Review Star Princess Alaska May 5-12 - Including Photo's and patters

I have a longish review of the Star Princess from our May 5-12 Cruise to Alaska. I will be post it in several chunks as I am trying to get the photo's in order, and my spelling correct.

First off here is a link to the things that I thought were important and scanned. There are Patters and Port Guides including Glacier Bay, and a special guest on the Ship Libby Riddles (first woman to win the Iditarod).

I have NOT scanned the shopping junk that showed up every single day.

Patters on Google Drive

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Fw6pOwGlfxoxBZftJ3D-VDRcvYzHBhkf?usp=sharing

Port Guides

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Nm1a3QmYvBCdtSK2ziXYkiQs_5mMpKTL?usp=sharing

I did NOT scan or take photos of the Menu's as they were typical of any Princess Cruise.

Please tell me if I am boring you to death (as I tend to go on, and on, and on) or if you have specific questions please ask!

This is a review of our Cruise to Alaska on the Star Princess May 5th to 12th 2018.

Itinerary: Vancouver, Cruising Glacier Bay, Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan, Vancouver

This review will not follow any pattern, just my(our) musings about the ship, the itinerary, and excursions.

I will include comments on the Ship, Itinerary, The Ports of Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay cruising, Vancouver, and things to do there. I will post scans the daily Patters and port information pamphlets. I have loads of photos that I will try and post correctly...

Cruising is my wife, Maria and me, Ron. While we do not cruise with others we do enjoy meeting and chatting with our fellow travellers. We are not the “go, go, go” type from dawn to dusk. We love to sail in a balcony and like spending time sitting, relaxing and watch the world pass by.

We are from Western Canada, so Vancouver is an easy port to reach. We have cruised Princess, Royal Caribbean and Carnival and are not tied to any cruise line. We are only lowly Ruby level for Captain’s Circle (tho we are Platinum on our next cruise with both Princess and Royal Caribbean).

This cruise was booked only 35 days in advance which is completely outside of our normal cruise habits. We typically book and start planning well over a year in advance. Princess was offering a Mini-suite at the price of an Oceanview plus they added a Speciality dining cover charge for 2.

The Mini-suites quickly sold out and it amazed me that, for a period of time the remaining Interior’s were priced higher than Mini-suites. At 28 days from sailing all Interior’s are sold out, and only minimal product was available, and 22 days out the ship was totally sold out.

So.. without further ado… here we go….

• Our two days before the cruise
  

We are lucky that we can get to Vancouver with a quick 1-hour flight and do not have to clear customs until we boarded the ship. We flew in early and spent 1 ½ days in Vancouver and then boarded the ship on Saturday the 5th.

Vancouver is a busy city in May, and the hotel prices were outrageous. What was only $200 a night in late April quickly rose to $500 a night in early May.

Luckily, I worked for a Gov’t agency and can still get a corporate rate, so we stayed at the Westin Grand. The hotel is actually in the shape for a Grand Piano from the air. This is one of my favourite hotels to stay at in Vancouver (next is the Vancouver Pinnacle (Marriott). Right across the street is the Public library, and if you watched any Schwarzenegger movies, the Public Library was the evil lair in the movie “6th Day”.

The Hotel from Robson Street. Vancouver is a VERY walkable city

Our Room (this just a normal room, no upgrades) There was a separate bedroom and a full sitting room.

Our View out of our 17th-floor room

We love to use Vancouver’s transit system including the Skytrain, Seabus, and regular transit buses transit.

Hint for Vancouver Transit - Vancouver uses a Transit Card program called “Compass” it is a pre-filled card that you can use to get on and off the buses. I pre-ordered them online, and then a couple of days in advance of our travel we loaded some day passes. ($10 unlimited use for a full day ($7.50 for seniors) and we used them for the two days we would be in the city.

Please note that any passes that are purchased on Sea Island (YVR Airport area) have a $5.00 airport improvement fee added.

