7-Night Inside Passage Alaska Cruise

Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/19/22 Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/19/22

Cruise Review Videos

Our Discovery Princess review video series

Below are the video reviews of Discovery Princess.

Stateroom Review

Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/10/22 Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/10/22

Day 7 - Victoria, Canada on Discovery Princess

On our last day aboard Discovery Princess we attempt another visit the The Sanctuary, but it is cut short.

Apologies for the delay in posting our daily cruise blogs. The WiFi/Internet in Alaska is virtually non-existent, so it is taking much longer than usual.

Every cruise, unfortunately, must come to an end. Our week aboard Discovery Princess will end tomorrow when we disembark in Seattle. Today, we are sailing to Victoria, Canada. We are not scheduled to arrive at Victoria until 5pm, so most of the day today is like a day at sea. As you can see in the photo below, the waters are as smooth as glass this morning.

This morning I have planned to visit The Enclave, a Thermal Suite located inside Lotus Spa on Deck 5 forward. The Enclave is available to any guest willing to pay the hefty $49 per day fee. A better value is to purchase the week-long package for $149. I arrived at Lotus Spa around 10am to access the Enclave. I was given an access card, like a key card, to get into to the secured area.

A spa employee pointed me in the direction of The Enclave, but did not walk me there nor ‘introduce’ me to the thermal suite. I walked through the secure door using my access card, carrying my swimming trunks and t-shirt, and began looking for the changing room. I could see the spa area, but no changing rooms. I found another spa employee and asked him about the changing room and he walked me back out of The Enclave and showed me that the changing rooms are outside of The Enclave. Actually, I walked right past them!

Inside the changing rooms, there are lockers, showers, and a restroom. Each locker is outfitted with a complimentary robe and slippers. I placed all of my clothing into a locker and closed the door to the locker. It immediately locked and I could not re-open it. I guess I just assumed that my Medallion or the key card I was given at the front desk would have been required to lock/unlock the locker, but neither one would. I asked the attendant who was there cleaning the changing room and he said someone would come from the front desk to unlock the locker. I am not sure if this is standard practice, or perhaps I did something wrong. Nevertheless, I did not need access to my locker right then, so I proceeded to the spa area.

It appears that The Enclave is designed to accommodate 12 guests at a time. I say this because there are only 12 relaxation beds. Eight of the beds surround the Thallasotherapy pool. The pool is large and well designed and could easily accommodate six guests at the same time.

The relaxation beds are heated and there are plenty of plush towels available to cover them. A table is provided between the beds for your small personal items, or a glass of ice water.

There is a steam room (Hammam) that is large enough to hold six to eight guests at a time. The steam here is very intense and it is one of the best steam rooms I have experienced on a cruise ship.

There is also a dry sauna (Laconium) which, again, can comfortably hold six to eight guests. The sauna is well designed and I found the heat to be at a good level. There is also a “Caldarium” which is billed as a mild steam room that I did not try. I think this room is more of an aromatherapy experience.

I enjoyed my time in The Enclave and found it to be one of the nicer thermal suites I have visited on a cruise ship. Actually, it is smaller than I expected it to be for such a large ship, but I guess the $49/day price keeps the large crowds away.

This afternoon, we have once again reserved two loungers at The Sanctuary. I am planning to do a separate review video of The Sanctuary soon which I will post to our YouTube channel. We have always felt like The Sanctuary is one of the best features of a Princess ship. We received a bottle of champagne as a bon voyage gift and decided to take it with us to enjoy at The Sanctuary today. We were surprised that there were only a couple of other people here when we arrived. Once we got into our loungers, it became obvious why.

Even though the seas are calm today, the ship is bucking some very strong, and cold winds, and these winds are swirling throughout The Sanctuary enough to make it quite uncomfortable. We could only endure about 15 minutes of the wind before we decided to take our bottle of champagne back to our stateroom balcony to enjoy. Fortunately, the wind on our balcony was not nearly as strong as it was at The Sanctuary.

As we left our stateroom this evening for dinner, we stopped Joey, our stateroom attendant, in the hallway to thank him for his attentive service during this cruise. Joey was always available if we needed him for any request (note: he removed his mask for this photo). He is a very hard worker.

