The cruise portion of this cruise (my 10th to Alaska on Princess) was great. The first portion of the land tour was good. However, the Princess Riverview Lodge was the worst vacation experience I have ever had. Our land tour started in Anchorage. We enjoyed our stay there. The Princess Lodge in McKinley was great as was our stay at the Princess Lodge in Denali. We thoroughly enjoyed the tours we were booked on as well as the accommodations in those three locations. Our stay at the Fairbanks Riverside Lodge, however, is the reason I am writing this review. Unfortunately, this property had some serious Issues that concerned all three of us and need to be brought to your attention. When we arrived at the location, my son and I arrived at our room to find our luggage inside with the door wide open. There was nothing missing but there were no employees in sight delivering luggage so it is unknown how long the bags were there with the door open. Our door appeared to have been the only one in the immediate hallway that was wide open. We had made dinner reservations online at the Edgewater Dining Room which showed it was a menu that provided a 3 course dinner. We had purchased the meal package for the land portion of our trip and had been happy with the meals and restaurants up to this point. The other restaurant on site was a bar that served mainly hamburgers and bar foods per the website. Upon arriving at the restaurant we were seated and told the restaurant was only a buffet. Since the bar was extremely crowded we decided that we had no choice but to eat at the Edgewater. The food at the buffet was cold and very obviously from several days earlier. The salmon had skim coating on it that was obviously due to it being leftover by several days. The ribs were old, dry and overcooked and the prime rib was old, tough and inedible. The tablecloths covering the table were filthy. The serving spoons were caked with food and filthy. There were several employees in the immediate area of the buffet who were talking and laughing and yelling at each other and generally unprofessional. Their uniforms were dirty and unkempt. The sterno containers under the serving dishes were not lit. The sodas we ordered were flat. We left without eating and ultimately ordered pizza from DoorDash since we were uneasy with eating in the bar after seeing the quality of the food in the supposedly higher end restaurant. The food and beverage manager in charge of the dining room came over to us and apologized and told us she would have the general manager contact us regarding our concerns. We were never contacted by anyone. In the morning my mother and I went to the airport on the 6:00am shuttle. Our driver was great. My son was not checking out until 11:00am since he had a late flight. The do not disturb sign was on the door. At 7:30am, housekeeping repeatedly knocked on the door to ask him what time he was checking out. I have never been in hotel where that has occurred. I have reached out to Princess with no response to date.
