Finally Tried Island Princess

We recently flew to Alaska for a 6 day land tour followed by a 7 day southbound. The choices were Island, Coral, or Star. We have previously sailed Coral and Star and were happy with them but, due to the dates my wife wanted to go, we ended up booking Island Princess. Having loved Coral (we did a 17 day Panama Canal cruise on Coral last fall) I thought it would be interesting to see if the much-reviled refit to Island Princess would really affect the cruise.

I had read all of the "I'll never sail on Island Princess again" comments but most were from folks who had sailed Island and Coral in the past and hadn't actually sailed on Island since the refit. Getting first hand info seemed a good way to decide for ourselves if the refit really had much of an effect on the cruise experience.

After the latest cruise, my take (and my wife's as well) was that it pretty much screwed the ship. We kept "running out of ship" when we headed aft for anything. It didn't ruin the cruise but we will definitely book pretty much any other Princess ship before sailing on Island again. Bummer.

It's a shame that profits are more important that the layout of the ship.

I'm sure that people will still cruise on the Island & never know what it was like prior and still rave about it.

What did you think about the food?

We recently flew to Alaska for a 6 day land tour followed by a 7 day southbound. The choices were Island, Coral, or Star. We have previously sailed Coral and Star and were happy with them but, due to the dates my wife wanted to go, we ended up booking Island Princess. Having loved Coral (we did a 17 day Panama Canal cruise on Coral last fall) I thought it would be interesting to see if the much-reviled refit to Island Princess would really affect the cruise.

 

I had read all of the "I'll never sail on Island Princess again" comments but most were from folks who had sailed Island and Coral in the past and hadn't actually sailed on Island since the refit. Getting first hand info seemed a good way to decide for ourselves if the refit really had much of an effect on the cruise experience.

 

After the latest cruise, my take (and my wife's as well) was that it pretty much screwed the ship. We kept "running out of ship" when we headed aft for anything. It didn't ruin the cruise but we will definitely book pretty much any other Princess ship before sailing on Island again. Bummer.

I hear ya! :(

It's a shame that profits are more important that the layout of the ship.

I'm sure that people will still cruise on the Island & never know what it was like prior and still rave about it.

What did you think about the food?

The food was fine. We didn't have any of the Curtis Stone offerings. There was one on the menu each night but it never seemed like something we wanted. The crew was, of course, great as usual.

Somebody brought a nasty cold aboard and by the second day of the cruise people were sick. By the end of the cruise you could hear coughing all over the ship. I quarantined myself one day and my wife did the same another day as we felt we shouldn't be out in the general population but the cold was rampant onboard. I'm still not totally well and I got sick on July 2nd. We were both completely healthy when we boarded but someone obviously had caught something in Alaska and brought it onboard. There's not much one can do about that sort of thing in a closed population. I had extra vitamin C via the excellent Bloody Marys in Crooner's. :)

I was on Island in April for 15 days and agree that it made the ship awkward but not horrible. I would probably not specifically book on Island if there were other ships doing similar itineraries.

How did you like the land portion of your Alaska trip?

The food was fine. We didn't have any of the Curtis Stone offerings. There was one on the menu each night but it never seemed like something we wanted. The crew was, of course, great as usual.

 

To bad. You should have tried one, only to know just how bad they really are. ;)

Somebody brought a nasty cold aboard and by the second day of the cruise people were sick. By the end of the cruise you could hear coughing all over the ship. I quarantined myself one day and my wife did the same another day as we felt we shouldn't be out in the general population but the cold was rampant onboard. I'm still not totally well and I got sick on July 2nd. We were both completely healthy when we boarded but someone obviously had caught something in Alaska and brought it onboard. There's not much one can do about that sort of thing in a closed population. I had extra vitamin C via the excellent Bloody Marys in Crooner's. :)

It seems to happen all the time on our trips which are usually in the Nov to late Feb range. You can't avoid them.

Since we are booked for a 21 day Fort Lauderdale/Panama/Vancouver on the Island next spring, I am appreciative of comments made re the ship, however I tend to take them with a "grain of salt" as different things are important to different folks. Our last (and actually first ever) cruise R/T to Hawaii on the Grand is a good example. Prior to our example, lots of folks were posting on how bad the condition of the Grand was. One would have thought it was likely to sink right out from underneath us. We went despite all the negative comments and had a wonderful time, and because we weren't specifically wandering about the ship looking for things to complain about, she seemed to us to be in decent shape for her age, and maintenance crew were always taking care of the "little things" that were evident. So, bottom line, guess we'll just take our chances on the Island Princess, as well :D

...VTX-Al

How did you like the land portion of your Alaska trip?

