Just back from Island Princess SB 6/3-6/11

[FloridaTourist]

Hi everyone. We just returned from the Island Princess on 6/13. What i learned from others on Cruise Critic helped me plan a fantastic vacation so I plan on sharing back with everyone. In this thread i will try to give as much detail as i can from our cruise and entire trip, so please feel free to ask questions. It will probably take me several days to post it all. Everyones experince on a ship is a little different and sometimes age is a factor. We are in our early to mid forties and traveled with our 2 teenage sons 17 (almost 18) and 14 and my inlaws who are in there 60's.

 

Day 1. - We left Orlando (8:30am) for Anchorage via Seattle on 6/3. Flights were all on time. Alaskan Airways was a great airline in that there was plenty of leg room. Much more then Delta. They even gave you food. Nothing great....just little sandwiches but it was food, but we had brought a softsided cooler with our own anyway. The weather was great. The kids wear wearing shorts. When the wind blew though it was a cold wind. We arrived early but without our luggage. Seems that 2 full bins from our flight were left on the tarmack in Seattle. We found out later the same thing happend to an earlier flight with Alaskan Airways the same day. We arrived at 3:00 pm but didn't see our luggage till the next morning. So my tip here is to take carry-on with your personal items. We stayed at the Marriott downtown. The Marriott was a nice hotel and convient to walk from to all over downtown. That night we ate at the Glacier Brew House. Not the usual brew house. Was more a seafood place but the food was very good nontheless. That night we were to tired to do much so we just walked around downtown for a while. I think we went to sleep around 8:30 that night, but it was really 12:30 to us, plus a long travel day.

[FloridaTourist]

Sunday morning we ate breafast at the Snow City Cafe. Its on 4th st. A great local breakfast place. I suggest you use the phone a head service. We didn't know about it and waited almost an hour. The food was great, and so was the coffee. Enjoy good coffee while you can. I'll tell you about that later. This day we rented a van for the 6 of us at Avis. Everything downtown is easy to find. It's all numbers and letters. We took the van to find several spots around town we had heard about from the staff at the hotel and from reading CC. First was the Wild Blueberry farm. Cute little place to get some gifts for home. Choclate factory inside as well. The Sourdough Cafe was next door and we were really just checking it out for dinner later that night. It was a great place. Very good BBQ. Excellent ribs. The show that night was canceled though. We then drove over to Lake Hood and watched the float plans take off and land from the Millinum Hotel. The hotel provides a great vantage point and lots of Free Parking :D. Free is always good when you are on vacation. The kids liked this part as well. It was a little cool around the lake for sure. In the open air, this was really a jeans day. If we had stayed in the downtown area shorts would have worked. We then drove to Flat Top Moutain. Wow!!!!! a great place to hike with fantastic views. If you have sometime and the energy it has a 6 mile hiking trail. If thats to long, at least do the 1/2 mile to get the view on the Powerline trail. The ride up is great too! Even had snow still on the sides. In my opinion, this was the highlight of the day.

[LisaH]

Can't wait to hear more. We are on the Island NEXT July for the 3-day land and then 7-day SB. Cabin - bumpout B503. Thanks for your info.

[FloridaTourist]

Monday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel. We rented what we thought was a private van to take all 6 of us with 14 bags of luggage to the ship at Whittier. We we were wrong. What we got was a LARGE VAN PARTY BUS LIMO from the Magic Bus Company. Believe it or not ...this was probably one of the highlights of the entire trip. Gary our driver was excellant. The bus was like a big limo. Gary stopped and showed us more on the trip then you can believe. The 90 minute trip took us 4 hours. We also stopped and the Alaskan Wildlife Center which is the home to many injured or ophaned wild animals. Definitly a stop to make if you are driving down to Whittier. Tim is the owner of the company. He was great to work with. Ask for Gary as your driver. It cost a little more then the train but well worth it. We boarded the ship around 1:00. We ate lunch on board. The cookies in the HOrizan Court are fantastic. The other desserts were fair. The salad was also good with lots of toppings. Our luggage arrived shortly after and gave us time to unpack. Dinner was relaxed that night. Earlier arrivers were given a 6:00 dinner time no matter what they had chosen for the cruise and also the seating was not in your regular table. We had Prime Rib that night. Excellant. Dessert was the Love Boat which they are know for. Very good as well. The coffee lthis night was also good. The show was a comedian. Also very good. The ship itself is beautiful and very clean. OUr Steward was Ricco and he did a nice job for us. My inlaws had a mini suite and we had to balcony cabins on the Baja deck. I will tell you more about the cabins later. Have to run for now.

