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LIVE: Ruby Princess to Alaska (round trip from San Francisco)

PandaBear62

By PandaBear62,
in Princess Cruises

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LawDog61 "Live from...." Rare

LawDog61

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Thanks to the OP for posting.   Following along as we are onboard her in September.  You mentioned that you enjoy Adadio.   I agree it is a lovely bar.  Is there any entertainment there?  Only thing I have ever encountered there is the house band doing some jazz.

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PandaBear62 Great Review Rare

PandaBear62

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4 hours ago, LawDog61 said:

Thanks to the OP for posting.   Following along as we are onboard her in September.  You mentioned that you enjoy Adadio.   I agree it is a lovely bar.  Is there any entertainment there?  Only thing I have ever encountered there is the house band doing some jazz.

There wasn’t music last night. I will let you know if we’re they’re again and hear any!

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ElkGroveCruiser

ElkGroveCruiser

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Princess and/or the local agent CLEARLY need more personnel at check in.  When we sailed on Ruby in April for the California Coastal, I thought the lines were long, but nowhere near as long as the lines in the photos.  

This is clearly an issue for those with mobility issues or those that are unable to stand for extended periods.

We pay good money for these cruises and there is no excuse for having to wait in queue for an hour or more JUST to get in the building.

 

Inexcusable!

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PandaBear62

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I’m a little behind, as we have been busy!

 

Day 3

Thank goodness for alarms….I set my phone to go off otherwise I would have slept late again. Maybe it’s because the room is so much darker than home and that lovely motion of the boat.

 

I made it time for the first naturalist presentation at 9;15 with Tess and then headed to the piazza after at 10 to see Kelly White, who is doing the totem carving. I left to see the “Master Hair Class” at 11:30 in the spa. I only went because they were giving away a free haircut and I need a haircut! Of course, it was basically a sell for their products, which I was expecting, but they didn’t even give away the haircut. I shouldn’t have been surprised, because I also got a manicure the first day and was supposed to receive a free paragon treatment and didn’t get that either. Despite this, I did book a haircut, because I really needed one and price wise, at $79, it’s only about $19 more than I typically pay. They were really booked and had almost nothing available so I took the appointment today at 6:15 when I was promised I’d be ready for our dinner reservation at 7:20. Fingers crossed!

I should also add at this point, one advantage of living in a really HCOL area is prices don’t seem so high when you are on vacation (have to find the benefits where I can).

I then made my way back to the piazza for lunch at the cafe and then headed back to the theatre for the second presentation by Tess. 

As an aside, I love all the Alaska presentations. I will probably attend most of them. 

Following this, it was Bingo which Kathy and I again didn’t win, but we had fun. We are alternating buying a $39 pack and decided to share any winnings. We made our way back to our respective rooms by way of getting app support and trying to change around our Sabatini reservation, with a final stop for ice cream. 

 

After a very short rest, I got ready for dinner and headed out to my hair appointment. I arrived a few minutes early in case they were ready early, but that was not to be. 

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PandaBear62

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On 7/21/2022 at 10:39 AM, Phantom of the Seas said:

The prices you see for cocktails & glasses of wine......does it make sense to keep Plus or upgrade to Premier? Thanks


I apologize for the delay in answering this, but wanted to have more experience with the package before I did.  Keep in mind, I’m not super picky and don’t have specific liquors I want to drink.

The wines choices were most confusing, as there were wines not available on the menu and wines that were available that weren’t on the menu. But there were always multiple choices and we were given the specific wine (winery). 
 

We were able to have all the mixed drinks we wanted with the plus passage and most of the specialty ones at Adagio. I never felt we were limited. 
 

Draft beer was limited but they did have bottles. I only had beer the first day or two because we were enjoying all the mixed drinks. 
 

The regular package worked fine for us and I’m glad we didn’t upgrade. I do have dinner at Sabatinis tonight and may decide to try a more expensive wine and pay the difference, as a treat. 

 

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PandaBear62

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Day 4: Icy Strait Point, Alaska (WLD Dock)

 

I am realizing I am just so tired on this trip….is it the fresh air? 

 

I didn’t have the best night (I have insomnia) but dragged myself out of bed so I could go to Tess’ presentation in glaciers. She is definitely quirky and wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea but I have enjoyed her. Sadly, I felt the glacier presentation really missed the mark. It was kind of “all over the place”. We then went to play Bingo and once again, didn’t win. But we continue to get closer. People around us won for the second time…..what???? Why not us!

