The cruise was awesome. All of the staff we encountered were very pleasant except for one and I chalk that up for just having a bad day. We all of them occasionally. The reason I say this is, every time we saw this person after the "not so good" day, they were always in a pleasant professional mood. Even though Princess states the Coral was completely refurbished a few years ago - it really is need for a complete overhaul again. It is showing its age. Everything was clean. The entertainment we saw was what I would term as "typical". Nothing mind blowing but good. I would suggest to everyone to spend the little extra and opt for a balcony room. It was "post card beautiful" admiring everything from our private balcony while inside the Alaskan passage. You don't have other people bothering you or complaining etc. Our experience at Sabatina's Princess's premier Italian restaurant was nothing special. Actually after my wife and I left - we both agreed the Italian food we prepare in our own kitchen was as good as we just tried. Maybe we had a bad night?? Not sure, but on our next cruise, we would opt for something else.

As for the ports and excursions - we opted not to pre-book a lot of excursions and just allow spontaneity to take over when we arrived, we would do much different on next cruise to Alaska. We did pre-book 2 excursions, but would do many more next time. The ports are beautiful and quaint, but way over commercialized !! Depending on how many ships are at port, you could have several thousand people in a small village at same time, which = WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE for me ;) We would book several excursions that would take us away from all of the commercialism at the ports.

The bottom line is; would we go back - ABSOLUTELY!! and actually have started to put our thoughts and ideas together for another Alaskan adventure in 2 years.