Alaskan Cruise:
Inner Passage
Discovery Princess
Ports in Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway and Victoria, B.C.
Beginning and ending in Seattle, WA
Well, we are post-cruise on the Discovery Princess, and I wish I was still in Alaska, enjoying the cooler weather vs here in Florida in the middle of July. Now that some time has passed, and we have had time to think about our trip, the excursions, the food, etc, I wanted to share our thoughts and experiences, maybe to help you with your planning and provide useful information. This will be long, but hopefully worth it in one way or another.
First, I’ll talk about the thing that stressed me out the most – Covid testing. We bought our 2-pack tests (x2, in case one malfunctioned) on Optum and they come with a proctored appointment. Side note, my health insurance reimburses me for an X number of tests per month so check to see if you have similar coverage. Since we had to fly to Seattle, we did our tests the night before our flight (and we flew a day before the cruise) so we’d have time to take it again just to be sure before our evening flight if necessary. It was super easy to do, but I was stressed out about it for weeks and weeks – I just knew this would be when one of us would get Covid, LoL. All was well, though. I believe most cruises, if not all, are doing away with testing pre-boarding so this may not be applicable for you.
Masks were optional on our flight, on the cruise, on tours and pretty much everywhere we went. We are normally not mask wearers in our daily lives when not required, but I had a fear of getting sick and quarantined on the boat so we wore our masks just about everywhere we went, on and off the ship. We also had hand sanitizer with us and we washed our hands constantly (especially after using the tongs at the buffet). We also brought sanitizer wipes with us and wiped down the airplane seat areas, the ship’s room, and our tour bus seat area. I’m happy to say that neither of us contracted Covid (or any other illness), despite many others posting on Facebook that they did post-cruise. We were overly cautious and I’d like to think it kept us from getting sick with anything. Also, there were hand washing sinks near the buffet so this was very helpful in feeling like we were staying clean for ourselves and others.
Embarkation was a breeze. We stayed at a hotel near the airport that had a free shuttle to the hotel, then we paid for them to shuttle us to the docks in the morning. We had an 11:30am embarkation time (you select it on the Medallion app), but we got there around 11am (due to the shuttle timing), and we were on the ship within a half hour and it was super easy. I’ve read a lot of complaints about this part, and I don’t know if more people get on later in the day after flying in or what, but while there were a lot of people at our time, we had no issues with anything (even though our Medallion app changed from the green lane to the blue lane for my husband as we were standing in the line, but the lady was super friendly and helpful). We were able to get into our room pretty quickly, too, although we did grab lunch in one of the Main Dining Rooms while we waited. Drinks and food were plentiful prior to getting into rooms.
The first full day on the cruise was really rough seas. We picked our room (balcony E524) specifically not to be at the front of the ship or anywhere that would feel the roughness of the sea too much. A LOT of people were seasick to some degree that day so be sure to bring some sort of seasickness medicine with you. We are not affected by the rough water much, other than looking like we are a little drunk walking around and losing our balances (mostly me, lol).
We did a lot of research on the internet prior to picking our room, which was a partially obstructed balcony on Emerald floor, room E524. Many of the partially obstructed rooms were very obstructed, but this one seemed like it would be ok. It was perfect for us! We could see just about everywhere but straight down due to the lifeboat. We saw beautiful scenery and wildlife from here. Below are some photos from our room, and this was with taking pictures so you could clearly see what it looks like, but I have many photos where I just zoomed away from the lifeboat so it wasn’t in my pictures. One note – one day, there was a staff member in the lifeboat to test it that could have easily looked into our room so just be aware, LoL. If you have a photo of your room view, please share it on this post for others to see and maybe use when they’re looking to book a room.
OK, Food: We thought the food was fine. It was generally tasty, pretty and they had great options overall. Plus, you can get as much as you want. Don’t like something? Get something else. Love something? Get another round. The staff was great in all of the dining areas we visited. We did not go to any of the specialty dining areas so I can’t speak to them. Also, we did the Dine Your Way option and didn’t make dinner reservations, just showed up when we wanted to eat. The longest we waited was 15-20 minutes to be seated. Now, we did not go to the same dining area every time, we visited both the Ketchikan and Skagway Main Dining Areas, and if one was packed with a long line, we’d go check out the other one and it usually was less busy. You also get the choice to sit alone (with your group) or you can choose sharing (at tables with other groups). We chose sharing and enjoyed meeting a variety of people each night. Some nights, I think the food took a little longer than it would have without the shortage in staff or lack of tenure, but it didn’t bother us. We had a great time and planned accordingly to allow for things to take longer. We’re on vacation so we weren’t in a rush and all staff were great!