We thought that one last visit to the Elite Lounge was a good idea before our dinner at Crown Grill tonight. The Elite Lounge is for Platinum and Elite Captain’s Circle guests and is held each afternoon in Take Five lounge on Deck 6 forward. I think we were the only ones to show up today for the Elite Lounge (perhaps everyone is packing for the trip home?). They have a beautiful buffet of hors d'oeuvres set up for guests to enjoy. Because we are now docked in Victoria, Canada, Canadian Customs has some weird rules regarding bar service and the bar at Take Five is closed as a result. However, our waiter is able to go to another bar on the ship to get our cocktails. That is just strange.

Elite Lounge for Platinum Captain’s Circle

We arrive at Crown Grill for our 7pm reservation and get a nice table for two. Our waitress offers to take our picture before dinner.

Crown Grill is Princess Cruises’ premium specialty steak house and dinner here is always something special. The cost to dine here is $29 per person. The atmosphere is very upscale and the menu is the same every day. The menu is pretty “meat forward”, but there is something on the menu for everyone to enjoy. I always seem to end up ordering the 16oz bone-in Rib-Eye steak, or what they call a “chop”. You will have to wait for my Princess Dining Review video for all the details on our Crown Grill experience. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the notification bell!

After dinner, we head back to our stateroom to place our large duffel bag outside for collection. It is a stark reminder that this is our last night aboard Discovery Princess. We have really enjoyed our week aboard this beautiful new ship and are looking forward to our next adventure with Princess Cruises.

Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/9/22 Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/9/22

Day 6 - Another Day At Sea aboard Discovery Princess

We enjoy another relaxing day at The Sanctuary and our first Main Dining experience.

Apologies for the delay in posting our daily cruise blogs. The WiFi/Internet in Alaska is virtually non-existent, so it is taking much longer than usual.

My morning starts a little earlier than Rickee’s. While she is in the stateroom getting ready for the morning, I am at Salty Dog Gastropub working on our blog and organizing our photos and videos from the previous day’s activities.

Salty Dog Gastropub is the perfect work space in the morning since it is virtually empty and it is right across from International Cafe, so coffee refills are very easy to obtain.

Posting daily blogs and videos from this ship on this sailing has been quite challenging since the Internet is virtually non-existent. It is not uncommon to click “Send” or “Save”, wait a few minutes then be greeted with the following message:

Prepare for Internet and WiFi issues on an Alaska cruise

The WiFi/Internet issues are something I plan to talk about in my upcoming review video, which also ties into my review of the Medallion Net system used onboard, so watch for my review coming soon to our YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/cruisereport).

We have already started receiving disembarkation information. Princess is offering a new service on this sailing, or at least new to us, called Port Valet. This service is offered to anyone flying home from the Seattle airport. Basically, once you sign up for this free service, your checked luggage is collected from outside your stateroom the evening before disembarkation, just like it normally is. Your luggage is checked-in with your airline and you do not see it again until you arrive at your destination airport. This is a great service and we hope it works! If so, it would be great to see this offered at other port city airports around the country.

After we enjoy another relaxing breakfast at Sabatini’s, we use the sunshine this morning to get some great outdoor photos and video of Discovery Princess.

Sunshine has been rare on this trip, so when it shows up, many guests head to the outer decks. We chose to take a few laps around the walking/jogging track on Deck 18 aft. The track requires seven laps for a full mile and wraps around the aft end of the ship.

At 1pm, we once again head to The Sanctuary for an afternoon of relaxation in the super comfortable loungers. This is the best place to spend a morning or an afternoon on a Princess ship, in our opinion. The Sanctuary is well worth the $20 per person (half day) for the extra space, the peace and quiet and the great service offered.

This evening is another formal night (there are two on this cruise) and the Gala Dinner is being offered in each of the three main dining rooms. What better night to give MDR a try? We have reserved a table for two at Ketchikan Dining Room on Deck 6 aft. My main course choice tonight was the Beef Wellington. For a full review of our main dining experience, watch for our video review of Discovery Princess Dining coming soon to our YouTube channel.

After dinner, we head to the casino to tempt fate one last time only to find the slots have gone cold. We decide to cash in what we have banked in our accounts and call it quits in the casino. All-in-all, we are only down about $100 and we got to play a LOT during this cruise, so we are pretty pleased with our casino experience. On Celebrity Apex, we were busted out in about 15 minutes of slot play!

