Paula_MacFan

The Kenai wilderness lodge has rooms that are like personal cabins and have fireplace stoves with cut wood provided, screened porches, and living areas. We loved it! Our favorite lodge. It's also more remote and smaller than the others so it's quiet. The restaurant was great and location was super. We took the Kenai Fjords all day boat tour and it was a highlight of our trip. We saw orca, humpbacks, seals, glaciers, birds, and gorgeous scenery.

I wondered why everyone was getting so worked up about this 'new' issue that's been around for years AFAIK. Sounds like people just read the small print but I really thought this had been discussed here years ago.

What is the Oceanfront Gazebo on Caribbean Princess? This is the Lido deck plan from Princess website. We've been on CB a couple times but it's been several years ago, and I don't recall this. I also didn't see it on some other well known websites with cruise deck plans and pictures, and Google was no help.

Land excursions are booked online the same way as a regular cruise. I would advise booking early as prices for all of our excursions went WAY up in price. We booked ours over a year in advance and some were more than $100 more by the time of the cruise. The Hubbard Glacier tour that we booked at $299 was $499 after just a couple months, and then was sold out. Many popular ones will sell out quickly. For excursions that are included in the land package you don't have to do anything in advance, other than ask to upgrade from the Natural History tour to the Tundra Wilderness tour at Denali, if desired.

I agree with the others -- if your cruise is farther away than the near future, I'd lock in the pricing now. We have some cruises booked for 2026 and I've already paid for Plus. I assume there will be multiple price increases between now and then. Also if you book a package in advance and opt for Princess insurance coverage, you'll pay slightly more as the total cruise cost is used to calculate the insurance amount.

I wasn't advocating getting rid of any shows -- I was responding to a person who said they didn't like the magic shows. I'm glad there is still variety for everyone's tastes, but it does seem to be getting cut back every year.

Here's the return address for folio credit refund which will come in the mail in the form of a paper check. We've gotten 2 so far this year so this is current as of last month.

We like a good magic show and also the comedians, but we can't stand the broadway-style production shows. Different strokes for different folks 🙂 I do agree with you about the enrichment speakers and naturalists -- we always attend all of those when offered!

Same problem on the app, and I uninstalled and reinstalled it several times over the past week so it's the latest version. So aggravating!

Adding a comment because I just noticed your question about adding on a night OOP at Fairbanks. We did this easily through our Princess CVP. I believe it was about $100 per person per night. It was worth it to us so we could fly in a day early and acclimate a bit, since our flight landed at 11:30 local time and we had a very long travel day. If you choose to do this I would advise booking as soon as you book the cruisetour to ensure availability.

We did the Off the Beaten Path 15 night cruisetour this year at the end of May/first week of June on the Sapphire. We did the land portion first (glad we did this -- very busy and activity intensive). Full disclosure we had done a 7 night round trip from Seattle 10 years ago so we had been to most of the ports before, but we really enjoyed the land portion which was all new to us. We flew to Fairbanks and stayed 2 nights there, then took the train to Denali lodge for 2 nights where we did the upgraded Tundra Tour (highly recommend doing this), then on to McKinley for one night, and finally Kenai lodge for 2 nights (also highly recommended). If you have any specific lodge, transportation, or excursion questions about those places I'd be happy to answer. Regarding your food questions -- we chose not to do the Connoisseur or the food package option for a few reasons. First, we are not big breakfast eaters so the cost/benefit wasn't there for us given the expense. Also the time difference was pretty brutal the first few days (as well as the almost 24 hour daylight which made it hard to sleep), so not having to get up early every morning to eat a big breakfast was just fine with us -- the sleep was more valuable. Before the trip I spent about $15 on prepackaged breakfast items which we took in our carryons. We were more than happy with those items to get us going each day and save an hour in the restaurant. Also, most of our activities included lunch, so we didn't need that part of the food package either. We just paid for our evening meals each day and spent way less than the Connoisseur or meal package options. I'd advise looking carefully at your activities to determine how much value you will get from prepaying meals. Lastly, you mentioned possibly doing Hawaii instead -- we also did that trip last year in a land/cruise combo and would be happy to answer any questions about that as well. Side note - it wasn't with Princess 🙂