The buffet was good with a lot of options, but we thought they needed to be better about signage or somehow explaining this area better. Thankfully, on our first trip up there, we overhead someone say something about the other area of the buffet and there being more stuff, so we went exploring. When you go into the buffet area, it’s not obvious that there are several sections with other food options on it. So, when you get to the first part of the buffet, keep walking so you see it all. This makes a BIG difference because you almost miss out on breakfast bacon if you don’t keep looking. We tried to tell everyone about the other areas when we heard them say they couldn’t believe the buffet didn’t have this or that. Hopefully, it helped!
Drinks!! I fell in love with the Sunrise Daquiri, Key West Cooler and Chocobanana, all three are non-alcoholic, but I bet you could have some coconut rum added to the first two easily and make it tasty and sassy. My husband, surprisingly, really liked the Captain’s Bounty. I even liked it and it’s not my normal type of drink. Of course, I probably almost put them out of business with my Shirley Temples, too, hehe. I had my first Pina Colada, and then enjoyed my usual Blue Hawaiian drink, too. I like grenadine to be added to mine and the bartender kept asking Joe if he was sure I wanted that added, LoL. Apparently, it’s not a common request and it does make the drink kind of ugly. Oh well, it’s yummy. The only thing that was a bummer was they didn’t have Maker’s Mark, which is Joe’s favorite, at each of the bars, only a couple of them. They had alternatives, but that is his favorite and we didn’t remember which ones did and didn’t have it. They also don’t have mint hot chocolate despite the menu (at least wherever we asked). This could have been a supply issue, not sure. A major positive is the Medallion – the bartenders knew who we were on their screens (remember the photo you had to provide?). This was a nice touch.
Speaking of supply issue, they ran out of ice cream cones within the first couple of days, and I heard that was attributed to the supply issue as well. Not a big deal, but just remember, things are still hard to get right now due to the supply chain problems still going on from Covid and staff shortages, plus the majority of the staff at this time are new. Be patient and understanding. Everyone’s pleasantness makes up for these minor issues.
I want to circle back to the rooms. I cannot stress this enough – for an Alaskan cruise doing the inside passage, GET THE BALCONY!! We saw more whales from our balcony than we did on the whale trip (more about that later) and the views are incredible. The air is magnificent (we slept with the door open a lot of the time, brrr), you can have breakfast or a drink on your balcony, and it’s just lovely. This is the trip that it is worth paying more for the balcony.
Our steward was Ariel and he was great! He was very attentive, friendly, joked some and was always, always working. Like I mentioned, I’ve heard they were short staffed at the time we went on the cruise so how they were able to keep up with rooms is incredible. Tip your room steward a little extra (and directly vs just through the gratuity charge later).
Side story! Hubby Joe and I do NOT share a flat sheet or a blanket. He has his own sheet and blankie, I have my own. Then, we both have a million pillows. We elected to have a Queen bed vs two twins, but I was not about to spend the next seven nights sharing the sheet and blanket (to be fair, this is a very true statement because I steal them all and he’s left with nothing, LoL). When Ariel first introduced himself, I asked for another sheet and blanket. He thought they set the beds up wrong. I had to explain that Joe doesn’t share well (hahahaha). They were super accommodating and brought us the extra sheet and blanket (plus extra pillows I asked for) long before bedtime. They also somehow knew which side of the bed was Joe’s and actually made the bed up with his blankie and sheet. Amazing! So, don’t be shy to ask for something that you need to make your trip extra wonderful!
Onboard Entertainment: We enjoyed the main production shows. I thought they were very talented, and compared to the few other cruises I’ve been on, I thought it was the best acts I’ve seen. We also enjoyed the Vista Lounge, which stayed open pretty late and there were some great singers and DJs in there. The comedian was so-so in my opinion. We heard others say they thought he was really good, but I thought he was just ok. I’m glad I went to the first show, but didn’t mind missing his second show (nor did my husband, who generally loves comedians). Comedy is a very individual thing so I’m sure he was talented, just didn’t appeal to me as much.
LAUNDRY WAS FREE!! Yay! I don’t know for how long, but I’ve read it’s still free. We had planned to use their facility regardless because we didn’t check bags due to the luggage issues going on with flights. Truthfully, we rarely check luggage on flights any time, but even more so during this crazy crisis. I digress. Laundry was super easy to use, although the dryers seemed to have a weird glitch. They give an error code and won’t work. Another passenger, then my husband, told another lady and I to press two buttons at the same time – any two buttons – and hold them down until it resets. Voila! Magic. I read Facebook posts of rude people who pulled other people’s wet laundry out before it was done in order to put theirs in. We didn’t experience that. Actually, the aforementioned lady and I decided to fold some people’s laundry after it was done and had been sitting for about 10 minutes so we could put ours in. We also added more time to another person’s dryer because their stuff was sitting and still wet. Sorry we touched your stuff, people, but we tried to be respectful while still moving along progress (other people were waiting to use the washers).
