Diamond Princess Cruise Review by janet&joey

Arriving in Vancouver, it was a lovely clean airport, and we had a quick walk through immigration, picked up our bags, walked outside and got in a taxi and half an hour later arrived at our hotel - The Pan Pacific at the Canada quay where our boat is due to arrive.

We had booked a standard city view room, but I had previously emailed the hotel and asked if there was any chance of an upgrade as we were off on a cruise to celebrate my husband's birthday and when we arrived we found we had been upgraded to a massive suite !!! Our day has been the most special ever!!

Saturday 12th September We woke to a glorious hot day in Vancouver, had buffet breakfast and then walked about for a couple of hours before taking our luggage down in the lift and walking to the departure area to start the embarkation to Diamond Princess. We dropped our luggage, went through baggage security and then waited in line to go through immigration. We had our eyes photographed and also our fingerprints taken by immigration. We then checked in with the Diamond desk and walked up the gangplank to our ship. All in all, it took us an hour and a half from hotel to our room. A very easy experience. Our room is beautiful - it is a suite and at the very back of the boat (aft). We have a dining area, computer area, wet bar, tv and settee and arm chairs in the living area with patio doors out onto a balcony. Off of the lounge we have our bedroom with another tv, lots of closet space and again patio doors onto the balcony area where we have two lounge beds, four chairs and a table for outside dining. We have a lovely bathroom with vanity area, Jacuzzi bath and large massaging shower stall. A lovely lovely room and we feel so spoilt. We went off for lunch in the International Dining Room where we had chateaubriand and salmon, made our way back to our room where our luggage had been delivered. After unpacking, we met our steward Ed (Gilfred) and we kept getting gifts delivered - canapés, fruit, champagne, mini bar set up etc. The ship was late leaving Vancouver and it eventually left about 6.45pm with police escorts either side of it. We stood in our balcony, drinking the complimentary champagne that Ed brought us just before leaving, waving to everyone and no-one, watching the sparkly lights of Vancouver disappearing in the distance. We got ourselves ready and went out for dinner about 8pm. I had pate and then crawfish and mussels in tomato sauce and my husband also had salmon pate and then pork loin. All lovely. For dessert I had flambé banana and he had cheesecake. By now, we both felt exhausted, so went back to our cabin, ordered some tea from room service and fell into bed by 11pm. (7am the next morning in UK). We have been up for over 24 hours with only 3 hours sleep on the plane.

Sunday 13th September We were both woken up in the night by the gentle rocking motion of the ship and looked out the windows to see a slight rough swell. We went back to sleep easily enough and woke up eventually about 8am and had breakfast delivered to our room (juice, fruit, cereal, eggs and pancakes). Yum - a lovely start to the day.

The whole day is spent cruising on our way up to Alaska. The weather has definitely cooled overnight and there is a chill in the air today. We spent some of the day sitting on the balcony, wrapped up warm, looking for whales with the binoculars, but didn’t see any - not north enough yet I think. We had some flowers delivered to our room - a button hole for my husband and one for me as it is Formal night tonight. Also in the afternoon, a plate of chocolate covered strawberries were delivered.!! I think we will come home twice the size we are now!! We had a good explore of the ship today - all the restaurants (7 altogether) , the casino and spent $10 on a good fun half hour in there. We also found 4 different swimming pools, about 5 Jacuzzis, the library and listened to the jazz band for a while. There are shops on 3 floors and overall the ship is 14 stories high! We can’t stop eating - after breakfast we had pastries and coffee in one of the dining rooms and then at 1.30pm we went for lunch where I had a very nice Cobb salad and my husband had a Philly sandwich with melted cheese and onions. Mid afternoon we ate our chocolate covered strawberries and started on the fruit bowl! The evening was spent in Sabatini’s restaurant as a special treat for formal night. We had a nice black and white photo taken before dinner and then enjoyed a 7 course meal. Still tired though, and went back to our room early tonight. The clocks also go back an hour so an extra hour sleep will be nice. Monday 14th Sept Today we woke to a fresh morning in Ketchikan. We had breakfast in our room and then made our way to the dockside to start our excursion - go kart adventure. We went on a speed boat first for about an hour to reach our destination. We sat on top deck until they started going so fast we had to go down below and warm up with hot chocolate! The scenery was beautiful, the water was like a glass lake. We even saw several bald eagles in the trees. We arrived at the karting area and was kitted out in waterproof trousers as the seats were wet on the karts. I looked like a mixture between Bob The Builder and a Tellytubby! My husband drove the kart to a clearing where we had snacks and water. The roads were really bumpy and narrow. We were hurtling along the track about 30mph, trying to video it at the same time. Half way, we swapped drivers and I drove back to base camp. This was a really fun excursion and we were taken back to the cruise ship by coach. After lunch on the balcony of clam chowder, Caesar salad for me and cheeseburger for my husband, followed by chocolate cake, washed down with a glass of wine - we were off again sailing out of Ketchikan. We were one of 4 ships in the harbour and they were all massive. Cruising off, we were surrounded by float planes landing. The only way to Ketchikan is by air or sea. The local children have to go to school by boat and plane every day. We had a bit of a restful afternoon and then about 6pm we were cruising through a narrow passage when we saw whales! There were several pods of them and all you could hear around us were oohs and aghhs from the people on the ships balcony. We felt so lucky to see whales so early in our trip. In the evening, we went to the Sterling Steakhouse for the best fillet mignon we have ever tasted. We have had a superb day today - one of the best ever. Karting, balcony dining, viewings of whales and bald eagles and the smoothest seas I could ever have imagined. Roll on tomorrow.

