Sunday, May 19, 2019- Off to Alaska on the Star Princess

Sunday, May 19, 2019- Off to Alaska on the Star Princess

We are off on another cruise.  This time we are sailing out of Seattle on the Star Princess for a 7 night round trip to Alaska with Ben’s mother Betty, three of his brothers, Dave, Franklin, and George, as well as Janet.  Price drove us down to the Cruise terminal.  Seattle has two cruise ship terminals.  Our prior Norwegian Cruise Lines Alaska cruises all departed from the Bell Street cruise terminal, which is attached to the Bell Street Convention Center on the Seattle Waterfront at pier 66.  Princess cruises actually sails from a different cruise terminal called the Smith Cove Cruise Terminal at Pier 91, which is several miles north of the tourist Seattle Waterfront, next to the Shilshole Bay Marina.  The cruise terminal is well designed and efficient.  We encountered no delays or real lines during our check in and boarding process.  We were scheduled to board at 1PM based on our stateroom location.  We arrived at 12:30PM and had no troubles boarding directly.  Betty’s disabilities gave her the same front of the lines priorities that our Elite Captain’s Circle status got, so she, along with Dave, Franklin and George, all boarded without delays as well.

We stopped by our stateroom B222, and found that our room was ready for us, with a fully stocked mini-bar and a baggie of Elite bathroom amenities, which include a mini loofa sponge to use in the shower, shower cap, chap stick, soothing “linen mist” sprayer, Emory board and a gel eye mask.

This is our first cruise as Elite status members.  We will swap the minibar for two coffee cards, which are good for 15 espresso and specialty coffee drinks each for the duration of the cruise.  We will each have to make sure to have 2-3 specialty drinks a day to get our money’s worth since the value expires at the end of the cruise.  Ben won’t have trouble getting through 2-3 espresso drinks a day, but Janet doesn’t drink coffee. They do have a variety of Chai Tea and other iced beverages that she can have instead.

We met Betty, Dave, Franklin and George on the Lido deck for lunch and just did the Pizza and poolside grill.  The poolside grill on the Star Princess is back to the basic grill with hamburgers and hot dogs, not the more upscale Salty Dog Gastropub that they had on the Regal Princess, or even the Ruby Princess.  

We had heard that the Star Princess was being reassigned to the P&O line at the end of this Alaska cruise season, and were worried that it might be a bit run down, but aside from some rust stains on the exterior, the ship is in really good condition with fresh carpets, and elegant decor that is visibly in really good condition.  The room furniture has the larger flat screen TV over the mini fridge and there is still the shelf under the TV and electrical outlets behind the TV, which were missing on the Ruby Princess.  The desk also had a full set of drawers on each side of the desktop- a welcome finding.  The drawers are much more useful than the cabinet that we had on the Ruby Princess.

There are a few other changes that we have noticed between the Star Princess (Grand Class 2600 passengers) and the Ruby Princess (Crown Class 3080 passengers) that we were on for our Hawaii cruise.  The most notable, which impacts Betty the most, is that the Princess Theater only has wheel chair and scooter accessible seating at the very back and top of the theater.  The Ruby Princess had seating accessible on the main floor via access on Deck 6, albeit limited.  On the Star Princess, the Deck 6 access forces everyone up a flight of stairs, and then back down some stairs to get to the front seating area.  

We had our mandatory Muster drill at 3:15PM.  George and Dave have a stateroom immediately adjacent to ours (B226), although there is no pass through door between these two staterooms.  They have the same muster station as we did, and we saw them after we entered the theater and moved to sit together with them.  Betty and Franklin are in a wheel chair accessible room, which is huge, and has a partially obstructed view over the top of the tenders out to the horizon.  Both beds had enough space to park a wheelchair next to the bed, as well as two chairs and a small coffee table.  The bathroom is fully ADA compliant with a sink that you can roll the wheelchair under, and a nice big open shower and toilet stall with a fold down shower chair and plenty of hand rails and grips.  It easily had the same square footage as a mini suite, or deluxe balcony if you included the square footage of the balcony with the interior.  On a dollar per square foot basis, Franklin and Betty got an absolutely unbeatable deal. They are situated at the lobby for the forward elevator banks, 3 decks lower (E303).  They had a different Muster station, presumably one that is wheel chair compatible. 

Dave and George spent some time exploring the ship while Ben got in a quick work out at the fitness Center as the ship headed north past Magnolia and Edmonds.  We met for dinner at 5PM.  We have assigned seating for this cruise so that we will always get together and be served by the same wait staff each dinner for the duration of the cruise.  Most of us had the Prime rib, which was tasty and an enormous portion.  Janet had the Curtis Stone mussels, while Betty had a custom blend of baked potato soup and Alaskan cod, courtesy of Franklin’s battery powered blender. She managed to eat all of the blended meal, as well as half of the creme brûlée dessert.  One minor problem to note was that the Amalfi fixed seating dining room was located aft of the aft elevators, but only 2 of the 4 elevators actually reach the dining room level.  This created a big bottleneck for people trying to reach reach the dining room.  Betty and Franklin always had a long wait at the elevator before and after dinners.

We attended the 7PM Showtime Comedy featuring Robbie Printz, who we had seen during our recent Hawaii cruise. While much of the act was the same, there is enough improvisation based on audience interaction, that it is fun and entertaining even the second time around.  At the end of that show, the Cruise Director, Matt Baker, who had opened the Robbie Printz act with a harmonica jazz bit with the rhythm section of the Princess Orchestra, pulled out a bag of Princess prizes with an Aluminum water bottle, wine bottle stopper, notebooks, and coasters- basically all of the Princess trivia prizes- and simply gave it to someone sitting in the front row for sticking around until the end of the comedy show and his announcements about the evening’s activities around the ship.  We would have had to have won five or six trivia games to have ended up with that loot.

After that show, we had planned on getting Betty ready for bed, since at Madison House, she normally retires at 7:30PM, but she said she was not tired. So she joined us at the "I’ll Take Trivia for 100" game show.  We competed as a team of six and called our team “Who Knows?”. We managed to win the game in the end, missing only one clue (Who wrote Surf’n USA and Good Vibrations- we guessed The Beach Boys, but the answer was Brian Wilson, of the Beach Boys), and betting our entire winnings on the final round.  The category was “It Takes Two” and the question ended up being “What year anniversary would you celebrate with a pearl?”  Since Janet and I just had our “Pearl” Anniversary, we knew it was the 30th, so that went well.  We have no idea how close any of the other teams got, but we all left with Star Princess coasters.  But it was fun to start the cruise with a solid Trivia win.

Dave got Betty to bed and we met to watch Karaoke, which is what Franklin lives for.  He and another woman, Victoria, were the only two singers for the first 15 minutes, but eventually a handful of other singers signed up and did a few songs.  One was really quite good, a Texan who did a Frank Sinatra song.  It was a very small audience, but everyone was there supporting a friend on stage, so it was entertaining enough.  Franklin wasn’t the best, but thankfully was also not the worst, and he did have good stage presence and interactions with the Cruise staff and audience, which will probably make “Franklin the Karaoke Guy” a thing before the end of this cruise.