LIVE FROM Royal Princess Alaska September 17-24

[ceilidh1]

I will attempt to do a “live from” on our upcoming cruise on Royal Princess. I have read reports of wifi being awful, or CC not cooperating, so can’t promise anything but will post as/when I can. We are still one week from sailing, but since I have already started thinking/obsessing/planning/writing I figured I would get this rolling in the hopes that anyone else sailing might chime in. Our roll call has been pretty quiet, but I know there are a few of us on this sailing!

 

Background: Boring stuff first. On this sailing is myself, DS (11), DD (15) and DD’s BFF (15). Kids and I are seasoned cruisers, with Princess being our go-to line for many years. We are starting to branch out and try other lines these days – partly because the kids want more excitement, and partly because I haven’t been thrilled with the direction Princess has been taking (can we talk app???) This is BFF’s first cruise and I’m a little nervous – she’s a great kid, but she’s a teen…my kids have been cruising since they were babies so know the rules and the expectations. Let’s hope BFF is quick to learn! After booking this cruise, I learned that there are a number of ex coworkers/friends of ours also sailing! Ironically, we all worked together for Princess Cruises back in the day when Princess actually hired their own staff to work shoreside at the ports. Those were the good old days. It’s going to be fun to sail with them – we all booked separately, not realizing that each other was going so this is definitely meant to be!

This cruise was a bit of a last-minute thing to use up FCCs before they expired. I had originally booked on Crown for a roundtrip Hawaii sailing in October, but then DD informed me there was NO WAY she would miss 2 weeks of school. After a lot of juggling, searching, and tears, we found this sailing that met all of our requirements so I immediately booked it. We have cruised Alaska more times than I care to remember – one great advantage to where we live in Vancouver is that we can walk to the port (yes, walk) BUT you are also restricted on where those sailings will take you…

 

- Royal Princess docked at Canada Place

[ceilidh1]

Where our journey will begin..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ceilidh1]

COVID Stuff: I guess we have to discuss the elephant in the room. I have taken three cruises so far this year and felt perfectly safe on all of them. All of them required vaccination (check) and testing (check) but none of them required masks. We chose to wear N95s indoors, and many other passengers did, too. We did everything we normally do on a cruise and, other than the fact that the ships seemed empty (not a bad thing) the cruise itself seemed to be exactly the same. No big difference in service, entertainment, etc. I have been a little nervous reading the reports of so many folks testing positive on Alaskan cruises but willing to risk it. It definitely helps that we live here in Vancouver so don’t need to worry about expensive hotel quarantine or getting stuck and not being able to fly home (this was my MAJOR concern on the previous cruises this year). My reading tells me that nothing has changed in terms of protocols for cruises from Canada so we will be doing a telehealth rapid test on Friday for our sailing on Saturday. For folks who may be interested, we get the free tests from drug stores and pay for the video observation from Azova COVID-19 Testing for WestJet and Swoop Travellers (azova.com) We used this with two of the previous sailings and it was easy, convenient, and accepted! The first sailing we used Switch Health – also no issues but more expensive and they had to send us the test (that was back in February so may have changed now).

 

 

- Example of free test kit available in BC drugstores, along with video observation via Azova.com

[ceilidh1]

Itinerary: As I mentioned earlier, this cruise was a bit of a last minute booking to use up our remaining FCC from cancellations. It needed to meet specific criteria:

 

ü  Not involve any flights – I’m less concerned about Covid on my travels than I am about delays, cancellation, and lost luggage so this was a biggie right now. This sailing is roundtrip Vancouver so not only do we not need to fly, we don’t even need to drive – we live an 8 minute walk from Canada Place!

 

ü  No longer than 7 days – while I’m of the mind “the longer the better” my grade 10 DD was horrified at the thought of taking any time off school (not sure how she became so responsible). She reluctantly agreed to a week maximum. This sailing is 7 days, but one of those days happens to be a pro-d day for schools so she will only be missing 4 days.