 

I went to the buffet for the first time for lunch. 

 

We wandered around outside for awhile and then back to the room for a little rest and getting ready for our Wildlife excursion in Icy Strait Point. It was quite disorganized getting out for our tour. There were three tours leaving at different times but that was never mentioned. So people were in wrong groups and had to leave the bus because the tickets weren’t checked when people boarded. 

 

But, we took off and made the drive to a boardwalk area. The tour said there was a walk of 800 yards, which seems about right. Unfortunately, our wildlife sightings were very limited, so my opinion of the tour was rather poor. But that’s how it goes. 

We bought donuts at the stand ($7 for a dozen and you can choose 2 flavors). Then we went to a bar right near the donut stand and had a drink. We hit the shops and then took the gondola up to the ship. 

 

We just went to the buffet for dinner because we didn’t want two hours in the dining room. I ate, stopped by a bar on the way to room for an amaretto nightcap and headed to bed 

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PandaBear62

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On 7/21/2022 at 11:46 AM, LawDog61 said:

Thanks to the OP for posting.   Following along as we are onboard her in September.  You mentioned that you enjoy Adadio.   I agree it is a lovely bar.  Is there any entertainment there?  Only thing I have ever encountered there is the house band doing some jazz.


We’ve been up there multiple nights and no music. 

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PandaBear62

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Day 5: Juneau, Alaska

We were up early today for Juneau. We had a car rental through Juneau Car Rentals. It’s been somewhat a comedy of errors with this. They no longer have their lot near AJ dock, so have been making do in terms of car pick up. I received a text the day before the my credit card was declined and realized they had my old number from a card that was compromised. We texted and got that straightened out. We were “upgraded” to a 12 passenger van, which was not an upgrade for us, as we wanted a conventional minivan but this was our only option. So we made do. For those who may not be aware, this is not Avis or National….our van had over 150,000 miles with scratches and paint missing. It ran fine and we got where we needed to go, but it wasn’t pretty! I had already explained this to our group, but they were still a little surprised. 

 

We docked right near the tram, so got off the ship and it was a very short walk to Taku fisheries where our car was parked. We were on the road by about 8:15 to Mendenhall Glacier.  We went to the visitor center and made the hike to Nugget Falls. It’s two miles round trip. During the hike there is a plaque in memory of Romeo (https://protectallwildlifeblog.com/2019/11/08/a-tragic-wolf-called-romeo-loved-too-much-and-he-deserved-better/)

 

189B7D9D-DFFE-46E3-807B-F0ABEBE83110.thumb.jpeg.7db503a2fae9433b8aded6327498e4c1.jpeg

 

After Mendenhall glacier we drove to the Alaskan Brewing company and had some beer and food from a food truck (Wild Alaskan). The brewery opens at 11 as does the Wild Alaskan food truck (which isn’t really a truck, it’s permanent ). The pizza truck doesn’t open until 12, so we missed that.  We then headed to the Goodbelt tram, where we picked up our tour of the AJ mine. This was chosen by one of the guys in our group. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but he really enjoyed it and I think the kids in the group did too. This tour is offered by the ship but we booked directly with the company. 

We parked the car at the marine parking lot (which is where we dropped off the car too) and went to the Red Dog Saloon. Our friends live near a town that also has a Red Dog Saloon (no relation) so we had to go there. We listened to music a bit and then back to the ship. 

I had noticed last night when we got our patter that Don Friesan was the comedian in the theatre. My husband really likes him so we wanted to make that show. So I napped for 45 minutes and then headed to the show. He was funny and he’s a “clean” comedian. He has one more show the second tk last night and we plan to go to that as well. We then headed up to the Adagio lounge and enjoyed a couple of drinks and played cards. The lounge has last call by 10, so we finished our drinks and headed to the International Cafe for a sandwich while some others headed to the casino.

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milogurd Holiday Sharing Rare

milogurd

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2 hours ago, PandaBear62 said:

We parked the car at the marine parking lot (which is where we dropped off the car too) and went to the Red Dog Saloon. Our friends live near a town that also has a Red Dog Saloon (no relation) so we had to go there. We listened to music a bit and then back to the ship. 

Did you have a Duck Fart? 

thumbnail_IMG_7265.jpg

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