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A Princess Cruise From Vancouver to Whittier And The Kenai Fjord Tour 8/23/2004 to 9/1/2004

My mother Nancy received an offer from Princess Cruises that she could not pass up and since she had always known that I wanted to see the Inside Passage, asked me to accompany her.

With the ship docking in Skagway, this would give me an opportunity to ride the White Pass and Yukon Railway.

The cruise would take us from Vancouver to Whittier, Alaska where we would board the Princess train to Anchorage.

My mother booked us an extra day in Anchorage to I could take the Alaska Railroad down to Seward then I contacted Alaska Heritage Tours about a Kenai Fjord tour. Mike at AAA took care of all the cruise details, as well as the airline arrangements.

My morning started with me up early to pack, but I received a phone call from Super Shuttle/Yellow Cab that they were overbooked and could not take us and gave me a phone number of White Cab, who arrived fifteen minutes early to take my mother and I to John Wayne Airport. We walked right up to check our bags and receive our boarding passes then the security line took less than five minutes and we found a nice window seat to watch the 7:00 AM rush of takeoffs. At 7:15 AM, we walked onto the 737-400 plane and took seats 24A and B, departing Gate 10 at 7:35 AM for our 7:45 AM departure. We took off at 7:43 AM and were on our way to Seattle as my mother enjoyed the view from the window seat and I listened to a 1982 Jethro Tull concert from Hamburg, Germany. Other than a cloudy Mount Shasta, we flew over a deck of clouds the whole way to Seattle, touching down at 10:18 AM and taxied over to Gate Gate D10.

We walked over to Gate D5 and had to have our boarding passes stamped that our identification had been checked then boarded at 11:10 AM and filled out our Canadian Customs forms as we sat on this MD-80 plane. Our flight would only take thirty-one minutes to Vancouver, British Columbia, departing the gate at 11:49 AM and taking off at noon. It was another flight over clouds with me having the window seat this time. We landed at Vancouver International Airport at 12:35 PM and were off the plane ten minutes later, making our way through Canadian Customs then met the Princess Cruises staff, who directed us to the bus to take us to the Sun Princess.

The bus took us into town via Cambie Street to the dock via Chinatown and Gastown.

At Canada Place, we went through security and then check-in, followed by US Customs who just scanned my passport. We then walked out and boarded the Sun Princess, assigned to room 303 on the Plaza Deck with our Stateroom Steward being Tavorn. Below is information about the Sun Princess.

This fourteen-storey cruise ship was built in 1995, weighs 77,000 tons, is 856 feet long and 106 feet wide, measuring nearly three football fields in length. Its speed is 21 knots and there is a crew of 900. Passenger capacity is 1,950 double occupancy and there are ten decks that passengers can access: Sun Deck, Lido Deck, Riviera Deck, Aloha Deck, Baja Deck, Caribe Deck, Dolphin Deck, Promenade Deck, Emerald Deck and Plaza Deck.

There are four pools and five whirlpool spas with an outside deck space of 93,000 square feet. Dining and snacks are very well covered with two main dining rooms (each with their own galley), a 24-hour café (with own galley), pizzeria, Sterling Steakhouse, wine and caviar bar, patisserie for coffee, drinks and pastries, hamburger and hot dog grill and ice cream sundae bar with 24-hour room service.

For entertainment, there are two main showlounges (both theater and cabaret style) and seven lounges/bars for refreshments, entertainment and dancing. Passenger Services include a casino, four duty-free shops, a health center and spa, sports deck, photograph shop, children and teen centers, disco, computerized golf center, library and business center.

My mother gave me a brief tour of the cruise ship before we had lunch in the Lido Deck buffet then I went off to explore the ship on my own.

At 5:00 PM, the passenger muster drill occurred and passengers and crew assembled in assigned areas of the ship with their life jackets which we had to put on at the end of the drill. Our muster station was in the casino, one way to introduce the casino to the passengers. After that I went to the front of the Lido Deck to wait for our ship to depart.

A West Coast Express commuter train departed the former Canadian Pacific station en route to Mission.

At 5:50 PM, the Sun Princess began to reverse out of the dock.

The terminal and downtown Vancouver stood out against the sky and the ship continued to reverse into the main harbour channel.

The piles of sulphur on the dock.

We sailed with North Vancouver to the north and Stanley Park to the south.

The Sun Princess passed beneath the Lions Gate Bridge.

The ship sailed by West Vancouver to the lighthouse at the opening to Howe Sound.

A British Columbia ferry was leaving Horseshoe Bay for Nanamio.

Later at 8:00 PM, we had our nightly dinner seating in the Regency Dining Room and at our table were Thomas and Natalie from Wisconsin, Sue and Richard from England and Carlos and Mercedes from Pomona, California. Our wonderful waiter for this cruise was Valentin from Hungary and the outstanding junior waiter was Kataryna from Poland. We returned to our room finding that Tavorn had made up our room for the night then watched a few highlights from the Summer Olympics on BBC before I called it a night.

During the night, the Sun Princess travelled north up the Strait of Georgia through the Johnstone Strait then out into the Queen Charlotte Strait and we started the morning in Queen Charlotte Sound heading out to sea.

Waking up late, I showered before taking the elevator up to the Lido Deck and enjoying a buffet breakfast on a dark and cloudy rainy morning while my mother slept in.

I spent my morning sitting on a deck lounge chair on the Promenade Deck listening to Jethro Tull from Copenhagen in 1979. The show was on the Stormwatch tour when Tull played all the new songs first; these songs really fit in with the ocean views that I was seeing.

The Sun Princess passed a Port Hardy-to-Prince Rupert ferry.

I returned to the cabin to watch "Mona Lisa Smile" then for lunch, went back to the buffet for roast beef as it started raining lightly again before returning to the room to watch "Pirates of the Caribbean".

I went for a walk around the ship but did not feel very well afterwards so went to the Promenade Deck for some fresh air, but that did not help. I decided to skip dinner as I watched the end of "Welcome to Mooseport" since I had not seen the ending when I was aboard the California Zephyr last month.

Still not feeling well, I went for another walk and first enjoyed these very dark clouds.

I spotted land in the last strong light on what had been a very dark day then called room service for some ice cream.

The ship passed Bonilla Island with its lighthouse and the Coast Range standing behind it then we started the voyage through Hecate Strait as we proceeded into the night. It was at this point I called it an evening.

During the hours of darkness, we travelled through Dixon Entrance then by Duke Island, past between Annette and Mary Islands before continuing east of Gravina Island and into Ketchikan, our first port of call.