Golden Princess Review

4.0 / 5.0
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Some good and some bad

Review for Alaska Cruise on Golden Princess
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joeybugs
First Time Cruiser • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Jul 2009

Our cruise from Seattle to Alaska's inside passage started on July 4th. Boarding the ship went fairly smooth. The first night and day were fairly foggy so we were worried if we would be able to see any land even as we got closer to Alaska. The first port of call was Juneau and we were pleasantly surprised to find a sunny day when we arrived. Unfortunately, the cabin next door invited all of their family members to their room when we pulled into port and they had several small children that would scream at the top of their lungs and run and thrash about the room. They only showed up during arrival or departure from ports and during the scenic cruising but it was very loud. We should have asked for Princesses help to quiet them down but I don't know if it would have done any good. In Juneau, we went on the Rainforest Gardens/Mendenhall Glacier tour. The Rainforest was beautiful and the glacier was also a beautiful sight. At the end of the tour, the bus driver stopped in town so that we get off in town and he also stopped back at the ship after that for people that didn't want to visit the town. We decided to explore the town and found some good deals on some jewelry and gifts for family at home. We then ate at an Italian restaurant called Tarentino's and it was pretty good. We then walked back to the ship which took about 15 minutes. The next day we went to Skagway and we went on the White Pass Railway excursion. That was a great tour as well. Afterwards, we explored the town which is very close to the port.Wednesday morning we woke up early to make sure we would see as much of Tracy Arm Fjord as we could. We made it most of the way into the fjord but couldn't quite get all the way up to the glacier because there were too many little icebergs. It was an absolutely beautiful day and we saw bald eagles, harbor seal pups and other types of birds. After the u-turn at the end of the fjord, my husband and I went and sat in the hot tub since the munchkins next door were super loud. When we got back to our room, we had a notice that our water was going to be shutoff for a few hours for "emergency repairs". We weren't sure what that meant but we didn't worry too much. We just left our room for the afternoon - no big deal. The next day, our water just stopped worked all together. We called our steward and she said that the water was off on the whole Baja floor and she didn't know why. It came back on after a couple of hours, but it was slightly frustrating to have no explanation for not having water.Thursday we went to Skagway and we skipped excursions and visited town. It's a really cute little town and the ship docks right in town so we just went to a few stores and then got back on the ship. Friday we went to Victoria and it was beautiful as usual. The only off thing was that we had an excursion at 7:05 pm but the ship didn't get permission to offload to Victoria until 7:15 and the people were lined up across several floors to get off the ship. That was a little overwhelming and didn't seem very organized but once we were off the ship we enjoyed our trip to Butchart Gardens.Saturday morning disembarkation went pretty smooth. We choose to carry our own luggage off the ship and it went very quick. Another frustration was with my mother-in-law's credit card. She received a notice several days that she needed to see the purser's desk about her credit card. She would go stand in line and give them her information and try to find out the problem and then the next day they would ask again for her credit card number. At the end - we decided to ignore the requests and then she settled her account on the last day and there were no problems. We never figured out why they asked every day for the same information.The food was pretty good. We ate at the buffet and dining rooms and thoroughly enjoyed them. The ship is nice and we enjoyed the shared areas. The rooms are a little worn. I think they could use new mattresses but overall the room is pretty nice. We didn't put a deposit down with Princess this cruise. We might try another cruise line next time mostly because of frustrations with communication or lack of.

Cabin Review

Baja 728 - nice balcony, loud due to next door neighbors, problems with having running water, old lumpy mattresses, good storage space.

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