Hawaii’s World
The great white cruise liner at Skagway, Alaska, dwarfed the Alaska State Ferry vessel moored beside it. Great dane versus terrier, they seemed. Tourists are on board
for AlaskaFirst of two articles
An even bigger sister ship of the great white liner, named Grand Princess, is longer and higher than all but the tower of the U.S. Capitol. Grand Princess can't transit the Panama Canal. It's 159 feet wide, the canal only 106. No matter -- it is so successful that Princess Lines is building two more like it for nearly a half billion dollars each.
Signs of prosperity in the cruise business are everywhere -- a sharp contrast to flat tourism crimping Hawaii and the Caribbean Islands.
My wife and I reconfirmed the appeal of cruising the easy way. We spent a week navigating the Inland Passage of Alaska on Regal Princess with 1,600 other passengers.
My first reaction to Regal Princess was negative -- too much like Las Vegas.
I soon warmed to the ship, however -- a rather tasteful version of extravagance with a three-story atrium at midship. It moved through beautiful terrain from Vancouver to Juneau, to Skagway, to Glacier Bay for a day of cruising, to Sitka and back to Vancouver, Sunday to Sunday.
It was a cashless society. Just walk into any showroom, movie, lecture, cruise game or place to eat. No chits to sign except for liquor. Besides the main dining room there are a 24-hour 12th-deck buffet, a pizza restaurant, a hamburger restaurant and a patisserie. Chits elsewhere only for shop purchases and shore excursions. Billing only at the end of the cruise. Cash tips to waiters and stewards are suggested.
My wife soon found the casino on the top deck, No. 14. There is no No. 13. We chose to locate by view windows as we pulled the handles on the 25-cent machines. We broke close to even. It seemed to be a common experience. Maybe kind slots are a part of the hospitality atmosphere.
The ship's purser told me the ship is always full (no doubt thanks to marketing inducements)...also that all cabins are all the same generous size except for staterooms on Deck No. 11, which are larger and have marble bathtubs instead of our ample showers ...also that food purchasing is centralized for the whole Princess fleet, currently at nine ships but growing to 16.
Alaska's cruise season lasts from early May through September. Some 20 liners ply its routes. A cruise line conference allots berths in ports that can handle no more than three or four at once.
Tiny Skagway is an example of the big ships' impact. Its winter population of 820 jumps to 4,000 as merchandisers flow in for the summer. They await around 4,000 daily cruise visitors (23 or so dockings a week). Many visitors fan out on railway trips up the old Gold Rush route or take other excursions. Plenty still cram the boardwalks, shops and eateries.
The little Alaska State Ferry is not to be ignored. It links to Bremerton, Wash., and provides year-round transport for both passengers and cars to all Alaskan ports, many with no highway access. It is an economical way to go that I once tried with my late wife and youngsters.
Come late September the cruise ships move off to the South Pacific, Asia, the Caribbean, the Holy Land and Europe -- but the Alaska ferries keep plugging away. Rates and frequencies reflect the season, but the service is always there in this oil-rich land where the state paid over $1,500 each last year to all its residents of one year or longer and charged no income tax.
Thursday: Hawaiian Islands
A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.