 

ü  Timing – DD’s BFF, who is sailing with us, is going on a roadtrip at the end of September (I guess she isn’t as worried about missing school) so that had to be factored into the timing of the cruise. DD insisted that the beginning of the school year would mean that she wouldn’t miss as much work and it would be easier to catch up. Since school started back on September 6^th and we leave on September17th, this sailing seemed to work with timing.

 

This is a 7 day roundtrip Vancouver-Alaska sailing, stopping at all the usual ports – Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway. There is also a call to Victoria for a few hours on the last evening. This sailing will not take in Glacier Bay, but will call at Endicott Arm. We have been to Alaska so many times that I didn’t even look at the ports – we have literally done them all countless times. Since this is a Royal Class ship, it will not sail the Inside Passage but travel on the outside of Vancouver Island – once again, not a concern as we have sailed both routes a number of times.

 

 

[dickinson]

Thanks!  I'll be following along.  Have a wonderful cruise.

[cnd crsr]

Appreciate you doing this, we will be boarding the Royal  Sept. 24  - Oct. 23. Waiting to hear all about the ship. This will be our first post Covid sailing.

Wishing you and the 'kids' a wonderful cruise🙂

[CruzeQueen2]

@ceilidh1Thanks for starting up the thread. See you onboard, very soon!

Edited September 11, 2022 by CruzeQueen2
word added

[geocruiser]

Hi,

Enjoy your cruise.  Alaska is great. Were any forms that you needed in Canada to take a BFF out of the country?  I don't know want the United States might want bring a minor into the country.  If I got the meaning of BFF wrong, then please excuse this post. Just asking incase there is paper work that you might need.

[donswife]

We took my DD's friend with us on an Alaska cruise the year they graduated from high school.  We shoved that poor girl so far out of her comfort zone. She had not only never been on a cruise,  but not on vacation without family and never on an airplane!  She was seasick and insisted on taking dramamine,  which made her sleepy.  Prep friend that she needs to have bonine/meclizine available if she doesn'tdo the patch.  A cruise is a great trip to take a friend since they can eat what they want and almost everything is included. 

[Marlster]

3 hours ago, CruzeQueen2 said:

@ceilidh1Thanks for starting up the thread. See you onboard, very soon!

I will join you for that drink LOL.  Myself and my Daughter will be on this cruise, her first time cruising.  I had to use up my FCC so booked this one, no flying.  Did you happen to get an upsell?  I did and we went for it.  WE went from a balcony to a mini suite, which is good with 2 women in 1 room!!!!!!!

[CruzeQueen2]

5 minutes ago, Marlster said:

I will join you for that drink LOL.  Myself and my Daughter will be on this cruise, her first time cruising.  I had to use up my FCC so booked this one, no flying.  Did you happen to get an upsell?  I did and we went for it.  WE went from a balcony to a mini suite, which is good with 2 women in 1 room!!!!!!!

Yes, thanks to people here on Cruise Critic. I saw that upsells were available and worked with my agent to get one. We took an upsell from interior to balcony. Happy now! See you at Crooners and Vines. I like both bars and the bartenders there.

Edited September 11, 2022 by CruzeQueen2
adding info

[CruzeQueen2]

@MarlsterSee you at Alfredos as well! Can't wait. 

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by CruzeQueen2

[ceilidh1]

4 hours ago, geocruiser said:

Hi,

Enjoy your cruise.  Alaska is great. Were any forms that you needed in Canada to take a BFF out of the country?  I don't know want the United States might want bring a minor into the country.  If I got the meaning of BFF wrong, then please excuse this post. Just asking incase there is paper work that you might need.

We have a form printed from the Government website that needs to be signed and notarised by her parents to give permission. Hopefully that will suffice - the good thing is that we all live here in Vancouver, where the cruise begins and ends, so if anything comes up her parents can be at the port in minutes!

[ceilidh1]

47 minutes ago, Marlster said:

I will join you for that drink LOL.  Myself and my Daughter will be on this cruise, her first time cruising.  I had to use up my FCC so booked this one, no flying.  Did you happen to get an upsell?  I did and we went for it.  WE went from a balcony to a mini suite, which is good with 2 women in 1 room!!!!!!!