As for what we packed, even with only a suitcase each and a backpack each (always put some clothes in both, in case one or the other gets lost at the airport), we still didn’t wear everything we took. I packed a few pairs of hiking style pants that are flexible, water wicking, they can be made into shorts and they’re baggy enough to wear layers under them (these are my go-to pants for nearly everything). Joe likes some tactical style pants, but I can’t remember the brand or where we got them years ago. I had a couple of shirts I never wore just because didn’t get around to needing them. I really wore the same outfits, excluding the dress-up clothes, every couple of days (because, laundry). We both brought Under Armor style fitted shirts to go under t-shirts for a warm layer. I brought yoga style leggings to wear under my pants. Joe’s shoes are great for hiking and are fairly water resistant (just some pair from Walmart he loves), whereas my sneakers are NOT water wicking at all and I like hiking shoes better for anything that may be uneven ground. They’re one of the Merrell Moab brands (I can’t recall which model). They worked great, even when I lost my balance on rocks and stepped into a stream, LoL. The coldest I ever got was on the Dawes Glacier boat ride when we were on top outside and it was like 7am. The wind chilled me quite a bit, but not even quite enough to pull out our gloves.
Now, the most important part of our wardrobe was our raingear. We knew it could be rainy and we definitely hit some rain in Ketchikan and a couple of other times throughout the trip, plus add in the wind. Joe got an REI jacket and pants, and he liked them a lot. I got the same pants, but a different (men’s) jacket – Columbia Watertight II that I liked a lot. I did have some zipper trouble once on it, but I don’t think I “locked” the zipper in when I zipped it up. We got these with Ireland in mind next year, so this was a great test run. They’re all lightweight, loose enough to wear clothes under them and did a great job in the rain. It was full-on raining in Ketchikan and it didn’t stop us a bit. My hair, on the other hand, was cray cray from the rain, LoL.
The absolute highlight of our trip was the Dawes Glacier excursion from the cruise ship. We booked our cruise only a month or so out from the trip date and this excursion, sold by Princess Cruise, was sold out. I kept hearing how this was really a good one to do so the first thing we did when we got on the boat was ask to be put on the waiting list. There were 15 people ahead of us apparently, but the tickets showed up to our room the day before and I am SO glad that they did. Like I said, this was the highlight of the entire trip for us. The scenery is incredibly, the glacier is incredible, calving was waaaay cool albeit sad, and our tour guides/naturalists were delightful! They really had a sense of humor, gave us great info and had energy. There were also little treats, hot cocoa and coffee for everyone, plus alcoholic drinks and other foods available for purchase. The vendor was Allen Marine Tours, I believe. Highly recommend!
Video
As for other excursions that we did, we booked through Viator. They tend to be a little cheaper than the main cruise options, and in our experience, they are very good about being back in time for departure. You can research the specific company offering the tour as well, but we’ve had great experiences over the years using them.
In Ketchikan, we did the Duck Boat tour. It was fun! We chose this tour specifically to get a better lay of the land so we knew where to explore, where things were in town and just get a general idea of what to do after the tour. The guides, Captain Alex and John, were great! They were knowledgeable, had a sense of humor and were enjoyable. This and the Dawes Glacier had the best tour guides, in our opinion. We saw a lot of eagles on this tour (and others). Apparently, there is a population of about 33,000 eagles in Alaska. Wow! We saw a lot, but it was tough to ever get a really good photo of a group of them. Anyhow, this on land and on water tour was a fun way to see and learn about the area, and I’m glad we did it as our first act at Ketchikan. Thereafter, we just walked around the town, a local park, the baseball fields and we also found some affordable souvenir shops (several owned by the same person).
In Juneau, we opted to do the whale watching and Mendenhall Glacier excursion. I enjoyed walking around the park at Mendenhall, even though we did not have very much time for it and felt rushed. I was hoping to see a bear, LoL, but we did not. Mendenhall is not as impressive as Dawes Glacier, in my opinion, so if you do the Dawes Glacier excursion, you could probably skip Mendenhall and not miss much. Now, the whale watching tour let me down; it just didn’t meet my expectations and that could have been my fault. We saw whales, which fulfilled their obligation (I picked a tour company that guaranteed sightings or your money back vs some that don’t give that guarantee). We didn’t get as close as I would have hoped, nor followed them for their next surfacing. Of course, I would never want to harass them or invade their space, but we were faaaar away from them. Some of this could have been boating etiquette, as there were other (smaller) boats closer and in front of us that got to move in first (so maybe an earlier boat tour would have been better?). Another part of my disappointment was the tour guides/naturalists were not as friendly or “bubbly” as I’m used to on these types of things (one guy said it perfectly, “they would not make it at Disney”). It wasn’t that they were necessarily rude or anything, it was just the vibe. They irritated quite a few people on the boat for various reasons and you (I) could feel it so it kind of dimmed the excitement. Regardless, I would do this again because it was still incredible scenery, we did see some whales (not as many as from the cruise ship) and we had amazing weather. We took our raingear, but it wasn’t even needed.
