For Patty and me, our last cruise ended in January 2020, and we have not been near a cruise ship in over 20 months, so we’ve been looking for a cruise.  We had cruised to Alaska in 2000 and 2009, so we were due for a return visit to the 50th state.  Patty found a trip northbound and then one southbound for earlier in the summer, but those were cancelled by Princess.  Then Princess started a round-trip Seattle cruise that we grabbed.  The ship had been in operation for about a month before we boarded, so we figured that all would be smooth.  And it generally was a smooth cruise, after a major rule change. We were told at booking that full vaccination would be required for the cruise.  No problem, we each had three shots.  Then only weeks before departure, we were notified that a negative COVID test would also be required.  Securing a testing appointment took some effort, but we both tested negative and were allowed to proceed.   Below are some notes I took while we cruised.

You can see our itinerary by clicking here. That page contains the link for the movie of the cruise.

You can see a true picture of our route, recorded by a GPS Tracker device, in the map below.   Be patient and give it a few seconds to load.  You can make the map bigger by clicking on the four-corner icon in the upper right, and you can move around the map and zoom in and out with your mouse wheel.  The green line is the path to the north, the red line is the path to the south.

The log follows below the map.

Saturday - September 11
We are leaving town today for the cruise starting tomorrow.  The morning’s activities and times went like this: I left my house (0600); we left Pat’s house (0645); we are at baggage check-in (0730); we are through security (0800); we are onboard the plane (0840); the plane pushed back from the gate(0855); and we are airborne (0907).  To fill in some details: Pat had offered to leave her car at the airport, so I put my truck in her garage and rode with her to the airport; the walk from the parking spot to the train to the terminal took some time, and then from the train stop at the terminal to bag check was another long walk; we had a good amount of time waiting at the gate, but not too much; we had Delta Comfort seats, the middle seat was empty, so not bad at all.  Landing at Seattle was at about 1128 local time (1428 EDT) and we had a good view of Mt Rainier National Park as we were descending.  We grabbed our bags and caught a shuttle to the hotel, arriving there around 1300.  According to a phone app, it was about 64 degrees with a clear sky.  After a short time in our room, we set out to a local IHOP, about 0.6 miles away.  After walking back to the hotel, it was time for the late college football game, which we enjoyed.  The plan now is to get down to breakfast around 0900.

Sunday - September 12
At check-in yesterday, Patty learned of a van service to the cruise port and put us on the list for the 1015 departure.  The driver was almost on time, and we got away from the hotel at about 1020.  The ride to the port took about 40 minutes, so we are ready to check in around 1100.  We had a 1200 check-in time, so we moved to the check-in area.  The check-in workers were either ahead of schedule or didn’t care about the schedule because we were told to just get in line and move ahead.  The check-in process was really easy; we were on the ship and seated at a bar near the pool by around 1130.  We would have gone to our cabin first, but it was not cleaned yet, so we hung out around the pool for an hour, getting in the cabin around 1230.  We had the muster drill to deal with, but it was different this time.  Instead of everyone going to a muster station with our life jackets for a presentation on how to wear the life jackets, we watched a video about the whole muster process and then just checked in at the muster station.  Our bags were delivered around 1530 and a flurry of unpacking followed.  We left port on time around 1600 and we are on our way to Alaska.  We had dinner scheduled for 1900 and were scheduled for table 90, but we were seated at table 70, which started a long story about dining.  More on that later.  We caught the late show at 2115, a comedian for the first night.  I would say that he was about average for a cruise comedian.  A sea day is coming tomorrow.

Monday - September 13
Just like our last cruise, the jewelry shop onboard gave away free charms and a bracelet for them, so some of our time onboard was going to the charm giveaways. The cruise also had a naturalist onboard, Michael Modzelewski, so we attended most of his presentations. The first presentation was this morning at 1045, giving us time for breakfast before the show. I should have noted the presentation topics, but I did not. We returned to our cabin for a room service lunch around 1230. Later this afternoon, an announcement was made that there were 2298 guests onboard. With a listed passenger capacity of 3560, that represents about 65% of capacity. I thought the reduced capacity was most noticeable at the elevators and in the dining room, with the evening shows just about as crowded as normal. At about 1830, the captain made an announcement and toasted all of us that were on the cruise, a nice touch. Dinner was again at 1900. We expected table 90, but were seated at table 23, a nice table by a window. And we were instructed to call a certain phone number to arrange for that same table each night, which did not work. Tonight’s entertainment was the production show “Encore”, parts of which were pretty good and other parts not so good. The show featured a guest soprano – Barbi McCulloch – who we did not care for much.

Tuesday - September 14
Today is our visit to Juneau, the state capital. We are scheduled to be docked at 1200, so the morning activities are earlier than normal. Michael, the naturalist, presented “Close Encounters With Alaskan Wildlife” at 0930 and we are back in the cabin around 1030 when our steward stops by with maps of local areas. We have lunch today in the dining room around 1145. Our shore excursion today is whale watching out of Auke Bay at 1500, so we are on our way at about 1430. I thought the tour was excellent, seeing both orca and humpback whales during our 3 hours on the water. You can see highlights of what we saw in the movie. We got back to the ship near 1900, allowing a little clean up before showing up for dinner around 1920 at yet another different table. The guest soprano was supposed to do a show tonight, but she was ill, so we watched the comedian again with a different show.