The ship’s photographers are out in force tonight since it is a formal night which can make moving around the ship a challenge, especially in the elevator lobbies. We decide to take a couple of parting shots of our own.

We had to make a tough choice this evening between going to Rock Opera, the second production show, or going to a comedy show in the Vista Lounge. Since we have seen Rock Opera recently, we decided to check out the comedy show by Orlando Baxter.

The Vista Lounge was packed for tonight’s show and the comedy was excellent.

The show did end at 9:30, which is when Rock Opera is scheduled to begin, but we figured we would never find a decent seat in the theater, so we opted to turn in early.

Tomorrow is mostly a day at sea until Discovery Princess arrives at Victoria, Canada, for our final port before sailing back to Seattle. Tomorrow we pack!

Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/8/22 Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/8/22

Day 5 - Sitka, Alaska on Discovery Princess

We spend most of the day in Sitka playing trivia with Kimberly.

Apologies for the delay in posting our daily cruise blogs. The WiFi/Internet in Alaska is virtually non-existent, so it is taking much longer than usual.

This morning, Discovery Princess is sailing into Sitka, Alaska. Sitka was not part of the original itinerary for this sailing. We were originally going to visit Skagway, but with all of the recent rock slides and issues with the cruise ship piers, Princess replaced the stop in Skagway with Sitka.

We had originally pre-booked an ATV excursion in Skagway and attempted to exchange that excursion for an ATV excursion in Sitka. However, there was no space available and we did not see any other offerings that interested us. There are a lot of other excursions offered, but we have done most of them on prior visits to Sitka. So, we decided that Sitka would be a good day to spend onboard playing trivia and getting more photos and video of the ship.

This morning we went back to Sabatini’s for the Suite Breakfast. We figure we might as well take advantage of this little perk.

Rickee looks over the menu at Sabatini’s

Even though the breakfast menu here is abbreviated, we have found all of the dishes to be very good. I love the B.E.L.T. Sandwich (Bacon, Egg, Lettuce and Tomato) and Rickee likes the Belgian Waffle.

We spent a fair amount of the day at Princess Live! Playing various trivia games with Kimberly, one of the cruise staff. The trivia on Princess proved to be very challenging and we were only able to win one of the challenges.

It was cloudy and rainy for most of the day in Sitka, not unusual for Alaska this time of year. For lunch today we chose the ship’s Lido buffet, World Fresh Marketplace.

With many guests on shore excursions today, the buffet is nearly empty, yet they have an excellent choice of dishes.

Rotisserie Chicken at the carving station

After lunch, we head back to Princess Live! For two more trivia games. I thought we would do really well on the Food and Drink trivia, but we came in second place. In our defense, there are just two people on our team (Rickee and me) while other teams have up to 6 people.

We were on our way to the evening show, but when we walked through the casino, the slot machines started calling to us and we ended up spending nearly three hours trying to beat the odds. I actually ended up breaking even, but got to play for nearly three hours!

Tomorrow is another day at sea and we have reservations at The Sanctuary tomorrow afternoon.

Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/7/22 Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/7/22

Day 4 - Endicott Arm/Dawes Glacier and Juneau, Alaska on Discovery Princess

This morning, Discovery Princess visits Dawes Glacier then sails to Juneau where we enjoy whale watching.

Apologies for the delay in posting our daily cruise blogs. The WiFi/Internet in Alaska is virtually non-existent, so it is taking much longer than usual.

This morning starts out a little differently than other mornings. By the time we get up around 5:30am, Discovery Princess is already sailing through Endicott Arm toward Dawes Glacier. The water is glass smooth as we sail past large blue ice bergs.

The scenery here is what Alaska is all about. It is 48 degrees and is getting colder the closer we get to the glacier. Once we arrive at a spot close enough to see the glacier, the Captain begins to turn the ship using the bow and stern thrusters so that both port and starboard sides of the ship can get a good view.

A cruise like this is a good reason to spend the extra money and get a balcony stateroom.

Of course, you can always see the action on the stateroom television turned to the Bridge Cam.

As we are sailing out of Endicott Arm toward Juneau, we are greeted by room service delivering our Ultimate Balcony Breakfast ($45 for two people). Unfortunately, our balcony is a bit too cold this morning to enjoy breakfast al fresco, so the room service staff member brought the small round balcony table indoors so we could enjoy breakfast in the warmth of our stateroom.

