Grand Princess Review
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My husband and I took our first-ever cruise on the Diamond Princess in 2007; since then we have cruised on Celebrity, Crystal, and HAL, as well as on Princess, taking two or three trips a year. We hadn't however, cruised on Princess for a couple of years, but when the Grand was home-ported in San Francisco this spring, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to sail from home and looked for an interesting itinerary. We found this in the Grand's 30 May Alaskan itinerary, which included Sitka, in our view the prettiest port in Southast Alaska, and Haines, a charming town we had never visited (and which some readers of books on Alaska may know from Heather Lende's "If You Lived Here I Would Know your Name)." We had sailed on the Grand before, and were curious about how the ship had changed after its extensive drydock in 2011, so the post-drydock changes are probably the place to start this review. It is true that the ship looks sleeker since the elimination of its "shopping-cart handle," where the Skywalker nightclub had been located; however, the Skywalker was also the ship's observation lounge, and we missed this venue, especially on this Alaskan cruise, as it had been a wonderful location from which to take in the beauty of glaciers, etc. while being in out of the cold and mist (the Sanctuary may serve as a substitute on trips to warmer climes, but not on Alaskan cruises, as it is not insulated from the outside temperatures, and some may not want to pay the Sanctuary admission fee). This said, we enjoyed two new venues that were added during drydock: the International Cafe and Alfredo's pizzeria. Alfredo's is, at present, an alternative dining venue without a specialty restaurant tariff. We noticed that Alfredo's was a favorite of younger passengers, for whom it provides a casual alternative to the cafeteria atmosphere in the Horizon Court. And while we raised the average age when we dined there, we too enjoyed the pizza offerings available on the evening we dined there, which we accompanied with a half bottle of cabernet left over from our visit the preceding night to the Crown Grill. Here are some additional observations.POSITIVE COMMENTS--
1) SAILINGS FROM SF: For people living in the SF Bay Area, the opportunity to cruise to several different destinations from San Francisco is a real plus. It is true that until after the America's Cup competition is over, ships must still sail from San Francisco's old cruise pier, which meant that for several sailings there were lines and delays at this crowded location; Princess, however, has tried to ameliorate this problem by giving passengers specific boarding times, starting in the early afternoon after everyone from the previous voyage had disembarked. Enough people respected their assigned times that we had the quickest boarding we had ever experienced at any cruise port! Disembarkation was equally swift and uncomplicated.
2) ITINERARY: The itinerary was a big plus for me. My husband stayed aboard in both Sitka and Haines, but I went ashore, and took advantage of the opportunity to meet local artists, enriching my understanding of Northwest Coast art.
Cabin Review
POSITIVES:1) While this cabin is a mini-suite, it is of course still very small compared with rooms ashore; nonetheless, we felt that the space available was well laid out, and my husband, who spends a good deal of time in our stateroom reading and writing, found the space inside the cabin adequate. Moreover, the balcony was large enough to dine outside, though, this being an early-season Alaskan cruise, the temperatures did not encourage doing so! 2) I appreciated the fact that the sink basin was deep enough to wash my hair in and to wrinse out small items of clothing (we've sailed on ships with more beautiful sinks, which were too shallow).NEGATIVES:1) On the negative side, the partition between our balcony and the next balcony forward rattled when there was any kind of wind.2) The door on our safe was so stiff that we were reluctant to put anything inside, and the problem was never fixed, even though it was reported.3) The mattress isn't the most comfortable--it seemed okay at the start of the cruise, but my husband was uncomfortable the last few nights.