Friday we spent tootling around the city using the local buses. The Compass card day passes worked great, you swiped on to the Buses or SkyTrain and swiped out. We took transit buses, Skytrain, SeaBus all for the price of a day pass.

This is a picture of the SeaBus coming into the Waterfront station. I tried the Toy photo feature on my camera, I think it looks kinda cool.

We spent some time at Granville Island. The DW loves to visit the Quilt store there, and we like eating at the various food establishments. This trip we had lunch at Bridges.

This is my attempt at some art shots on Granville Island. Under the Granville Street Bridge leading to Granville Island

The marina next to Granville Island

Flowers in full bloom.

My attempt at another artsy photo…

We also went over to North Vancouver (took the Seabus) and had a great dinner in Deep Cove with some very dear friends.

There is a cool shopping area in North Van called the Lonsdale Quay, and it our new favourite place to visit when we hit Vancouver.

Vancouver is one of our favourite cities to visit and it is always a pleasure going there. If you have a chance to stop at this city 1-2 days early, please do so. It is such a beautiful city.

Day 1 - Boarding and Sail away

Boarding - This was the start of the Cruise season and there were 2 ships in Port. Star Princess, and the Niew Amsterdam.

Here is our first view of the Star Princess

We arrived @ Canada Place at approximately 11:30 and started the trek to get onto the ship. It took us well over an hour to get from start to finish. While the facility is quite nice, this being one of the first trips of the, year you could tell that the people assisting you were not fully up-to-speed.

Vancouver port is located downtown in Canada Place. You access the cruise port one level down from Street level. Just follow the blue signs and you will be OK.

First, we proceeded down the ramp, and dropped our luggage off, we proceeded to the check-in clearing US customs and onto the ship.

Luggage drop off was a breeze, I so much appreciated not being hassled by the dock workers for tips. We just rolled our luggage up to a rack, and it was promptly put on the rack for the ship, plus the dock worker wished us a great trip.

Next was to walk up to Salon “C” to check into the ship. This took around 30 minutes from dropping luggage off to heading to Customs.

Here is a view of the line-up to check in.

There is a steep set of stairs from the check-in location down to Customs (be wary if you cannot do stairs). This was a long hike, and someone who would be mobility challenged would have some difficulty here. If you have a Nexus or trusted traveller status, you will have to ask for directions to that line-up, it was not clear.

Customs was a normal US cross border Customs set-up. We have Nexus cards, and were directed towards a set of officers off to one side. The Agent looked at our passports and cleared us into the US in seconds I don’t think he said more than 3 words total to us.

We were on-board by 12:30 and were allowed to proceed to our cabin right away.

Sail away was scheduled for 16:30, yet we didn’t leave until at 6 PM, as there were lots of passengers that were getting on very late. It appeared that one of the large Asian tour groups had come into Vancouver later much later than expected.

We did talk to one couple that said it took them almost 4 hours to get onto the ship (do not know if this was a true estimation of the time, but it is what they said it took).

There were several LARGE groups of passengers from Thailand (Honda), Japan and loads of Canadian travellers (yea Canucks!!) and according to Nathan (Asst. Cruise Director) the Canadians out numbered the Americans on this cruise

Sailaway

The muster drill was on time at 4:30, and we were gathered in the Vista Lounge on Deck 7. It was longer than normal, as they were trying to get the on-board passengers to the muster stations. Nathan was the muster captain, and he was quite funny. He was quite excited as it was his last cruise for this contract and he was on the way home to Australia.

As said earlier we sailed away at 6:00 pm, and were passing under the Lions Gate Bridge by 6:17

The cruise activities team was decked out in lumberjack shirts, and most of them sported some type of beard or moustache (and some of them should not have).

This is a view of the Port of Vancouver with Canada Place in the foreground. You can see the Nieuw Amsterdam still docked awaiting their turn to leave port. She shadowed us for the entire cruise (except for our missing port - which I will tell you about later).