Our balcony stateroom does not have a coffee table, or any table other than the desk and the top of the mini-bar, so we had to improvise. I moved my laptop to the bed to make room for a couple of dishes we were not going to eat, more on that later. We had a tray on the mini-bar with an ice bucket and champagne that also had to be moved to the bed to make room for the tray of coffee, tea, orange juice and Champagne (the breakfast champagne)

As for the food, we ended up eating each “course” with the dishes stacked on top of each other. When we completed a course, we would remove that dish and put it on the floor and move on to the next course.

The Ultimate Balcony Breakfast included 6 different covered dishes which I will go into in much detail in my Discovery Princess Dining Review video. So, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/cruisereport) so that you won’t miss that video when it is released.

We arrive in Juneau, Alaska, about 12:00pm and, unlike Norwegian Spirit, we are docked in Juneau. The NCL guests are forced to tender to shore here.

This is another good reason to book an Alaska cruise with Princess Cruises.

Discovery Princess docked in Juneau, Alaska

This afternoon, we have booked the Whale Watching and Wildlife Quest excursion and we disembark to meet up with our group ashore at 12:45.

This is a popular excursion and there are enough guests to fill two large motor coaches for the drive to the tour boat. The drive takes about 15 minutes and we soon arrive at the local marine tour operator and board the double-deck whale watching boat.

These tour boats are nothing to write home about. There is indoor seating on two levels and an outdoor aft deck where you can stand and get photos while the boat is in motion. A smaller upper deck is opened up when the ship is stopped for viewing whales or other wildlife. The boat ride to our first view of wildlife takes about 30 minutes. We come upon a small island with a huge group of Stellar Sea Lions.

Nearby, there is another island with Harbor Seals. After about another 20 minutes of sailing, we come to an area where many other tour boats are taking in views of a pod of Humpback whales.

We did see many whales on this excursion, however from a pretty far distance. It was difficult to get good photos without a 300mm to 400mm lens, which I do not have. Also, on this day, there was no bubble feeding or breeching whales, just water spouts and a few flukes as the Humpbacks did their deep dive.

Honestly, this was not the best whale watching we have experienced, but we are still glad we did it. It is late in the season and the best whale watching would probably be in July and August. No bears or eagles were spotted during the tour. The tour boat does have bathroom facilities and snacks and soft drinks are available for purchase. We returned to Discovery Princess at about 5pm. After a quick change of clothes we head back to Take 5 for a cocktail while we decide where to have dinner. Tonight is Italian Night in the Main Dining Rooms and there is really nothing on the menu that excites us.

We considered trying the Ocean Terrace sushi, but after looking at the menu, it appears that it is designed more for a sushi snack than an actual meal. A sushi roll is $3.95 and consists of 4 pieces. Also, the Ocean Terrace has more of a bar vibe than a restaurant vibe, very similar in appearance to Bellini’s one deck above.

We decided to give Salty Dog Gastropub a try for dinner. There is an $18 per person cover charge here which includes two main courses and a dessert per guest. We were partially drawn to Salty Dog because it was virtually empty. I think there was only one other table of diners here. We also like the booth seating next to a window.

The menu here is very limited, but unique. Each guest can select any two “gourmet” plates plus a dessert. Complimentary breadsticks with a cheese dip are served before the meal.

I will do a full, honest review in my dining review video coming soon, so watch for it on our YouTube channel. However, I will leave you with a photo of the SDG Burger.

Interestingly, this was one of the most filling meals we had on the cruise so far, and one of the most satisfying. You should definitely give SDG a try.

Tomorrow, Discovery Princess will be docked in Sitka, Alaska.

Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/6/22 Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/6/22

Day 3 - Ketchikan, Alaska on Discovery Princess

We enjoy a photo safari excursion in Ketchikan, Alaska and a Chef’s Table dinner.

This morning Discover Princess is scheduled to dock in Ketchikan, Alaska. The weather is typical Alaska: cool, rainy and cloudy with a little fog.

Once again, I begin the morning with coffee at International Cafe. They offer a wide variety of hot drinks here throughout the day.