It was freaking awesome! :D

Denali made an appearance for us. There were folks in our group who were visiting for the fifth time and this was the first time they had ever seen the mountain. Only 30% of visitors ever see it. It was fantastic!

On the Tundra Wilderness Tour we had caribou come down onto the road in front of the bus and walk along the road just ahead of us for quite a while. We saw lots of them. We saw a grizzly camped on top of a caribou kill and it "discouraged" a wolf from trying to take part of the kill. It's very rare to see a wolf as the park is huge and there are really very few wolves. This one kind of went along near the road and then blew the bus driver away by coming up onto the road. It was right there by the back of the bus and just sauntered along.

We had a mother moose with her calf come out on an island behind the Denali lodge (we actually saw Denali at the McKinley Wilderness Lodge) and they made an appearance every morning and evening. I'm told they were also out in the middle of the night but I was sleeping.

It was very odd to never have night. It definitely took some getting used to as the sun would just "dip" barely below the horizon for a few hours. It looked like sunset or sunrise but it never did get dark. My wife (naturally) had to get me out wandering around one "night" in the wee hours just because it was so unusual and the lighting was so "different" from anything we had experienced before.

We had the connoisseur cruise tour and the food was included. We could order whatever we wanted - appetizer, main course,desert and a non-alcoholic drink - and we took full advantage of it. My wife enjoyed the crab legs ($52) and we both had a number of excellent dinners and breakfasts. We had a choice of a couple of venues and tried several. All were good but some were better than others. Lunches were not included except on the train ride from McKinley Wilderness Lodge to Whittier. It was very cool not to have to care what the price was as it was all included. (Of course we paid a premium for the connoisseur tour...)

The connoisseur land portion also included several excursions: The riverboat cruise in Fairbanks was much better than expected and we enjoyed it a lot. The gold dredge was interesting (we only managed to pan $21 worth of gold between the two of us) but there was an "entertainer" on the train portion to and from the gold dredge who has to be experienced to believe. He can not sing! It was supposed to be kind of "down home" and we didn't want to beat him or anything but OMG! :rolleyes: The gold dredge tour also included visiting a portion of the Alaska Pipeline. Truly an amazing engineering feat. There were special problems to be solved due to the permafrost as they had to be sure to not allow the pipeline to impact it or the whole thing would collapse. It was very interesting. The Tundra Wilderness tour was also included. I had seen a picture of the snack they provided in the past and was pleasantly surprised to find that the one we got was a bit larger. Given all the food that was included with this land tour we really didn't need a huge lunch anyway. We felt we had waaaaaayyy more food provided than we really needed with the breakfasts and dinners.

All in all we had a really great land tour and I'm glad we sprung for the connoisseur version. Our group leader kept us all well informed and took care of us nicely. We met some really nice people in our group and, of course, they were also on the cruise portion so it was kind of nice "knowing" some folks onboard.

We plan to go back to Alaska - hopefully next year - but this time we want to drive. We have a little teardrop trailer for camping - queen sized bed and a hatch back for our kitchen area - and we will camp 3 or 4 days and then get a hotel. We will go to Montana first and visit Glacier National Park then take the Rocky Mountain Route up through Canada to the end of the Alaska Highway and take the Gold Rush route back home to California. I've read that one can drive the highway up and back in 10 days but we will probably take about 2 months. That way we can take side excursions to see cool things, take a rafting excursion, etc. I just (finally!) retired and there are a lot of places to see both in the USA and in other countries. The recent cruise tour to Alaska was the kickoff. :D

So glad you had a wonderful time. Our first Princess cruise in 2012 was a rt from Seattle to Alaska. We want to do a one way with a cruise tour. Maybe 2018.

Congrats on retirement. Since mine two years ago we have traveled quite a bit. Enjoy yours!

If you are camping at Glacier park next year camp on the Canadian side at Waterton Lake NP. Nice campground on a point in the middle of a lake, much better than the US side.