Wednesday - September 15
Today we are in Skagway, made famous during the Yukon Gold Rush of 1898 (look it up). Breakfast is at 0930, then off the ship at about 1100 for our 1130 tour, a drive to Canada. Skagway is the only Southeast Alaska city or town with a road to somewhere else, and today’s tour was a drive on that road. We were supposed to go all the way to Canada, but because they do not allow tourists in Canada, we turned around short of the border. Watch the highlights in the movie. Our driver and guide was Brian, who was full of stories about the area and the gold rush. I thought the tour was excellent. We’re back on the ship around 1400 with time for reading before dinner, and to complete “departure information sheets” and return them to the front desk. We had a normal dinner at 1900, followed by the evening entertainment “Vocal Impressionist Mike Wilson”, mostly about average, and then watched the movie “Sully” about his landing on the Hudson River.

Thursday - September 16
We are scheduled to enter Glacier Bay National Park at around 0630 but were not up to see that. We get to the end of the bay and the Marjorie Glacier around 0930 and spend the next 25 minutes looking at the glacier from our balcony. Then the captain turned the ship 180 degrees so the other side could see before moving away. Next, we entered the Johns Hopkins Inlet for a good look at the Lamplugh Glacier, another 180 degree turn, and a look at the Johns Hopkins Glacier. Later we ordered a room service lunch, which took only about 20 minutes to be delivered. Michael, the naturalist, presented “Glacier and Polar Bears” at 1515. We elected to try one of the specialty restaurants, Alfredo’s Pizza, for dinner at our normal 1900. The production show tonight at 2115 was called “Sweet Soul Music”, which we rated below average. We retired to our cabin and watched another movie, “Draft”, staring Kevin Costner. The highlights of the glacier viewing are in the movie.

Friday - September 17
Today, we are in Ketchikan, with a tour just after lunch. So, we have a quick breakfast, and find the Future Cruise Consultant to make reservations for a future cruise back to Antarctica in December 2022. Now we’re ready for the Duck Tour at 1300. The Duck is a truck that has been modified to go into the water. We tour the streets of Ketchikan in the Duck and the rain before going down a ramp into the water for a tour of the shoreline. It is interesting, but we had ridden in the Duck before, and this time was not much different – about average. Returning to the ship, I had a burger for lunch, and a lot of time for reading before our normal dinner at 1900. The show tonight at 2115 featured “Vocalist Andrew Diessner” an average singer.

Saturday - September 18
Today is an at-sea day and the last day on the ship, meaning packing day. Pat got up early for a culinary demonstration and I called the van driver to be sure we had a ride to the airport the next morning. Lunch was in the dining room around 1200, leaving time to make the final naturalist presentation, “Native People of the Northwest Coast”, at 1330 and the final charm pickup at 1415. I had non-refundable on-board-credit to burn up, so I bought a sweat shirt and jacket at the shops. We had requested to participate in a program unique to Seattle, in which we are issued airline bag tags on the ship and our bags are transported from the ship to the airport and on to the airplane we will be flying, all without us having to drag them around. This ended up working quite nicely. We did stop at the front desk to check on the bag tags but found that they had not been distributed yet. Then back to the cabin for packing and reading before a normal dinner at 1900 and the show at 2115 billed as “Showtime with Andrew Diessner, Mike Wilson, and our Majestic Princess Singers”. The show was average; the dinner was Surf & Turf – I had 2 Turfs.

Sunday - September 19
Departure Day. We left the cabin around 0815 and sped through the formalities to arrive at the van parking space at about 0840. Our driver had us on the van around 0905, leaving not long after and arriving at the airport around 1015. We are through the security checks by about 1100 and find a place for lunch from 1115 to 1215 and at the gate after a short walk. Boarding starts at about 1240 and we are on the plane at 1250. Good luck continues and we have an empty seat in the middle again. Pushback happens around 1325 (1625 EDT) and takeoff follows around 1652. A little more than a half hour later, we are at 33,000 feet, with an outside air temperature of minus 53 degrees, a tail wind of 75 MPH and a ground speed of 605 MPH. We have about 4 hours to go. Landing was at 2133, then tram to the terminal, retrieve the bags, walk to the train station, ride to the parking lot, walk to the car, and drive to Pat’s house. I move my bags to my truck and drive home, arriving at about 2335. And that is it.

A Word About Dining Arrangements
Patty and I have become accustomed to, and prefer, what is known as traditional dining, meaning we dine at the same time every day, at the same table, with the same wait staff. This was the first cruise that basically did not have that arrangement, and that was frustrating to us. Having the same wait staff allows them to quickly learn our preferences, like Patty wants a cup of coffee after dinner and I do not, so they bring a cup for Patty and not for me, and things like that. Having the same table allows us to be a few minutes late but know where our table is and that it will be waiting for us. On this cruise, I don’t think we had the same table, ever, and the same wait staff maybe twice. And not knowing our table required waiting at the entrance for someone to escort us to a table. If we had wanted that kind of treatment, we would have chosen a different arrangement, where everything is different night to night, and you expect that. Apparently, the dining room is run by computer now and it does not allow for what we know as traditional dining. Even the head waiter did not know how to change what the computer dictated. This may become a bigger problem when we go for much more that 7 days on the cruise to Antarctica.

The Movie
I came home with around 2 hours of video.  It took some time, but I have finished compiling what I think are the best parts of the cruise into this one hour movie.   I could not embed the movie here, so you will have to go to the itinerary page to see it. Click here for the itinerary page. Click the small right-facing arrow in the lower left to start it playing.  I think it is best viewed full-screen.  You can make it fill your screen by clicking the icon with 4 arrows pointing outward just to the left of the word "vimeo" on the lower right.   There is sound in the movie, so make sure your speakers are plugged in and turned on.  Enjoy.