Just off the Sapphire Princess 11/11-11/21

Ok, I've never done a review before and I'm not sure if this will actually turn out to be a review, or just some thoughts - so please bear with me. In addition, I want to make mention of certain things that I know I wanted to know about while I was waiting for my cruise to "arrive." In addition, I will make some comparisons to Royal Carribean, as we have cruised Princess twice and RC twice in the past 4 years.

Also you should know, both my wife and I are in our early 50's, travelled alone, and had a ph suite.

First, the ship is beautiful! And...we had a great 10 days, and I'm sorry we are not still on Sapphire (especially since they sailed today from LA for a 30 day cruise to Australia, via Hawaii and Tahiti). Our Cruise Director was Alistair and his sidekick was Neal, and they were fabulous. Both are very talented, have great senses of humor, and work so well together. Unfortunately, Neal was leaving the ship on Sunday, so there will be a new Deputy Cruise Director.

Our suite was very nice and comparable in size to the suites we've had on RC. The balcony is huge (actually the width of 2 regular balcony cabins). We had 2 lounge chairs and a table with 4 chairs...all wood. The room was mid ship and the ride was quite comfortable. The closet was large enough so we had extra space and there were more drawers in the room than we were able to use. Also, Princess provided us with flowers, about 8 airplane-sized bottles of liquor, some soda and some beer - all complimentary. The bathroom was actually 2 rooms - one had the sink and toilet, and one had the glass shower and jacuzzi (for one - although we both squeezed in) tub.

We chose PC Dining and I'm glad we did. I never experienced that and we both really enjoyed it. 4 Dining rooms to choose from - Texmex, Oriental, Steak, and Italian. The first night we made a reservation, and never made another after that. Also, we never waited for a table for dinner, despite not having reservations. Each restaurant give you their menu (which was quite limited) as well as that night's main dining menu, so you always had quite a choice. Food was good, but not great. The Horizon Court is the buffet restaurant and I was disappointed in breakfast and lunch. Again, comparing to RC, their buffet restaurant was larger and the overall food on the ships were better with RC. However, we really loved being able to go to dinner whenever we wanted, not at a set time, and never could do that with RC.

Sapphire's premium restaurant is Sabitini's ($20 charge), and is well worth it, but you need a minimum of 2.5 hours to dine. They give you a menu with a number of cold appetizers, warm appetizers, soups, salad, pastas, and 4 or 5 entrees. The waiter tells you to only order the entree, because they give you a little of everything else on the menu! The food was very good, the service excellent. I had lobster tails as my entree. Now, I'm not a big lobster tail fan, but these were maybe the best I've ever had. Very sweet and cooked to perfection. Note...the last sea night, we had lobster tails in the regular menu and they were just as well prepared.

One thing I've got to mention. I was amazed at the prices of the alcoholic beverages. This is an area where they can really get you, but they don't. In fact, their prices are substantially less than what I pay in a restaurant at home. For example, name brand vodka martini (absolute, stoli) is $4.50. I like a cognac late in the evening, and Remy VSOP was $4.50 (normally $7-8) and Remy XO was $8 (normally $15-25).

Entertainment was great and this is where Princess really shines. The comedians were very funny, the individual performers in the lounges were very good, and the production shows were excellent...especially Piano Man, which can't be missed. Also, one night they do "Pub Night" in the Explorer Lounge - it is a late night comedy hour done by Alistair and his staff and is phenomenal...don't miss it!

The spa is great...no pressure to buy products.

The pools, and there are many, all seem to be heated. The couple we tried were definitely not the cold sea water, nor were they salt water. One of the pools was supposed to be for adults only, but some kids did go there and no one stopped them. I did prefer the pool areas of the Brilliance of the Seas and Adventure of the Seas, particularly the pools reserved for adults only. Much more quiet and conducive to reading and relaxing.

I was a little disappointed that there was not a sports bar where I could catch a score of the Sunday football games. The one bar that had sports was Churchills, which is also the place to smoke cigars, and the sports they showed was soccer, not football.

All in all, a very enjoyable cruise.

If anyone wants to know about anything else, please feel free to ask. I'll do the best I can to answer. Also, once my wife downloads the pictures we took, I'll try to post them somewhere.

Lon

We left the lights on for you. Wasn't it just a fabulous cruise? I only saw 6 kids on our cruise. Used the SPA as well with no pressure to buy anything.

Thank you very much for that post Lon. We will be on the Sapphire in Nov of 2005, we hope she will be as great as when you travelled. What ports did you do?

