Out of the cruises I've taken thus far, the Ocean Princess is probably the nicest ship I've sailed. Classy but unpretentious, this lovely young lady is soon to be transferred to the P/O fleet! Fortunately, she has three identical sisters remaining, so I don't feel too bad. However, I will say that the Carnival Triumph's Rome Lounge is far more luxurious than the Princess Theatre on OP. Imagine that! Anyway, for best public room, unquestionably, the Wheelhouse Bar is gorgeous. This lounge clearly derives its appearance from the decor of first class lounges on some of the old classic ships, however, it has enough modern influences to prevent one from feeling as though he or she really did step through a door in time. The Sardinian and Tuscan Dining Rooms are similarly attractive. There is extensive use of marble in the public areas, especially in the Grand Plaza atrium, all used to marvelous effect.

Hallelujah! A walk-around promenade deck. The last time I saw one of those was on the Nordic Prince. This was a much-welcomed feature, and I spent much of the cruise circling the ship, looking for whales and what-not.

That being said for the ship itself, I will continue with the excellence displayed by the Princess people when we met them at the airport in Vancouver. This group functioned like a well-oiled machine, as they were highly visible and gave clear, concise directions on where to go to get our bus transfer to the piers. This group was spectacular to the end, even when we disembarked in Seward, and then on to Anchorage.

Luggage: They were pretty good with our luggage, although it did take them some time to get the luggage to the stateroom. One couple in our group had stayed overnight upstairs in the hotel at the pier, and they got theirs after we got ours! This makes no sense whatsoever, given that the staff had virtually all day (from 12 PM on) to get them their luggage.

We met up with that couple later in Fabio's, the ship's pizzeria. The pizza was quite good, so good in fact that we spent several lunchtimes there over the course of the week, no doubt much to the chagrin of my arteries. This brings up my next point.

Food: The food was very good, but not quite excellent. The best meal we had in the dining room was the Penne Puttanesca (the sauce was unreal!), which our head waiter, Sergio, saw fit to serve us as a side dish on French Night because, as he said, "The food on French Night is only OK." Well, the Porc Normand that I had on French Night was more than OK. Those were some of the best pork chops I've had in years. We missed Alaskan Seafood Night because we made reservations at the a la carte Sterling Steak House, which is actually the Horizon Court buffet area on the port side after, oh, 6 PM or so. I had the Porterhouse, and my wife had the Filet Mignon, both of which were seasoned to near-perfection (i.e., close, but not quite Ruth's Chris - folks from other nations or some parts of the US may not recognize this name, but suffice it to say that this is one of the best chain steakhouses in the US). However, regardless of how we specified how the meat was cooked, all of the steaks came out more or less medium-well. So, why bother asking, guys?

I have to say that the buffets on board OP were some of the best I've ever had, and I'm not really a big fan of buffets. We often had breakfast at the Horizon Court buffet, mostly on account of rushing to get ready for our shore excursions (more on those later). We did get to breakfast in the dining room on two days. The service was what I would call somewhat substandard, especially on one occasion, where the busboy, who was passing out croissants and danishes, asked everyone at the table what they wanted except my wife for some reason. Obviously, we were not pleased with that. In fact, a lot of the dining staff service, at least at the outset, seemed a bit aloof. They did not even introduce themselves, other than Sergio. I think that may be in part because Princess is now experimenting with a tipping structure which applies a $6.50/person/diem charge to the shipboard account. The passengers are no longer required to ante up for the dining staff unless they feel that their dining staff went above and beyond the call of duty. In retrospect, maybe we should have given a little bit extra to Sergio, who really was the only one who did go above and beyond. At any rate, with a tipping structure like this, one is inclined to conclude, especially given the service level encountered, that built-in tipping reduces the effort level, since the dining staff knows they're getting tipped regardless. The good news is that the service did improve as the week went on, and I think the staff realized they had messed up a bit in the beginning, and tried to make up for it over the remainder of the week. For example, they gave us additional desserts for the entire table which might have been the top-of-the-line dessert for a given night (eg., tiramisu on Italian Night).

