1st Alaska cruise (with in-laws and a baby!): should we stick with Princess?

[jgs2003]

My DH and I took our first cruise last March on the Caribbean Princess (7 day itinerary). We enjoyed it overall (we especially enjoyed the food and the Anytime Dining) but found the days at sea to be a bit boring (we had 2 ports of call and missed the third stop, at Princess Cays, due to choppy seas).

 

We are now proud parents of a 4 month old and are thinking of a week-long Alaskan cruise sometime next summer as a good vacation to take with my in-laws and possibly other family or friends.

 

We've never been to Alaska and really want to take advantage of everything a trip there has to offer, including possibly a week after the cruise touring on our own through Alaska. I was thinking of a Seattle departure in order to visit family there, although I would definitely consider a different port of departure if it meant a better itinerary.

 

My main question is: Should we stick with Princess, since we enjoyed our last experience overall (and I think that my in-laws would also enjoy the Princess ambiance)? Or, given that we want to have a more active experience than our last trip, should we go with a different cruise line, like Royal Caribbean? I'm not sure how much rock-wall climbing I'll do with a one-year old baby in tow, but the activities sound appealing vs. the more laid-back ambiance of Princess. I am partial to the Anytime Dining, but with a baby it might be too much to expect to dine in the main dining room much anyway.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[qiangf2]

If you consider one-way, your departure city should be vancouver or one of ports outside anchorage (if you are going southbound). To answer your question, no, you don't have to stick with Princess. HAL has some excellent itineraries as well. NCL also does a good job in Alaska. Figure out your itinerary, then judge the cost before settling down on the cruiseline

[NancyIL]

If you want to spend time touring Alaska before or after your cruise, then you need to look at one-way cruises out of Vancouver (northbound) or Seward/Whittier (southbound). You can fly to Seattle to visit your family, then transfer to Vancouver from there, but only roundtrip cruises leave from Seattle. NCL also does only roundtrip cruises from either Seattle or Vancouver.

 

We loved our northbound cruise on the Coral Princess. It's a beautiful ship, and Princess has a great itinerary on its one-way Alaska cruises: http://www.princess.com/pb/itineraryDetails.do?voyageCode=6819&tourCode=&date=0608&noOfPax=2&resType=C&definition_name= I initially booked a southbound cruise on Radiance of the Seas, then read some strong opinions here that Princess and HAL "do Alaska better" than RCI. Princess was great, and I'll be on another one-way cruise next summer on HAL's Veendam.

[Carl2860]

My DH and I took our first cruise last March on the Caribbean Princess (7 day itinerary). We enjoyed it overall (we especially enjoyed the food and the Anytime Dining) but found the days at sea to be a bit boring (we had 2 ports of call and missed the third stop, at Princess Cays, due to choppy seas).

 

We are now proud parents of a 4 month old and are thinking of a week-long Alaskan cruise sometime next summer as a good vacation to take with my in-laws and possibly other family or friends.

 

We've never been to Alaska and really want to take advantage of everything a trip there has to offer, including possibly a week after the cruise touring on our own through Alaska. I was thinking of a Seattle departure in order to visit family there, although I would definitely consider a different port of departure if it meant a better itinerary.

 

My main question is: Should we stick with Princess, since we enjoyed our last experience overall (and I think that my in-laws would also enjoy the Princess ambiance)? Or, given that we want to have a more active experience than our last trip, should we go with a different cruise line, like Royal Caribbean? I'm not sure how much rock-wall climbing I'll do with a one-year old baby in tow, but the activities sound appealing vs. the more laid-back ambiance of Princess. I am partial to the Anytime Dining, but with a baby it might be too much to expect to dine in the main dining room much anyway.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

We are going on the Coral Princess leaving Vancouver May12. My son lives outside Seattle so I will fly in early, send several days, then take Amtrak from Seattle to Vancouver.

 

There are people on on sailing that are not getting off at Whittier, but sailing back to Vancouver on the same ship, I have no idea the cost.

[gazingm42]

We taken this northbound trip 2 times and booked for our 3rd trip. We have

used Carnival Spirit from Vancouver and have enjoyed the trip. We have spent

about 8 to 10 days after the cruise afterwards. This next time in June we will

be spending additional 8 days after the cruise.

 

Our kids enjoy the kids program, while they have not been that young. Both

our kids are in elementary school. But they love the camp and so do mom and

Dad. So we have been happy with Carnival for Alaska and have stuck with it.

 

We fly into Seattle since we have family there. But drive to Vancouver with

a one way car rental. Since its pricey for the one way. We rent a normal

car for 3 or 4 days in Washington. Then return it and pick up our new one

way rental on our way up to Vancouver. We are considering taking the train

this next year from Seattle.

[kellywhitehills]

We too had a wonderful expoerience with Carnival in Alaska...I have downloaded the Carnival Capers to my webshots..You might want to take a look and see what on board activities they offer during the cruise..

