Crown Princess Review
A truly amazing trip and vessel; don't believe the negative reviews.
Rating by category
Additional details
There are any number of deterring comments a young couple normally hears when they discuss going cruising. Some of the ones we heard included: "You'll be surrounded by OLD people!" "Anytime Dining? You'll have to wait hours to get into the good restaurants!" "Cruise ships are so crowded and noisy!" Plus, my husband read some of the reviews on the Crown Princess from this site (cruise critic) and they really caused him to doubt whether cruising was a good idea for us. Skip ahead two weeks...
After just having returned from our Alaskan cruise aboard the Crown Princess, I can truthfully denounce each and every one of these statements. My husband and I had an amazing time and have nothing but good things to say about the Crown Princess, her staff, and cruising to the Last Frontier.
One of our initial concerns with choosing the Crown Princess was it's size. It can sleep over 3,100 people... which is about 3/4 of the size of the town we grew up in. That many people, we thought, and it's bound to feel crowded. Thankfully we chose the Crown anyway, so we could find out the following truth: most of the time, you feel like you have the Crown Princess to yourself and maybe 10-20 other people. We walked all over that ship every day and never felt crowded. The only places you might ever have to wait include the elevators or the buffet lines. As for the elevators, this wasn't a problem for us; we're young and like to stay fit so we only took the elevator a single time in the whole week we were aboard. Bonuses: no waiting and we ended up toning up instead of bulking up like people told us we would.
Cabin Review
Balcony
This room was way bigger and more airy than I thought it would be. It was very clean; I only noticed one light scuff mark on one wall. We had a comfortable queen bed, make-up table and mirror, 2 bedside tables and lamps. The balcony has two chairs and a small table that often doubled as an ottoman for us. The cool thing about this balcony was that the levels above it extend as far from the boat as ours did, so no one above us could look down on us.
Port Reviews
Glacier Bay
Simply stunning views. This place makes you realize how small you are in the world. Go see it in person. I ca't do it justice here, no matter how much space you give me.
Ketchikan
Loved the Totem Heritage Center for checking out totem poles and other artifacts dating back to the 1800s. Creek Street had some excellent shopping and we loved that they sold local artwork. Wish we would have had time to visit Saxman village or Totem Bight Park, but we only had about 4 hours and we woke up a bit late.
Victoria
I was honestly not looking forward to Victoria much because I figured it would pale in comparison to the raw natural beauty of Alaska. However, I have to say it was a beautiful city and we really enjoyed walking along the boardwalk that extends all the way into the heart of the city next to the capitol building and the Empress hotel. We also had a harbor seal pop up literally right below us on the boardwalk in Fisherman's wharf and he stayed around and curiously looked at the group of us goofy humans for at least 15-20 minutes. I also saw several others and a number of river otters along the rest of the stretch of boardwalk.
Seattle
Check out the Seattle Aquarium and Pike's Place Market
Skagway
Town is a total tourist trap, but there are good hiking opportunities and the White Pass Railway is worth the money because you get to see so much beautiful inland and mountain scenery.