On July 25, 2023, I was on another cruise to Alaska again (2 Alaska trips in the summer!) This is also the 3rd cruise experience in my life so far. Same as last time, I took Canada Line to Waterfront Station in Downtown Vancouver and walked 7 minutes to the Canada Place Cruise Ship Terminal 🚢
This
time I was with Crown Princess👑which was launched in 2006 and last refurnished
in 2018, a large-sized ship with 113,561 tonnage. It has capacity for 3080
passengers and 1200 crew members. There are 19 decks and 1541 passenger cabins.
It is definitely bigger than Koningsdam but also an older ship.
My administrator was kind enough to lend me the cruise tags
for my backpack and luggage when I went to Alaska in May. I found them very
useful so I purchased some for my July cruise. There are two types of cruise
luggage tags – narrow or wide. The narrow one is suitable for Royal Caribbean
and Celebrity (they are under the same company) and the wider one is suitable
for Holland America, Princess and Carnival. Do you know what they have in
common? They are owned by the same company.
All Princess passengers are offered a Medallion device and a lanyard for it. I didn’t like to wear the long lanyard around my neck. All the accessories for Medallion device were expensive from the Princess shop. After I spent so much time and effort to look for a substitute product, the best option I found was 🌟the Airtag wristband from Temu 🌟 The size of Medallion device is the same as Airtag. I purchased two for less than $5.00 CAD. They were very convenient to wear on the wrist and were waterproof, even in the hot tubs (I did this on the cruise)😁
This time check in was very fast and no long lineup since
Crown Princess was the only ship at Canada Place on July 25 😄 However
once we were in the seating room around 10:45 am, we had to wait until 11:30 am
before everyone was able to board on the ship. The crew member did apologize
for the delayed boarding time.
Normally I don’t bring household electrical items for my
cruise travel. I remember a friend of mine told me that her son brought an
extension cord to a cruise and it was withheld until the disembarkation day.
Let’s visit our stateroom E630 at the back side of the mid-ship area on Deck 8 (Emerald). Each of us paid CAD $1273.02 inclusive of taxes and port fees for a 10 day trip. It was at a good location since below was a specialty restaurant Crown Grill which was very quiet. We didn’t hear anything from below. Our room was also not far from the elevator and stairs👍
On the left side of entrance you can see the shelves and a
safety box. Also an open closet with many hangers. The laundry service list is
on one of the hangers.
Shirts/Blouses👗($3.50 USD each), T-Shirts👕($3.00 USD each), Jeans/Pants👖 ($4.50 USD each), Shorts ($3.50 each), Undershirts ($2.00 USD each), Socks ($2.00 USD each pair). This is for reference only as Princess ships have a self-serve laundry room on most of the decks. I recall Koningsdam doesn’t have a self-serve laundry room. Our stateroom was very close to the laundry room, less than 20 steps away and most importantly the use of washers/dryers was free of charge! I confirmed this with guest services. We only needed to pay for the accessories such as detergent but we brought our own eco detergent sheets and fabric sheets😉
E630 is an obstructed overview cabin that’s why the view is 20% blocked. But the size of this cabin is bigger than the one I had in Koningsdam. However there were not too many power outlets, maybe because it is an older ship😦
The bathroom is not as big and modern designed as the one in Koningsdam. Both ships offered some sanitary disposal bags in the bathroom. Do you know what I used them for? Remember in May I still wore masks? I used these bags (just two or three) to keep the masks 😷
Although I requested to change the fixed shower head to a hand held shower head in advance 🚿, they never had it changed. I followed up on the first day when I met our room attendant Roderick in the afternoon. He said the plumber would do that later. I followed up again on the second day, still nothing happened. After that I gave up. Roderick was good and able to accommodate all our requests except the change of shower head. Also unlike Koningsdam, he was the only person cleaning our stateroom (I felt there was shortage of staff).
Crown Princess provided shower gel in a bottle and shampoo/conditioner in another bottle. Koningsdam separated shampoo and conditioner while Crown Princess combined them together (2 in 1). I didn’t have any issues with toiletries provided by both ships. The brand that Crown Princess used is Lotus Spa.
There are two important things to do once we are able to get into our staterooms. Do you remember them?
- 1) Sanitize the tables, shelves, closets, drawers, telephone, dryer and bathroom counter. Imagine the drawers (which the previous passengers may use to store dirty clothes), telephone and dryer are never cleaned. Room attendants are already busy to clean the bed, floor, table and toilet in a very limited time, don’t expect they will clean every single area like what you do in your house.
- 2) Visit and check-in at our emergency muster station, watch the safety video on our stateroom TV 📺. This is a standard requirement for all cruise ships.
We received the schedule for the embarkation day😊As you can see, Crown Princess had more activates than Koningsdam. The activates could be viewed on the stateroom TV and Medallion app installed on the cellphone. It started with our itinerary.
July 25 Vancouver
July 26 At Sea – Formal Dinner (1 hour backward at mid-night)
July 27 Juneau
July 28 Skagway
July 29 Sitka
July 30 Icy Strait Point
July 31 Yakutat Bay (Hubbard Glacier)
Aug 1 At Sea – Formal Dinner
Aug 2 Ketchikan (1 hour forward at mid-night)
Aug 3 At Sea
Aug 4 Vancouver
Everyone told me not to miss the lunch buffet on the cruise on embarkation day, but not many passengers realize that normally the main dining room offers lunch on embarkation day and sea days. These are complimentary 😊
My partner and I decided to try the lunch in one of Crown
Princess dining rooms (it has 3 dinning rooms: Michelangelo, Da Vinci and
Botticelli so I don’t remember which one we went).