 

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/559974214eJxdDY

 

Kelly

[gazingm42]

Kelley,

 

I looked at your capers as I never did the south bound. I noticed on day 2

while at College fjord glacier you had a 2nd mandatory lifeboat drill. This happen

at 9:30 while in the Fjord. Whats this all about. Did you all fail the fist one while in Whitter?

[kellywhitehills]

Kelley,

 

I looked at your capers as I never did the south bound. I noticed on day 2

while at College fjord glacier you had a 2nd mandatory lifeboat drill. This happen

at 9:30 while in the Fjord. Whats this all about. Did you all fail the fist one while in Whitter?

 

We did not have a lifeboat drill in WHitter because of our late port departure..By the time we had our lifeboat drill (which was held inside.)..We were already out of the College Fjord...Having the drill in the dineing room was great!

[knorrisb07]

We did not have a lifeboat drill in WHitter because of our late port departure..By the time we had our lifeboat drill (which was held inside.)..We were already out of the College Fjord...Having the drill in the dineing room was great!

haha.. you all took the lift jackets to dining room? Do they enforce the dress code? ;)

[kellywhitehills]

haha.. you all took the lift jackets to dining room? Do they enforce the dress code? ;)

 

LOL Hey thats one way to get everyone in a JACKET!..

 

As far as Dress code was concerned it was pretty mixed..There were jeans in the dining room and Formal nights were more semi formal..

 

Kelly

[Kerry&LuAnn]

We loved our northbound cruise on the Coral Princess. It's a beautiful ship, and Princess has a great itinerary on its one-way Alaska cruises.

 

The Coral and Island are smaller ships than the Diamond and Sapphire. Since you enjoyed your experience on the Coral, we are wondering if you had compared it with the larger ships.

[jgs2003]

Hi Kerry and LuAnn! We were on the Caribbean Princess together last March. I don't know if we met each other at the CruiseCritic meet and greet, but I do remember your name from the roll call board. I was one of the two pregnant women that was active on that board---I had my son in July :)

 

Thanks everyone for the tips so far re. Alaska---it sounds like Seattle will not be a good port for us if we want to do a tour afterwards. I'll do some more research on what exactly we want to do on the trip and then go from there.

[alwalaska]

We took southbound cruise on the Sapphire Princess from Whittier to Vancouver. There were 6 of us, my parents, my DH and me, and our two teenagers. Everyone loved it. We flew RT to Seattle and then caught a one-way flight to Anchorage. There are many options for getting back to Seattle from Vancounver. We rented a van because we wanted to stay a day and tour Vancouver.

 

We loved the anytime dining with Princess, especially since we wanted to make to most of our port days. I really liked Princess's itinerary and we found that the hours in port on the southbound cruise were some of the best we could find.

 

This was our first Princess cruise and we absolutly loved it. I thought NCL would also be our style, but they did not go one way which was important to us. We spent time traveling to Denali and other places before the cruise.

 

Looking at the itineraries is a good way to go, but looking at the cruise line is also important. After spending time on the Carnival board, we decided it was not an atmosphere our family would enjoy. We also eliminated HAL after reading their information about formal nights and how guests were expected to remain in their formal attire throughout the evening everywhere on the ship. I don't know if that is truely enforced (or even the same any more) but it was enough to sway our decision away from HAL.

 

The view on your sea days is so amazing, that you may not have as big a deal with a lack of activities on the sea days. I don't ever remember being bored, but I can't remember what all we did either. The kids had a blast in the teen center if any of the people going with you have older kids.

 

I hope this helps. Also, I don't think you can go wrong with Alaska. It is truly amazing.

[NancyIL]

The Coral and Island are smaller ships than the Diamond and Sapphire. Since you enjoyed your experience on the Coral, we are wondering if you had compared it with the larger ships.

 

The Coral Princess is the largest of the 5 cruise ships I've been on - at 91,627 tons. I can't offer any comparisons with the larger Princess ships in Alaska.

 

The Coral wasn't the first Princess ship I booked for Alaska! We were booked on the Pacific Princess (680 pasengers) that left Vancouver on a Wednesday. After much tinkering with our post-cruise land itinerary, I wanted to spend more time in Alaska after the cruise. The only way to extend our time without changing our flights was to move to the Coral that left Vancouver 2 days earlier on a Monday.

[NancyIL]

oops...double post

[kGCAL]

which year was sapphire princess built? I was told newer ships tend to have better amenity onboard.

[alwalaska]

which year was sapphire princess built? I was told newer ships tend to have better amenity onboard.

 

The Sapphire is one of the newest ships. She was built in 2004. What in particular are you looking for?

 

As far as the size goes, the only times the ship felt crowded was sometimes at the buffet (I think this is because on AK cruises, they did not have the outdoor seating set up), at the more popular shows (if you didn't get there early - you didn't get in), and disembarkation (there seemed to be people everywhere waiting to get off of the ship).

 

If you have Sapphire questions, I would be happy to try and help.