Cheapo Dad's Trip Report on the Majestic Princess (Maybe with few pictures added)...

[harryfat1]

One last night time pic from outside

 

 

Guess it’s the Final Countdown of the cruise until we are done:

 

 

 

As in the song by Kansas, the cruise was done in what seems to like a blink of an eye.  Guess all vacations are that way as it seems one vacation week seems to go by so much faster than one working week.

 

 

 

 

This concludes day 7 of the cruise report.  Now before you all just walk away, I still have info/pictures to share for day 8. 

 

Whenever I read other trip reports, people just end their last cruise day report by saying they got home and had fun time without going into many details. 

 

For anal scale of 9+ person like yours truly, I am always left wondering “But wait?  How did you get off the ship and what is that process like?” So I always do the full walkthrough on disembarkation just like embarkation.

 

My typical trip report covers airport to airport as I started the report from SFO airport and when you see the SFO airport picture after we land, then that’s where it’ll end.

 

To borrow an American Sports’ famous quote – It Ain’t Over until the Fat Lady Sings. I hear her warming up backstage now but she’s not on the stage yet.

 

[symui]

19 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

t Ain’t Over until the Fat Lady Sings

 

Thanks for your report(s), I enjoyed following along

 

In your final post I hope you include more Pro/Cons of the Majestic and Princess vs some of your other favorite ships and cruise lines. Since you have already shared some comparison gems I have my fingers crossed for more.   So far DW and I have only cruised on Princess but like to hear more about other ships and lines. 

 

Thanks again for your report and pictures.   It's also great to see 3 generations traveling together.  So far in our family we have managed 2 generations on a cruise, working on 3 with a stretch goal of 4. 

[harryfat1]

3 hours ago, symui said:

 

Thanks for your report(s), I enjoyed following along

 

In your final post I hope you include more Pro/Cons of the Majestic and Princess vs some of your other favorite ships and cruise lines. Since you have already shared some comparison gems I have my fingers crossed for more.   So far DW and I have only cruised on Princess but like to hear more about other ships and lines. 

 

Thanks again for your report and pictures.   It's also great to see 3 generations traveling together.  So far in our family we have managed 2 generations on a cruise, working on 3 with a stretch goal of 4. 

Ah, fellow Northern CA traveler! Thanks for reading along.

 

I will have a summary of what I thought of the cruise after I am done with day 8 but it may not be as elaborate as you are looking for.  After I am done with the summary, if you or anyone have follow up questions, feel free to ask them afterwards.  I will be around to answer any questions and do a more detailed comparison if you have questions on what cruise lines/ships have to offer.

 

At the end of the day, cruises are all about personal preferences.  It's like buying a car, what one person wants isn't what someone else prefers.  After awhile it's like Ford vs. Chevy or Honda vs. Toyota or BMW vs. Mercedes debate.  I find Princess too sedate but maybe that's what people want when they choose Princess.

 

If you travel with multi generation, then I would think you should venture away from Princess.  I know if I were 10 years old, I wouldn't put Princess/HAL/Celebrity very high on my list as Carnival/RCI/NCL is better suited for younger cruisers. 

 

The more generations you will be traveling with (3 or 4),  then you want cruise lines that caters to families.  The first 3 cruise lines on the list are not as good as the next 3 for multi generational outings.

[harryfat1]

Day 8 – Homeward Bound

 

 

 

Woke up very early by my standards at 6 AM to take few pictures of Vancouver harbor/skyline.  As mentioned previously, the original plan was to take the 7:30 PM flight home so we can spend the morning/afternoon walking around Vancouver before heading to the airport on the Skytrain (Vancouver’s subway system – best transportation value).

 

However, when the WestJet cancelled our 7:30 flight and placed us in the 12:30 PM flight 5 weeks before sail date, all the Vancouver walking tour plans are dead.  Instead, it’s a mad dash for the airport as we disembark.

 

Yeah, it's not good when you see bold red ALL CAPS on flight change 5 weeks prior to sailing as your options to book new flights for 6 people is very limited

 

 

Last daily scan that shows the departure times:

 

 

 

 

So we were assigned the special “Direct to Bus” red tag #2 for departure.  The special thing about the direct to bus program is we skip Canadian Customs in its entirety as for all intents and purposes, we never went to Canada other than in transit on the bus for the flight home. 

 

This program expediates the process in eliminating one border crossing.