I was already in a mini, so unless they had suites available there wouldn't have been anything to upsell us to! My friends on the sailing went from an inside to a balcony, though!

[Italy52]

Have a wonderful cruise!  Looking forward to hearing all about your cruise.

[ceilidh1]

Cabin: We have sailed in everything from an inside to a suite and are not picky on type or location since we spend so little time in the room. That being said, for this sailing, I was a little more selective with cabin type since BFF was coming along. It’s one thing being in a tiny box with my kids, but quite another with someone else’s kid! I figured that we would all like a little extra space/privacy and looked at deluxe balconies and mini suites – who doesn’t love a sofa, right? The minis were only slightly more expensive than the deluxe balconies, so I decided to go with that. I also decided to try something I have never tried before in terms of location. While I really don’t care where I’m located, I tend to book more aft cabins than anything else (I think it is just ingrained in me from when the kids were little and it was easier to be aft near the kids club). This sailing I’m all the way forward on Lido Deck (never been on that deck previously). I figured that it would be convenient if the kids wanted to run out and get pizza or ice cream. Hopefully, this will turn out to be a decent choice.

 

I should mention that cabins on this sailing have been erratic. At one point, another friend was thinking of sailing with us and we were looking at availability, There was lots available in all categories and she was going to book an inside cabin. The next day, all inside cabins were showing as sold out. There is no way they could have all sold overnight as we counted at least 10-12 available on various decks when we were looking. A few days after that, the entire sailing became “unavailable.” Since then, I have been checking almost daily – while insides never opened back up, the sailing itself would be available one day and unavailable the next. I have no idea what Princess is doing, but I’m confident that it’s not sold out. Maybe limiting capacity? Creating supply/demand? Glitchy website? Who knows...

 

 

 

[cr8tiv1]

Thank you for bringing a different perspective to this cruise.  I can't imagine cruising with 3 teenagers.  At least they will keep each other company.  Hope your 11 year old will be included in a few of their activities.  

 

First order of business.  Find out where ALL the bathrooms are on the Lido Deck !

[ceilidh1]

Pre-Cruise: I hate to be negative and complain before we even set foot on the ship but really Princess, what were you thinking with that app? I had sailed a few times on medallion class ships with the original app and quite enjoyed the experience, having zero issues with the app. However, this new and improved version is all kinds of words that would get me banned from this site. So let’s just say I’m not a fan. This all began way back when I had a vintage (to Princess) iphone 6. I loved this phone. Sure, it didn’t have the fancy camera or the face recognition or the filters to make me beautiful, but it worked perfectly as a phone (gasp), had a huge 256g storage, and pretty much did everything I needed it to do…as a phone. EXCEPT work with the new and improved medallion app. After many hours of frozen screens, white pages, crashing, and errors Princess finally told me that my phone was not compatible and to get an updated model. Ummm, what? At this time, there was no option to do any of the pre-cruise stuff any other way so I reluctantly bought a new phone. Only to find out, that the (insert curse words) app still didn’t work properly. OK, now that’s out of my system, let’s talk about the process and procedures to prepare for the cruise.

 