The whole evening was cruising along the coast up between the Mainland and Vancouver Island. This house on an island looked outstanding.

A sunset photo and we finished off Day 1

Thanks for the review. Love all the pictures.

Thank you for posting your review. Love the sunset photo! I too am cruising out of Vancouver in just 2 weeks. Was especially interested in how it went through US customs and glad you were able to breeze through.

Looking forward to more. I am doing southbound on star in a month.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Forums mobile app

Great pictures!! Thank you!!

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Love this so far! We are doing this cruise in June.

Loving your review can’t wait to read more leaving the 26th on the Star.

Thanks for the Patters. We're doing the same cruise in July. Did anyone else notice that the second formal night is in Juneau? Did I read that right? When I look closer, I see that your itinerary is different than mine. I'm Vancover, sea day, Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, College Ford, and Whittier.

Thanks for the review. Love all the pictures.

Thanks for the comments! I have loads of the Glacier's and our Train ride

Thank you for posting your review. Love the sunset photo! I too am cruising out of Vancouver in just 2 weeks. Was especially interested in how it went through US customs and glad you were able to breeze through.

Luckily this was not a normal TSA type customs. They really were not interested in the American or Canadian cruisers. The longest lineup was at the Princess Counter. Loads of Blue cards this cruise

Looking forward to more. I am doing southbound on star in a month.

 

Those days will pass by so quickly! Have a great southbound cruise!

Loving your review can’t wait to read more leaving the 26th on the Star.

That is coming up quickly! Have a great cruise.

Thanks for the Patters. We're doing the same cruise in July. Did anyone else notice that the second formal night is in Juneau? Did I read that right? When I look closer, I see that your itinerary is different than mine. I'm Vancouver, sea day, Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, College Ford, and Whittier.

Looks like you are on the Northbound. Have a great time! Our first formal night was on Day 2 (Sea Day) and the 2nd was on Day 5 again a sea day (tho it should have been our Ketchikan port day)

Cruise thoughts and Itinerary

The cruise was well laid out, the itinerary and ports were spaced out well, we never felt rushed and there were always a TON of activities going on around the ship. I like that Princess goes that extra mile and ensures that relevant speakers and displays are available for the cruisers.

We had Libby Riddle (who is the first woman to win the Iditarod) come on board and she gave a lecture in the Princess theatre, which was simulcast in the cabins.

There was also a naturist, Sandra Schempp, who had a large display of animal furs and artifacts from the area. Plus she had presentations throughout the week.

The crew were decked out in lumberjack shirts, and most of the men tried to sport moustaches or goatees.

Michaele Tuvo is the Captain, and he was a hoot! He seemed to be very happy and was regularly on the shipwide intercom giving the passengers updates (some ill-timed - more about that later). You could always see Captain Tuvo around the ship. He was very visible and always said hello.

Fernando Cunha was the Cruise Director, and he was visible around the ship. He was approachable and had a great sense of humour. We even offered to buy him dinner in the MDR, alas he had to decline as he was doing the announcements for the Baked Alaska event.

Passengers…. This was an odd mix of passengers. We found that the passengers were predominantly Asian and there were several large tour groups from Thailand and Japan. Honda Thailand had a very large group there. On disembarkation day, they took almost 30 minutes for the full group to get off (they had at least 8 buses for them alone). We were told that there was a Chinese New Year sale, and this had filled up the rest of the ship with passengers from the Vancouver and BC area. There was also a group of line dancers from Northern BC, who were in and around the ship dancing, fun to watch them.

While I might be wrong, it appears that NONE of the groups fully blocked off the facilities (unlike a previous rock and roll cruise, where the Vista lounge was fully blocked just for them). They did have some functions, but I did not feel it interfered with moving around the ship.

One thing about cruisers from other parts of the world is they tend to walk on the left vs the right, and going up and down hallways/stairs was fun as they always seemed to be on the wrong side. Guess they thought we were on the wrong side as well.