Service (otherwise): Bar service was never lacking. Let's face it, the lines make some nice money on alcoholic beverage sales. And when you've got a shipload of alkies (alright, maybe not everyone was), that spells BONANZA! Seriously, though, alcohol abuse certainly is no laughing matter.

Our cabin steward, Bernie, was top-notch, which meant we tipped him rather generously at the end of the week. The folks in the gift shops were pleasantly helpful and courteous. P.S., the incessant hawking of merchandise over the ship's P.A., which I encountered 8 years ago, has apparently disappeared, although it is now a routine part of Princess Patter, the ship's daily newsletter. Somehow, it's a bit more tolerable in that form, although at times, it was difficult to locate important information amidst all of the adverts, for example, when and where the Sunday Catholic mass was held, which we discovered after the fact.

Shore Excursions: This was my favorite part of my first trip to Alaska, and on this occasion, I was reminded of one of the reasons why I like Princess so much. Their shore excursion organizational ability is fantastic! Tours left on time every day, and there were clearly visible gathering areas for the individual tour groups. And the tours themselves? There were so many different types of tours that one was really limited only by one's budget, or perhaps whether one is a bit squeamish about heights.

In Ketchikan, we took the Heritage Town and Country Tour, which brought us to a salmon/eagle hatchery, a totem museum and then to Totem Bight State Park, which presented an interesting array of different Tlingit and Haida Indian totem poles, each with different legends associated with them.

In Juneau, we embarked on a high-speed catamaran in search of whales, bald eagles (of which there were many in the surrounding area) and Dall's porpoise. Unfortunately, we did not see any orcas or bears, both of which are unpredictable occurrences. We followed this by going to an authentic Alaskan salmon bake. The salmon was exquisite, as were the barbecued ribs and chicken also available. We were even treated to the spectacle of spawning salmon in a nearby stream.

Next, it was on to Skagway. Here, my wife and I stayed local, taking a tour of a local bed and breakfast which had a very good gourmet chef on premises, and which grew all its own seasonings, vegetables and flowers. Skagway is an interesting town if only for the fact that it resembles a town out of the old west.

There were so many other tours available that it was at times difficult to make choices. The bottom line is that Princess does a tremendous job with its shore excursion offerings, at least in Alaska. I need to cruise with them in the Caribbean or Europe to see if that service is any different there.

The weather turned for the worse after leaving Glacier Bay. While there was never a real downpour, skies were overcast, there was much fog, and the seas between Glacier Bay and College Fjord were rather rough. A number of people on the ship took ill over that evening and following day, including my father-in-law.

The clouds followed us into College Fjord, but it was just as well, as the blue glacial ice could be seen easily. It was said by the naturalist on board that the blue could only best be seen under cloudy conditions. There were a number of very large icebergs in College Fjord, giving me that Titanic feeling, but of course, there was no harm done. It was here where we saw numerous seals and sea otters, the latter of which could be seen playing amongst the icebergs. They were so cute.

Finally, it was on to Seward. That morning, I saw my first and only orca, and then it was a good half mile or so away, but I could tell by the pronounced dorsal fin common to males that it could be no other animal. We moored at Seward at about 2 AM and then disembarked at 6:15 for the train ride to Anchorage. There was spectacular scenery to behold, to say the least, and I recommend that any people on the Voyage of the Glaciers itinerary choose the Grandview Train as a means of getting to Anchorage, notwithstanding the early rise time. It's worth it. We saw our first and only black bear, and also a number of Dall's sheep.

Altogether, the cruise was a wonderful experience. I may return yet again, as I still want to go to Denali National Park, but that will have to be some time in the distant future.

P.S. It's great to see a lot of interest buzzing around the SS United States. I can only hope that something good finally comes of all this frustrating waiting.