At 8am this morning, we disembark the ship in Ketchikan to meet up with our local guide for our Ketchikan Photo Safari excursion. It is cold, windy and rainy today.

There are 8 guests in our group today and we are soon greeted by Ben, our local guide for the day.

Our group climbs into a small van and Ben begins explaining what we will be doing during the excursion. Our first stop is just a few minutes from the port at an overlook to get photos of Deer Mountain.

At each stop on this tour, Ben attempted to teach the group a different photography technique such as how use leading lines, rule of thirds, etc. These are all well known to seasoned photographers, so the informational part of this tour is really geared toward novices.

Our second stop is at a creek bed where we have an opportunity to shoot some photos of driftwood and rushing water.

Rickee tried out the Portrait Mode on her iPhone to take the photo below and blur the background.

One iPhone technique we did learn was how to use the LIVE function on the iPhone to blur the rushing water of a creek or waterfall.

We drove to Creek Street where we had a chance to use the leading lines technique to get some shots.

Another stop at Bar Harbor was used to teach how to use various filters in the iPhone to get different looks, like the monochrome filter I used below.

Even though a few people had proper mirrorless or DSLR cameras, most guests on the tour were using their iPhones and honestly, the tour had more to do with iPhone settings and techniques than anything else. That said, we can recommend this excursion.

Photo of Rickee using Portrait Mode with blurred background

After we return to Discovery Princess, it is time for a light lunch. We head to World Fresh Marketplace, the ship’s Lido Buffet. We have a light lunch because we do not want to spoil our appetite for our Chef’s Table dinner later.

At 5:30, we head to Crown Grill Bar for a pre-dinner cocktail.

I am once again disappointed that there are no Canadian rye whiskeys being served on board. That leaves me with little choice. I even tried to order Knob Hill or Maker’s Mark as a backup, and neither of those were available. I even went so far as to order a Mai Tai just to have something to drink.

As you can see in the photo above, Princess has gone to the dark side with paper straws.

At 6:30, the Restaurant Manager gathers the guests from Crown Grill Bar who have signed up for the special Chef’s Table Dinner this evening. We have enjoyed the Chef’s Table on a few ships, and on one other Princess ship, the Island Princess in 2017. We are escorted into the Ketchikan Dining Room to the Lumiere table.

We are greeted by Francisco Patricio, the Maitre’D and Davide Menabo, the Executive Chef.

I could post a dozen photos of the eight-course meal (I stopped counting courses after eight). The preparation and presentation of the dishes is next level at the Chef’s Table dinner. Our main course plate included beef tenderloin, lamb loin and poached salmon.

If you want to know more about our Chef’s Table experience, and all of our Discovery Princess dining adventures, make sure to watch for our Discovery Princess Dining Review video on our YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/cruisereport) coming soon. You can also see many additional photos and video clips on our Instagram (@cruisereport) and Facebook (@cruisereport)

Tomorrow morning we will be sailing through Endicott Arm to Dawes Glacier followed by an afternoon in Juneau where we will going on a whale watching excursion.

Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/5/22 Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/5/22

Day 2 - A Day At Sea on Discovery Princess

We enjoy a relaxing day at sea on Discovery Princess.

The day begins in typical fashion. I am awake at 5am and heading down to International Cafe for coffee and seek out a good place where I can work on my photos, videos and daily cruise blog. I find the perfect table for working at Salty Dog Gastropub across from International Cafe on Deck 5.

I get the drip coffee at International Cafe and am pleased to find that it is fresh and very good. There are a lot of breakfast offerings here for those in a hurry or wanting something beside a full meal.

After my blogging duties I need to get ready for my 8am spa appointment at Lotus Spa (Deck 5 fwd).

Originally, I had booked a 50 minute Swedish Massage but upon embarkation, I decided to change things up a bit and do something I have never done before on a cruise ship; get a manicure and pedicure. Perhaps not the most manly choice, but why not give it a try? After checking in at the spa and completing the paperwork, Althea greeted me and showed me the way to a very comfortable chair with built-in massage.

After soaking my feet in the warm water for a few minutes, Althea began working her magic which included trimming the nails, but also some massaging of my lower legs. It felt really good and relaxing.

