Golden Princess Review - 10 day Alaska

[StayingAfloat]

I just came off the August 10-20 cruise to Alaska on the Golden Princess out of San Francisco. It was a great trip. The staff were attentive and courteous. The onboard entertainment was great. Yes Megan you still are a liar. The stateroom was appropriate and worked well with lots of storage. Of course the views were fantastic and the ports were fun to visit. We had fair weather on our side. The only port that was was not sunny and dry was Ketchikan. Glacier Bay was awesome with blue skies.

 

There are a few things that I think Princess needs to improve on. (1) The coffee needs to be improved. I do not go to coffee shops for my cup of Joe but I make it at home. I could not drink the coffee made onboard. I went to the IC and order a cup of coffee to compare and it was much better. I have tasted coffee on other cruise lines and they tasted like a cup of coffee should taste. Mind you that was ten years earlier.

 

(2) Anytime dining is not managed well. We waited in line for a long time just to get a pager to tell us a table was ready. Luckily before I received a pager, the other dining room changed over from Traditional early service to anytime and we were able to get a table. I was told by staff that this only happens on the first night of the cruise. We decided to switch to early traditional as we did not want to hassle getting a future table.

 

(3) Shore excursion management needs improvement. We had a 2:20 Princess excursion for a float plane trip to the Taku lodge and salmon BBQ. There was a long disembarkation line forming so I asked staff managing the line that I had a 2:20 excursion and do they have that group meeting in a separate place for priority disembarkation. They told me the excursion company would wait. Once off the ship, the excursion company said no they did not wait for us to come off the ship and that they could book us for the later excursion. Since the excursion was 3.5 hours long, we had to be back to the pier in an 1 1/2 hours. Not much time to visit Juneau. Other cruise companies have asked groups with excursions that are close to arrival times to meet at a separate place for priority disembarkation. Princess needs to do better on this one.

 

Other than the few things that went wrong, the overall experience was very good. I would recommend this trip for anyone wanting to leave out of San Francisco. Next year, the Grand Princess will be sailing from San Francisco.

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for your comments.

[19woody19]

I just came off the August 10-20 cruise to Alaska on the Golden Princess out of San Francisco. It was a great trip. The staff were attentive and courteous. The onboard entertainment was great. Yes Megan you still are a liar. The stateroom was appropriate and worked well with lots of storage. Of course the views were fantastic and the ports were fun to visit. We had fair weather on our side. The only port that was was not sunny and dry was Ketchikan. Glacier Bay was awesome with blue skies.

 

There are a few things that I think Princess needs to improve on. (1) The coffee needs to be improved. I do not go to coffee shops for my cup of Joe but I make it at home. I could not drink the coffee made onboard. I went to the IC and order a cup of coffee to compare and it was much better. I have tasted coffee on other cruise lines and they tasted like a cup of coffee should taste. Mind you that was ten years earlier.

 

(2) Anytime dining is not managed well. We waited in line for a long time just to get a pager to tell us a table was ready. Luckily before I received a pager, the other dining room changed over from Traditional early service to anytime and we were able to get a table. I was told by staff that this only happens on the first night of the cruise. We decided to switch to early traditional as we did not want to hassle getting a future table.

 

(3) Shore excursion management needs improvement. We had a 2:20 Princess excursion for a float plane trip to the Taku lodge and salmon BBQ. There was a long disembarkation line forming so I asked staff managing the line that I had a 2:20 excursion and do they have that group meeting in a separate place for priority disembarkation. They told me the excursion company would wait. Once off the ship, the excursion company said no they did not wait for us to come off the ship and that they could book us for the later excursion. Since the excursion was 3.5 hours long, we had to be back to the pier in an 1 1/2 hours. Not much time to visit Juneau. Other cruise companies have asked groups with excursions that are close to arrival times to meet at a separate place for priority disembarkation. Princess needs to do better on this one.

 

Other than the few things that went wrong, the overall experience was very good. I would recommend this trip for anyone wanting to leave out of San Francisco. Next year, the Grand Princess will be sailing from San Francisco.

 

Thanks for the info,we leave for the same cruise on the 9th. Hope the weather is good also but, if it's a cruise it can't be all bad.

[shredie]

Glad you had a good time. I have been on the Golden a couple of times already this year, and I have warmed to her. I find the dining staff in Traditional really excellent on that ship. I have avoided Anytime for some of the reasons you state.