It was freaking awesome! :D

 

Denali made an appearance for us. There were folks in our group who were visiting for the fifth time and this was the first time they had ever seen the mountain. Only 30% of visitors ever see it. It was fantastic!

 

On the Tundra Wilderness Tour we had caribou come down onto the road in front of the bus and walk along the road just ahead of us for quite a while. We saw lots of them. We saw a grizzly camped on top of a caribou kill and it "discouraged" a wolf from trying to take part of the kill. It's very rare to see a wolf as the park is huge and there are really very few wolves. This one kind of went along near the road and then blew the bus driver away by coming up onto the road. It was right there by the back of the bus and just sauntered along.

 

We had a mother moose with her calf come out on an island behind the Denali lodge (we actually saw Denali at the McKinley Wilderness Lodge) and they made an appearance every morning and evening. I'm told they were also out in the middle of the night but I was sleeping.

 

It was very odd to never have night. It definitely took some getting used to as the sun would just "dip" barely below the horizon for a few hours. It looked like sunset or sunrise but it never did get dark. My wife (naturally) had to get me out wandering around one "night" in the wee hours just because it was so unusual and the lighting was so "different" from anything we had experienced before.

 

We had the connoisseur cruise tour and the food was included. We could order whatever we wanted - appetizer, main course,desert and a non-alcoholic drink - and we took full advantage of it. My wife enjoyed the crab legs ($52) and we both had a number of excellent dinners and breakfasts. We had a choice of a couple of venues and tried several. All were good but some were better than others. Lunches were not included except on the train ride from McKinley Wilderness Lodge to Whittier. It was very cool not to have to care what the price was as it was all included. (Of course we paid a premium for the connoisseur tour...)

 

The connoisseur land portion also included several excursions: The riverboat cruise in Fairbanks was much better than expected and we enjoyed it a lot. The gold dredge was interesting (we only managed to pan $21 worth of gold between the two of us) but there was an "entertainer" on the train portion to and from the gold dredge who has to be experienced to believe. He can not sing! It was supposed to be kind of "down home" and we didn't want to beat him or anything but OMG! :rolleyes: The gold dredge tour also included visiting a portion of the Alaska Pipeline. Truly an amazing engineering feat. There were special problems to be solved due to the permafrost as they had to be sure to not allow the pipeline to impact it or the whole thing would collapse. It was very interesting. The Tundra Wilderness tour was also included. I had seen a picture of the snack they provided in the past and was pleasantly surprised to find that the one we got was a bit larger. Given all the food that was included with this land tour we really didn't need a huge lunch anyway. We felt we had waaaaaayyy more food provided than we really needed with the breakfasts and dinners.

 

All in all we had a really great land tour and I'm glad we sprung for the connoisseur version. Our group leader kept us all well informed and took care of us nicely. We met some really nice people in our group and, of course, they were also on the cruise portion so it was kind of nice "knowing" some folks onboard.

 

We plan to go back to Alaska - hopefully next year - but this time we want to drive. We have a little teardrop trailer for camping - queen sized bed and a hatch back for our kitchen area - and we will camp 3 or 4 days and then get a hotel. We will go to Montana first and visit Glacier National Park then take the Rocky Mountain Route up through Canada to the end of the Alaska Highway and take the Gold Rush route back home to California. I've read that one can drive the highway up and back in 10 days but we will probably take about 2 months. That way we can take side excursions to see cool things, take a rafting excursion, etc. I just (finally!) retired and there are a lot of places to see both in the USA and in other countries. The recent cruise tour to Alaska was the kickoff. :D

Did you happen to keep any Patters or take pics of menus? We are doing Connoisseur and the Island Southbound starting Aug 3.

Although I was on Island Princess before the “change”, i really dint see many in the Universal Lounge much besides a few lectures and the show. To me it was a very under utilized space. But sith all the new cabins and the loss of the many back decks, i can see it being a very bad decision. And being an architect, its a very UGLY new design....... who the hell signed off on that? The new ship is an embarrassment to Princess. Oh well:mad:

We did the Panama Canal on the Island just before her refit, and like you, we decided to see for ourselves how she is now, partly because we got a really good deal on an Alaska cruise. Island and Coral have been our favorite ships to date.

At least we'll be cruising.:)

Thanks for being brave and testing out the Island for the rest of us. :D I do so love the Coral that I don't know if I'll get on the Island or not, ever. Well, can't say "never," but I do know it would not be the same beautiful ship the Coral is.

