This cruise was the second leg of a B2B. It included the most interesting excursion we've likely ever done....or at least one at the very top. We visited the Kroschel Animal Sanctuary near Haines, Alaska. Getting there is a bit of a pain, but it is well worth the effort. We did it thru the ship--bus to the ferry, ferry to Haines, bus to the sanctuary over very bad, under construction roads. At the sanctuary we interacted with animals who, for various reasons, can never live in the wild--a moose orphaned as an infant, etc. I don't mean that we SAW animals, I mean that we touched, petted, fed, kissed, and photographed the animals. The sanctuary is often used for wildlife films as the animals are trained to interact with humans. I won't tell you all the secrets, but there was a wolf, bear, reindeer, etc. as well as smaller creatures. It was overall a great excursion...despite the long transportation time. In fact, if this had been our first excursion, I would have not selected the other wildlife oriented excursions we did on the first leg.

Dining on board was some of the best shipboard dining we've had in the last 20 years. Because we were in a window suite, we were automatically in "club class" dining. It is the same menu as any other dining with the addition of one item each evening. But the food is excellent (didn't taste mass produced) and the service was superb.

Activities on board, with the exception of the day the National Park Rangers did their presentations (also great) were rather boring. There were some destination speakers who were good...but trivia, shows, etc. were rather the typical Princess stuff. The evening entertainment was blah (same shows on every Princess ship we've been on for the last 5 years). The ship itself was in surprisingly good repair after what we'd read. One aft elevator was out of order (had been for months per reports), but otherwise, none of the leaks or smells we'd been warned about. The ship looked good and was well maintained.