L11

I was just able to book a November cruise for a West Coast departure in November using a casino offer. The casino services rep for Princess was aware there was a problem with the website but did not know why. Guess we will have to wait and see what happens... Linda

Beautiful day today in Ketchikan. We did the pub crawl shore excursion and had a blast, meeting new people and day drinking. So far, no production shows which is odd. Oh well, tonight is another comedian, Orlando Baxter. This is the 3rd comedian we have had. Not complaining though. I would sound too much like the curmudgeon we met a t breakfast this am who had absolutely nothing nice to say about the cruise, claiming the food was so bad that he had not eaten in 4 days. Note that he was eating in the dining room at the time. Sigh. The cruise is by no means perfect but there are a lot of positives. You make your own cruise , I think. Anyway,some pictures from Ketchikan. Tomorrow, Price Rupert, Canada. No shore excursions planned, just some walking around. I will post more later. The ‘happy bears’ at the Arctic Bar Linda

She certainly was! We talked to her after her show. She will be performing again before the end of the cruise but did not know the exact date or venue

Just wanted to make 2 comments about yesterday's stop in Juneau, one positive, one not so much. First, Princess had a good idea to give out gangway tickets to avoid the crush of 2400+ passengers all trying to get off in Juneau at the same time. Since we had a late arrival (3 pm) and it was our first port of call, Princess realized, quite correctly, that there would be a mess if they didn't do some kind of crowd control. How this worked in practice, I cannot say since I was on a Princess excursion and was able to get off early. The idea seemed sound though. What was not good was how they handled people on the pier who had Princess shore excursions. We queued up in color coded groups in the theatre and were lead to the gangway in groups by color. That is the usual process and it worked fine. However, once we were on shore, we were on our own. Normally, there are signs with your tour number where you congregate with the other members of your tour group to meet your guide and transportation. This time, no signs, no one to even tell you the general area to meet, no one from Princess or the tour companies to tell you where the tours met. Nothing. Some people, receiving no direction otherwise, said they just kept walking past the area that turned out to be the meeting area, past the shops and on down the pier, only belatedly realizing that they had overshot the meeting area. After about 15 minutes or maybe a bit more, some group leaders got around to posting a few signs with tour numbers but there were a lot of confused people milling around in the meantime. Looks like the people on shore did not realize when people were getting off the ship and/or were completely unready for us. As a result, there was a lot of confusion and the tours ran late. In my opinion, there was no reason that the shore people could not have been better organized. They knew when the ship arrived. Poor communication somewhere. By the way, once things got sorted, we had a very nice tour. Today is Skagway and it looks to be another chilly rainy day. Thank goodness we brought the proper clothing! Linda

I didn't save the previous Patters but today's movies were King Richard, Spencer and Encanto. Hope that helps a little. It was a rainy and chilly day in Juneau. We did a Princess excursion that involved gold panning and a salmon bake. We had a great time despite the weather. Right now, we are in the theater waiting for a presentation by Libby Riddles, first female Iditarod winner. There are no other shows in the theater tonight, probably because we are in port until about 9:30 pm. Linda

I spoke to soon about room service. We ordered for lunch and the order was only about 75% correct. Wrong pizza. It took about an hour to get it. Then, just a couple of minutes ago, a room service waiter appeared with a specialty coffee we did not order. @cruzin4us, I think we got the order you were missing! Oh well, pretty much first world problems. Linda

Hi @AccordingTo Alex. I don’t wear red and white stripes but you can find me most late nights (after 10 or 11) at one of the two 3 Card Poker tables in the casino. I’m the 70 year old lady with ear length curly greying hair, usually talking to someone or other. Tag, you’re it. Linda

Wi-Fi right now is still slow. Not too surprising. I was hoping it would be a little faster though since I have a bit of online business to do near the end of the cruise that will be very difficult to accomplish if I can’t find faster service. I will be experimenting to see if there are any areas on the ship where I can get a slightly better signal than in my stateroom. Wish me luck. I did not qualify for round 2 of the slot tournament. Boo. But I did well last night at 3 Card Poker so I am happy. Last night’s entertainment was John Bressler, whom I have seen before. Still am amazing piano player with a very raspy singing voice. Lots of fun. The service has over all been very good to excellent, especially our room steward, Rene. We have, fortunately, not experienced any problems with room service. Hopefully that will continue. In my (very subjective) opinion, food is still just ok. Looking forward to Sabatini’s tonight (first formal night). Sorry I have no pictures to post but I never seem to remember to take them. All in all, we are having a very enjoyable cruise. I will chime in with occasional updates. Linda

By the way, Internet right now is slooowwww. Linda

I finally woke up after also closing down the casino at 3. It is still pretty foggy outside but the seas are calm. We had breakfast in the Da Vinci dining room. The service was good but, at best, the eggs with asparagus and gratineed potatoes were edible (potatoes were really undercooked). Food so far is ok. Nothing special yet. The Crown Grill described above sounds fantastic though. We are eating several times at Sabatini’s so I will report back on our experience. Not too many activities that interest us on tap today though we did catch a little of the totem carver in the Piazza which we enjoyed. It figures that the 2 things we would like to try (watercolors and line dancing) conflict with my slot tournament time. Pretty reflective of my luck so far. Next up, slot tournament at 1:30. Just wandering around and chilling until then. Love sea days! Linda

Beautiful sail away under the Golden Gate! I will try to post a photo but forgive me if I screw up— first try at this.

We are also on this cruise. You got a killer good deal at your hotel. I don't even want to tell you what we paid, though it had the real advantage of being within walking distance of Fisherman's Wharf and last night's restaurant (Scoma's) where we had a reunion with friends we had not seen in 20 years. Very special night. This morning, we arrived at pier 27 by taxi about 10:30 and were onboard by noon. Luggage has arrived and we are unpacked and relaxing. Life is good! If I am not mistaken, you are casino people too. Are you participating in the slot tournament? Maybe I will see you there. Linda