Grand Princess: Pacific Northwest Oct 20-27 sailing (trip report)

[Miramar]

I'm attempting to post photos in this report, so hopefully it works. This is a long, detailed style report, so if you prefer the Cliff Notes version you may want to pass this one by.

 

This was our second time doing a cruise up the West coast of the U.S. and Canada. My mother and I went together on this trip. We chose this itinerary aboard the Grand Princess, due to the fact it was on one of the older and somewhat smaller ships that Princess has left, as we don’t care for the newer designs.

 

Our cruise departed on a Sunday so we flew on Saturday to San Francisco, our port of embarkation. We took the early morning JetBlue flight from Boston and flew our favorite Mint class. Upon boarding we each got the non alcoholic version of the signature RefreshMint drink. The breakfast offerings were pretty good. The croissant was excellent—really buttery and flakey. It was hard to believe it was served on an airline. For the main dishes I got the French toast, fresh fruit and the biscuit sandwich. My mother chose the same items. The flight went by quickly since the seats, food and entertainment are so nice. We landed in San Francisco at about 10:20am and waited about 15 minutes for the bags to come out. We then got a cab to our hotel, Sir Francis Drake which is in the Union Square area. We got room 704, a room with 2 queen beds. The room was quite small, despite supposedly being one of the larger category. We then set out for our first stop, Pier 39 to look at the sea lions. We stayed there for about 30 minutes and then went to the Dahlia Garden and Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. I especially enjoyed the dahlias; there were so many different colors, textures and varieties. The Conservatory was nice but does not take that long to visit. After that we tried to take the free GGP shuttle to another location within the park, but after waiting 30 min we gave up and called an Uber. The shuttle is supposed to run about every 20 minutes but it didn’t seem to be coming.  Of course it passed us as we were driving out in the Uber. We decided to instead go to Palace of Fine Arts but by the time we got there, the weather had turned drizzly and breezy so we didn’t linger long.

 

One of the dahlia specimens

 

For dinner we went to the Cliff House and ate in the Bistro section which is first come first serve, but you can put your name on their list. We got a window table since we were early and the weather started to clear off. I had the Ocean Beach cocktail while my mother had a margarita. For the meal I got the French onion soup and the cheeseburger and chocolate cake for dessert. My mother also go the burger and chocolate cake. The food was good but not memorable. The real drawing card here is the view. We were lucky that the weather improved so that we actually had a nice view despite the earlier fog. Below is the view from outside the Cliff House.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and I put on a warmer jacket to go outside and walk around. I walked to Fisherman’s Wharf and then took a cable car back to the hotel. Taking a cable car is always a San Francisco tradition for me.

 

 

Sunday morning I got up early and walked to the curvy part of Lombard St to take pictures. I got back around 8:30am and we had planned to get crepes at Cozy Cable Car Cafe but it was closed so instead we went to Lori’s Diner and had chocolate chip pancakes and a coffee shake for me. Next we Ubered to Coit Tower and walked down the Filbert Steps. From the top of Telegraph Hill you can take either the Filbert or Greenwich steps down and each is a bit different. We have done both sets of steps during various trips to San Francisco. One of the things I like about San Francisco are all the different sets of steps you can take in various locations around the city. We even bought a book one time that lists all the different step walks you can take.

 

This one is taken from the Levi's Plaza at the bottom of the steps with Coit Tower in the background.

 

Around 11am we went back to the hotel to get our bags and take a cab to Pier 27 to board our ship, the Grand Princess. We arrived at the pier around 11:45am and it was a bit hectic but we got on fairly quickly. The rooms were not ready so we had to waste time sitting around minding our carry on bags. In the old days, one of the nice aspects of Princess was that the rooms were always ready upon your arrival.

 

This cruise, we were in room C425 the Amerigo Vespucci suite. Once we were able to get into the room around 1:15pm, we unpacked, looked around the ship and then later went to our muster station for the mandatory drill. The Sailaway was at about 4pm and we decided to go up to the 14/15th floors to watch the ship go under the Golden Gate Bridge. They had music playing on deck and made a big deal of going under the bridge, blowing the ship horn etc.

