Star Princess Review

4.0 / 5.0
0 reviews

Scenery and Excursions, Great; Cruise Ship, Very Nice; Land Portion, Hmm

Review for Alaska Cruise on Star Princess
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ohiocyclist
2-5 Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Jul 2015
Cabin: Interior

Disclaimer up front - this was not just a cruise but a cruisetour. We had 12 days (5 land, 7 sea) with Princess, with the land portion first. We chose to sail with Princess solely because they had such an extensive network of land lodges, excursions and itineraries. Knowing what we now know, we would have done everything on land on our own instead of through Princess and explored the interior of Alaska independently instead of doing a cruisetour. That would have made our cruise options much more open. The cruise itself was fine but will get to that later. Would not discourage anybody from sailing with Princess but also will not purposefully seek out a Princess cruise or tell anybody "you just HAVE to cruise with Princess". I would strongly encourage anybody to do your own thing on land and NOT use a Princess cruisetour, though.

Flew to Fairbanks a couple days before the land portion of our Princess cruisetour began. Got a car and went to a lot of places. Had a great time and did things on our schedule. Turned in the car and picked up the bus transfer to Fairbanks Princess Lodge. Lodge was fine but thankfully the Pikes Landing was a short walk away. Had a great dinner and view of the Chena River from there. Had to get up super early just to put luggage outside the door. That is a recurring theme and a huge irritant for us. I get why this is necessary in some circumstances but the times given to us were ridiculous. Anyways, took the morning cruise on the Riverboat Discovery and had a great time. Got on the bus to transfer to Denali Lodge and had a pleasant ride down.

Got to our room and discovered that only one of our two bags had made it to the room. Not cool. Please understand that we are VERY independent travelers and never use bell hops, porters, luggage handling services, etc, and have never done organized bus tours or the like. It's nice to know where your stuff is and to always have access to it. After numerous inquiries and a great deal of nervousness and trepidation, and also many promises to contact me with updates as to what had been done to find it, we went on our rafting trip thinking that my luggage had been lost on the very first opportunity for Princess to lose it. Got back from rafting, all the while thinking that the clothes I was wearing while in a drysuit for 3+ hours were the only clothes I would have, and wouldn't you know it, my luggage magically appeared in our room. Mind you that both bags were tagged identically, both bags retained their luggage tags, and there was no good reason for these bags to be separated. I get that human beings were the ones delivering the luggage and that things happen, but what ticked me off was absolutely no explanation or apology was offered, even after asking for both.

Cabin Review

Interior

Cabin IB

Very nicely appointed, room for everything, bathroom was fine and shower had enough room to actually take a shower. If you are expecting a full-size bathroom or shower stall then you probably shouldn't be cruising at all. This bathroom and shower were just fine. Attendant was super friendly and got us the few extra items (towels) that we requested.

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