Ship overall

The Star is an older ship, launched in 2002. It is a Grand Class ship (Grand, Golden and Star). So far we have sailed on a Grand Class, Caribbean Class and a Crown Class ship. To me, the Grand Class and Caribbean Class are very much a similar ship design.

According to Nathan our Asst Cruise Director, the ship was recently in Dry Dock and came out in December of 2017. There was evidence of them still fixing and updating cabins and hallways. They were laying new carpet on deck 10 hallways and cabins one day, and you could regularly see them changing out cabin carpets. There were a number of construction crew on board.

We took the stairs almost 100% of the time, only taking the elevators 2 or 3 times the entire cruise. We love to go up and down each staircase and look at the artwork that is hanging at every level.

Cabin

We had a mini-suite D707, Dolphin deck (or Deck 9), close to the rear elevator’s (one cabin back from the elevator entrance). The cabin was quite nice, it came with a sitting area with a fold out bed, 2 large screen TV’s, a bathtub. I was a bit concerned that our stateroom would be noisy (with the proximity to the elevators) but was pleasantly surprised that it was relatively quiet.

We had an older couple on one side, and a family of 4 on the other side. Alas, the little girls could have been a tad quieter on the balcony, but they were just kids, and in the room, they were not noisy at all.

The cabin is about 10 feet longer than a normal balcony cabin and has a bathtub instead of a shower. The balcony is uncovered, and you are in full view of passengers in the decks above you.

While I thought that this would bother me, I was not out on my balcony naked so it did not matter. I just enjoyed the sun in my parka and gloves.

Don't mind the dirty window on our Cabin.

View from end of entrance hallway.

View from Balcony

Entrance Hall

Bathroom

One thing that surprised me is that the ship had come out of dry dock in December of last year, and it was really starting to look tired. The rug in our cabin was coming apart near the bathroom, and a piece of moulding fell off the desk the second morning. When brought to the steward's attention, both were promptly fixed.

Our room steward Rey, made sure we had everything we needed, but we rarely saw him.

We arrived at the start of a Love Boat episode and quickly settled in for an hour watching the “Captain Stubing gets married” episode.

The beds were newer and were quite comfortable. It was hard to say that they were soft or firm, I just know I enjoyed sleeping on these mattresses. I had very good sleeps (only getting up for the occasional bathroom break), every single night of our cruise. This is unusual for me, as I am usually up once or twice every night.

For the Tech-enabled!

Television(s) were large flat screens. For the tech-enabled, yes there was an available HDMI port on the side of the TV’s. The remote was VERY basic (on, off, volume and channel changing).

HDMI ports in the back of the TV

Remote Control

Actual TV - 40”(ish) Flat screen LG’s - Alas the screen colour was lousy, and we could not get a decently coloured picture on the movie channels.

Nice cabin!

Were there any activities/shows that your particularly enjoyed? How about food on the ship? Any particular things that you enjoyed?

Dining

I really like to have Traditional Dining (especially the early sitting) and tried to get a spot either at 5:30 or 6:00. No such luck…. We were waitlisted 247th for 5:30 pm dining, and only 315th in line for 6:00 pm dining…. So My Time Dining it was...

There were 2 Formal nights on this cruise. First was on Monday / Day 2 our sea day, and the second was on Thursday / Day 5 (our unexpected Sea day).

Surf and Turf on Formal night 1 surprised me as it was Steak and Prawns vs Steak and Lobster. But on Formal night 2, there were lobster tails for dinner.

First meal, we arrived at there @ 6:45 and we seated immediately. We only had to wait for 10 minutes on one evening, as we wanted to have a table for 2. If we asked for a table with other passengers seating was always immediate.

Our table mates were always welcoming and we had some great conversations. We met passengers from Canada, Australia, and the US.

