Discovery Princess Cruise Ship Embarkation Day Walk-Thru - August 2025

Описание: This was my first time on a Princess Cruise. My son-in-law’s family had planned the outing months ago and asked if I wanted to tag along. My last two cruises were with Royal Caribbean (Allure and Utopia), each basically a floating metropolis with nearly 10,000 people onboard (crew included)—think “Las Vegas with life vests.”

The Discovery Princess was less than half that size, but supposedly more “upscale” when it came to décor, dining, and overall vibe. In other words, less amusement park, more country club. Princess doesn’t bother with towering twisting water slides, surfing pools, or high-dive acrobatic water shows. Royal Caribbean’s Utopia even had eight—yes, eight—“neighborhoods.” Discovery, on the other hand, had exactly one: “the ship.”

Royal Caribbean’s average passenger age is about 40, while Princess caters more to folks who are actively trying to avoid being locked up in a nursing home. At 64, I figured maybe it was time to start practicing refinement anyway—ease my way out of childish inclinations and into something more distinguished.

And since this trip was headed for Alaska, missing out on zip-lines and carousels wasn’t a deal-breaker. Let’s be honest, nobody wants to go barreling down a water slide in 48-degree rain. The real attraction here was food, and Princess does have a reputation for delivering on that front.

As you’ll see in the video, the ship was gorgeous. And it was refreshingly manageable—you could walk from bow to stern without needing a Sherpa or oxygen mask. My room wasn’t bad either. I booked too late for a balcony, so I wound up in an interior stateroom. To make it feel less like solitary confinement, I brought a tropical beach backdrop to hang on the wall. Sure, it was an Alaskan cruise, but sipping a Mai-Tai in front of my fake cabana would feel superior to shivering on a balcony, hugging a mug of coffee while my fingers went numb.

Well….I don’t think it ever dropped below 60 degrees, and in Juneau it nearly hit 90. At one point, we were shedding clothes like an entire colony of fire ants had taken up residence in our tighty-whities. I’ve heard plenty of Alaskan cruises are cold and rainy, but ours was practically Hawaiian—minus the hula dancers.

Overall, the Discovery Princess was… fine. “OK.” Having family on board made it a great experience, but without them I might’ve been staring at the walls of my fake beach cabana a WHOLE lot more. A couple of the restaurants were world-class, the kind of meals you brag about for years. But others? Let’s just say they could make a bad McDonald’s cheeseburger taste like a Michelin-starred masterpiece. And the lack of activities onboard gave the whole trip a bit of a retirement-home vibe. Thankfully, it was only seven days and not a trans-Pacific crossing.

As for Alaska itself—stunning. Absolutely worth seeing. But I wouldn’t cruise it again. To really experience Alaska, you need to be on land: camping by glaciers, fishing in glacier-fed rivers, hiking tundra while keeping an eye out for grizzlies and moose moms with anger-management issues. I did that years ago when my knees didn’t creak, and that’s the Alaska I’ll always remember.

So yes, I’ll cruise again—but next time I’m finding a ship with zip-lines, water slides, and maybe a full-sized roller coaster. Because as much as I like being “distinguished,” my childish inclinations still like to come out and play.