Island Princess Review

Island Princess in Alaska

Review for Alaska Cruise on Island Princess
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ZuzusPetals
10+ Cruises • Age 60s

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Additional details

Sail Date: May 2019
Cabin: Interior
Icy Straight
Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls (Juneau)
Ship in Glacier Bay
Ship in College Fjord
View from bus on Denali Nature Tour
View from tree house at McKinley Lodge
Bike ride along Tony Knowles Trail in Anchorage

We chose to sail on Princess because they are one of only a few cruise lines allowed to go up into Glacier Bay. My sister and I took an 11-day "cruisetour" which was a 7 night northbound cruise from Vancouver and 4 nights on land - 2 at Denali, 1 at McKinley and 1 night in Anchorage. It also included the train from Whittier to Denali on Princess's own glass-domed railcar and all the subsequent transportation.

We flew into Vancouver the day before the cruise and had a wonderful visit touring this lovely city and Stanley Park. The day of the cruise we walked about six blocks from our downtown hotel to the cruise port.

The Island Princess is a beautiful ship and we were pleased to find everything was fresh and clean. The crew was amazingly friendly and always accommodating. It isn't a huge mega-ship (2200 guest capacity) and it provided a casual atmosphere with little crowds in the dining rooms, buffet, entertainment offerings and on the decks watching the amazing Alaskan scenery. They had Mark Harris, a top-notch naturalist, onboard who gave talks about AK and what we'd see, and when we arrived at the glaciers he did a live commentary of the sights. We had two specialty dining experiences - I didn't like the Bayou Café because the "New Orleans" food was not authentic and not very good IMO but the Crab Shack was better with the king crab legs. With both restaurants we didn't feel it was worth the $29 per person cost. (I suppose Princess is to blame for having such a great menu in the MDR and a vast array of offerings in the buffet.)

Cabin Review

Interior

Cabin IB

This is an interior mid-ship cabin on the Baja Deck (11) with the door opening on the port (left) side of the ship. It was quiet, half way between two stairwells (which we always try to use) and it was convenient to everything! As sisters, the bed was converted to two twins but there was still plenty of room in the cabin to store all our things and move around. The bathroom isn't big and the shower stall was very small and might be difficult for a very large person but we managed. Our room steward was magnificent!

Port Reviews

Vancouver

We flew to Vancouver the day before our cruise so we had a full day to explore this beautiful city. We walked along the port and through the east side of Stanley Park which was lovely. The next day we walked about six blocks to the port to embark our cruise ship.

Icy Strait

This is a small port and we enjoyed walking the nature trail and walking thru the shops. As we were strolling along the boardwalk we saw a whale!

Glacier Bay

The ship went into the bay and hovered there for several hours, allowing everyone to get wonderful views of the glacier. Mark Harris, the onboard naturalist, gave live commentary which was very informative.

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