Golden Princess in Victoria, Canada

Hello from Victoria! Today was an early arrival and early departure, neither which mattered to us much. We've done all we can do in Victoria over these past few years. We've taken city tours, been to Butchart Gardens more than once (three times maybe?), been shopping, eating, and pub hopping. So today was a ship day for us. A leisurely breakfast in the covered Calypso Pool area (boy, I've missed that space - the Royal Princess doesn't have it) followed by a relaxing morning on the balcony. What a way to spend a day.

With handicapped hubby's physical and stamina issues it takes A LOT of accommodations (with a big chunk of determination, persistence, and a healthy dose of patience) to make it work. But once we're here and it all comes together, it's so worth it. And having amazing crew member friends we get to visit with day after day is like icing on the cake. Having Princess make a mistake with our cabin turned out well for us, too.

When we first were looking at some shorter cruises, the prices were super low on the Princess website. Since pricing is important for us, we put several cruises of the super cheap cruises on hold for a couple days before making final decisions. In between the time of the hold and the time we had to put a deposit down, we got a call from Princess. An "oops, we made a pricing mistake" phone call. While they wouldn't honor the prices on their website for these cruises, they did offer a pretty dang good deal.

A mini suite cabin. For an inside cabin price. (I'll post more photos later, but here's a taste.)

Going rate for the inside cabin on this three day Golden Princess voyage? $155 per person for the entire voyage. So here we sit, in a mini suite, at a per night price less than what we'd pay for a cheap hotel in Boise. Plus we got onboard credit for using our future cruise deposit, and another $100 onboard loyalty credit we get for each and every cruise. When I looked at our account this morning I realized, even with gratuities being charged, we are going to have credit left over. Since it's all non-refundable it looks like we're going to have to do some shopping. I know hubby will be buying himself some coffee - here on the Golden it's the crap liquid concentrate.

We certainly won't be leaving any extra dollars for our cabin steward. As we've seen time and time again on these shorter cruises, crew members have an I-don't-care attitude. They know you're leaving soon and they have no interest in putting their best foot forward. A first-time cruiser may not notice the difference, but it's a glaring issue for folks like us who have been around the block (or in this case, the ship). Like the cigarette butt we found on on our balcony today. You may remember, we've had issues with passengers smoking on balconies on other ships and have been routinely told the same thing. While stewards keep their eyes out for evidence, they really can't do anything. So when we found a cigarette butt on our balcony and pointed it out to the cabin steward, the non-caring attitude really shouldn't have been surprising.

But at least from that balcony we got to see the Royal Princess. I so wanted to just toss our luggage on over to her since we're joining her on Sunday. But oh well, guess I'll have to pay the airline the baggage fee instead.

Tomorrow we're off to a sea day with absolutely no plans, other than our freebie dinner tomorrow night.

Golden Princess Quickie Cruise

If you've read the blog during my Grand Princess cruises over the past year, you know we kept going back and back because it was the ship where our favorite bartender was year after year. I recently mentioned that as soon as he moved on from the Grand, so would we.

Well, he did. He's on the Golden Princess now, but the ship will be spending the entire winter cruising season in Australia. And since we won't be going to Australia anytime soon, we had to do the next best thing.

A short Boise to Seattle flight yesterday.

A relaxing evening in an airport hotel.

A morning Amtrak ride to Vancouver, the only way one should travel between Seattle and Vancouver. Believe me, I know! Sit back and enjoy these kinds of views all morning.

Jump on the Golden Princess for the three last days before it heads to Australia.

Find your favorite bartender and spend every moment you can with him. 

Sort through all your first day paperwork where you find some important stuff. First, since this is a short cruise, there is no Captain's Circle Party for repeat guests so we each received a free drink voucher.

There also is no Most Traveled Guest Party for the top 40 passengers. Instead the top 20 passengers received a specialty dining voucher. We made the cut, so I guess we're getting up there in days! We'll be trying out the new Sabatini's on the last night of the cruise.

Because there are over 1,000 Elites on board right now, the Platinum/Elite/Suite guest evening event has been moved from Skywalkers down to Vista Lounge.

But boy, did that event cause a stir. We typically don't go to these things, but our bartender was working the event which turned into a cocktail time where no cocktails were allowed to be served. Not long after the bar opened, Canadian officials showed up and shut it down. Made them remove all the alcohol and the officials used zip ties (with numbers on them) and zip tied all the cabinets shut (and recorded those numbers). It was a big deal.

Did you know, according to Canadian regulations, a ship can only have one bar open per deck when docked in a Canadian port? And the ship has to notify the officials at the beginning of the season exactly which bars will be open for every single stop in Vancouver? Since one bar on deck 7 was already opened, and then they opened the bar for the P/E/S event, they got themselves in trouble. Big trouble. If you know me, I always like knowing the whole story and I ask lots of questions. Lots and lots of questions. Not only did I talk to the bar stewards and bartenders, I talked to the bar manager, the hotel general manager, and even the Canadian officials. Princess may be paying a $15,000 fine for their actions. Ouch! 

