We are from the Greater Seattle area so this was our 6th trip to Alaska. We got an e-mail from Princess indicating some great discounted prices on balcony staterooms. The price was right $499 plus $150 in fees. With vacation time coming up we tried to book on the internet. This would not work so we called Princess and got a very helpful man who booked us but we had to wait several days to get our cabin number. My girl friend is a Princess Platinum member. She got a personal phone call from a hostess who gave us the room details and arranged for our friend ( who drove us to the ship ) to have a ship tour on embarkation day. We parked in the very large parking area and soon caught the shuttle to the terminal. Very straight forward, left our luggage with a bag guy and up the stairs to clear security. Being with a platinum member we went right to the platinum check in, and were on the ship shortly. Our friend got his own card and a special badge. He had to be off the ship by 3pm. Since this was our third straight trip on the Star Princess we showed him around and then took him to the buffet. Once he left we had the muster drill and sailed away under cloudy and cool Seattle weather.

I had been checking the weather and was optimistic that we would be seeing some Alaskan Sun. All of our other cruises have been in August and once in September. Since cloudy and showers is the normal summer weather in SE Alaska you can only hope for the best. We sailed on Sat. 5/18 and arrived in sunny Juneau on Monday 5/20. We had no shore excursions planned so walked north thru downtown towards the capitol. We found a nice coffee shop and ordered our lattes. We then headed to the State capital building. After our tour we head up the hill to the house of Wickersham for a free tour. We made our way down the west slope of the hill and ended up at the Governors mansion. The weather was gorgeous and spring blooms were in full force. Lots of snow still on the surrounding mountains.

The next day Tues. 5/21 we arrived in Sunny but cool Skagway. Again no excursions. We walked into town and found another local latte shop. I then found a bakery that had $1 day old cupcakes. Read more