Below is the lovely and spacious balcony in C425

 

Prior to dinner we went to Crooners Bar and had a Toasted Almond martini for my mother and a French martini for me. I hadn’t tried the French martini before and it ended up being a cruise favorite with a nice light raspberry flavor. Being in a suite, we had Club Class dining—so we could eat anytime without waiting. Club Class was held in the Da Vinci dining room on the 6th floor. We ate around 6pm and had the pina colada soup and the special club class prime rib—which came with Yorkshire pudding. For dessert, I got the flourless chocolate cake (loved it--very dense and fudgy) and my mother the hazelnut souffle for dessert (she really liked the sauce that went with it). With Club Class they advertise one special dinner item each night but overall it was often the same entree as the regular dining with just a different side dish (Yorkshire pudding instead of corn on the cob—or broccoli instead of asparagus, etc) so you are not really gaining much in the way of additional choices.

[Miramar]

Monday was a sea day and we started with the suite breakfast held in the Crown Grill. One of the things we like best about booking suites is the private breakfast held in either Crown Grill or Sabatini’s. Open only to suite guests, it’s a quiet, non-hectic dining experience and if you go on the early side, you will likely get a window table. We each got a cappuccino and fresh squeezed orange juice and I got the BLT sandwich with no egg and my mother got the Belgian waffle. We savored our breakfast and then went back to the room.

The BLT is below

 

We sat on our balcony for part of the morning as it was in the sun. For lunch we had a little from the Horizon Court and then got ice creams at the Coffee and Cones shop. I tried one of the extra cost ice cream sandwiches, but the one I ordered they didn’t have that day, so I had to settle for the chocolate chip one that I could have made myself for free using ingredients from the Horizon Court and a vanilla ice cream from the ice cream stand! I seem to recall the cost being $2.50 and they were not large—I don’t feel like it was the best value. I might have liked it better if they had had the one I actually wanted (the mint one or the snickerdoodle).

 

 

During the afternoon we sat on the balcony again and then went to get a cocktail before dinner once again at Crooners Bar. Crooners turned out to be our favorite lounge on this trip—normally we like the Wheelhouse, but we liked the drinks better in Crooners. I had fun working my way through all the specialty martinis and finding new favorites. Dinner tonight was a 5:30pm reservation at Sabatini’s. One of the things that we found to be different from all our previous Princess cruises were the reservation times they offered for the specialty dining. In the past, we were able to make a reservation at a specialty restaurant for 6 or 6:30pm but on this ship, they kept to set times of 5, 5:30, 7:30 and maybe 8:30 (can’t recall). This was our first time choosing to dine at Sabatini’s for dinner as we had never liked the menu before. Since they had changed the menu since our last cruise and it seemed agreeable to us, we thought we’d give it a try! This was also the first formal night and we prefer to skip the dining room on those nights. If you book a suite you get a complimentary dinner in one of the specialty restaurants on the first night, but we prefer to eat in the main dining room the first night. Sometimes they will honor the complimentary dinner for other nights if you choose not to use it the first night, but it is up to manager discretion. There is soooo much food in Sabatini’s. When you arrive at the table there are breadsticks, then they bring the normal bread basket and then house appetizer to start. The house appetizer was little buns of pizza dough fried with a red pepper dipping sauce. I then got the cheese soup, lamb skewers, mushroom risotto, sage and prosciutto pork and chocolate Rocher for dessert. My mother got the same except a pasta trio and the veal marsala. We really enjoyed our meal there, even if it was way too much food for us. I especially enjoyed the lamb skewers and the dessert. We made a conscious effort to eat only part of each course and still came away totally stuffed. Of course you are not obligated to order each course that is offered, so ordering only some courses would be a lighter option. Perhaps next time I’ll consider ordering just some courses.

Below is the Rocher dessert in Sabatini's

 

After dinner I walked a bunch of laps around the Promenade deck. One annoyance I had with this cruise over the long run is that the Promenade deck seemed to be closed off a lot. This evening seemed to be one of the few times it was open. Of course if they are using it for the gangway in port, then I’d expect part of it to be closed off, but it was often completely closed (I checked all the exits) even if the weather was fine. One evening it was slightly breezy and they closed it; I’ve been on other Princess ships where it was pretty much always open except under the most extreme conditions, so it was a bit disappointing to have it blocked so often.