[mocha9]

We were on the same excursion to Taku Lodge. We went on the later excursion. DH could not walk into town that quickly, so he stayed on ship, while I almost ran into Juneau to go to Caribou Crossing. Met at WINGS for tour. Wrote letter to Jan Swartz and also complained on email review. Victoria was also an accident waiting to happen. No specific excursion lines, just hundreds of people waiting behind fence to be left to go to buses. Not enough buses to Butchart. Otherwise, great cruise. Beautiful weather.

[Me Dumb Me Seasick]

I just came off the August 10-20 cruise to Alaska on the Golden Princess out of San Francisco. It was a great trip. The staff were attentive and courteous. The onboard entertainment was great. Yes Megan you still are a liar. The stateroom was appropriate and worked well with lots of storage. Of course the views were fantastic and the ports were fun to visit. We had fair weather on our side. The only port that was was not sunny and dry was Ketchikan. Glacier Bay was awesome with blue skies.

 

Damn Megan, why do you have to lie so much!

[Keith1010]

Enjoyed your review.

 

Keith

[LasMa]

Hi everyone. I've been a member for some time but haven't cruised in years, so stopped following this forum. But I just returned from the Golden Princess 10-day to Alaska (9/9-9/19), and couldn't resist this thread. :)

 

This was DH's first cruise ever, and as he said, "There was nothing about it that wasn't good." Even the weather -- which was overcast most days, and rainy a couple of times -- was balm to me, coming as I do from NorCal which saw triple-digit temps during our absence. It would take days to write a full review, so I'll just hit a few of the high points.

 

We took a whale-watching cruise out of Juneau and, as the naturalist on board said, we had "really excellent whale mojo." We saw at least 30 individuals, spouting, breaching, fluking (if that's a word). It was amazing.

 

The productions were absolutely top-drawer. How those dancers manage to do what they do on a moving floor is beyond me, but they were as tight as they could be. The four singers were also fantastic. Our favorite was a young man named Joshua Smith, who also had his own showcase one evening. Wonderful.

 

Speaking of music, my 24-year-old D and her boyfriend were with us, and quickly latched onto the band Mosaic, which played many different venues over the course of the cruise, in many different styles, everything from funk to country. Great dance band too.

 

I really appreciated what apparently is a new thing at Princess, an onboard wifi service called Princess@Sea, which enables you to carry the Patter around on your phone (even if your phone is cut off from the outside world). It also has an IM feature which we found helpful for keeping in touch with each other on board, and you can check your account at any time. Great service.

 

Glacier Bay.... words fail. Majestic. Breath-taking. Magnificent. A representative of the Park Service came on board for about 8 hours that day, and provided commentary, which added to the experience. We found it too crowded on the upper decks, so we went down to Deck 7 where we had a lot more elbow room, and a closer view to boot.

 

We had dinner in the main dining room almost every night, and the food was excellent. One night, my after-dinner cappuccino foam design was a fish (and a pretty good picture of a fish it was) -- because, our waiter explained, I'd had salmon for dinner. Little touches like that make for a special evening.

 

In Victoria, I fulfilled a 30-year dream: tea at the Empress. I took D with me (we excluded our boys from this highly "girly" event), and we even dressed up for the occasion. It was heaven.

 

On the last full day, we attended a couple of "lecture"/Q&A sessions. First was a talk by the Second Officer about the mechanics of the ship, navigation, and how the bridge operates. Second was a panel discussion by the heads of Customer Service, Food & Beverage, and Hotel Services. Fascinating stuff.

 

And then, just the silly stuff you stumble across: an egg-drop contest, a paper-airplane contest (in which I'm proud to say my DH won a medal :) ), and a martini-making demo which included "Gangnum Style" at high volume.

 

It was a 10-day dream. I've never been to Alaska, and I was completely head-over-heels in love with it by the time we left. It is Just. So. Beautiful. I'd almost convinced myself that we should retire there, until we saw Victoria. Now we all think that the young-uns should go to wild, raw Alaska, while DH and I retire in Victoria, and we can fly back and forth!

[catgetsdown]

We just came off of the 9/9 - 19 sailing from SF - Alaska and they must have read your comments because our excursions were really smooth. There are buses/vans/whatever is supposed to meet you pretty much right off the gangplank, with signs so you can see where you're supposed to go.