Another thing about Juneau – eat at Tracy’s King Crab Shack! There was a long, long line, and we had little time after the tour, but I asked an employee how long it generally takes to get through the line and receive our food. Only a 6-minute turnaround time! We stayed in line and were through super-fast, and still made it back to ship in plenty of time. Finding seating is the hardest part, but there was plenty of space at the front bar area, which was a perfect place to sit! We got to see how amazing the workers are, how fast they work and they even offered some samples because we were at the bar (not an alcohol bar). I think Tracy even came in, then in came her baby granddaughter, too. It was fun to watch everyone doing their thing. Anyhow, YUM!!
In Skagway, which is the town/excursion I researched the most, we did the bus tour Skagway Shore Excursion: Discover the Yukon and Michelle was our tour guide. This takes you from Skagway, through White Pass and into the Yukon area of Canada. You get to make many photo-op stops (like at the Welcome to Alaska and the Yukon signs, plus amazing scenery), a dog sledding camp where you also eat a BBQ chicken lunch and Emerald Lake (beautiful!). There is a train that also goes along the same route area, which we originally wanted to do but were told it wasn’t going into Canada at this time (although that may be false). However, I am not certain that we would have gotten to experience the same type of views from the train as we were with the stops we made along the road. We also saw a couple of bears and were able to pull over to see them, which obviously we wouldn’t have been able to do on the train. I’m sure there are pros and cons for both types of tours. This is pretty much an all-day tour so this is all that we planned to do and I’m glad we did. There is some incredible scenery and it is so different than anything we see in Florida. Hopefully you’re still able to go to Skagway after the recent rock slides.
In Victoria, BC, we just walked around the area. We went the opposite direction of the main attractions (downtown, wharf) initially in search of a couple of things, but we got turned around and missed those. We weren’t supposed to; a guide at the port made us go left, towards the wharf, vs the way we wanted to (right). We turned back and circled around to go see the areas we wanted. In exchange, we met some of the local folks in their neighborhoods, like Keith, the former law enforcement officer, and had great conversations. We found Victoria to be very charming and quite pretty; it’s somewhere I’d like to go back to and spend more time someday. Beautiful houses, friendly people, lots of food options (but it was sooo busy on a Saturday night). I wish we had more time there, but we didn’t get to port until 7pm and I was kind of hangry by 10pm, after walking all that time, LoL. Poor hubby Joe.
Overall, the excursions were enjoyable. Some guides were better than others. All modes of transportation felt safe and maintained. There are other activity and tour options, of course, but I wanted to share what we did so you could have an idea of what these were like.
A little more about the cruise ship…
The Medallion (you wear) was really great for getting drinks, getting into our room, getting on/off the ship and everything like that (but you still need your passport). However, the Medallion app was annoying. We had trouble from the time we got on the boat to the time we got off the boat, but when it worked, it was nice to have. It’s a great concept, but it still needs some finetuning. I found that if I restart my phone every time it logged me out of the app, it would log back in on its own and work for a little while. The Wifi was decent for basic things, but not great for others (for something I needed a captcha to load, it never did).
There are ginormous “tablets” near most of the elevators that you can use your Medallion to log into or just use to find directions on how to get places throughout the ship. Super handy! We didn’t log into them much, but we did use them to figure out how to get places a lot. Love this feature!
All in all, this was a fabulous trip, and one I would highly recommend. For me, as always, a cruise is too fast paced when you’re on land, but I did take advantage of sea days and rested, which is something I’ve truly been needing for my soul.
This was our first time on Princess Cruises and our first time to Alaska. The ship was beautiful (and practically new) and Alaska was breathtaking. The views from our balcony were incredible. We would love to go back to Alaska one day and explore on land more vs the cruise, but this gave us a great idea of where to go back to, what we would want to do with more time and a taste of the Alaskan environment. Could you imagine being able to see whales so easily on a regular basis (during whale season)?! Pretty incredible. Plus eagles, seals, sea lions, and bears, Oh, My!