[mikelan6]

We plan to do this next year too. Thanks for the great thread!

[FloridaTourist]

First i will applogize for my poor typing.....yes it is more my typing then spelling, plus i am a bad proof reader...anyway...

 

The cabins were big enough for a week cruise. The mini suite was the same width as the other cabins but was longer. So it had a small sitting area. My wife and I were never in our cabin longer enough to use it had we had one. It also had 2 tv's. The best part of the mini suite was the bathroom. It was larger then the regular cabin with a full tub. The bathroom in the other 2 rooms were a joke. Everyone on the ship was joking about the bathrooms. If you are a large person CHANGE your room now so you can have a bigger bathroom. Our shower was so small.....you can soap the walls and just spin around to get clean....plus it had what i thought was a handicap handle in the middle....not a very good place for it...later found out it was if the ship got rocky....i don't know why you would need it in the shower...there was no place to fall. I could put my hands out in any direction and touch the wall. I am not a fat guy at all.....ok maybe i need to loose a few pounds but i still have a 34" waist....my wife is only 125 lbs and she had a hard time there as well.......i won't get into details on what she had to do to shave her legs but i wish i could have reached for the video cam without getting killed. Overall the rooms were nice though. Oh, I think the first night with the comedian we had the Princess singers and dancers. They are excellent. Lots of them. They do a wonderful job.

[FloridaTourist]

On Tuesday morning like most mornings we had breakfast on the Horizan Court. This is the buffet place on the ship. Level 14 ..near the pools. Big selections. The only things that I would not recommand are things that just are better when eaten right away ie., french toast, pancakes. I thought those items were hard on the edges and not very good from sitting in the pan. Besides already cooked eggs, blinitzes, eggs beneidict etc, there was an omelete station and several unique things on the cold side. You could pretty much have salmon cooked any number of ways 24/7. The chocolate crosanits were very good. Also when coming to the Horizan court you are greeted by the squirt person....that was my nick name for her.....it was the anti bactorial stuff they put in your hands. They greeted you at the door. The coffee here is HORRIBLE. I am not a huge coffee drinker but i do know a bad cup of coffee and this was it. No doubt about it. The good coffee is served by room service, or in one of the regular restuarants but not the buffet. This stuff should have been tested by the department of health. It could kill people. While eating breakfast we saw a few whales, and lots of otters float by. I forgot to mention while docked in Whittier we could see a bear accross the Channel.....that was cool.

 

This was a sea day so it was a day to relax. I did work out. The fitness center was equipped enough to have a pretty good workout. Lots of dumbells to aboubt 80lbs i think, and Cybex machines. I'm a free weight person myself. Other then dumbells there were no platted weights. Also there were about a dozen treadmills, and a dozen precors, only abut 3 bikes and no stairmasters. I was disappointed in the spinning schedule that was offered on board. They only had spiining 2 times and both were not good for me. It was offered on the day we were in Skagway in port and the other was at 4:00 and we had early dinner at 5:30. Also, the attendent was never in the weight room. So if you need a spotter the chance of getting one was slim.

 

That night the Princess dancers and singers put on a show of Broadway hits. They are truly good. Probably about 8 -10 dancers and 4 singers. The Fox Orchestra on board played with them and they are very good as well. After the show in the Princess Theatre we went to the Universe Theatre on the other end of the ship and caught the end of the juggler. He was REALLY good. Told the kids they had to see him the next day for his other show.

 

By the way. We pretty much let our kids do their own thing. They have been on a crusie before so they know how it works. Our rules were...no sleeping all day and you must be back in time to shower and have dinner with the family. Other then that have fun!!.. After all it is their vacation as well. They hung out in the teen lounge most of the time and met a lot of other kids. We had walky talkies so we knew where they were. Most of the time they were eating.

