Review for Sapphire Princess Alaska Cruise May 15, 2011First time cruisers 2 couples in their mid - late fifties balcony cabin & mini-suiteSeattle - First, buy a citipass for $59. We did 5 out of the six activities & it was worth itWed. & Thurs. nights, we stayed at the Roosevelt on the corner of Pine and Seventh. It was extremely convenient & very nice. The restaurant next door, Von's, was very good, but a little pricey for breakfast. A note of caution, if you smoke, every time my husband when out to smoke, he was approached by someone. One time we watched as he was approached 3 times in less than 5 minutes.We spent our first afternoon at Pike's Place Market. I was a little surprised that they started packing up around 5:00 PM, but it was pretty rainy. It's a fun place anyway.Second day started out around 9:00AM. We walked a couple of blocks to WestLake Mall to catch the monorail ($4 round trip) to the space needle. The space needle was great, especially because we had good weather making the view so much better.We were less than impressed with the EMP . The music exhibits were ok. It would be a good place to go to play or listen to some music . The sci-fi part was a waste. It's my understanding that there was more & it appeared that they were working on adding an Avatar exhibit, but for us it was just a small exhibit of Battlestar Galactica stuff.The Pacific Science Center is awesome. An IMAX movie is included. It would not be hard to spend a whole day there, especially if you have children, but we cut it short to take the Argosy cruise.I would not spend extra money on the Argosy cruise. It only takes an hour & does give you a view of the city from the water. Half of the time was touring the loading docks for container ships. It is located right down from the aquarium.Very Important Note!!!At the end of Pine Street, there is an entrance to the market, where there is a sign for an elevator. This elevator will take you down to a garage which is basically across the street from the aquarium. If you don't take this elevator, you will be climbing LOTS of stairs!We had planned on going back to the space needle for an evening look, but , by the time we walked in the shops by the pier & had dinner, we were too tired.We had to check out at noon on the 3rd day, so we went to the aquarium for 9:30 AM, when it opened. We just beat several bus loads of school kids. It was very nice. We had another day with family in the area, who dropped us off at the pier.The CruiseEmbarkation was a bit overwhelming to me. In retrospect, it did only take about 40 minutes & there were a lot of people.....lines to get in line to get in line to check in. We got there just before 2:00PM.Stateroom Our first suitcase arrived right after we did. The room was very nice, but I did find the bed hard. The linens need to be replaced. I thought there was enough space to put things away. We did bring some of our own hangers. For a few hundred dollars more, I wish we would have gotten a mini-suite. It had so much more room. The views out the balcony doors are phenomenal - not to be missed. We picked up lanyards in the casino, which were great & seemed different than ones I'd seen in pictures.Drinks We brought wine, a small bottle of crown, 2 twelve packs of diet Sunkist & 1 twelve pack of cokes with no problem. We bought another twelve pack of cokes, but ended up leaving 1 twelve pack of each. The iced tea and coffee were okay. There were about 5 drink specials every day after 8PM for $4.99. We didn't find regular drinks too high, around $7.Food We tried the MDR for breakfast once. Most mornings, we got croissants & coffee from room service. I thought the Horizon buffet had the best selection for breakfast when I wanted something substantial. We ate at the buffet for lunch most days. We did try the pizza & hamburgers also. For anytime dining, we ate in 3 of the 4 dining rooms, but liked the Savoy the best. We did go to Sterling one night. My husband had to send his porterhouse back. It was overcooked. He substituted with a filet instead & it was perfect. The cookies were delicious, especially when they had the hot ones around the pool. Overall, I thought the food was okay. I was always able to find something I liked, but nothing to rave about.Entertainment None of us was impressed with the production "I Got the Music", so we didn't go to the others. We saw 3 comedy acts. All were good. We also enjoyed Bruce on the piano in Crooner's. The 2 bands we saw weren't too good either.PORTSKetchikan We went to the visitors center at the edge of the docks. We then caught the city bus for $2 a day to Totem Bight State Park, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We went back to town & got a different city bus to Saxman, where we had to pay $5 to get in. TOTAL WASTE! I'm just glad we didn't spend any more money on that. We took a wal-mart shuttle from the pier to go pick up cokes. Don't plan on getting cheap T-shirts there. We did much better in town. We ran out of time, so we didn't get to Creek Street, but would have liked to.Tracy Arm Not really a port, but a place to tour. It was very foggy, so we couldn't see a lot. There were a lot of growlers floating around the ship to see up close & personal. It was very cold there. We tried several places to see & found viewing best on deck 7.Juneau There are several kiosks that sell tickets for tours. We just wanted the bus to Mendenhall glacier & they were all the same price, $8 each way. This was my personal favorite. It was awesome. If I go back, I think I would spring for the helicopter trip to the top. We considered taking the tram, but it was very overcast & figured it would be a waste of money - $27.Skagway We opted to rent a car from Avis ($100) and drive to Emerald Lake. It was a gorgeous drive. We left around 8:30AM & got back to town about 2:00PM. After shopping, my husband dropped us off @ the dock (with all our stuff) while he went to return the car. I think we have about 500 pictures from here. This was my husband's favorite port.Victoria We booked a tour of Butchart Gardens through Princess. It was so worth it. They were spectacular. The gardens were actually closed @ 9:00PM, but we were there (with other ship tours) until 10:15PM. It was beautiful, even after dark. We would like to have had more time to go into town.Disembarkation was painless. We were given tags for our luggage with a color & number. We were given a time (10:00AM for us) & place to report (club fusion). Around 8:00AM, we left our cabin, had a little breakfast at Horizon & relaxed until 9:45AM, when we went to club fusion. At 10:00AM they announced for us to leave. We walked down, got our luggage (divided into areas by color & number) & went to our bus. The only negative was trying to find which bus. We had to asked several people, but then the driver didn't even ask for our tickets.