ALASKAN SAMPLER 2025
Once in a while a travel deal pops up on Travel Best Bets or YVR Deals, that just makes you think, Hey, why not? When a 4 day trip pops up called "The Alaskan Sampler" for only $299, that is definitely a Hey, why not? It leaves Vancouver, travels up to Ketchikan, and then takes you to Seattle. A "short" train ride home, and it seems like a pretty good deal for a brief getaway.
Embarkation
The Royal Princess is a large cruise ship, a really large ship... 1,083 feet long (the length of 3 football fields), 217 feet tall, with a capacity of 3,560 passengers. One of the problems with a large ship, (especially if there is multiple ships loading at the same time) is that there is lineups. Lineup to get registered and receive your medallion that lets the crew know whether you are on the ship or not, and it also acts as a key to open your cabin door. Once you are done that, you lineup to clear US Customs, today was just a facial scan, and a "proceed" instead of a quiz, but it still took almost an hour.
This was our first time sailing on Princess, and our first on a ship this huge. Let's just say it's a good thing they have an app that includes an interactive map of the ship, or we would probably still be trying to figure out how to get off the ship.
The ship had 3 separate Theatre type rooms to go along with the Casino, and multiple bars scattered throughout the ship. There was also a gym and a spa, but we never went there.
They also had an adults only deck lounge and pool called the Sanctuary. But for an extra 70 dollars a day, it just didn't seem worth it, besides, we had our little 15th floor inside cabin if we wanted to avoid kids.Yes,15th floor. There is definitely some things that can make your CHEAP trip more expensive, like if you want WiFi, a drink package, spa treatments, or room service. They do have a Princess Plus package that includes most of these things, but it can add up on a longer trip.
The views of the downtown skyline and Stanley Park are great from 18 floors up on the ship.
The ship just squeezed under the Lions Gate bridge, and we are on our way out to Sea. I thought we would take the Inside passage between Vancouver Island and the Mainland, but apparently we are taking the longer route on the West Coast of Vancouver Island.
There is multiple dining options to choose from, the buffet and sit any-time restaurants, or the fixed time more formal restaurants. Tonight we would dine in the more formal restaurant known as Concerto. A very nice 3 course meal.
It's a small world on this big ship, as I am messaged by a couple past co-workers from my EA days that are also on the ship, and we met them for drinks in the Piano Bar. After some quality time in the Piano Bar listening to a lounge style piano player, we headed to the Piazza where a DJ was spinning quality tunes, and we danced the night away.
Day at Sea
Today was a Day at Sea, which meant we were free to do what we wanted. Each day you receive a little pamphlet telling you about all the events occurring on or around the ship for that day. To be honest, we didn't do a lot of them, but we knew what was going on elsewhere on the ship.
What we didn't expect after sleeping in a little, was a complete shit show at the breakfast buffet. It's packed, food counter lines are 10 people deep, and there is nothing but empty trays, eventually a tray of eggs comes out and there is 8 eggs for 12 people, bacon appears, and disappears as fast as it is placed. We managed to find some muffins, and waited long enough to get some basics, and luckily grabbed a small table as people were leaving. We won't do that breakfast buffet again.
We found a nice little wind protected area at the back of the ship, great views out over the water, a handy bar and very few people. Seemed like a great place to watch for whales, dolphins or other sea life such as hovering seagulls.
While we are sitting peacefully, we are asked to move over out of the corner area, so some guy can perform a wedding proposal. Apparently she said yes, but moving for an hour so a 5 minute proposal could take place was a little annoying.
Dinner tonight was at the special reservation restaurant called Sabatini's, it consisted of a 5 course Italian meal, exceptional. When we sat down, there was the newly engaged couple sitting beside us. I don't think they are going to make it. The only conversation they had the whole time was "Did you tell so-and-so".
They were replaced by another couple, that I don't think had ever eaten at a restaurant
before... loud obnoxious talkers
"I can't eat veal, that's baby lambs". No it's a baby cow. "are you F'ing with me?"
Our dinner didn't finish on time to attend the evenings featured show, so we caught a not very funny stand up comedy show, listened to a few songs at the Piano Bar, and then to the Piazza again for more dancing. Being the small world that it is, we ran into several people from our dance studio. Amongst the traditional ballroom dances we have been practicing at the studio, we also learned the Bollywood technique of unscrew the lightbulb, screw in the lightbulb.
Ketchikan
We did Room service breakfast as we were pulling into the Alaskan town of Ketchikan, very little options, and the egg McMuffin style breakfast was not very good. We'll eventually figure this out.
We had an excursion booked, but had some time to explore the small town a little before we would be picked up.