My wife is Celiac, and I am recovering from throat cancer so we both needed speciality meals. The crew was very happy to accommodate us, but having My Time Dining made it especially difficult to order our meals and to be sure they would be available each evening. Each night seemed like a first night on the cruise and we had to explain ourselves again, and again, and again (PS I do love assigned dining).

Food was good in all the venues that we visited. We ate in the Main Dining Room, Crown Grill, International Cafe, and of course the Horizon Court.

The crew was very welcoming, and always said hello when you passed them.

Movies (MUTS)

While it was too darn cold to watch the Movies under the Stars, tho some did, there were many current top rated movies playing daily, On the big screen, in the stateroom on TV and in the Princess Theatre, and these were well attended most days. There were even some “R” rated movies shown (50 Shades and Red Sparrow).

Some of them were: Star Wars, Coco, Paddington 2, Justice League, 50 Shades Freed, Thor: Ragnarok, The Post, Jumanji 2, The Greatest Showman, Red Sparrow, Black Panther, Molly’s Game and many more.

We watched Molly's Game and Jumanji 2, and parts of Star Wars, Coco, Black Panther.

Day 2 - @ Sea

Whew, were we ever wasted, seems our last 3 days caught up with us! We spent the morning, basically in bed and lounging. There was a heavy fog outside, and one could not see the end of the ship.

We watched Fernando the Cruise Directory and Nathan Cruise his assistant on the Wake show and then had breakfast in the Horizon court. The crowd was not your typical Caribbean cruise crowd. There were very few younger kids (I think I saw maybe 20 on embarkation day). There were a lot of foreign tour groups, and there was a great mixture of ages.

Lunch was in the Horizon court, and then a tour of the ship, shopping and seeing the various areas around the ship. The designs of the ships are much the same, with the 3 deck Piazza. This ship felt exactly the same as the Caribbean Princess

They had some huge Alaskan themed tapestries hanging up all over the main plaza area. These were very nice, but up close they just looked like very large blankets.

Our evening meal was very good. Alas, we did not take photos of the food, nor the menu’s (sorry).

Rude Awakening….(sort of)

01:40 AM - Captain Tuvo comes on the ship-wide intercom to tell us that the Northern Lights were visible over the port side of the ship. You could hear many balcony doors opening and closing, and people in the halls heading up on deck to view them.

According to what I have read, and seen Northern Lights in May are VERY rare, and we had a major solar event just 2 days before. We looked outside, but there were none visible from our balcony. Some others said they went up on deck and were not impressed as it was a very light showing of the lights.

While we did not mind the disturbance that early in the morning, we heard mixed reviews on his announcement in the middle of the night (some hated it, and some loved it). Ah. no, we didn’t head up on deck to see them. I used to live in the FAR north (Inuvik) and have seen the Northern Lights up close, and most of what I have seen these would NEVER compare.

Captain Michele Tuvo has a quirk of saying/singing a happy”Bye-Bye” every time he signs off on the intercom. Normally he only comes on for his daily noon announcement of the ship’s position and activities.

Day 3 - Cruising Glacier Bay

What a spectacular day for cruising Glacier Bay. I cannot gush enough about the weather for our cruising up and down Glacier Bay. We spent about 7 hours travelling the 45 miles up and back.

We arrived at the Park HQ (south end of Glacier Bay) around 11:00 am and the Park Rangers boarded the ship for the rest of the day. From there we leisurely cruised up Glacier Bay.

Early in the day, we were able to some Killer Whales frolicking around the ship and there were loads of seals in the bay, on Seal Island and Gloomy Knob.

There were many opportunities to see the wildlife as we cruised north.

Here are the plumes of some Orcas

And a pod of seals/ otters floating beside the ship.

Gloomy Knob and the seals on shore.

Those brown blobs are the seals resting and sunning themselves.

Seal Island / Gloomy Knob

I will have to post this in many smaller posts as I just learned that there is a minimum of 6 photos per post.