Many of the check in requirements can now be accessed and completed on a computer rather than only on the app. I chose to complete as much as I could this way – partly because the app usually leads to be wanting to throw my phone at the nearest wall, and partly because my eyes are not as great as when I was a teenager and my fat fingers are not as nimble. Having said this, after many, many hours of blood, sweat, tears, and cursing I consider myself a bit of an expert when it comes to navigating the app. Surprisingly, for this sailing, it cooperated far better than on any of the previous attempts to use it. After completing the required travel documentation, uploading passport photos (strike one on the app – it doesn’t seem to like glossy…but aren’t all passports glossy?) seemed to take forever. At one point I was yelling so much that DD took over and managed, in one attempt, to successfully do what I had been trying to do for the past 30 minutes. Next up came the credit card for the onboard account. Now this is where the app gets tricky. I save it in my account but it doesn’t save for the kids, even though I check the box for “all guests”. Hmm. I delete and retry. Nope. I try to add it manually for each guest but, since they are kids, the app is too “smart” to allow that. I take a few deep breaths and back all the way out to the screen that has the list of sailings, etc. It is from here that I am able to access my account and check off the “authorized users” for my credit card. Why, Princess? Why are you messing with me? Anyways, once I had done this, the card was automatically saved to all 4 accounts and we got the green check mark for that section. I have never felt so much satisfaction at getting a green check mark! Next up is ordering the medallions. Here’s another fail on the part of Princess. If you live in Canada, you can’t get the medallions shipped to you but must collect them at the port. Here’s the thing – the port for this sailing is in Canada, so obviously the shipping company must ship to Canada or else how would the medallions make it to the port? These are the kind of things that keep me awake at night. Other than the fact that I had no option other than to choose pick up at port, the rest of the medallion ordering was pretty painless – I opted for the regular (free) medallion and the (free) lanyard. Both kids have the wristband already that they use and I have airtag holders that fit the medallion perfectly, so no need for expensive Princess accessories. Another green check mark for us! The health section was a little more tricky as I needed to figure out if we were merely fully vaccinated, or up-to-date. The teens and I have had 3 shots (all that we have been allowed in BC) and the 11 year old has had 2 shots (all that he has been allowed in BC) but the terminology seemed to be skewed toward the US CDC definitions…I agonized a little over what our status was, but figured it really didn’t matter since we had to take a test anyways. I plugged in fully vaccinated for all of us and moved on. Surprisingly, I was able to easily upload the proof of vaccination but was then met with the dreaded “Pending” that never seemed to change! Will it ever be accepted, or will it forever be pending? I was disappointed that I couldn’t get the green check mark for this section, but I guess I have to wait until I can upload our test results. What did happen, though, was that all four of were suddenly GREEN LANE! Yay. Arrival groups, of course, were met with the white screen of death so at that point I counted my blessings and quietly put down my phone…

 

Now that I felt I was an app expert, I decided to dabble a little with dining. In the past, I have enjoyed traditional dining with the same waitstaff, time, and table but it’s not a deal breaker. For now, I have booked the same time in the same dining room each night, except for one night where I have booked Crown Grill. This all seemed to work without a hitch. Kind of. After booking and paying for Crown Grill, I realised that I never received any kind of confirmation and it did not show on the travel summary or personalizer. Princess chat assured me this was not a problem. I’m not as convinced. Then, to make matters worse I decided to upgrade to the Premiere package (more on that later) which includes specialty dining so I cancelled my original booking and rebooked with the dining credit. While rebooking and applying the credit worked like a charm, I have yet to see my original credit card charge be refunded. Time will tell.

 

I’m feeling really proud of my technical abilities by this point, so I go into Journey View timeline and check out what events are on offer. Nothing blew me away – Encore and Sweet Soul Music are the production shows (seen both several times), comedian, magician, various trivia, Alaska presentations (all of which we have done but will likely do again as they really are great) and the usual suspects of art auctions and Effy giveaways, I went through and bookmarked any that appealed to us, but I’m not 100% sure that this does anything – it doesn’t seem to “flag” anywhere or act as a reminder. But hey, it looks pretty with the water and the ship…

 

 

[ceilidh1]

You can add other folks as authorized credit card users under "manage my payment methods"

[ceilidh1]

 

It took a while, but that satisfaction at getting all checks and green lane ready...

[ceilidh1]

 

Even Dine My Way seemed to cooperate this time...

[ceilidh1]

 

It might look pretty, but still  not sure how much it helps? Also, when using this function my phone gets REALLY hot!

[TravelGirlinDallas]

Looking forward to following along!!

[Shaded Lady]

Following Ceili! Can't wait...

[cr8tiv1]

Thank you for holding your tongue with the app so that you would not be banned from CC or Princess.  Looking forward to your report...whenever you get to post.