Princess Cruise Alaska
Consistency is Princesss strength. With new, large premium ships joining its fleet, the companys major challenge now has been to maintain the service standards that passengers have come to expect, an effort in which it has generally succeeded.
If you were to put Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and Holland America in a big bowl and mix them all together, youd come up with Princess Cruises megas. The Coral, Island, Diamond, and Sapphire Princesses, its latest creations, are less glitzy and frenzied than the ships of, say, Carnival and Royal Caribbean; not quite as cutting-edge as Celebritys Infinity and Summit; and more exciting, youthful, and entertaining than Holland Americas near megas.
The Princess fleet appeals to a wider cross section of cruisers by offering loads of choices and activities, plus touches of big ship glamour, along with plenty of the private balconies, quiet nooks, and calm spaces that characterize smaller, more intimate size vessels.
Pros
- Good service.
- The warm-hearted Italian, British, and Filipino service crew do a great job.
- Crew makes passengers feel welcome without being overly familiar.
- Private verandas. Virtually all of the lines Alaska ships have scads and scads of verandas, some of them in as many as 75% of the cabins.
Cons
- Average food. The ships cuisine is perfectly fine if youre not a gourmet, but if you are, youll find its pretty banquet hall is not as good as, say, Crystals or Celebritys.
Princess offers an array of land packages this year that can be used in more than 50 different cruise tour itineraries in Alaska in conjunction with its Gulf of Alaska and Inside Passage voyages (not to mention another dozen or so options in the Canadian Rockies). Virtually every part of the state is covered, from the Kenai Peninsula to the Interior to the Far North. The land portions come in 4- to 7-night segments, all combinable with a 7-night cruise.
