Star Princess Alaska Review

[KingsDude]

Background Information
My boyfriend’s parents took my boyfriend and me on this Star Princess Cruise as a college graduation present. My boyfriend and his parents have been on numerous other cruises on Carnival, Oceana in the Caribbean, Europe, and Mexico. My boyfriend and I recently have been on a RCL and NCL cruise to the Mexican Rivera. This was our first time cruising to Alaska, and our first experience on Princess.

We flew from LAX to Seattle and were picked up by a driver (Sunny from A1 Airport Limousine Services: 206-399-1261(Cell) / 206-334-4433(Bus), airportlimoservices@gmail.com) who drove us straight to the cruise ship. He drove a suburban, which fit our luggage and us comfortably. I highly suggest using him. He was on time both picking us up from the airport and from the ship on our return. Tell him that Ted sent you.

Embarkation
Very smooth, no complaints. One suggestion – get a porter. If you don’t have a porter, you’ll have to wait in a longer line at the pier just to drop your luggage off, and then proceed up an escalator to another line for security, and then another line for checkin! Definitely worth a porter to skip at least one line.

Ship Info
The ship is beautiful. It is very clean and stylish. The public lounges are great. The view from the Sky-walkers lounge is amazing. My boyfriend and I loved to sit up there during our at sea days and read.

We used the fitness center every day. Although it was small, once the crowd died down (around 11am) we were always able to get cardio machines. All of the cardio machines have individual TVs and have a great view of the scenery.

Stateroom
We had an obstructed view stateroom. The layout was great. We did not feel crammed or claustrophobic. All of our things fit in the drawers and closet, and we even had room to spare. This was the first ship that we had been on that had flat screen televisions in the rooms. The bathroom was a typical stateroom bathroom. The room and bathroom were very clean.

My boyfriend’s parents had a mini-suite. It was very spacious and included two flat screen TVs. Their balcony was great (4 chairs and a table). It was really great to hang out on their balcony and take pictures during the scenic cruise up Tracy Arm.

Dining
The food was disappointing. We chose to have “anytime dining,” which we enjoyed because we could go in and eat whenever we so desired, without the commitment or worry that we were going to miss our dining times.

The breakfast buffet had the same food every morning. A WONDERFUL secret: if you ask the staff, behind the counter, they can make you a custom omelet, scrambled eggs, etc. No one knows about this, but it was our savior.

We ate lunches at the buffet and they were nothing special. Often, we would get a grilled chicken breast from “The Grill” and mix it up into a salad from the buffet.

We ate dinners in the dining rooms (Portofino and Capri). The service in Capri was better than Portofino. The food was truly nothing special. On RCL we were in food HEAVAN, on Princess, however, the food was simply OK.

We loved the International Café! The served amazing cookies all day long!!

Entertainment
The dancers and singers are really quite talented and the production shows that they put on were extremely entertaining and fun.

The rest of the entertainment (magician and comedians) were entertaining and gave us something to do in our evenings.

We were glad that we had a naturalist onboard, however there we many times that we wished that she wasn’t blasting across the decks and that we could have had the option to turn her lectures off.

Activities
We knew going into this experience, that the demographic of the other cruisers would be older than we expected. However, I believe we were one of the only young couples on the cruise. Unfortunately for us, this meant that all of the activities were geared towards an older audience. Unlike NCL and RCL, Princess did not have fun music playing throughout the day on deck, or activities for young people (definitely no belly-flop contest).

Port & Shore Excursions
- Ketchican: After walking around the town, we took a tour of the fish hatchery. It was a very interesting, but short tour. Then, my boyfriend and I went Kayaking (Southeast Sea Kayaks). We are both very active people and only suggest this activity for people who are active on a regular basis. We were the only people with the tour guide and we kayaked across the harbor. We loved it, but were exhausted afterwards.
- Juneau: My boyfriend likes to do his research on excursions before leaving for the trip, and booking them outside of the ship. After careful research, we decided to book the Alaska Zip tour. We were picked up from the ship and taken up to the forest where the zipline adventure took place. The staff members were extremely friendly and helped my boyfriend’s mother feel comfortable (she is afraid of heights). We highly suggest this tour! We all loved it and it is docile enough for those timid of heights and/or aren’t highly active. However, there are only like 5 or 6 ziplines and it doesn’t compare to some of the other ziplines that we took in Puerto Vallarta. This was also less efficient than the PV Zipline because we only had 2 guides with 13 people as opposed to 5 guides with 10 people.
- Skagway: We originally had nothing planned for Skagway, but when we got there, we walked around the whole town in under 20 minutes and decided that it was in our best interest to go on a tour. We found an independent tour company that booked us on a bus tour. Ron, the bus driver and company owner, was very knowledgeable about the area. He took us up into the mountains, stopping at different locations to allow for us to take pictures and admire the scenery. His bus was equipped with high quality telescopes and binoculars, which he would set up and allow us to use when he spotted an animal from a distance. This was a wonderful tour, and we loved the Ron was able to take us to the places that he thought were the most interesting, as he did not have a “company” to attend to.
- Victoria: Because this was an evening stop, we decided to simply walk around the town. We enjoyed our walk and got to stop in some of the local shops. We suggest walking to and from the ship into town, as it is not too far and the walk is leisurely.

Summary
Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves on this cruise. We were a little disappointed with Princess’s food quality and their lack in activities for younger crowds.

[dforeigner]

Thank you for taking time to write a review.

[shivel11]

Great review, thanks

Did your boyfriend's parents mini-siute have a couch or a loveseat?

[cynbar]

Thanks for your comprehensive review. In my experience, the Alaska cruises do attract an older demographic overall than some of the other itineraries. If you tried the Mexican Riviera or the Caribbean on Princess, you would probably find it a whole lot livelier!! And it's a funny thing about the menus in the MDR --- they look much the same from ship to ship, but often the results are very different because each executive chef puts his own spin on things. I have been on some ships where the fish dishes were always excellent, others where they were often dry. Anyway, glad you had a good time overall.

[camarodrivenrs]

Too bad about not having younger people, we were on the 9/06 star sailing and we had a crowd in skywalkers almost every night till about 2 am. Im willing to bet half of it was off duty crew members but still was a great time. Also the hot tub out back they always forget to put the net on and we had about 6-8 people in there a few nights partying it up.

[Waynetor]

I will be on the Star for 60 days this fall. I'm wondering what it was about the food the OP did not like. Was it poor presentaion, over/under cooked, cold, not enough choice. What was special about the RCL food you had on their cruise?
Just wondering as I was on the Star last year as well as RCI and found both to be very nice and if you don't like something staff will always bring you another meal.
Wayne S