 

 

Tuesday we woke up in time to see the ship dock in Astoria Oregon. Of course being a fall cruise and being up north, it both got dark earlier and got light later than our spring cruises. We wanted to get off the ship quickly today to pick up our rental car, so we ordered room service of english muffins for breakfast. I got off about 7:45am to walk Enterprise to get the car (about 10 min if you walk fast) and then I swung back to pick up my mother. We drove to Cannon Beach, Ecola State Park and then down scenic Rte 101 to Tillamook Cheese Factory. While we had driven down Route 101 before, we hadn’t stopped in the town of Cannon Beach. We got there early before any crowds and it was quite cute. The State Park was also nice. The drive in was through a beautiful green forest with large trees cloaked in moss. The views of the ocean from the park were quite nice too. Once we arrived at Tillamook, we had grilled cheese sandwiches and then did the self guided factory tour and then had ice creams. I wanted to try several different flavors so got 3 scoops (mudslide, Stumptown coffee and chocolate PB) which my mother had chocolate PB and mudslide.

Cannon Beach view

 

Ecola State Park

 

We drove back to Astoria and dropped the car and I walked back to the ship by 2:45pm. We sat on the balcony in the sun watching the ship next to us, the African Raven, get loaded with logs.

Astoria Harbor

 

ship carrying logs getting loaded

 

Around 5:30pm we went to the Wheelhouse Bar for our pre-dinner drink. My mother got the Toasted Almond while I got a 24K Margarita which I didn’t like (not limey enough and it was watery). Tonight was Italian night in the dining room. I got peach bellini soup (a favorite of mine), pasta arrabbiata, veal marsala and tiramisu. My mother had the soup, mixed green salad, pot roast and tiramisu. The Italian menu is always one of my favorites on Princess.

 

 

Wednesday we once again got up early to see our arrival into Seattle WA. You could see Mount Rainier in the distance though it was veiled in fog. We also had our usual breakfast in Crown Grill. I had the waffle with whipped cream and a fresh orange juice while my mother had the French Toast. We then got off the ship about 9:40am, as it took a while to get tied up and cleared to send guests ashore. We walked up to Pike Place Market about a 10 minute leisurely walk. We always enjoy a visit to the market when in Seattle and we especially like going on a weekday when it is less crowded and you can actually see what’s around you and enjoy looking at all the shops. In the past we have always visited in the spring and have enjoyed all the beautiful fresh cut spring flowers. This time of course the floral varieties were different—lots of dahlias, and fall cabbages and dried flowers. They were lovely but I still prefer the spring displays. We strolled up and down the various market stalls, taking in the fish markets and watching them toss the fish around when someone purchased one. When at Pike Place, we have favorite vendors we like to visit. Three Girls Bakery is a favorite and we bought a bunch of items to share for later back on the ship—-we got a snickerdoodle, gingersnap, PB chocolate chip cookie, PB double O, fudge brownie and raspberry shortbread bar. Next we had lunch at Beecher’s Cheese—-we each got a small size of their “World’s Best” Macaroni and Cheese. It was so flavorful and rich but the seating is very limited in there so you have to be lucky to get a spot in the window so you can eat while watching them make their cheese. Finally we stopped at Le Panier and split an Amandine (almond croissant) for dessert.

 Pike Place Market flowers

 

 

Our next stop was the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum. We had been there before and really enjoyed it so wanted to go again. We spent about an hour looking at the exhibits—and enjoying the outdoor displays integrated into the gardens with the Space Needle in the background. We had purchased a combo ticket for the glass museum and the Space Needle, so around 2pm we went over to the Space Needle for our time slot. We went up and enjoyed the views. It can be a bit cool and breezy on the upper deck as it is open air. There is a deck one level below which is inside and has a clear, revolving floor so you can look straight down.We were lucky that it was a sunny day and you could even see Mount Rainier in the distance though it was a bit foggy that far out.

