I would opt for the early dinner and try to attend the early show. Presently I'm on 7:15 dinner. Thanks

[geoherb]

What a wonderful day in Glacier Bay! The onboard naturalist said that he gets just three out of 20 days during a season as beautifully sunny as it was. The ship picked up two National Park rangers and a third person near Bartlett Cove this morning. They came on a small boat and boarded our ship right beneath my cabin’s window. They set up an information display and gift shop in the Lotus Pool area. I attended the 7 a.m. talk that one of the rangers gave. He basically set up what we would be seeing during the day. I then went to breakfast in the dining room since I knew I had enough time. I ate with the Wisconsin couple from a previous breakfast. It’s nice to have conversations with the same people so we don’t have to go through all the basics over again.

 

The ship approached Margerie Glacier around 9:30. I watched from Deck 10 at the front of the ship. Once we got there, I shifted down to the Promenade Deck. The glacier was not very active—just calving a few small pieces most of the morning. The biggest chunk came down right as we were leaving. I managed to catch the tail-end of that on video. Going to through Glacier Bay, I saw lots of wildlife: humpback whales, minke whales, sea otters, eagles and other birds, and seals. I missed seeing the Dall porpoises when the naturalist pointed them out, but at least now I know that they’re what I saw earlier that I thought at the time were dolphins. 

 

I had a slice of pizza and a salad for lunch. I did not want to miss too much by eating in the dining room. One of the rangers gave a presentation in the theater after lunch. She was very good.  I took a brief nap afterward, then went to the front of the ship on Deck 11 where the naturalist was speaking from. It was great to have the same vantage point he did. 

My team won afternoon trivia. We had the brother-sister duo and one of the Alabama couples. We missed one question. The prize was the little Princess notebook.
 

[RRFan]

11 hours ago, erber said:

We have been on  quite a few cruises to Alaska the last 7 years and have been invited 5 times to MTP event - 2 times were lunches, 2 times were cocktail parties, and once it was a dinner in specialty restaurant as they did not do an event on that cruise. We are now up to 213 days on Princess after the last 7 day cruise in June. And on that cruise we were number 20 and 21 on the top 40 most traveled passenger list. Alaska is mostly Blue card cruisers. We have never been in the top 40 on a cruise in the Caribbean or Panama Canal ! We have a cruise to South America and Antarctica in December. I expect that will.have a multitude of elites with far  more days than us!

Generally true, but we were on the Ruby for the first Alaska cruise of this season in April and didn’t make the top 40 at all (we had completed over 400 cruise days before that trip).  That was a 12-day round trip out of LA. I think anything out of LA or Ft Lauderdale are always Elite-full.  I think the shorter 7 day NB or SB are usually Blue-card heavy.  It’s like they think they will only ever take one cruise in their life and Alaska is the bucket list.  😃

Edited June 25, 2019 by RRFan

[geoherb]

Erber et al.: I’ll try to find out the cutoff point for the top 40 as well as where I fell on the list. When I met with the Captain’s Circle hostess, she just said there were plenty with fewer days than I have without giving me a number. I was more concerned at the time about my missing internet minutes, and she was useless at solving that problem. I hope she will give the breakdown of passengers by Captain’s Circle status at tonight’s gathering.

 

Alaska0799: My secret for laundry is to not bring anything I care about too much. I’ve heard people writing in instructions to use cold water and to dry on low—but I am not sure the laundry folks can read. I know that they’ve ignored my requests to fold my shirts instead of putting them on hangers. I’ve stopped trying. They’ll supposedly pay you 10 times the cost of the service if they ruin something. They broke the zipper on a pair of DH’s pants on one cruise. The onboard tailor replaced it.

 

CruzinNoony: Our nights in Icy Strait Point and Juneau were anytime dining for all. We had our regular second seating traditional last night in Skagway.

 

Keikidoc: I’ll ask the cruise director or entertainment director about show times on the Panama Canal cruises. I’m sure the answer, though, is subject to change.

 

Tothemall&beyond: Come to Alaska! I’d do this cruise every summer. I’ll do it again in August if DH will come with me. There’s an expert on the Alaska boards by the moniker Budget Queen. She’s already been on four Alaskan cruises this year. Getting my laundry back the next day is not a problem for me, but I’m using your tip to send out the last batch for this cruise tonight. On the transatlantic cruise, it came back three and a half days later. I have five polo type shirts, two dress shirts, two pairs of dress pants, one pair of jeans, two pairs of shorts, three T-shirts, and enough socks and underwear for a week.

Edited June 25, 2019 by geoherb