Golden to Alaska - Make a change?

[Lucy 'n Lenny]

:confused:Hi Everyone,

 

My family of four (2 school-aged kids) booked the May 10th sailing to Alaska out of Seattle on May 10th. I think I just have a few days left to make any changes before there are any penalty fees.

 

We've got a balcony room in the middle of the Aloha Deck. I've read that the balconies on Caribe are much larger, but I'm not sure these are still available. Would there be an advantage to moving to another deck, like Baja?

 

I'm also wondering about switching to the Star Princess. This itinerary includes about 4 more hours in Ketchikan but sails into Tracey Arm early (6 to 10am). Does anyone know if there's a reason that rates seem to be less on the Star?

 

I think I'm experiencing the first-time cruiser freak-outs!

 

L & L

[Cruise Gypsy]

We have sailed on the Golden a couple times. My two cents is that you might want to move down to Baja or Caribe Deck. We had a balcony room on Aloha on the Golden for a short cruise and we heard a lot of noise from the deck chairs on the wood floors above us. You mentioned that you are Aloha in the middle but you might want to look at the deck plan for the floor above if you are under the carpet of the Horizon Court the noise shouldn't be an issue but the wood decks around the pool with the metal dining tables is where we had our problem.

 

We have been on Caribe several times and the decks are quite large and nice.

[jayevee44]

L & L,

 

We have sailed Alaska on Princess twice. We sailed on the Saturday itinerary on the Star Princess in 2003 and the Sunday itinerary on the Sun Princess last year. On both cruises, we had a balcony on Baja Deck and both were fully covered.

 

Your choices are for ships that are virtually identical, so as far as balconies are concerned, take your pick. If you have good weather, any balcony will do, but on our cruise last year, it rained the entire cruise and we were so thankful that we had a covered balcony. If you want a covered balcony, your choices are pretty much limited to the Lido, Aloha and Baja Decks. I would avoid Aloha Deck for the reason you mentioned. If you want the larger balcony, then Caribe Deck will be you choice and it is half covered, half open.

 

Regarding Saturday versus Sunday, we preferred the Sunday itinerary for the extra time in Ketchikan. We had the early time in Tracy Arm, but it turned out, at least on our cruise, that the Saturday ship was right behind us, much earlier than scheduled. My guess as to why the prices are less for the Sunday cruise is that most people prefer Saturday so that they have a day off before returning to work on Monday.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Jim

[PIC-2 psychologist]

Tonight I will be helping a friend with selecting an Alaska cruise for him and his girlfriend. Both are older with teenage/young adult children who will be otherwise occupied.

Your question has been dealt with, I would suggest ones that may be more important:

(1) Do you have time constraints versus anytime your children are out of school? Alaska is definitely better later in the summer. If you are in a hot climate like we are, late July/August are the prime get to 70s/60s weather. If you wish to see salmon in streams, we did in several ports the second week of August (last year).

(2) The prime experience of the inner passage is Glacier Bay -- anybody who disagrees hasn't been in Glacier Bay. Some cruise lines have fewer permits to go into this federal park than others. Our last itinerary was from Seattle because we had a trip to San Francisco 6 days later and spent 4 nights a the Marriott Waterfront in Seattle (wonderful, walking distance from aquarium and fish market, etc.) -- but the itineraries with Glacier Bay may be more likely from Vancouver (which we had done 10 years ago). If you have additional time to spend pre- or post-cruise out of Vancouver there are whales in the aquarium in Stanley park and the ferry to Victoria is great for kids as is the natural history museum there (spend 2 nights at the Marriott in Victoria, take a tour of Bouchart Gardens).

(3) Obviously a new ship is better than an old ship. We were on the Noordam (Holland America) August 2007 that was in the beginning of its second year (basic kinks worked out).

(4) Cannot specifically remember key experiences for parents and children, but strongly recommend railway experience in Skagway and sailing to see humpback whales in Juneau (also good combined with view of local glacier there as well.

Hope that you have a great experience whenever/where ever you go.

David

[minniemom]

Lucy&Lenny:

I am the same type of person as you are. I too have wondered why is Star cheaper? I can't seem to figure it out. I have gone back and forth, from the Golden to Star, and finally settled on Star because of the extra savings. I hope I made the right choice. New to Princess, but I have done Alaska twice before on Celebrity. Taking 2 teenage boys this time, and this ship seems to be more family friendly than X.

 

The itineraries look about the same? So hopefully. I know I cruised to Alaska at the end of July and liked it much better than early June, but the rates are much less at this time of year, and taking 4 people, we need to save as much as we can. And boys have summer jobs and Football, that earlier the better for them.

 

If anyone has another other reasons than people want to be back on Sunday, please let us know, final payment is due Tuesday, and if I should switch to Golden instead of STAR, I would like to know....