Thread: Island Princess 5/14/07 Alaska Northbound

Hello,

Anyone else joining us this cruise? Of all the cruise destinations that we have been to, Alaska is the best.

I'll be sailing Mercury on May 4th RT from Vancouver and Localady will be doing Infinity from SF for 13 nights on
May 7th. It's likely that she will be within hailing distance of both of us at some point during her cruise. I'll be spending 2 nights in Victoria after my cruise returns on the 11th and then 2 more nights in Seattle.
My only Princess cruise was on Sapphire and it was a coastal from LA to Vancouver last May. I really enjoyed everything about my cruise. The food and service was excellent and the 24 hour buffet was marvelous. I did do traditional dining and the food and service in the dining room, compared very well to that of Celebrity. I was very pleasantly surprised.
BTW, are you doing a cruise tour after your cruise. That would be the icing on the cake.

Reggie

My last cruise was on the Island (for a Hawaii cruise). If you have any questions, maybe I can help answer them.

Originally Posted by reggierail

I'll be sailing Mercury on May 4th RT from Vancouver and Localady will be doing Infinity from SF for 13 nights on
May 7th. It's likely that she will be within hailing distance of both of us at some point during her cruise. I'll be spending 2 nights in Victoria after my cruise returns on the 11th and then 2 more nights in Seattle.
My only Princess cruise was on Sapphire and it was a coastal from LA to Vancouver last May. I really enjoyed everything about my cruise. The food and service was excellent and the 24 hour buffet was marvelous. I did do traditional dining and the food and service in the dining room, compared very well to that of Celebrity. I was very pleasantly surprised.
BTW, are you doing a cruise tour after your cruise. That would be the icing on the cake.

Reggie

Hi Reggie,
We have been dragging our feet on booking any cruise after our last horrible cruise experience on Celebrity. We have been going back and forth about if we really want to cruise at all, but now it is looking like we are ready to try it again. We lost faith in our TA and we have not found any that are knowledgable about cruising and that we can trust, so we just booked on our own and set up our own land tour. We finally got around to booking our airline reservations yesterday. We have had the cabin held for the last six months. The last day for us to cancel is February 28 and not incur any penalties.
We are going to spend a week on land after our cruise in Alaska. We are renting a car and just going to drive. We are planning to stay a couple of nights at the Princess Copper River lodge, Kenai Princess Lodge and then McKinley Princess Lodge.

Cruisin Chick,

Do you remember if you can get out on that small deck that is forward on decks 9, 10 and 11? It looks like it would be a prime viewing spot for cruising.

I'll have to check out some deck plans to see if I can remember. I do know there are some decks in the very back (such as on Baja) that we went out on for a bit. There's deck chairs you can lay out on.

Here are some deck plans:

http://www.cruiselinefans.com/prince...-princess.html

I can't figure out if there are good places to view on the bow. But definitely there are lounges on the Baja and Caribe (and maybe other) decks. Sorry, we didn't check out the specific areas.

Thanks cruisin chick for the info. It does look like we can get out to the front from our cabin. We have a mini suite but I always like to help the captain out and watch where we are going!

Reggie, If you leave on the Mercury on May 4th then you will be back just before we leave on May 14. Are you going to get a chance to get to Buchard Gardens on your trip? BTW When we turned away before getting to Hubbard as the Mercury was just leaving. We played tag with the Mercury on most of our cruise last May. The captain of the Mercury on that cruise was found drunk and arrested and removed from the ship just a couple of days after we saw the Mercury leaving Hubbard Glacier.
We will probably see the Infinity, which localady is on, while on our cruise.

Cruiser2007-
I look forward to hearing your report on the land portion of your trip. We are hoping to do a Pre or Post cruise land trip to Denali independently also and would love to hear how yours went.

Originally Posted by localady

Cruiser2007-
I look forward to hearing your report on the land portion of your trip. We are hoping to do a Pre or Post cruise land trip to Denali independently also and would love to hear how yours went.

We have most of our land tour all set-up now and are just counting the days until we sail. Thanks also for your kind words about my review of the May 7, 2006 Summit 13 night Alaskan cruise.
Still working on how to get from Whittier back to Anchorage to pick up our car that we have rented for a week. The drop charges are murder in Alaska. They wanted around $245 to rent a car for one day and I only need it for the 1:15 hour drive to Anchorage. Tried renting the car in Whittier for the week and drop it in Anchorage and the weekly rate more than doubled.

Localady, I don't know if your cruise is going to Ketchikan but if you are walking in town and tired of shopping there is a city bus that does a circle of the town and it takes a bout 1 hour to get back to where you started from. I have found it is a great way to rest your feet when "over shopping".