I think that's it for today. Thanks to our favorite bartender, this rheumatoid-arthritis gal has pain-free joints for the first time since, well, the last time we saw him.

Tomorrow we're in Victoria and I'll show off the $155 per person cabin we're staying in this time. (That's not a per night cost - it is a per voyage cost. And nope, it's not a broom closet.)

The Royal Princess in Alaska - Another Cruiser's Perspective

Before we head back onto yet another ship (the Golden Princess coming up tomorrow!) followed immediately by another three weeks on the Royal (in Mexico!), I'd like to share another cruise passenger's perspective on the Royal Princess-in-Alaska experience. If you remember, earlier this month I did an interview with first time cruisers Chelsea and her daughter Emily. Today I have yet another viewpoint.

Joyce, a Deb's Days blog reader, was cruising with her husband on the Royal last week. I got the opportunity to visit with Joyce and she was kind enough to share some of her thoughts on the cruise. She even did a bit of a comparison between Princess and other lines she's been on. Read on to find out what she thought...

• “First, we are not real fond of cruising. We like that it can get us to places we have never been and provides bed and meals and entertainment. We kind of get tired of eating and sometimes want our comfort foods from home. 
• The Royal did have a lot of choices and was better food than Carnival for the most part. Carnival does a better job of food around the pool area (but then we were in the Caribbean) and their omelet stations were great. It wasn't made that clear you could get one at the buffet on the Royal. We liked Norwegian's food and with their specialty dining we enjoyed the Teppanyaki restaurant.
• The Royal was well organized (sometimes the Magic didn't seem to be) and the dining rooms well managed.
• The Royal had great entertainment and stuff to do all day. Carnival is very lacking here but we did go on a warm-weather cruise so people left the ship a lot for the beaches. 
• It may seem silly, but I rather missed the towel animals left on our bed as the other two lines did. It just seemed like a little special touch from your steward.
• Cabin: Royal was nice and I enjoyed the large closet and comfy bed and large TV. Carnival and NCL both had bigger cabins with sitting areas. Carnival had more desktop/dresser - type space because it was across from the couch.
• Our specific cabin M504 wasn't bad. For Alaska, the overhang (the Seawalk) didn't bother us. I also was not bothered about being below the Horizon Bistro. We couldn't hear any sounds of chairs on the floors like some people had reviewed they had. They might have been on a different ship, though. We liked being one floor below where we ate most of the time and closer to the upper decks for viewing during the cruise when we weren't enjoying watching glaciers from our balcony!
• For the most part, we liked the Medallion. Most of the time it didn't work coming up to our cabin. We would have to take it out and touch the screen. Not a big deal. Embarkation was easy and having workers know who we were was nice. It made it a friendlier atmosphere. The APP needs some work! We kept getting logged out even while on the ship. We did like the big screens to look at the happenings around the ship when our phone app wasn't working.
• Overall we thought the Royal was a beautiful ship with great workers, but I might not recommend her for Alaska mostly because of her size and cruise restrictions. Her size did not seem to be a problem for eating and entertainment (maybe because of the early hour we ate breakfast and the number of repeat cruisers onboard). It also didn't feel like there were more than 3700 cruisers on the ship, for the most part. We didn't even explore every area of the ship! We did miss being able to go around the front of the ship like on Carnival. But it would be colder on an Alaska cruise anyway. Being on the top with the barriers helped with the cold during cruising and trying to find those elusive whales!
• We liked the Rangers coming onboard. We liked the itinerary. We would have liked more time in Ketchikan.”

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Joyce!

5 Weeks of Cruising Alaska on the Royal Princess: Trip Wrap-Up

Today I'm sharing the summary of the five weeks I spent this summer cruising the Royal Princess in Alaska. I made a video of the wrap-up right here:

I started writing a blog post for those who prefer reading about it, but I realized it was going to be A LOT of text with no visuals. So to get the complete picture (literally!) of the experience, a video it will have to be.

I do have some links of things mentioned in the video.:

• Transportation options for getting between Anchorage and the Whittier cruise terminal
• Cruising Alaska resources
• How to find the Royal's somewhat-secret Promenade deck doors 
• Handicapped accessible balcony cabin photos
• First-time cruiser interview 
• Cruising with Confidence: How to be a First-Time Cruiser without Looking like One eBook 
• Cruising with Confidence: How to be a First-Time Cruiser without Looking like One paperback
• May episode of Wake Show with Encouraging Words Project 
• August episode of Wake Show with Encouraging Words Project
• Follow Cruise Director Matt O' on Instagram
• Interview with 11 year old Emily about Kid's Club
• Alfredo's menu
• Sabatini's photos and menu
• Crooners bar menu
• How MedallionNet works
• All About the Ocean Medallion
• Concierge Lounge tour
• Royal + Regal = Alaska? Yep, according to Captain Nick Nash both the Royal Princess and Regal Princess will be doing the Alaska season in 2021. One ship will be doing the northbound/southbound voyages out of Vancouver and the other will be based in Seattle. Stay tuned for more on that breaking news. (No link yet.)