08/06/2026
Alaska cruise
Island Princess
Day 1
As a reminder, this is one of the times that I was able to actually take advantage of one of my great deals. We got an aft suite for about the price of a regular balcony. If we were to book this suite for the same cruise next year, it would cost double. There's only one suite bigger than this one. As a result of that, we had a separate waiting area and we got on board before everyone else. It was a 10 minute walk to the port from the hotel. We got there around 10:06 am and we were waiting to board about 15 minutes later. We weren't scheduled to show up to the port until 10:30am but those times are almost never enforced. They let us on the ship right at 10:30am.
They didn't provide any guidance as to what was open and what wasn't. The first order of business was to schedule our specialty dining for tonight. We tried to do it before we got on the ship but we couldn't because it was sold out. They found us a time for 5pm which was perfect for us, especially with the time change. Next up was to find the muster station. That took seconds. They just scan your medallion. I should have probably started with that. Instead of a key card, Princess uses a medallion which is like a little RFID button that is on a lanyard. It's a great idea as the system and others can find you.
Once we got all of that taken care of, we went to the buffet. It was still a little early so it wasn't that busy. For a smaller/older ship (about 2200 passengers) its a decent sized buffet. I wasn't really impressed though but that could just be a matter of personal preference. There's pizza outside of the buffet but I didn't get a chance to try that yet. I went upstairs to the burger and hot dog restaurant. Kind of annoying that you have to go outside the buffet and upstairs for that. I ordered a hamburger and hot dogs for Heidi and I. Because they are made to order, this takes forever. I think it took 20 minutes. I can't imagine what happens when they are busy. Neither the burger or hot dog were that good at all. Not worth the wait. Hopefully the pizza is good or else I don't know what I'll be eating for lunch.
The cabins were ready shortly after lunch so we went right there of course. I already showed you our suite and everything it comes with. We're gonna get spoiled. Our room steward/butler (not sure the correct term) introduced himself. I explained to him that we really don't drink so we should just get cokes in our minibar. We get one free set up. There is a sheet of paper that explains most of what we are entitled to but its not everything. For example, we get a special section in the theater for production shows but not for other shows. Same theater, same cruise line, different rules for different shows. Never heard of that and I don't see the logic there at all. What's crazy is that this isn't explained anywhere. I just knew that most lines will have something like that.
Speaking of things no one tells you, we also get free access to the thermal suite in the spa. What do you need to do to use it? You have to figure that out for yourself. I went to the spa and asked about that. They put a sticker on the back of our medallions. Since this is a small ship, the thermal suite is small. But its better than nothing.
After exploring the ship, we just hung out in our cabin for a while. We went down to the spa raffle right at the same time as we were leaving. Not sure why they schedule things like that. We had about a 1 in 4 shot of winning something and of course we didn't win. We have the worst luck although we did win last year on our Disney cruise. They gave out a lot of prizes.
Next up was a little party for elite guest and we fall under that category as well. Most lines will have a free drinks and they'll pass around some finger food. Well Princess had a music duo and “discounted” drinks. With the discount, the drinks were $9. That's really lame. I can see why there was only one other person there. These things are normally mobbed. To be fair, I'm not sure if I'm comparing apples to apples here as we received an invite to a welcome cocktail party tomorrow. So if that is the welcome party, what the heck was this event? Really odd.
Dinner tonight was in the Crown Grill which is their specialty steakhouse. We both got the filet. One of the breads they give you is a cheese bread. Really incredible. The crab cake was pretty good. The waiter said our steak would come out soon. Then we waited and waited. The couple next to us are from Oklahoma but they're thinking about moving near us in a few years. So we talked about Florida and a few other things. Really nice people. They got there maybe 5 minutes before we did at most. They left before we even got our dinner. That's how long it took. I had to get the manager. I'm pretty sure that the waiter forgot about us or something. The manager was so shocked.
Our steaks were OK. Not bad, but not amazing. On the level of Outback Steakhouse I'd say. Not worth the cover charge but so many people get this for free as part of the different packages they sell so not a lot of people are paying the full price. To make up for this, the manager invited us back for free in two nights. We'll take it.
Since dinner took so long, we didn't have a ton of time until the show. We went for walk outside which was nice since the weather is perfect. Even though we got to the show a half hour early there was still a good amount of people there. The show tonight was a husband a wife, magician/mentalist duo. I'm a huge magic fan (I've been on stage with David Copperfield twice and Penn and Teller twice). The downside of that is that I know how most tricks are done. For me, their tricks were meh. Pretty sure most of the audience thought they were amazing though so I don't think my opinion is relevant. Regardless, its nice to see that Princess is spending money on bringing outside talent in to mix things up. Some cruise lines have stopped this completely.
We walked outside again as our cabin is on the other side of the ship. The sunset was great. Our cabin is right next to the spa so I went out there to get some water. I went to check on the sunset again and there was a humpback whale right next to the ship. So I ran down the hall to show Heidi. Our aft balcony provides an amazing view so she got to see it. I know we're gonna see a ton but it was still really cool to see.
Heidi wanted to stay in the cabin and hang out so I went to use the thermal suite. Like I said before, its better than nothing but hardly my favorite. I had the place to myself though which was nice. On the way back I ran into my butler. He brought us a fruit bowl and the rest of my cokes. I forgot to mention that there was a plate of sushi and other stuff waiting for us when we first got into the cabin.
Today certainly wasn't the smoothest first day, but none of the issues we ran into ruined the day or anything. The suite is the best part so far. I'm looking forward to checking out the other perks that it comes with such as the special meals for suite guests. The medallion is a really cool feature. Tomorrow is a sea day and one of the guys from the Deadliest Catch (who we met before) is going to be on the ship to talk about his life on the crab boats. They're also going to have husky puppies at some point.