 

We were 'anytime' and learned to go early (before 6:30). We could get into Bernelli's (?) easily but we ate mostly up at the buffet. We opted for the specialty dining a couple of times and the steak restaurant was fantastic!

 

Yes, agree about the (free) coffee. We bought coffee cards and had coffee at the international cafe every day.Plus the pastries there were much, much better than upstairs. It has nice ambience, too, right next to the live performers. We really liked the IC.

 

What I didn't like was that when we were cruising and it was a clear night, the captain kept all the lights on, all the time. All the deck lights. It was really hard to see the stars. I thought he might dim those as it got late (like after 1am) but ... nope. We saw a few meteors but it would have been so much better if there'd been at least some dedicated 'blackout' time where at least some of the ship's lights could have been dimmed or off. It's like a floating city, after all, and all the light pollution just sails right along with it.

[caribill]

What I didn't like was that when we were cruising and it was a clear night, the captain kept all the lights on, all the time. All the deck lights. It was really hard to see the stars. I thought he might dim those as it got late (like after 1am) but ... nope. We saw a few meteors but it would have been so much better if there'd been at least some dedicated 'blackout' time where at least some of the ship's lights could have been dimmed or off. It's like a floating city, after all, and all the light pollution just sails right along with it.

 

The lights on deck are on for safety. Imagine the lawsuits if people fell because the decks were not lit enough to see clearly where they were walking.

[sammywolffox]

We also had the pleasure of enjoying this cruise. Simply stated the experience was outstanding. We went late in the season in hope of seeing wildlife and were not disappointed. Whale watching in Juneau was as excellent as described in earlier posts. We also went to Haines and had a fabulous day viewing brown bears, eagles, goats and otters. Glacier Bay was the experience of a lifetime. On the ship the services provided were outstanding and the food was very good. We had anytime dining and only had to wait a few minutes one night. We went to the Horizon several times and were pleased with the quality of the food. We will invest in a coffee card on our next cruise. The entertainment was not the best I have ever experienced but was enjoyable.

[sammywolffox]

I pushed the send button by mistake so please allow me one more thought. My only complaint with this cruise is that I have never seen more rude passengers. I even saw rude behavior directed toward older and disabled passengers. The behaviors included rushing in front of others to board elevators, being unreasonably impolite to service providers and crude comments. Almost all cruisers I have met over the years have been polite and considerate. I hope I am not seeing a new trend. Anyway, I promised my wife we would cruise more after retirement so it is off to the Royal next week.

[bhopal21]

We were on this August 10-20 cruise as well and observed the rudeness mostly from a particular ethnic group that had total disregard for anyone else that might be standing in a line or waiting for an elevator, etc.

 

We have been on the Golden many times and she has never disappointed us.

 

Mike:)

[caribill]

We were on this August 10-20 cruise as well and observed the rudeness mostly from a particular ethnic group that had total disregard for anyone else that might be standing in a line or waiting for an elevator, etc.

 

 

There are some cultures where this is normal behavior, not rude.

 

If these passengers were not from the USA, they might be from one of those areas.

[19woody19]

We were on this cruise and had a wonderful time but, sorry we were unable to make connections with others who previously posted here regarding the dinner at the Crown Grill. We had an excellent dinner there and also at Sabatini's one evening. They also offered the Crab Shack dinner for $20.00 and, if they ever offer it again, this is a MUST. So much food my DW had to leave way too much and I was stuffed. Very very nice dinner.

Some were fortunate to see the Northern Lights but we missed them. Guess sleeping was the priority that night. Bummer.

Service was very good and although we did not experience the rudeness of those you may have encountered, we have on other cruises and, yes, they were of another culture. Guess we lucked out this time.

Excusions were fun and the weather was cloudy with rain one day, however for us, it wasn't an issue.

What was amazing is how when we were at the glacier the clouds remained high enough for all to enjoy the majestic views but as we cruised away they dropped down to sea level. Almost like the clouds waited just long enough for us and then closed the door until next years cruises.

Caught salmon in Ketchikan and had it shipped home. DW wants to return and stay for a week sometime so she can catch more fish ( only the first and second fish she has ever caught).

All in all it was a very relaxing and enjoyable cruise that I would do again (this was our 3rd) and recommend to everyone.

May all your future cruises be filled with great times, great friends, and new adventures.

bob

[phildown]

Love all your comments. I am boarding her on the 22nd March from Melbourne and they are just making our family more excited to hop on.