 

 

I love seeing the Space Needle with the Chihuly glass

 

Below is the view form the Space Needle of Mount Rainier in the distance

 

A panoramic photo I took from the stateroom balcony

 

Around 3pm we took a cab back to the ship and sat on the balcony watching the city view. Tonight we had drinks in Crooners again—Raspberry Romance for me and Chocolate Mint martini for my mother. We went down to dinner at 6pm and it was not a menu we liked. We had a lot of “always available” items that night, as it was a pacific northwest/california fusion menu. I started with the mixed green salad with blue cheese dressing, the fettuccine alfredo and the chimichurri burger (provolone cheese and a slaw) and then the Princess Love Boat Dream with a scoop of butter toffee ice cream. My mother had the Caesar salad, Baked Potato soup and the surf and turf and the Princess Love Boat Dream with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

 

 

Around 7:30pm I got off the ship again to take night time photos. I walked to the Pike Place Market and then back along the waterfront. There is an observation deck near Pier 66 where were were docked so I went on the top level of that as well. I got back on the ship around 8:30pm with an hour to spare before we actually we required to be back on board. Everyone was supposed to be back on board by 9:30pm. My mother stayed on the ship while I went off and they called our room at about 8:20pm (more than an hour before we had to be back) to make sure I was indeed off the ship. They said it was less usual for one person in the room to be off while the other was onboard so wanted to be sure I wasn’t actually onboard and they hadn't missed me. So they really do keep track of where people are even well before you are due back. So my mother told them oh yes, she’s off the ship and plans to be back well within the time allowed—and 5 minutes later I was back on board!

Empty Pike Place Market

 

Seattle at night

 

We watched the sailaway from Seattle from our balcony; sailaway was 10pm.

[Miramar]

Thursday we once again got up in time for our arrival into Vancouver, traveling under the Lions Gate Bridge in the dark and had our Crown Grill breakfast—OJ, cappuccino and BLT for me and waffle for my mother. Today our plan was to visit the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park. While we’ve been to Vancouver a number of times, we hadn’t yet done the aquarium. This was the first time to Vancouver when we haven’t been starting or ending our cruise. Therefore the cruise terminal looked totally different than what we are used to seeing. No milling crowds so thick you can’t see! The drop off and pick up area was practically empty—I’ll have to remember what the terminal actually looks like empty so the next time I embark a ship there I’ll have a better sense of it. We took a cab from the pier and enjoyed the ride into the park. The aquarium opened at 10am so we took our time getting off the ship. We really enjoyed this aquarium—the exhibits were all very nicely kept, with crystal clear water. They had number of outdoor exhibits including sea otters (a favorite of mine) and Stellar Sea Lions. They had a special exhibit on frogs down on the lower level which was nice too. This was one of the nicer aquariums we’ve been to and it wasn’t wildly crowded but there were school groups there.

The clown fish tank

 

From there around 1pm, we took a cab to a cafe we like called Breka. The location we went to on Bute Street was quite busy but we did find a table. We split a chocolate cookie and each got a Belgian chocolate mousse and a blended Kona Mocha. The mochas were a little bland and could have had more coffee flavor but the cookie and mousse were excellent. After lunch we took a cab from the nearby Blue Horizon Hotel to the Vancouver Lookout. Getting a cab was a bit of a pain—the ones driving on the street all had customers already so I called one on the phone but it never showed so we finally took one that showed up to wait by the hotel. It seems that Vancouver does not have Uber yet . . . .at least when I tried to book one, it said it was not available in my area.

 

The Vancouver Lookout is on top of the Harbour Centre. The Lookout is an enclosed circular viewing area from which you can see in every direction. The problem is that it’s not quite high enough to get as sweeping a view as you might like. I think when it opened in 1977 it may have been taller in comparison to the surrounding buildings. I also felt like the signage telling you what you were looking at could have been better. It was hard to tell exactly what they were referring to. I’ve been to lots of these observation decks and some have better signage than others and I think this one could improve theirs.

 

We walked back to the ship around 3:45pm and I shed a layer and then went immediately out again to take more photos. I walked along the harbour down to Stanley Park and photographed the waterfront with fall foliage. It was fun watching the sea planes take off and land as well.