I showed this back on day 3 (?) but I will include it again for this discussion.  You have to fit the various criteria to be in this program (see #1 through #4 below)

 

 

Typically, you go through US customs AFTER you land in the US airport but with Canada, the US Customs is situated inside Vancouver airport so by time we landed in SFO, it’s as if we were on a domestic flight with no customs issues.  There’s advantage and disadvantage to this approach as it takes up an extra time at the Vancouver and increases the risk of missing your flight but you avoid the big mess of having your luggage searched on returning home.

 

We were on the disadvantage side as we barely made our flight due to the extra US Customs layer in Canada.

 

Anyway, enough talking.  Let’s show some pictures

 

Vancouver harbor at 6 AM

 

 

 

 

 

One last look at the 3 connected cabins

 

[harryfat1]

Pretty quiet at the buffet area at 6:35

 

Last breakfast on the ship

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

If you somehow misplaced the disembarkation letter and forgot when/where you are supposed to go, Princess list them on the big wall displays by all the elevators

 

 

We are “Red 2” (Yeah, there’s no Red 1 – don’t ask why).  We were to meet at the Princess theater at 8 AM

 

 

The lady from Princess explaining this special program that used to be in place pre-Covid and then stopped it due to Covid and now is back in operations again. The idea of “Direct to Bus” is that we are to be in a “bubble” from ship to Vancouver airport. 

 

Everyone in the Princess theater is part of the "direct to bus" program

 

 

We can not get off in Vancouver to go sightseeing or shopping. “Do not Pass Go and Do Not Collect $200” (Monopoly reference). With this program, we DO NOT collect our suitcases at the cruise terminal. Those are being sent directly to the airport.  We collect them there.

 

[harryfat1]

OK, “Red 2” was called and off we went.  Walking past the narrow Promenade deck and to Canada Place as we have officially set foot in Canada – but not according to the governmental agencies as we are in a "bubble" to not have any meaningful presence in Canada in just boarding and bus and back to USA we go.

 

It's as if we never landed in Canada as far as Canadian government is concerned. But we still have to go through US customs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See the special sign that says “D2B” by the bus window – Direct to Bus

 

 

Makes you feel warm and fuzzy when you are taking the bus at the bowel of the building at the very bottom where it says “evacuation route” as we are escorted off the ship via the special "back door" exit.  So either you feel like a VIP with special exit or a criminal being escorted out via the back alley...

[Coralc]

On 10/20/2022 at 11:01 PM, harryfat1 said:

 

s in the song by Kansas, the cruise was done in what seems to like a blink of an eye.  Guess all vacations are that way as it seems one vacation week seems to go by so much faster than one working week.

 

 

 

That's funny. There was an interview with one of the members of Kansas in the EBT. (Yes, I still get the newspaper) And he mentioned that young people come up all the time to tell him how much they enjoyed the song at their county fair concerts...."We played it at grandma's funeral!" 

[harryfat1]

On 10/22/2022 at 12:45 AM, Coralc said:

That's funny. There was an interview with one of the members of Kansas in the EBT. (Yes, I still get the newspaper) And he mentioned that young people come up all the time to tell him how much they enjoyed the song at their county fair concerts...."We played it at grandma's funeral!" 

I used to get the hard copy of East Bay Times as well but they kept increasing the price to the point where I stopped the subscription as nowadays I get the latest news update via the phone.

 

Guess if you have a good theme song, you are set for life as some songs will be played by folks who weren’t even born when the original songs came out. Case in point are all the disco hits from RCI's 70's night.  Many people at those parties were not even around back in the 70s.

 

Something about playing songs from the old days that bring back memories - I can listen to songs from the 70s but I can't sit through an old movie or TV episode from the 70s.

[harryfat1]

All righty, time to finish up the trip report now as the fat lady is on the stage belting out her song.

 

As we are at the bottom of the building, we get a glimpse of ship/shore operations

 

Yeah, don’t think Princess is going to put these glamours pictures in their Alaska brochures anytime soon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Finally made it to the streets of Vancouver

 

Seeing the sights of Vancouver as we make our way to the airport

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

After arriving, we went inside the terminal where Princess has set aside an area for “Red 2” luggage. One mishap was my son’s “Red 2” tag fell off and it was situated with the “Red 3” section so we had to go over to another section to retrieve it. 

 

Sometimes it’s scary to just rely on one flimsy paper tag to track your luggage.  Guess if you are anal, you should double tag your suitcases. I guess it must have fallen off after it was placed with the Red section.  Imagine if the tag fell off back on the ship, then the suitcase would be waiting back at the pier at Canada Place…

 

 

 

 

 

So we started walking off the ship around 8:10 and made it to the airport by 9 AM.  That’s not bad as if you were to walk off on your own, you would still need to walk off the ship and then get a cab to the airport and that’s not counting whatever time you’d need to talk to Canadian customs.

