I'm a first time cruiser and I just came back recently from my Alaska cruise on the Princess line. Since I went in June, the weather was really nice in Alaska. I did not have to deal with any rain and I only needed to bring a sweater to stay warm.
Cabin:
I paid for the partially obstructed view. The cabin I picked with the 8th floor which was obstructed with the emergency boats along the windows. It's nicer to have your own private balcony but my rationale was that I could sit on the chairs along the outside observatory decks anyways for the ocean views. The TV is not connected to any satellite for most of the cruise so they rerun a bunch of shows and a couple of movies on a loop throughout the day. So unless you're willing to pay for internet, you'll be cutoff from live television (thank goodness for DVR!). You can use the room landline and courtesy phones located throughout the cruise to contact family members so I think walkie talkies are an unnecessary expense. Petra was our housekeeper and she was fantastic. Very nice and came in to clean our room twice a day unless we left a privacy notice.