I don't think you have to sail on the ship to come to an informed judgement that the changes are a big mistake. A regular cruiser who has been on many ships would be able to come to a decision in an instant. For me personally I have sailed on the original Grand class ships and also the new version and given the extra deck I will never sail on ships like Crown, Emerald, Ruby and Caribbean Princess ever while there are ships like the Grand, Golden, Star, Diamond and Sapphire. The Coral and Island are the same situation.

For me the alterations to Island Princess have put it on my blacklist for life. I would never sail on that ship even if I was paid to.

We recently flew to Alaska for a 6 day land tour followed by a 7 day southbound. The choices were Island, Coral, or Star. We have previously sailed Coral and Star and were happy with them but, due to the dates my wife wanted to go, we ended up booking Island Princess. Having loved Coral (we did a 17 day Panama Canal cruise on Coral last fall) I thought it would be interesting to see if the much-reviled refit to Island Princess would really affect the cruise.

 

I had read all of the "I'll never sail on Island Princess again" comments but most were from folks who had sailed Island and Coral in the past and hadn't actually sailed on Island since the refit. Getting first hand info seemed a good way to decide for ourselves if the refit really had much of an effect on the cruise experience.

 

After the latest cruise, my take (and my wife's as well) was that it pretty much screwed the ship. We kept "running out of ship" when we headed aft for anything. It didn't ruin the cruise but we will definitely book pretty much any other Princess ship before sailing on Island again. Bummer.

Based on your previous posts, I know that you're capable of an objective analysis of a cruise & I appreciate sharing your feelings about the changes...the same feelings I have about the Island's changes.

I'm not one of the "never sail the Island" types however if there is another similarly priced Princess option...the Island would be my very last choice. That saddens me because the Coral & the pre modified Island are two of my favorite ships.

None of the changes to the Island are improvements & I agree with 'Brisbane41' that I can make an informed judgment based on the changes & the experiences of passengers that I find credible such as you.

Wow all good to know. Thank you Thrak.

Tony

It was freaking awesome! :D

 

Denali made an appearance for us. There were folks in our group who were visiting for the fifth time and this was the first time they had ever seen the mountain. Only 30% of visitors ever see it. It was fantastic!

 

On the Tundra Wilderness Tour we had caribou come down onto the road in front of the bus and walk along the road just ahead of us for quite a while. We saw lots of them. We saw a grizzly camped on top of a caribou kill and it "discouraged" a wolf from trying to take part of the kill. It's very rare to see a wolf as the park is huge and there are really very few wolves. This one kind of went along near the road and then blew the bus driver away by coming up onto the road. It was right there by the back of the bus and just sauntered along.

 

We had a mother moose with her calf come out on an island behind the Denali lodge (we actually saw Denali at the McKinley Wilderness Lodge) and they made an appearance every morning and evening. I'm told they were also out in the middle of the night but I was sleeping.

 

It was very odd to never have night. It definitely took some getting used to as the sun would just "dip" barely below the horizon for a few hours. It looked like sunset or sunrise but it never did get dark. My wife (naturally) had to get me out wandering around one "night" in the wee hours just because it was so unusual and the lighting was so "different" from anything we had experienced before.

 

We had the connoisseur cruise tour and the food was included. We could order whatever we wanted - appetizer, main course,desert and a non-alcoholic drink - and we took full advantage of it. My wife enjoyed the crab legs ($52) and we both had a number of excellent dinners and breakfasts. We had a choice of a couple of venues and tried several. All were good but some were better than others. Lunches were not included except on the train ride from McKinley Wilderness Lodge to Whittier. It was very cool not to have to care what the price was as it was all included. (Of course we paid a premium for the connoisseur tour...)

 

The connoisseur land portion also included several excursions: The riverboat cruise in Fairbanks was much better than expected and we enjoyed it a lot. The gold dredge was interesting (we only managed to pan $21 worth of gold between the two of us) but there was an "entertainer" on the train portion to and from the gold dredge who has to be experienced to believe. He can not sing! It was supposed to be kind of "down home" and we didn't want to beat him or anything but OMG! :rolleyes: The gold dredge tour also included visiting a portion of the Alaska Pipeline. Truly an amazing engineering feat. There were special problems to be solved due to the permafrost as they had to be sure to not allow the pipeline to impact it or the whole thing would collapse. It was very interesting. The Tundra Wilderness tour was also included. I had seen a picture of the snack they provided in the past and was pleasantly surprised to find that the one we got was a bit larger. Given all the food that was included with this land tour we really didn't need a huge lunch anyway. We felt we had waaaaaayyy more food provided than we really needed with the breakfasts and dinners.