 

 

 

 

I went back to the ship by 5:15pm and we had our drink at Crooners at 5:30pm. I had a chocolate mint martini and my mother got the Raspberry Romance. We went to dinner by 6pm and I had the butter lettuce with shallot vinaigrette, the strawberry thyme sorbet intermezzo and the beef tip and mushroom cobbler and the club class special crepes with vanilla ice cream for dessert. The beef was good but it turned out to be more of a beef stew than how it was described on the menu. My mother had the exact same thing that I had.

 

 

Once again, I got off the ship after dinner to take some more photos. This time I walked to Gastown and took photos in that area, including the steam clock. I was back to the ship once again by 8:30pm.

Gastown Steam Clock

 

We watched the sailaway from the promenade deck tonight, as our suite was not on the dock side in Vancouver. There was one person who was late coming back to the ship but despite the fact that she returned 15 minutes late, we still didn’t leave right away after her return. We didn’t actually leave until about 10:30pm. I think we may have been waiting for a large COSCO container ship to pass by, as we pulled out right after that ship passed us.

 

 

Friday was supposed to be our day in Victoria but they had announced the night before at dinner that we would have to miss that stop due to deteriorating weather conditions that might delay our departure if we made the port call and cause issues getting back to San Francisco on time. So the decision was made to skip Victoria and head directly back to San Francisco and arrive there about 8 hours early. Missing a port is always a bit of a disappointment and this time I had been looking forward to seeing more British Columbia fall foliage at the Butchart Gardens.

 

 

We had our normal 7:30am Crown Grill breakfast—-OJ, cappuccino and a BLT for my mother and waffle for me.

Most of the ship board activities are never really to my liking, so I worked on my trip report during the day and sat out on the balcony. It just seems that so many of the activities are just sales pitches for things I don’t want (teeth whitening, art auction, jewelry seminar etc). It was really quite warm in the sun, so the balcony was vey comfortable. We had lunch at the Salty Dog burger stand. My mother got a classic cheeseburger while I got the triple smoked which had gouda cheese and onion jam. I thought my burger was quite tasty. Both burgers came with a generous helping of crispy fries.

 

 

At 5:30pm we went to our reservation at Crown Grill (tonight was the second formal night). I had a coconut mojito, black and blue onion soup and the ribeye steak with loaded baked potato. They bring the accompaniments for the potato on a tray and serve you along with three special types of sea salt as well. I got the pink salt. My mother had a sangria (not fruity enough) black and blue onion soup, ribeye steak also with baked potato. For dessert I got the dutch molten chocolate cake which came with chocolate ice cream. I really liked my dessert since it was was very fudgy. My mother got the dessert sampler which included the lemon tart, peanut butter chocolate cake, molten cake and s’mores stack.

Here is the dessert sampler

 

After dinner we went to the Piazza and enjoyed the music there and then made our way to Crooners to have after dinner drinks. My mother had the French martini and I tried the Tropitini which I didn’t care for (too strong). After only consuming half, I decided to try the Milky Way which I liked much better. We stayed in Crooners for 2 sets of the pianist that night.

 

[Miramar]

Saturday we once again went to Crown Grill at 7:30am and enjoyed our final breakfast with a lovely view out the window.  We each had OJ and cappuccino. My mother tried the yogurt and granola raspberry parfait and the BLT sandwich while I just had the usual BLT.

 

 

At 9:45am we went to the Culinary show where the Executive Chef and Maitre D cook a few dishes and run their comedy routine. The show was interrupted twice with announcements that due to deteriorating weather (again) we would be speeding up even more and coming into San Francisco even earlier than originally planned. Our new arrival time was estimated to be 6:30pm. The concern was with the high winds that were predicted to develop overnight. I would guess they didn’t want to attempt to dock the ship during the wind event. All passengers would have to clear immigration upon our arrival so this arrival time would screw up dinner plans for some (traditional dining was canceled and all dining was open seating). The Culinary Show lasted about an hour and then we did the galley walk through.