I believe it was my veggie day🍃so I ordered Tuscan-style chickpea soup as appetizer, spinach and ricotta cheese ravioli as main course and sherry trifle as dessert. It was a satisfying meal and the ambiance was great, not too many people as majority had lunch buffet in Horizon Court😄
Let’s browse around after lunch! There is a decent size library on deck 7 and some sudoku sheets available at its entrance.
Then we found an information room close to Princess Theater.
Crown Princess did not provide any hard copy of the ports/glacier that we would
visit. Passengers needed to read the information on Medallion app or in this
room.
I still remember the animal in the right picture below is called porcupine (豪豬) and it's back is full of sharp quills😖
Then I discovered a place that is similar to Grand Dutch Café in Koningsdam. This is called Internatial Café on deck 5 which opens 24 hours a day😃The coffee and tea are not free there but the pastries 🍰are complimentary. Sometimes I just grabbed two pieces at night from this café and went back to my stateroom😋
We kept browsing and joined Lotus Spa, Salon and Thermal
Suite Tour on deck 16. One of the ladies showed us around. As you can see from
its price list below, it offers lots of services including facial treatment, teeth
whitening treatment, body massage, acupuncture, nail treatment, hair salon,
waxing and grooming, etc.
I found its list is more clear than Greenhouse Spa in
Koningsdam. At least I could tell which one is the length of time 🕑 and which one
is the price💸Aroma stone therapy and bamboo massage sound interesting, I would
love to try if I have money to do so. $199 USD for 50 minutes is a bit
expensive. There was a lucky draw for $500 Lotus Spa prize. If I would have
won, I would use it for these therapy treatments😊
We also passed by the fitness center and briefly visited the thermal suite which includes heated tile beds, sauna, and rainforest showers 🚿
After the tour, we took an elevator up to the highest deck
(star deck⭐)! If I am not mistaken, there was only one elevator that can go up
to deck 19.
There is a mini golf course. I was happy to see the sky
turned great in the late afternoon. It was a bit rainy and also cloudy in the
morning.
Outdoor movie and
pool on deck 16
Our cruise was parked at the best berth so I was able to see the
seaplanes 🛬 again. Around 5 pm🕔Crown Princess departed from
Canada Place. Same as last time, we were heading to pass underneath the Lions
Gate Bridge!
The sky and scenery
were just amazing!
Finally came to the dinner time. We didn’t make reservation
as we expected to get a table in 10 minutes (that was my experience with
Koningsdam). We were asked to share table with others or we needed to wait for
a long time😕It was a bit disappointing as we were being asked to share a
table.
Anyways I forgot how long we waited, probably 15 minutes to get a private table.
Our first dinner on Crown Princess👑 I had rum-infused pina
colada chilled soup (with coconut-pineapple) and asparagus risotto.
I was looking forward to the dessert menu 🍰. I wish I had room
to eat many of them! This time we chose Princess Favourites: lychee, raspberry
& rose mousse and Princess Love Boat dream. Both tasted very good👍I was
more impressed by the dessert😍 than the starter and main course.
As expected, July 26 was a whole day at sea but it would
never get bored as there were lots of activities on the cruise!
Just to list a few: starting with Zumba fitness, team
bean-bag challenge, arts & crafts etc. in the morning, spend the afternoon
to watch outdoor movie, listen to live music with pianist and attend Deal or No
Deal game show or Line Dance party, etc. At night passengers could enjoy
cocktail experience and Captain’s welcome aboard party then watch production
show in the Princess Theatre, etc.
Basically it was full of activities in different parts of the cruise 💃 🎵🎤🎹 🎥
Also there were
freebies to collect, pendants in different colours were available each day.
Besides freebies, there was a chance to win a $1600 prize💰 Anyone knows what the prize was? Was it the Princess Plus package that included
Wi-Fi, beverages (coffee, juice and cocktails), crew appreciation and premium
desserts?
My partner went for breakfast in Horizon Court on Deck 15 before 6 am. There was no way for me to get up before 6 am 😴 Even if I have to work, I get out of bed at 6:30 am. Well he told me nobody was there so these are the photos taken by him 📸
As you can see, there were many choices: tomato salsa,
smoked salmon, salad, bagels, buns, croissants, smoothie, yogurt, fruit,
cheese, ham, sausage, bacon, cereal, oatmeal, scrambled egg (plain or with
asparagus), roasted potatoes, harsh brown, pancakes, cheese biscuit, steamed
rice, congee, boiled eggs, grilled tomatoes, mushroom, etc.
There was an omelette station which normally would take 10
to 15 minutes to make the fresh omelette 😊
My partner brought me the breakfast from Horizon Court. I had
no complaints since I was in a perfect stateroom and got a breakfast with
variety of food (plus a fresh coffee) 😊
But we also wanted to check out the breakfast menu in Botticelli Dining Room on deck 6. It was available from 7 am to 9 am. Some of the items could be found in Horizon Court too. Let’s try Fresh Fruit Plate and Eggs Florentine, the items not offered by Horizon Court😉
It was a relaxing and sunny day to walk around indoor and
outdoor. I like the way they organized the towels, that’s creative. The Piazza on
deck 5 midship with the curved staircase looks bright and elegant. There were
always fun activities there.
Almost every night there was a fantastic show at 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm in the Princess Theatre! Most of time the two shows were the same to accommodate people with different dinner times. For those who would be able to finish dinner at 7 pm or had late dinner around 8:30 pm could watch it at 7:30 pm. For the others who finish dinner after 7 pm could watch it at 9:30 pm.
The experience of second night was the same as I had in Koningsdam. The ship was waving🌊when it passed by the inside passenger. But no worries, this time I brought Gravol ginger tablets with me😉
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