My wife took four years to talk me into this cruise as we holiday in July, August which is the middle of the New Zealand winter when Auckland is a sea of mud. I like to go somewhere warm like Hawaii or Vancouver. As it turned out Alaska was beautiful. We had perfect weather the whole trip. As far as the Star Princess was concerned I have to take my hat off to the Yanks as the organisation was first class. Every effort was made to make the holiday as enjoyable as possible. The ship was spotless and well fitted out.The crew went out of their way to be friendly and helpful. The food was incredible, even Barramundi (an Australian fresh water fish) and orange roughy (New Zealand deep water fish) on the menu. We could even get meat pies onboard. The stage shows were world class. Two or three a night or we could go to a bar and listen to a pianist singing Neil Diamond. Free pizza and ice cream each day and a selection of pastry you could put on half a kilo just looking at. The only niggle was on the two formal nights not every one made the effort to dress up. Most did but some let the side down. They should have been handed a tie to get the message across. The ship hove too for several hours so we could watch a glacier calving. The crew used a jet boat to bring a large block of ice onboard and were handing out chunks of ice to the American passengers to take home as a souvenir. I think some tried too. Overall was very impressed with the Princess line and am planning a cruise from New York to Quebec next year.