 

 

At about noon we went to Slices, the by the slice pizza place on the 14th fl for slices of cheese pizza. We then enjoyed dessert on our balcony. We finished the last of the treats that we had purchased at Pike Place Market. Despite walking through the Horizon Court to check out what they had, we didn’t find anything we really wanted to eat. There were too many people too. I felt like the buffet on this ship always felt crowded—more so than on other ships we’ve been on. We spent the afternoon on the balcony enjoying the sunshine. We didn’t observe any deteriorating weather thus far. At 12:45pm I did go up to the 14th fl for the ice carving demonstration. I usually go to that (and the fruit carving), as I like seeing what they can do so quickly with ice. Today they made a dragon but there was an unfortunancy and part of the tail broke but the carver was able to “glue” it back on again using water and snow/ice chips.

 

 

Since the last evening on board was going to be screwed up and we wanted to see the ship sail under the Golden Gate again, be had our pre-dinner drinks early at 4:15pm. My mother got the Toasted Almond and I tried a new one—the Bugsy (espresso, creme de menthe, Bailey’s and cream). This turned out to be my new favorite—too bad I only got to try it the last night. We were due to sail under the bridge at about 5:15pm, so we went up to the 14th fl to watch and to watch us dock as well. They estimated that we’d be tied up by 6:30pm and that was correct. Other than the fact that we would all need to go ashore with our passports once we were docked and that they wanted us to go in the order that we were set to disembark the next day, they didn’t give much information. Nobody knew if we were supposed to wait in our assigned disembarkation lounges or what—and there were not many (any) people in authority to really ask. People started lining up to get off, so rather than wait in a lounge waiting to be called and then find ourselves at the very end of the process if it turned out that it was just a giant free for all, we ended up just getting in the growing line. Ours was to be the first group after self walk off anyway. It was all very chaotic and as I said nobody really had any good information. Thankfully it was not an emergency. The line started moving sometime close to 6:50/7pm and I think we were done and back on the ship by 7:30pm. When we got off, they still hadn’t made any announcements calling the different color groups off.

 

Upon re-boarding the ship, we went right to dinner. We both had the same thing—fettucine alfredo and the steak. The normal sauce was green peppercorn, while the Club Class sauce was mushroom  and we both got the mushroom sauce. For dessert we got the “ice cream bombe” which is basically a baked Alaska. During dinner they did start making announcements for the various color groups, about every 10 minutes. After dinner we went back to the room to put our bags out and then went back to Crooners to hear the piano player one more time and have a final cocktail—Toasted Almond and French martini. The early arrival time sort of messed up the whole evening, as eventually they did start calling color groups and then after everyone (most) had gone through immigration they started calling for those who hadn’t completed it (many times). One missing group was a group of Italian contractors/workers who finally went after they made the announcement in Italian and another large Chinese group who finally went after they made the announcement in Chinese. It would have saved us all time if they had just made the announcement to those groups in their respective languages after they first noticed that they hadn’t completed it. The whole event sort of put a damper on the last night festivities but I’m sure Princess as a company wasn’t thrilled that we had to go back early either, as they are not allowed to operate the casino nor the shops while we are in port, so I’m sure they lost money on the final night.

Back under the Golden Gate

 

 

When we woke up on Sunday morning, the wind had developed. It was very breezy on our balcony and when I went up to the 14th floor to take final photos, it was quite windy up there. This morning we skipped breakfast since we would have had to go to Boticelli and we had brunch reservations for later in the morning off ship anyway..

Getting resupplied for the next cruise

 

We got off around 8am and beat the rush for cabs. Getting off was easy this time, as I guess since we all cleared the night before. Other times we’ve found disembarkation to be a hectic nightmare, though not as bad was the previous nights “festivities”. I guess you just never know what you’re going to get. Had we known it would be so easy, quick and even a bit early, we could have booked an earlier flight!

 

 

We took a cab to the Club Quarters hotel on Clay street where I had booked a day room using hotelsbyday.com I’ve used that website before to book day rooms and find it very useful. Our room was for the hours of 9am-5pm but we just used it for a few hours to repack our luggage, access fast internet, relax etc. At 10:30am we Ubered to Perry’s Embarcadero for brunch. We each got burgers with fries and they were quite tasty. If it wasn’t so windy, it would have been nice to sit outside. We then went back to the hotel to collect our bags and take a cab to the airport.