Tuesday 15th September

We were awake this morning at 5.30am and stood outside watching the sun come up. It has been raining overnight but this morning the sky is nice and clear. Weather pretty cold though.

We docked in Juneau about 7.30am - today we were going whale watching. After breakfast in our room (and taking a precautionary sea sickness tablet) , we went down to dockside where we met our group going whale watching. We travelled in a coach for about half an hour and then joined a catamaran and stood out on deck. Luckily we went prepared for the journey with layers, fur hats, scarves and gloves, along with our warm coats. We were the only ones who went so prepared and everyone else had to stand indoors when the boat started picking up speed.

We saw bald eagles again today and then after travelling for about half an hour we slowed down and spotted about 7 hump back whales. We spent a good hour videoing and photographing them. They were amazingly big - about 50 feet long and kept blowing air out of the water. You could actually hear them as well - they sounded like cows mooing!

On the way back to dock we again spotted some hump back whales - a mum and her baby. The baby spent a good ten minutes rolling about in the water right near our boat, with his fins in the air. It looked as if he was waving us goodbye.

Wed 16th September Today we went on a husky dog excursion. On the way in the mini van, we stopped on a small wooden bridge to watch two grizzly bears fishing in the river. What a fantastic experience. Driving on, we could hear the dogs before we could see them and we were dropped in a clearing to get into another 4x4 truck which took us to the dogs. There were several groups of dogs, all ready and eager to go. We were lucky enough to get the front row seats and had a fantastic ride through the trees by 18 very excitable dogs. After, we had an interested talk from one of the Mushers and then got to meet the latest additions - 6 week old puppies. Another great day.

Thursday 17th and Friday 18th September. These two days were spent cruising and glacier viewing. I have never seen anything quite so beautiful as the blue glaciers, snow topped mountains and the clearest sea you can ever imagine. We felt like the only people in the world whilst we stood on our balcony enjoying the weather, taking in the view. We had lunch on our balcony today and it was probably the nicest surroundings we have ever had lunch.

At one point, we saw a small ice berg float by with 4 seals resting on it. We were also very lucky to see an ice calving - the noise was incredible.

Saturday 19th September. We left the ship today - we were so sad to leave. Disembarkation was very easy.

As far as the ship is concerned, we did not really use many of the facilities as we spent most of our time in our lovely suite and just went out each night for dinner. We only got to see a couple of shows - one a comedien and another was a hypnotist. Both good quality. We opted to go for any time dining and tried all of the restaurants. We went to the Steakhouse twice and Sabatinis once. The food in all the restaurants was top class and the service was impeccable. Most days we had room service for breakfast and lunch, both very good and each time we had our table laid beautifully, either in the suite or out on the balcony.

We did notice that the overall age group was older people on this cruise - not that it bothered us, but one night we decided to visit the nightclub about 11pm and found DJ JT all alone spinning his discs. Hence, we did not stay! The one other thing that surprised us though, was the dress situation. I took pretty dresses for each evening and my husband took suits, but we did feel rather over-dressed. The majority of cruisers were quite casual in the evenings, apart from formal night.

Overall - this holiday has been the most amazing experience of our lives. It was definitely worth the extra money for the full suite. We had so many perks - free internet access to enable us to keep in touch with family, free laundry, canapes every day, flowers in our room and button holes, free first bar set up and the most beautiful room to enjoy our cruise with.

Bad points - we were surprised that our balcony was overlooked from the rooms above and also the people standing on the back of the ship. This did enfringe on our privacy and we did have to stand way back to avoid getting wet when it rained. Also there were a couple of members of staff who worked on the customer service desk who were most unfriendly. Out of all the staff on the whole ship, this was the only area of bad staff we came across.