After my feet were done, Althea led to a chair where she began working on my fingernails. She did ask me if I wanted a color, and at first I had no idea to what she was referring. Then I realized she was asking if I wanted nail polish! I told her no thank you and that I was not quite that advanced yet. The entire treatment took about an hour and it was a very nice experience. Of course, Lotus Spa has full hair, nails and massage treatments available.

After my treatment, Rickee and I decided to try out the Sabatini’s Suite Breakfast. Even though we are not in a suite, Princess has invited us to enjoy this special perk so we can cover it in our blog and videos. Thank you Princess. We arrived at about 9am and there were only 4 or 5 tables occupied. We were seated at a table for 2 and brought menus. We were each brought complimentary Mimosas to enjoy. We both ordered the traditional Eggs Benedict which were cooked perfectly and excellent. Rickee said the orange juice tasted fresh squeezed.

I think on our next visit we need to try the Belgian Waffle. This is a very nice perk for suite guests as you do not have to deal with the crowded buffet line. Sabatini’s is a nice, peaceful place to enjoy a relaxing breakfast.

After having a late breakfast, we opted out of having lunch and instead decided to have a late lunch at The Sanctuary, which is where we planned to spend the afternoon. We arrived at The Sanctuary (Deck 18 fwd) at 1pm. The Sanctuary is an adult-only relaxing outdoor space with very comfortable sun loungers which are spaced very far apart from each other. There are also semi-private cabanas available for rent by the day. The sun loungers are $20 per person for half a day, or $40 for a full day. Cabanas are $140 for a full day (they no longer offer half-day pricing on cabanas).

We selected two loungers facing forward with perfect views of the ocean ahead as we sail to Alaska.

It is a very nice day today, about 60 degrees and sunny. Wait staff are always on hand to bring you your favorite drink. Make sure to try the cucumber water. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries for a late lunch and Rickee ordered a couple of pizza slices and within 15 minutes, they were delivered to us.

The Sanctuary is one our favorite spots on Princess ships because it is a quiet getaway from the crowds. There is no swimming pool at the Sanctuary, but there is a hot tub and the Retreat Pool is close by which is an adult-only pool accessible at no extra cost.

Our late lunch at The Sanctuary left us with little appetite for an evening meal, so we decided to skip tonight and instead give the gelato a try at Gelato on Deck 5 midship. There are 10 varieties of fresh made gelatos and sorbets offered here and you can choose between a waffle cone or a bowl. There is an additional charge of $1.25 per scoop, but it is probably the best gelato I have had on a cruise ship, so far as I can remember. I had a scoop of Salted Caramel and a scoop of Nutella. Both were delicious.

Excellent gelato served at Gelato on Deck 5

There are only two production shows on this sailing and one of them, Spotlight Bar, is tonight. I arrived at the Princess Theater at 7:00pm in time to get a good seat on the front row. Due to copyright restrictions, I was unable to get any video, but I was able to get some great photos of the lively dance routines.

I think we counted at least 10 dancers in the cast and four vocalists. The show has a lot of great vocals and dance numbers and the music is backed up by a live band.

After the show, the Cruise Director came out to tell everyone about the late evening entertainment options and what we can expect in Ketchikan tomorrow. You may notice I did not put the Cruise Director’s name in the blog, and there is a reason for that. I cannot find his name anywhere. I am sure it has been broadcast on the PA system, but usually I will research things like that in the daily Princess Patter, but the Patter is now nothing more than a single page listing all of the daily activities. Previously, The Patter would be a multi-page newsletter and the first day’s print would show things like the names of the senior officers, the cruise staff, cast members, etc. So, I will continue to research and will report back with his name once I can locate it.

Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/4/22 Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/4/22

Day 1 - Embark Discovery Princess in Seattle

We embark Discovery Princess in Seattle and enjoy our first day onboard.

YESTERDAY

Our flight from DFW arrived on time and, after waiting about an hour for our luggage at baggage claim, we were able to get a Lyft ride to take us to our hotel. At the Seattle airport, you have to go to Level 3 (up one level from baggage claim) then go to the parking garage and look for the green barriers which is where Uber and Lyft pick up. The Lyft app worked well and we ordered a Lyft XL and a Chevy Suburban arrived in less than 5 minutes. The Lyft ride was $68 before tip.