 

With the flight at 12:30, you would think having 3 plus hours at the airport would be easy to make our flight.  So were we but we were almost proven wrong…

 

[cr8tiv1]

The suspense is killing me.

[harryfat1]

Loads of people at the United check in but we were on WestJet (Canada’s second largest airline).  Technically we booked it with Delta (which stands for Don’t Expect Luggage To Arrive) but they have codeshare with WestJet that provides the actual service.

 

 

 

First issue with WestJet is that at the self-check-in Kiosk, I went through all the steps to try and check in my wife and my suitcases (Princess booked 6 of us under 3 separate reservations based on 3 cabins), the system took my money but didn’t give me the tag to put on the luggage and kicked me off at the end.  So basically I got ripped off by the machine.

 

Then we tried the next set of reservations for the boys but the machine couldn’t read their passports correctly.  Arrrgh, this is not working.

 

So then we had to stand in a super long line for the WestJet to try and get someone to help us. By time all 6 of us were processed, it was one plus hour later at 10:20.  OK, we still have time for the 12:30 flight, right?  Not so fast.

 

After getting the luggage tag, Vancouver airport doesn’t have the system where the airline workers just throw the luggage behind them on the conveyor belt to be loaded onto the plane.  YOU, the passenger, now must stand in another long line just to drop off your luggage. 

 

(This is the line to drop off your check in suitcase after you received the tag from your airline.  Yes, one line only and it loops back and forth)

 

 

OK, so off to stand in another long line.  By the we got to the end of the line, the workers said my luggage and my wife’s luggage scan tag was “inactive” as the WestJet worker didn’t activate it when she had to do the override because the kiosk ripped me off.  So now what?

 

Go back to the WestJet worker and have her activate it.  That took more time and after that, it’s back in line AGAIN to drop off our luggage.  You got to be kidding me…

 

After we dropped off the luggage the second time, then it’s ANOTHER LINE to go through US Customs.  This is the most inefficient boarding system I have seen.  As with all Customs officers, these people’s pay gets deducted if they showed any sort of kindness to the people.  Hey, we are US citizens also and not criminals.

[cr8tiv1]

🚢    ✈️    🥲

[harryfat1]

So by the time all the lines were cleared, it was 11:45 by time we stood in line at a fast food place trying to grab lunch to eat for the plane ride home.  Of course, there was a huge line at all the food options.  If they just had some cold sandwich option at Tim Horton’s, we would have grabbed that as the WestJet plane started boarding people. But no, we had to stand in line of at least 15 people ahead of us.

 

 

By time we go to the front of the line to order, WestJet was making the announcement over the PA system saying “This is the last call for passengers to SFO on WestJet flight.  Please make your way to the gate now”. Crap.

 

OK, forget ordering anything hot which requires cooking.  Whatever is “instant”, we will take.  So, we ended up with cold bagels for lunch…Beggars can’t be choosers.

 

 

We ran to the gate and then hopped on the plane before they closed the airplane door behind us.  Not exactly a relaxing end to a vacation but at least we made it on the plane.

 

So this was our lunch.  Not exactly cruise ship quality…

 

 

Here were few of the songs I listed to from my phone as we try to calm our nerves in the flight home

 

 

 

 

Going home to the city by the Bay

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Tried to order Mr. Noodles listed below from the flight menu on the plane but they said they ran out.  It's not my day...

 

 

View of SF Bay area as we approach.  Technically we had to fly almost all the way to San Jose before making a U Turn to go up as SF in bound flights comes up from the South Bay

 

 

 

Yeah, more houses than Hoonah...

 

 

Back to SFO at the International Terminal

 

 

As I said before, I typically start and end my trip reports at SFO so this will be the last picture from this trip report.

 

 

So this concludes the entire trip report.  As always, thanks to everyone for reading along all the days/weeks. I will have few concluding remarks in the following couple of posts.

 

Let’s end it with Memories song as that’s what we have after every vacation:

 

 

 

[dickinson]

Thanks for taking us along!

[martincath]

3 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

After getting the luggage tag, Vancouver airport doesn’t have the system where the airline workers just throw the luggage behind them on the conveyor belt to be loaded onto the plane.  YOU, the passenger, now must stand in another long line just to drop off your luggage. 

 

After we dropped off the luggage the second time, then it’s ANOTHER LINE to go through US Customs.  This is the most inefficient boarding system I have seen.  As with all Customs officers, these people’s pay gets deducted if they showed any sort of kindness to the people.  Hey, we are US citizens also and not criminals.