I have been able to use Incognito mode after seeing it suggested here recently. However, that doesn't fix the lack of app access and the overall issues with the system. Thanks for the suggestion though 🙂

I've tried that and it doesn't help. Also I can't access bookings on the app on my phone which I wouldn't think has anything to do with my laptop browser history. 😊

I'm still getting the 'technical difficulties' screen in both the web based version and the app. Spoke to my CVP yesterday who told me everything is fine and I just need to reload the app. Ha! Like I haven't already done that. We just returned from a cruise and the app worked fine. Now all of the sudden (for like the last 3 weeks) I can't access anything by any means. But sure, the problem is on my end 🙄

We're Platinum and I'm able to book dining for both of our 2026 cruises in the app, in addition to excursions. We've been on 2 other cruises this year and were able to book dining and excursions well in advance of final payment. The app glitches must continue for some people, I know it's frustrating. I was just asking the OP if they thought they needed to make final payment in advance to book those items because that has never been our experience.

I have never had to be paid in full to book excursions. In fact I have two cruises currently booked for 2026 with excursions booked for both. Are you in the US? Maybe it's different in other countries.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment, but you don't have to have the cruise paid in full to make dining reservations and book excursions. To your primary question - in my experience we've received refunds for any cancelled items within about a week.

I have multiple cruises booked. Earlier today none of them showed. Now they are back but when I click to open I get this screen.

Same problem here, both on website and app.

No, we're on the 9/7 cruise which is prior to the person I was quoting who said their 9/22 was cancelled.

We're on the cruise right before that, haven't gotten any notices so I hope it's not changed. I guess if there are changes it's good to find out this far in advance 🙂

Here's a link to the official port schedule page and parking options. We've sailed from Galveston many times, most recently January this year. The Regal was at different pier locations depending on the week -- see schedule. https://www.portofgalveston.com/80/Cruise-Lines-Schedules

A few years ago on our Regal New England cruise as we left Newport we sailed past a fancy outdoor wedding in progress on the shore and the captain stopped and sounded the horn. Everyone on shore cheered. I assumed it was planned because if it was my wedding and a random cruise ship interrupted my fancy Newport mansion wedding I might not be amused 🙂 It was a beautiful evening and something we still talk about.

We've sailed on CB twice and didn't have any issues either. We have a Caribbean/Panama Canal cruise booked on CB for 2026 and are looking forward to it. But then again we also sailed on the much-maligned Island last fall and had a great cruise as well.

We just did an Alaska cruisetour in May/June and had a great time. I always book all our travel myself so option #1; however, we do have a Princess CVP who later added on an extra night at the Fairbanks Lodge for us. Otherwise I did all the planning and booking. If you break it down, there really aren't any more 'extras' than on a typical cruise. Per your list: transfers are included in the cruisetour, you can book your own excursions just like you can for a cruise, the insurance is no different than any other trip, and lodging is included in your cruisetour. I would suggest you look carefully at all the options on the Princess website and determine which option fits you best, i.e. Connoisseur, On Your Own, short/long etc. This grid is a nice comparison for all the options. https://www.princess.com/learn/cruise-destinations/alaska-cruises/cruisetour-options/cruisetour-finder/ Then it's easy to book yourself online, or seek a TA to book for you. Airfare is easily booked online using the Princess website. I always do this myself and check fares daily and rebook if fares drop or a better flight option becomes available. Also I would suggest you read the Alaska cruisetour FAQs -- that answers a lot of good questions. The PDF download is handy to have. https://www.princess.com/en-us/faq/cruisetours We chose the Off the Beaten Path 15 day option and have no regrets. We loved all the lodges but especially Kenai Fjords. We chose not to do Connoisseur as we are not big breakfast eaters and most of our lunches were included in our activities already. So we just paid as we went for evening meals and took grab and go packaged food for quick breakfasts. That also allowed us a little extra sleep in the mornings which was helpful with the big time difference from home 🙂 Lastly I would encourage you to book excursions early -- all of ours went way up in price as time went on, and many were sold out months in advance.