 

My kids are big dessert eaters and they did miss the all day free ice cream on other ships but Princess does have free ice cream in the Horizan court at 3:30 every day. Or the other idea is to buy an ice cream card for $17 and you get 10 servings of what ever you want at the pay ice cream bar on the pool deck. You can have Sundaes, cones, milkshakes etc ...10 of them for $17. It was a deal. We did not do the coke cups. We are not big soda drinkers and who wants to carry soda cups around all day?

[Leslieswiger]

I have found your thread, about your journey on the Island Princess MOST enjoyable.:D Trust you will come back and give us more information.:eek: MOST ENJOYABLE FLORIDATOURIST!:p Happy Sailings...Leslie Swiger:)

[FloridaTourist]

yes I will continue Leslie.......more in the morning.

[FloridaTourist]

This was another Sea Day. I don't think the sun ever set this night.....day light 24 hrs. We had breakfast in Horizan Court again. Saw a few whales swim by. Glacier Bay was incrediable. Really a neat place to see and take pictures with the Glacier in the background. By the way...back on the first sea day we saw College Fjord. It was beautiful but after seeing the glaciers that our driver Gary showed us on the Magic bus, College Fjord did not impress me. I would have rather slept in then get up for the 6am College Fjord viewing. We arrived in Glacier bay around 2pm. We even saw a bear up on some rocks.

 

For lunch the ship's crew set up an Alaskan Seafood buffet poolside. We hated to mess it up. This ship went all out with presentation. I personally ate a grilled chicken sandwich from the grill on the top level of the outside pool. For dinner this night we did Sabatini's. It is one of the two speciialty resturants onboard. The food was excellant even though there was way to much of it. It is supposed to be Italian but it is dominated by seafood. YOu only pick your entree and everything else is brough to you. I think we tried about 6 different things before the main course. WAY to much food. I needed to be rolled out after dinner. The show t his night was the juggler and the same comedian from the first night. It was the least favorite of my shows but it was not bad. After the show, our favorite spot on the ship became Crooner's. A little piano bar in the ships atruim. David Williams played there everynight. He was most enjoyable to listen too. He plays on many ships, Princess, Crystal, QEII. Some of you might know him. He packed it in most nights. This was a martini bar with over 50 different martini's. We are not huge drinkers but the MilkeyWay Martini was excellant. The only downside to Crooners is that the Churchill Smokers Lounge is right across from it. Everytime the door at Churchill's stayed open to long the cigar smoke rolled in. Crooners also had a small smoking area for cigerates only, in the back area, but it was sepearate enough from the non-smokers area. Churhill's on the other hand was close to the non-smoking Crooners area.

[FloridaTourist]

This day we woke up in Skagway. This day was one of the best. One bad thing though.....for some reason the ship feels obligated to announce when they arrive in port over the loadspeaker. At 5:30 am i did not need to know where i was other then in my bed!!!! Skagway is the smallest of the ports with a year round population of 800. Downtown is in walking distance, all 5 blocks of it. Not much to do in town. I would recommend an excusion for sure this day since we arrived at 5:30 am and left at 8pm. We chose to go dog sledding. We booked with TEMSCO. That is the same company Princess uses but i booked it on my own and saved almost $50 a person. The helo port is walking distance from the ship - 20 minutes...less if you walk fast. The people there (all college students) were very nice. Big modern facility. I can only say one thing about dog sledding. If you can afford it in you budget DO IT!!!!!!!! Wow what a great trip. The helicopter ride itself is worth the trip for this. The views!!!! The dogs and sledding are great too. We had 3 different Mushers for the 6 of us. 2 per dog team. To be up so high on the glacier with 10 feet of snow under your feet on top of the glacier.....in pure un touched snow .....no electricity, no communications....real Alaska....the dogs are so friendly and cute and the mushers so willing to work with you. Just do it...you won't regret it!!! After the sledding the ni ce people at TEMSCO gave us a ride back to the ship even though transportation was not included with our package. Then we left again and shopped.....Kids wanted t-shirts and shot glasses for the new collection they started. Then came back to the ship and my DW took advantage of the in port special at the spa and got a facial and massage. The girl did a great job for her but the annoying calls to sell her product were not needed. This night we ate in the Bayou Cafe, the other speciality resturant. Our main dinning room waitress told us what nights to eat in the speciality places becasue the main room menu was only soso. That was Claudia and her helper ChatChai....they were better then any other team we have ever had. Bayou CAfee was cajan style with emphasis on steaks. The steaks were great. Here you actually chose everything you wanted. You can have the spice mild if you so wanted, and i would suggest you do. YOu can also order more then one entree....my wife and i each ordered the shrimp and dirty rice and shared a porterhouse steak. For some reason i didn't write down the show for this night. Sorry aobut that. If i remeber i will post it later.