Creek Street is a historic area of Ketchikan. The street is actually a boardwalk mounted on stilts on the slope of Ketchikan Creek, east of the city's downtown. Infamous as being Ketchikan's red light district, roughly between 1903 and 1954. Its origins lie in a 1903 city ordinance banishing brothels from the city center to the "Indian Town" area on the east side of the creek, and it operated until the brothels were outlawed and shut down in 1954.
The Excursion we chose was a combination 4X4 Jeep tour and a Canoe, seemed like a good idea when we didn't know it was going to be raining.
The Jeep portion was a blast, each couple got their own Jeep, and we were connected by a Walkie-Talkie with the guide. We were taken up into the Tongass National Forest.
There was scenic stops after driving very bumpy "roads" and driving through deep muddy sections. We could take some pics, and then swap seats so we both got to drive the Jeep.
When we arrived at the end of the road, we were equipped with a giant rain coat (Yay!) and a life preserver, given a paddle, and we all loaded into a giant canoe for a paddle over to a little camp.
Waiting for us at the camp, was a fire with coffee, hot chocolate, a giant pot of seafood chowder, as well as fresh bread, a salmon spread, local jam, and goldfish crackers. Combining them was referred to as a slammin jammin salmon sandwich.
After being fed and watered, we were taken on a nature walk to talk about the local Flora and Fauna. We saw a couple of deer that day, and even saw the remnants of a winter bear den.
We paddled back across the lake, and were loaded on to a bus to take us back into town. Great stories from what we found to be one of the only true locals. Our driver had lived in Ketchikan for over 30 years, everyone else we talked to had only been in Ketchikan for 10 days to 3 weeks.Apparently it has a population of 8,000, but most of them only live there during Cruise Ship season.
Of course I spot a nice looking 55 Chevy on the way back, and it's for sale. Too bad Ketchikan is an island, you can't just drive it home. We had about an hour after we got back to wander the town and do a little shopping. Due to the rain, most people were already back on the ship, and we had no lineup to reboard.
We were back in our main dining room for dinner tonight, and got to know our neighbouring table from England a little bit. With 2 less courses we were able to make it to the evenings show, a Trio of Tenors doing classic rock songs. It was a fantastic show.
We headed back to the dance floor in the Piazza after buying the Tenors CD, but it quickly changed from danceable songs to full on Bollywood, after about 4 songs in a row, we realized we just don't know how to dance to that and went to bed.
Day at Sea
Our last full day on the boat was a Day at Sea, so we slept in, had an early lunch at the buffet avoiding the long lines, and hung out on our favourite back deck area. We never did see any whales, dolphins or orcas.
We had dinner in the Concerto dining room, and our new English friends shared their expensive bottle of wine with us. After dinner we headed to the Piano Bar and a live Jazz band was playing, we sat for a few songs and learned all about how Jazz musicians can take a 3 minute song and make it 10 minutes long with each band member having a solo moment.
The highlight of the evening was a live band in the Piazza doing an Abba tribute, the floor was packed, and all the overlooking balconies were full. That started a long night of dancing, we were eventually joined by our fellow dance studio crew, and danced until they stopped playing music.
Disembarkation
We arrived in Seattle at around 7am, and the announcements of each group to get off the ship started. We were one of the last to get off because we didn't have a connecting flight. The Elevator lines were ridiculous so we took the 9 flights of stairs down and had a nice leisurely sit down breakfast with my ex-EA coworkers before rolling our bags off the ship and catching a taxi into Seattle Center.
We checked our bags at the King Street Train Station, and walked over to the Seattle Glassblowing Studio. The rain didn't deter us, as we brought our umbrellas. We wandered around some more shops, checked out a few of the antique places on the waterfront and grabbed lunch at The Elephant & Castle.
We were half a block from the train station, and we are completely soaked by a passing car (picture is a re-enactment). Norine is swearing, and claiming she's going to get Giardia now from the street water. We are more than a little damp when we head into the train station and wait for our ride home. We are told that it will be leaving late because the conductors are stuck in traffic.
Everyone is told they need to go in to the ticket office and have their passports verified, the people that didn't listen are scrambling as they try to board the train because the conductor is sending them back to the office. None of these things are going quickly because apparently the day before hundreds of Amtrak staff were fired. Finally underway, and our 4 hour trip ends up being a 6 hour trip because just as we arrive in Bellingham and they do an onboard customs check, someone has had to be forcibly removed from the train. We sat there for an hour with no-one explaining what is going on.
We finally arrived in Vancouver close to midnight, collected our luggage and lined up for Canada Customs. The guard was more interested in what I was reading, and we were hustled through to our waiting Uber ride home. It's always nice to get home, even if you have to recover for a few days from Giardia.
If you like to travel, keep your eyes out for deals, sometimes a great one comes along and you can slip away for an interesting getaway.