September 2019 Alaska on Ruby Princess-Pre-Game and Day 0 Tampa to Seattle

So my husband’s favorite place to go is Alaska and mine is the Mediterranean. We were in the Mediterranean in 2018, but Carnival announced a refurbished ship sailing in May 2020.  My husband has always been ready to go and just asks what clothes he should pack. I told him we would go to the Mediterranean in 2020, but go to Alaska in September 2019.  This was all before COVID, so unbeknownst to us it would be the last cruise for a little while.

Room 

We have sailed in all types of rooms from Inside to Suite. Certain itineraries seem better suited for a balcony and Alaska is one of them, especially with a day viewing glaciers.  We had sailed Princess in a club class mini-suite and enjoyed the experience. I looked at the club class room around Labor Day, however, I found a full suite was cheaper a few weeks later.  We took the suite later in September.

Princess Medallion

We missed the roll out of the Medallion by a few weeks on the Regal and missed on the Ruby by a little while as well.  One day we will get to try it.

Fly2Fun

I didn’t want to spend the money to get a hotel in Seattle at the beginning of the cruise and a room in Vancouver at the end. I booked fly2fun to arrive the morning of the cruise and leave the day we departed, even though I don’t think it is a good idea to fly cross country on the day the cruise begins.  Well they kept changing the arrival time making it later and later so I changed the flight to come in the day before, unfortunately the only flight back left near midnight so we had a lot of time at Vancouver airport at the end of the trip.

Day 0 Tampa to Seattle

So we’re off.

Lunch at the Hard Rock at Tampa Airport

Flight to Charlotte unfortunately we had storms and were delayed in Charlotte for a few hours, we landed around 10 and had some difficulty getting to the nearby hotel. We made it and settled in for dinner around 1:30 am our time.

And a few pictures of the Marriott near the Seattle airport.