Loving the detailed posts and general tone.

 

Just so you know though Harry, we do have the regular 'hand bags to the workers, drop on conveyer behind them' system, but we're not allowed to use it for US-bound flights doing Preclearance - because that's how your government wants it done! All those bags are scanned separately from other int'l flights.

 

As to efficiency - every CBP agent working in Vancouver, Toronto etc. replaces several that would otherwise have to be deployed across every US airport that accepts flights from Canada, even tiny ones that only handle a handful a day... so it's more about saving federal government wages than making travelers lives easier, but it is actually more efficient (if you don't have issues with your bag tags!) than being cleared at your first US airport most of the time.

 

Surly CBP... we also have nothing to do with that, we do our best to keep them well-stocked with Timmies, Kinder Eggs, and Maple syrup, but some folks you just can't cheer up 😉

 

Your Westjet ticket machine/worker issues? For those you can legitimately blame Canada!

[cr8tiv1]

@harryfat1I will have to say that out of all the days you were traveling, your airport experience was the most "exciting". 

 

What did you expect when you tried to order the noodles????  Cherry on top of the sundae.  

 

Looking forward to your final comments.  Do we have an anticipated "next" cruise to look forward to?  How will us Princess folk know how to find you if you jump ship?

[harryfat1]

57 minutes ago, martincath said:

Loving the detailed posts and general tone.

 

Just so you know though Harry, we do have the regular 'hand bags to the workers, drop on conveyer behind them' system, but we're not allowed to use it for US-bound flights doing Preclearance - because that's how your government wants it done! All those bags are scanned separately from other int'l flights.

 

As to efficiency - every CBP agent working in Vancouver, Toronto etc. replaces several that would otherwise have to be deployed across every US airport that accepts flights from Canada, even tiny ones that only handle a handful a day... so it's more about saving federal government wages than making travelers lives easier, but it is actually more efficient (if you don't have issues with your bag tags!) than being cleared at your first US airport most of the time.

 

Surly CBP... we also have nothing to do with that, we do our best to keep them well-stocked with Timmies, Kinder Eggs, and Maple syrup, but some folks you just can't cheer up 😉

 

Your Westjet ticket machine/worker issues? For those you can legitimately blame Canada!

Hi, Martin,

 

Thanks for the note.  I appreciate your info at the Alaska boards and you were the one that educated me of the tidal conditions on why we had to come back to Vancouver early.

 

As for surly agents, actually those were the US Customs agents.  Due to the "direct to bus" program we were on, we bypass the CBP.  We never talked to any CBP person as technically we never landed in Vancouver other than being on a "bubble" bus and sequester at the airport.

 

We had discussed on another thread that one needs to arrive at Vancouver airport at least 3 plus hours prior to the flight.  We technically had 3.5 hours prior to our flight and that's not even needing to talk to CBP and we barely made our flight due to various airline related issues. 

 

I think any flights out of Vancouver prior to 2 PM could be at risk on day of disembarkation.  If we didn't qualify for the direct to bus program and then having to deal with 2 countries' worth of customs officials in the same morning would be a time consuming ordeal.

 

 

[harryfat1]

Princess advertised this sailing as a “Voyage of the Glaciers” and to that extent, they delivered in taking the passengers to the two major Alaska Glacier Destinations – Hubbard Glacier and Glacier Bay National Parks. 

 

For me, seeing the Glaciers is why you should go an Alaska cruise as the ports are just “OK” in my opinion.  Maybe if you do some exotic excursion, then you don’t need to see the Glaciers but for an average cruiser, I put that as a top of the list.

 

As for other aspects of the cruise, the food is fine.  Nothing spectacular or fancy but we are not picky eaters.   We found enough things to eat at the buffet and MDR to keep us full for the voyage.  Buffets are essential when you have a bigger traveling group. Easier to go to MDR for every meal as a single or a couple, much harder for bigger multigenerational group where people have different food preferences. The Asian noodle section is a plus as we never experienced that on a cruise ship before.  Princess’ pizza is really nice place for a no extra charge eatery.

 

The obstructed balcony is very nice to have when you can open the partitions for a big group. Princess prices them to be similar to Oceanview of other cruise lines so they provide a great value. Especially if you factor in the $300/pp airfare credit that Princess gives you for one way Alaska sailings to bring the price to be lower than inside cabins after the airfare credits are applied.