 

Once agin we flew Mint class, so the bag check in line was non-existent but the security line was very slow, despite having pre-check. The problem was not the ID check portion, but the actual security screening, as after they checked your ID, all the lines including pre-check and priority, merged into one screening lane/conveyor belt. And it was not “real” pre-check, it was one of those modified pre-checks where you are handed a card and the only benefit is you don’t have to remove your shoes—you still have to remove laptops etc. One screening lane for all those people! I’m not sure why they couldn’t have opened another lane—they seemed to have extra agents wandering around. Once we got through we got “dessert” at Illy Coffee—blended mochas while waiting to board.

 

 

Once on board we got RefreshMint drinks as per our tradition. We pushed back on time and taxied out with the pilot saying we were next in line for departure . . . . then once it became our turn, we turned off the main runway onto a siding. The pilot comes on saying we have a revised departure time—he does not tell us what the time is, but instead says he is going to try to negotiate a better time. He comes back a few minutes later saying our new departure time was 30 minutes later—-as opposed to the 2 hour later departure time they had originally given him! So while we wait the required time, I checked the FAA air traffic website and it turns out the problem was in Boston—due to weather it said inbound flights were averaging 2 hour delays. Finally we took off and from my side of the plane you could see all of SF Bay and what I think was the Kincade fire.

 

 

The meal on the plane was pretty good—-I enjoyed the salt and pepper cashew appetizer and then choose the apple kale salad (didn’t eat the kale), the chicken and the beef short ribs. I thought the short ribs were really good. Upon landing in Boston, we had to wait for them to reposition the jet bridge and then waited about 15 minutes for the bags to come out.

 

While we enjoyed our cruise, it wasn’t our best one ever. We enjoyed the ports that we visited and we enjoyed our room and dining experiences. Despite the fact that we have been on several other “cold weather” cruises, for us nothing beats a warm weather cruise (though I really like Alaska too even though it’s not that warm when we go). We did both take Future Cruise Credits in case we find another cruise we want to take, but as Princess keeps sending away all the smaller ships we tend to have fewer options.

The ship was in good condition I thought and I didn’t notice any maintenance issues that I haven’t also observed on other ships (a leak/drip here and there). The staff was fine and we liked many of the various bands/pianists they had on board this time.  The demographic on this cruise definitely skewed older—at 44 years old I was one of the younger guests. I’d say the average age was about 60 yrs on this particular cruise. There were a couple people with very young children but not many.

I would repeat this itinerary again sometime in the future.

[CineGraphic]

Very nice, detailed review. Thank you.

Do you take notes during the trip, or do you just have a remarkable memory!?

[Miramar]

Thanks--I actually do take notes and try to write up each days events every day!

[nycruiser2006]

Great review!   Enjoyed reading through.  Thank you very much.

[franktown]

Thanks for the great review and pictures.  

[USCcruisecrazy]

The review was very detailed and enjoyable to read...the pictures were spectacular!!!  Thanks!

[memoak]

Was the casino open on the way from Astoria to Seattle ?

[jbeth]

please tell me who was the head waiter in the Club Class? We  loved Giovanni, but heard he's retired. We'll be on the Grand in January! Loved your report!! Julie

[Miramar]

@memoak As far as the casino goes, I'm not sure as I didn't go or really even go by it to notice the hours.

@jbeth our head waiter in Club Class was Genel (sp?)

[Crystabel]

How did you find the condition of the ship as a whole since she was refurbished? 

[jbeth]

thanks!!  Hope he's as good as Givonni was!

[Miramar]

We found the condition of the ship to be fine--no complaints on our end. Everything we encountered was clean and in working order. We didn't find it to be in any better or worse condition than any of the other ships we've sailed.

[Ombud]

Thank you for the review. I'm on the March 29, 2020 voyage. Hoping we also dock at Pier 66 so I can walk to Pikes Market

Edited November 1, 2019 by Ombud