 

All in all we had a really great land tour and I'm glad we sprung for the connoisseur version. Our group leader kept us all well informed and took care of us nicely. We met some really nice people in our group and, of course, they were also on the cruise portion so it was kind of nice "knowing" some folks onboard.

 

We plan to go back to Alaska - hopefully next year - but this time we want to drive. We have a little teardrop trailer for camping - queen sized bed and a hatch back for our kitchen area - and we will camp 3 or 4 days and then get a hotel. We will go to Montana first and visit Glacier National Park then take the Rocky Mountain Route up through trip sou Canada to the end of the Alaska Highway and take the Gold Rush route back home to California. I've read that one can drive the highway up and back in 10 days but we will probably take about 2 months. That way we can take side excursions to see cool things, take a rafting excursion, etc. I just (finally!) retired and there are a lot of places to see both in the USA and in other countries. The recent cruise tour to Alaska was the kickoff. :D

Your land trip sounds amazing. Thanks for sharing your experiences.....:):):)

Bob

Although I was on Island Princess before the “change”, i really dint see many in the Universal Lounge much besides a few lectures and the show. To me it was a very under utilized space. But sith all the new cabins and the loss of the many back decks, i can see it being a very bad decision. And being an architect, its a very UGLY new design....... who the hell signed off on that? The new ship is an embarrassment to Princess. Oh well:mad:

I love the Universal Lounge....that's where they perform ''On The Bayou" which is my all time favorite Princess show. I've heard since the Island refit, it's now performed in the Princess Theatre, which can't be the same since the stage doesn't move. Fortunately, I am was able to see the performance on the Coral last September and it was just as fantastic as I remembered!

I love the Universal Lounge....that's where they perform ''On The Bayou" which is my all time favorite Princess show. I've heard since the Island refit, it's now performed in the Princess Theatre, which can't be the same since the stage doesn't move. Fortunately, I am was able to see the performance on the Coral last September and it was just as fantastic as I remembered!

The Universe Lounge was, of course, the best place for On The Bayou. They did perform it on the stage in the Princess Theater and it was still pretty good although not quite the same. The Princess Theater on Island Princess is fairly small so the stage is also smaller than on Grand class ships but, overall, they did a good job with On The Bayou despite the limitations.

The Cruise Director on Island Princess was Mike Witte. We had never sailed with him before and were pleased to find that he was really excellent! I hope to have him as CD on some future cruises (although hopefully not on Island Princess),

Thanks for your observations. I'm booked on the Island Princess in December and I'm looking forward to it. I look forward to all my cruises. I've read all the reports on the changes and, honestly, wish they hadn't changed her, but they did. So be it. The only real thing that may bother me is that she'll be more crowded. I always loved that I never experienced crowding on the Coral/Island. It's good that Princess offers a lot of other cruising choices for those who swear off other ships. I said I'd NEVER sail on the Royal before she came out. Well, I did and I loved it. I just love cruising. Of course, I have to admit that I'm avoiding going on the Grand again. We each have our own experiences. ;):rolleyes::cool:

We were on the Island for a B2B Panama canal cruise recently so it was 30 days. I had read all the negatives about the ship and was anticipating an unpleasant cruise especially since we would be on the ship for so long. But...except for people walking the promenade deck and having to cross through to the other side, she seemed OK. In fact, we thought she was a very pretty ship. We missed the international cafe most of all but that wasn't there prior to the dry dock. We saw the show on the Bayou twice and since we hadn't seen it in the other theater we didn't know if it was better before or not. We loved that show! And we loved the Bayou cafe. We had anytime dining and made reservations most nights and never had a problem with waiting in line. Her back end is kind of strange looking but on the ship, you never see it. I'm sure the Island was better before the dry dock but our cruise was still great. The crew was great too.

That is one ugly aft end.

Before

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That is one ugly aft end.

 

It's really sad. :(