Alaska is an amazing experience from the wildlife to the magnificent snow capped mountains to the saphire blue gaciers, it is truly awe inspiring.  That being said, the refurb ished Golden Princess was anything but awe inspiring.We had a balcony cabin on the Aloha deck of the Golden.  Upon entering our cabin we were met with mattresses that were visually sgging in the middle, a cabin layout that was cramped and very poorly laid out in terms of use of space, no sitting area at all.  Princess did end up putting eggshell foam on our mattresses to try and make them a little better but even the eggshell foam looked like it was 10 years old and provided little additional comfort for such used up mattresses.Leaving the cabin conditions behind, the food selection and quality in the buffet was perhaps the worst we had experienced in our 12+ years of cruising.  The buffet, because they always only had one side open at a time, was always packed beyond capacity forcing you to either wait or impose on others to sit at their table.  The food in the dining room was better and the dining room staff was very accomodating but this only helped out with dinner as the Golden only had one small dining room available for breakfast and lunch and there were always absurdly long lines for thoise trying to escape the horrific food of the buffet.We also tried the new Serenity area on the top deck for laying out and relaxing.  There is a $10 sur charge per half day for use of this facility.  I would certainly not reccomend it to anyone as the service was terrible and slow.  It took over an hour to get our lunch while we were there and when it arrived it was wrong.We did not try any of the specialty restaurants onboard although our friends did and said they were impressed with the quality and service at the Italian restaurant.In spite of the poor experience onboard, Alaska in all its majesty made this a fantastic cruise!!!  We absolutely intend to repeat the cruise just NEVER again on Princess.  We would suggest the budget conscious to look at a Carnival cruise and those looking for more pampering to go on Holland.  Princess was more expensive than Carnival and yet the cabins, food quality, level of service, ammenities and entertainment was no better than Carnival and in our opinion actually far worse.