[mwoodrowe]

thanks for the review. my cruise is coming up in just over a week. what nites did they say say were so so? we are defintely doing sabintinis one nite. thanks!!!

[JanaJohn]

Or the other idea is to buy an ice cream card for $17 and you get 10 servings of what ever you want at the pay ice cream bar on the pool deck.

Thanks for mentioning the Ice Cream card. I've been looking at the message boards for over 3 months now and this is the first I've read about it. I've read plenty about the Soda card but never about Ice Cream.

 

My DW and I are on the Island Princess on July 10th and it's always interesting to read reviews from someone who's just finished their cruise. Each person writing a review brings a unique perspective and reading them makes the days until our cruise go a little bit faster. Thanks again!!!:)

[FloridaTourist]

The so so nites were the 3rd and 4th nites. The ice cream card is a deal. For your serving you can have as many toppings as you like. I think they will give you as many scoops as you want but only in one bowl. Sharing is what it is about. The soft serve ice cream was very good as well. I think all the ice cream is homemade. Just so you know though - the 3:30-4:30 free stuff up on the court is very good too and did have a few toppings, but the flavors are kind of wacky.

[FloridaTourist]

sorry everyone.....i'm off for the weekend.....If i have time i will add more Sunday night or Monday at the latest

[sunshine426]

Thanks, I especiaaly liked hearing about the dog sled excursion. If you want to expand on it, I would love to read about it.

[travelingator]

Waiting for day seven. What's taken you so long?

[Leslieswiger]

I must say, that I am coming back to my computer every hour looking for Floridatourist last report.:mad: I have had more enjoyment out of your threads, and want to say thank-you for a job well done. Happy Sailings...Leslie Swiger:)

[HRM]

Floridatourist,

I have also enjoyed your posts and am looking forward to hearing about the rest of the trip.

 

One thing I want to know is whether you were awakened early for port arrival announcements in any of the other ports. I hope that Skagway was the only time you had to deal with this. I have the same itinerary on the Diamond in 2 wks except we're to arrive at 7 in Skagway, I hope we don't get there too early as I cherish my sleep. In your review of Ketchikan, will you please tell us if you arrived early and whether you were tendered or docked?

 

Thanks!

[FloridaTourist]

Sorry everyone. It was father's day and i am also packing a kid for college. He leaves this week.

 

Sunshine - The dog excusion was awesome. TEMSCO took us to Denver Glacier. They had about 300 dogs in camp. There are 2 sleds hooked to gether with one musher. There are 2 positions on each sled. One for the driver and one passenger. The musher automatically takes the first driver position. The intial driving passenger had it easy. It was an uphill ride. The second part was much tricker. It was down hill. You are only standing on 2 metal rails and it is moving much faster. I drove both parts since my wife did not want to drive at all. You have to be able to use a brake to keep your sled from running into the one you are hooked too. The dogs are great. All they want to do is pull. They are crying to have this honor.

 

Sorry HRM - on this, the 7th day of our trip we heard the arrival in Jeanu as well. My inlaws never heard them announce it but my wife and i did. We did dock in here as well.

 

