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We're long-term Princess cruisers,  with 20+ cruises and enough days to usually get us invited to the frequent travelers lunch, always good. We still like Princess, but our last two experiences have been less than ideal.

We had a cruise scheduled over Thanksgiving 2021, booked six months in advance, with our son and daughter-in-law and a one-year old. Princess cancelled our booking with one week's notice because the baby had not been vaccinated (impossible at the time). Now, I understood their reasoning, but to cancel a holiday cruise with one-week’s notice on a long-standing booking left us less than pleased.

We tried this cruise. It is your typical Alaskan cruise, with the usual excellent staff and good (but not memorable) dining. We got club class dining, which was really helpful with a small child. The wait staff took very good care of us, and dinner moved at a faster pace than in the main dining room.  Out granddaughter was too young for the children’s area, so we did a lot of baby-sitting, which for us was fine.

Our first cabin was a problem. We booked E732, a rear suite on Deck 8. Our previous Princess suite was well worth it. This one, it turns out, is just above the crew smoking area on deck 6. Shall we say the balcony reeked, particularly in port? Princess was used to unhappy people in E732. After some gently expressed dissatisfaction we were moved to a bigger and nonsmoky suite (A752).  That was excellent.

Rather than go through the usual comments, I'll simply comment on things I noticed had declined since our last Princess cruise in 2019. Cabin toiletries, even in suites, were generic. The bread basket at dinner used to be varied. Now there are two types, good enough, but I missed the variety. The bedtime chocolates were missing (a steward said it was cost-cutting). Wine prices were up, I think. I don't mind paying the cruise line supplement for wine, but the last time we cruised I could get a drinkable bottle for $10 less than on this cruise. Platinum and above formerly got a free Internet allowance. Now they get half-price (on an admittedly better package). Internet was sometimes very slow, although part of that is being so far north. I think, but am not sure, that there was less variety in the cafeteria area. These are individually minor, and I wouldn't even have noticed them if we'd not been on Princess so often before, but it made me wonder that if these were the cutbacks I could see, what was I not seeing?

One improvement: the photographers are less obtrusive than in the past. Good! 

The staff, as always, is excellent. I always tip above the standard, assuming service is excellent, which it was.

In short, Princess still does a good cruise, but they are no longer our first choice.

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