 

For us the biggest letdown is the entrainment portion of the cruise.  Nothing really fit our demographics.  Princess doesn’t even try to appeal to families/younger crowd with miniature golf or activities like other cruise lines that keeps the family entertained on sea days.  I had read reviews prior to the sailing that Princess entertainment is not the best and I prepped the family to have lower expectation prior to the cruise but even with that, we were disappointed with the offerings.

 

I started this trip report with Rolling Stone’s “You can’t always get what you wanted” and Beatles “Life Goes On” videos. That pretty much summarizes the feeling here.  It was a solid cruise. We saw and experienced different things on this cruise but didn’t get everything we wanted and now it’s onward to next cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

I always found it interesting when people on CC always say, “You MUST do this on your Alaska cruise…” For me, there are no “MUST” do on any cruise (Well, I guess you MUST be back on the ship before she sails…)

 

As I see it, the cruise vacation is the ultimate buffet of vacations.  You can do as much as you want or as little as you want.  You can do lots of fancy excursions at each port or none at all. There are no MUST on a cruise. 

 

A cruise is like those cooking competitions on TV where you are given one ingredient, say like egg and all the contestants need to make something from it.  Chances are everyone will make something different in what they do with the egg in their dishes.  Same with the cruise.

 

Unless you travel as a group, chances are you will have a different cruise experience than the people next door to you or across the hall from you as everyone do their own thing on the cruise.

 

I was born overseas and I grew up learning the parable of the 6 blind men and the elephant story.

 

Wiki can explain the story better than I can:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

 

On any cruise, we are just one of the blind men feeling the elephant in our little world but everyone has their little stories to tell and only if everything gets added together can one piece together a whole story.

 

Just be skeptical when you read other CC reports if someone is complaining about their bad cruise experience as they may only represent one part of the elephant and you are not getting the whole story.

[harryfat1]

This is my fourth installment in my trip report using the Cheapo Dad’s altered ego.  As you all know by now, I’m pretty anal and I do more than necessary in my cruise planning. When I read CC cruise reports, I find that families are under represented on CC as many trip reports are written from folks who are single/couples.  Not too many from family guys/gals but we know they exist as we all see families on many sailings during the summer and holidays.

 

I also found that being frugal is under represented as well with many of the reports are from cruisers in fancy cabins and people going on expensive excursions such that if someone is a newbie cruiser, they will feel the pressure to upgrade as the fear of missing out (FOMO) sets in. I wanted to write a trip report showing that one can enjoy their cruise vacations by just doing the basics in not paying for specialty restaurants or just walking around the port for free.

 

In combining the two concepts above, I came up with my altered ego and trying to write reports from family’s perspective and trying to show that you can have a good vacation even on a “plain vanilla” cruise with not many add-on activities.  Although as my kids are getting older, I no longer talk about kids’ clubs and other kids’ activities. Somewhere down the road, I will graduate and become Cheapo (Grumpy) Grandpa…

[martincath]

3 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

Hi, Martin,

 

Thanks for the note.  I appreciate your info at the Alaska boards and you were the one that educated me of the tidal conditions on why we had to come back to Vancouver early.

 

As for surly agents, actually those were the US Customs agents.  Due to the "direct to bus" program we were on, we bypass the CBP.  We never talked to any CBP person as technically we never landed in Vancouver other than being on a "bubble" bus and sequester at the airport.

 

We had discussed on another thread that one needs to arrive at Vancouver airport at least 3 plus hours prior to the flight.  We technically had 3.5 hours prior to our flight and that's not even needing to talk to CBP and we barely made our flight due to various airline related issues. 

 

I think any flights out of Vancouver prior to 2 PM could be at risk on day of disembarkation.  If we didn't qualify for the direct to bus program and then having to deal with 2 countries' worth of customs officials in the same morning would be a time consuming ordeal.

I've been reading backwards up the chain, or I would have asked about the Direct to Bus already as it seems... odd. When it was offered in TheBeforeTimes it didn't just skip over CBSA (Canadian I&C) but also put you straight into the Secure area at YVR, i.e. no need to see anyone from CBP (US I&C) either! This seems like a weird half-way house, no Canadian processing but even though you have gone from US jurisdiction to US jurisdiction you still have to be processed again!?

 

For a flight that tight, skipping even the usually-entirely-behind-the-scenes CBSA step is perhaps worthwhile, but the old way would have had an even bigger time saving - we'll need to see whether this version sticks for next season, the old one comes back, or yet another weirdly random process is trialed ("Redheads can skip CBSA, Blue Rinses can skip CBP, and if you are traveling in a trio and your third has white hair you get the special Flag Matching Package and we put you in a helicopter right to your front yard!")