The only other ship in port was a Princess as well...think it was the Regal. In Skagway there were at least 2 others maybe 3. This was the first day we ate in the main dinning room. The breakfast was very nice here and the coffee was very good. The only good coffee on the ship is in the main dinning room or room service. Don't drink the stuff in the buffet area. You might not live to the end of the cruise. My wife and inlaws decided to walk into town and shop and explore. I took the boys up the tram to Mt. Roberts which is walking distance from the ship on the way to town. This was fun. The views are great as well. If you don't want to spend a lot of money in Jeanu you can hike after you take the tram and explore here. I'd say you can spend at least 2-3 hrs hiking up here. It was really nice and there is a restuarant as well. Or you can go down and walk to the ship for a free lunch...or at least an already paid for lunch. After you buy the ticket you can go up and down as many times as you like for the day. It was about $23 per adult....less for seniors.....and students are $14. The boys and I took the short hike becasue we left the ship late and wanted to catch up with everyone else and see some Alaska's capital. We later came back to the ship and we all went to the Old Fashioned Salmon Bake. They picked us up by bus. It was only about 15 minutes through town so it gave you a little tour as well. The salmon bake area was majastic and the salmon was really good. The glaze they use will most definitly be tried on my grill. The chicken, ribs, ceaser sald were all very good. I could have passed on the blueberry cake. Toasted marshmellows on big sticks that you do your self were fun. There is also a little path with a really nice natural waterfall for pictures.

 

We later returned to the ship. This was good dinner night as we were told by Claudia. Alaskan King Crab legs......We had an exta side of crab legs and my wife and I also shared a steak. We created our own Surf and Turf. A new singer joined the cruise at this port. Lovena Fox was fantastic. She put on a great performance. Very upbeat lively performance. She performed solo with just the ship's orchestra. Later that night my wife and I went to the dance party hosted by the ships crew. It was fun. And of course we ended the night at Crooners with David Williams again.

[FloridaTourist]

by the way......we never tendered in any port

[beach spring]

Just an additional comment about the "cards" -- I found out from these boards that on the Island I could purchase a Cappuccino card for about $25 or so for the 9-night cruise. Worth it to me, for the specialty coffee drinks:)

[FloridaTourist]

I did not see the coffee card offered on this cruise. I did go to the speciality coffee bar once to get a lattee and a hot chocolate once. They both went in the garabage can. Don't assume because you are paying a premium price that it will be good. The coffee and hot chocolate in the dinning room are really good. By the way...no hot choclate on room service

[FloridaTourist]

Well when we arrived in Ketchikan it was after 9am so the arrival announcement didn't wake too many people. We were the ONLY ship in port this day so things were rather slow. For the most part, the downtown area was filled with the same jewlery shops as the firs to ports, a few independent ones. This day we had to be off the ship on time. We were picked up by our driver for Alaskan Sea Planes. We had chartered our own plane for the 6 of us to fly to Misty Fjord and Tongas National forest. Bryan was our pilot. The plane one of the nicer looking ones (at least the paint job was better) on the water. There are as many planes as there are boats docked along the waterfront. Cute small town. Only abut 20 miles of paved road and no way off the island with your car. Walmart does run a free shuttle for those that might need to make a late buy of things they forgot or ran out of. Anyway Bryan took us up and the flight was pretyt smooth. The plane flies approx 110 miles and hr. It took about 30 minutes on this beautiful clear sunny day to flay to Misty Fjord. It was warm enough for short for sure. Bryan gave us lots of narative on the way out to the Fjord. We saw mountain goat on the snow trying to kep cool on this warm day. Ketchikan gets over 13 feet of rain a year and very little snow, but today there was not a cloud in the sky. We landed on a mirror lake and climed some of the ganite and water falls for a while then flew back to town. The ride back was a little rocky when we flew over the ganite as it heated up and made the air a little turbulant. Over all the ride was fun and bautiful and we got to see lots of untouched Alaskan beauty. This night was also the second formal night andlobster night. We ordered the beef wellington and lobster. Good thing i found the gym on this ship....but it didn't help enough :D. Again i forgot to write the show down but i think it was the Broadway Numbers with the Princess dancers and singers. I may have this mixed up with the Pianoman show though. Anyway, anytime the Princess dancers and singers performed it was a really good show. There was no slacking here. They were good and there were lots of them to fill the stage. And of course you now were we ended our night - Crooners with David Williams....by the way....we did try the other lounges but some of them had smoking and we are not fans of smoke. The setup and Crooners allowed you to ecsape it somewhat. Also so of the other entertainment was not our style and the Explorer Lounge whcih was supposed to be a little younger did not have a band we cared for...they were JAMM INC and we thought they lousy. They were the only disappointment in the entertainment.

[FloridaTourist]

Oh yeah i forgot about the Lumberjack show but i wil have to tell you about that on Tuesday.