Our family of 3 (married couple 30s/40s, with a 17yo son) booked our first Alaskan / first Princess cruise last fall as part of an extended family trip. In total, there were 19 of us; 14 adults and 5 tweens / teenagers. My husband and I have cruised multiple times before but this was our son's first cruise.

The flight into Seattle was good; we arrived a day early and stayed at the Spring Hill Suites downtown location. Our family of 3 used a private car service from the airport to the hotel and then got another car service to Pier 91 the morning of embarkation.

Embarkation was an absolute breeze! We left our hotel at 11:20am and arrived in our stateroom by noon!!! We had no lines to speak of whatsoever, porters were plentiful to help with luggage, and checking in (as we had already printed our boarding passes / luggage tags) was a mere minutes in length. I think we were within the first 100 people on the ship! It was nice to be able to go right to our rooms upon boarding! Read more