Our cruise planner suggested that we use Princess for our cruise line as it seemed to fit our senior lifestyle the best. It was a great suggestion and made our cruise all the better. We took the 11 day north bound cruise-tour (7 days at sea and 4 days on land) embarking at Vancouver, B.C. We arrived pier-side at noon and embarkation went smoothly for us. We hear that for others that arrived as early at 1pm, embarkation was very long and not so smooth. The ship isn't the largest cruising the inland passage but we found that was to our advantage. We never felt crowded even waiting in lines for dinner. It was very easy to get to the buffet, dining rooms and restaurants. The upscale restaurants, The Bayou Cafe & Steakhouse, and Sabatini's were well worth it and could be paid for with ship-board credits. Deserts at both were fabulous! We chose dining at anytime vs reservations so we could be flexible in our dining times. We found that to our advantage as we found ourselves returning to the ship on occasion later than originally planned. Meeting new people and hearing their stories was really a memorable event. Highly recommend a flexible dining choice.

The entertainment was top notch too. From comedians to magicians to song and dance, it was all engaging and entertaining. The lounge entertainment was also superb. There seemed to be activities for just about everyone and life-style from board games to gambling, reading to zoomba. It was all there.

We chose to go with an independent excursion broker instead of using the excursions offered by Princess. First, The Princess excursions sold out quickly and often were not at convenient times for us. The excursion broker we used accommodated all of our time preferences and for slightly less money. We also found that a lot of the excursions we booked were also used by Princess. We had absolutely no problem with arriving back at the ship in time to sail. We just lost track of time sight seeing around town. Read more