The drive from the airport to our hotel, the Homewood Suites Downtown, took about 20 minutes. Checking into the hotel went pretty quickly and we were surprised to learn that they assigned us to a handicap-accessible suite at the end of the hall on the second floor. The room was large, but the furnishings look dated and worn. There was a kitchen, but no utensils or dishes. I would only rate this hotel 2.5 out of 5. I would go with Princess’ Westin hotel for pre-cruise instead.

TODAY

The hotel does offer a shuttle to the pier at 10:45 for $8 per person. However, we decided against the shuttle and instead opted for another Lyft XL. We can get a nice private ride for only about $10 more than the shuttle for 2 people. Why be crammed into a shuttle with 30 other people in close quarters if we can avoid it for $10?

Embarkation times are listed from 11am till 1:30pm. Even though our assigned time on the Medallion Class app says that our embark time is 12:00 to 12:30, we decided to go early. The Lyft driver picked us up at our hotel at 10:45 and we were at Pier 91 by 11am.

There are only two ships here today, the other being Holland America Westerdam. By 11am, the terminal is filling with Princess guests. The first order of business is to drop off our large luggage inside the terminal for delivery to our stateroom.

As we expected, there were already a lot of guests arriving for embarkation. Apparently, most either did not get the memo about embarkation starting at 11am, or they simply ignored it. We could see people boarding the ship prior to 11am. Check-in only took a few minutes. After scanning the medallion, we showed our passports and Covid vaccination cards. There was one tense moment when we were asked for our Covid test result (still required by Canada), but we were informed that we did not need a test since we had recovered from Covid within the past 90 days. Fortunately, a supervisor looked at our lab documentation and approved us for boarding.

Like all Princess ships, Discovery Princess makes a great first impression when you board on Deck 5 and first walk into The Piazza.

We chose to avoid the crowded buffet and opt for embarkation lunch in the Skagway Dining Room (Deck 6). The menu is limited, but this is a much more peaceful and civilized way to enjoy an embarkation lunch and avoid the crowds. I had the pasta and Rickee just had an order of French Fries. We also each enjoyed a glass of Prosecco. During lunch, it became obvious that the onboard WiFi was going to be an issue as we had trouble even getting the Medallion Class app to connect to the ship’s servers.

Our stateroom, C630, was ready for occupancy as soon as we finished lunch. Our stateroom attendant arrived soon after we did to greet us and offer any assistance. Rickee requested additional clothes hangers and a bucket of ice, and he soon returned with both. We will be doing a complete review video on the balcony stateroom for our YouTube channel once we return home.

At 3:45, the cruise staff held a Sail Away party at the main pool (Deck 16). Some of the onboard entertainers were on hand to lead guests in line dancing. It was a beautiful day in Seattle with sun and warm temperatures and the energy at Sail Away was high.

At 4:30, we thought we would check out the Elite Lounge which is one of the perks associated with being Platinum Captain’s Circle or above. This daily event is held from 4:30 to 6:30 in Take 5 lounge (Deck 6 Fwd). This is a very quiet and elegant venue with full bar service and comfortable seating. A very nice appetizer buffet is provided for attendees to enjoy. I was disappointed to learn, however, that there are no Canadian whiskeys onboard Discovery Princess, despite what the bar menus say. There is no Crown Royal, no Canadian Club and no Seagram’s. So, I am out of luck on this cruise. This is the first cruise where I could not get a Canadian blended whiskey.

For dinner this evening we have reservations at Sabatini’s Italian Restaurant. We like to do specialty dining on embarkation day since they are rarely fully booked. Sure enough, the restaurant was only about half full. Dinner here is a multi-course affair and costs $25 per person. We will be going into depth on Sabatini’s in our Discovery Princess Dining Review video on our YouTube channel.

After dinner, we decided to skip tonight’s show and head to the casino. Fate was kind to me tonight on the slots, not so kind to Rickee, however. There are lots of slot machines and every table game imaginable here.

After our evening at the casino, we decided to turn in early and get some sleep. Tomorrow is a day at sea and I have a spa appointment at 8am and we have reserved space in The Sanctuary tomorrow afternoon.

Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/1/22 Chris Dikmen & Rickee Richardson 9/1/22

Pre-Cruise - Preparing For Inside Passage Cruise

7-Night Inside Passage cruise aboard Discovery Princess.