We were on that cruise - afternoon at Catalina (tenders), two days at sea, day at Puerto Vallarta (docked), day at Mazatlan (docked), day at Cabo (tenders), day at sea, day in San Diego (docked), day at sea, home to San Francisco. The only problem was in San Diego where non-citizens have to go through immigration as that is our first U.S. Port. We expected to be off before 9:00, as the ship docked at 8:00, but there were three people who couldn't be bothered to go through immigration, so the ship didn't clear until around 9:30, keeping the other 2600 people from their plans (we were taking the 9:45 Coaster train to Oceanside - no problem, right? We hustled to the train station, figured out how to buy the tickets, took one step towards the train and it closed the doors and pulled out. And I am not nearly as irritated with the delay as hundreds of golfers that expected to get off early). My only advice is not to make early plans that day.

Other than that, the cruise was great. I think you go out of Los Angeles next year, so you may get further down in Mexico. Maybe I'll come too. Nancy

Does anyone recall what is the area that is considered partially obstructed on the lifeboat deck? Our friends reserved this and we can't find a picture anywhere to show what it is that is partially obstructing the view. We appreciate any information. Taking it Jan. 30 from NZ to AU.

Janice,

I believe it is the lifeboats which obstruct the view.

Margie

My wife posted some pictures of the ship and especially of the PH suite. Feel free to look:

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=q9yi6cp.4s0zluuh&x=0&y=t0nxqj

Lon

We sailed 11/11 - 11/21 as well! We had a fabulous time, but I was constantly amazed by the number of people who assumed their plans were far more important than mine. I nearly blew a gasket as I waited patiently to go ahore in Matazlan only to watch a woman squirming her way down a packed staircase saying "move please, I should be down there". And sadly, that was not an isolated incident.

Embarkation was smooth as glass...we were in our stateroom by 11:40. And disembarkation was equally smooth. I only wish that they made the aisles a little wider where the luggage is lined up. If your suitcase is all the way at the back, and you have to drag it up to the front it is quite a feat!

We found the water in the pools to be like bathwater (not that I'm complaining!). Had no problems with chairhogs. Oh, and I'm not sure if my tastes are becoming more "refined" but the food on the Horizon Court was NOT appealing.

We had late traditional dining and loved it. I think we just like the concept of dining at a set time with set wait staff (yes, yes, I understand that you can do that with Anytime Dining, but doesn't that defeat the purpose?). I thoroughly enjoyed the selection of sugar-free desserts. I thoroughly missed the crab legs, but we made sure to have a feed of crab before we sailed. I finally tried a Chocolate Banana and now I understand what all the fuss was about ;)

I will list our excursions in case anyone might have questions about them:

Catalina: we rented a golf cart and toured around

Puerto Vallarta: Countryside Horseback Riding

Mazatlan: Kayaking

Cabo: Sail and Snorkel

San Diego: Cycling the Waterfront

With the exception of Catalina, we booked everything through Princess. Yes, I know we could have saved money booking though others, but we're on vacation. I refuse to worry about anything.

My husband got violently ill on the ship and we have nothing but positive things to say about the medical centre. It was a terrible flu that turned into a scary ear infection -- I'm blaming the rain in San Fran before we sailed!

If you have questions, fire away. We'll all jump in!

I love to read reports on the sapphire! Thanks for taking the time to post. Just over two months until my turn :D .

I was on this sailing as well. My main complaint was the anytime dining. We had awful service in three of the four restaurants. Typically the service we receive at dinner is the highlight of our cruise, but this was not the case. Vivaldi was the only restaurant where the service was acceptable. One night while dining at the Sterling Steakhouse, dinner took over 2 1/2 hours. We sat there for long periods of time without any service. I waited for a refill on my iced tea for over 30 minutes. We tried for traditional, as many people did, and could not get in. The other thing that bothers me is that people that have traditional were trying out the anytime dining restaurants. We had to wait one night for about an hour, just to get in to the Sterling Steakhouse. It makes it upsetting for those who wanted traditional dining, but couldn't get in, to find out that some of the traditional diners were trying out the other restaurants. The traditional diners still get to try out the menus from the other restaurants (different menu each night) so I don't see the need to go and try out the restaurants. I think Princess should increase the traditional dining, by atleast one or two restaurants. There were many irritated people onboard with the lack of service in the anytime dining. If I couldn't get traditional dining, I would choose another cruise where I could be guaranteed traditional. It was that bad.

We had a fabulous time, aside from the service we received at dinner time. The ports of call were great, and different from what we normally see, having cruised the caribbean so often. I thought the Sapphire was clean, well maintained, and the staff around the ship were friendly and pleasant. Our room steward was accommodating to our requests, and our room was always spotless after his visit.

I would do this itinerary/ship again in a heartbeat, assuming I was guaranteed traditional seating. I didn't hear a single complaint about service in the traditional dining room. Everyone that we talked to was satisfied completely with the traditional dining.

Tara5525

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with the service in the PC restaurants. We tried all but Sterling (my wife eats very little meat), and found the service to be very good. The main difference in service between the PC restaurants and the traditional (from previous cruises) was the PC waiters never really got to know you well enough to anticipate your desires as the traditional waiters do (obviously because they serve you each night). Although, we went to Vivaldi 3 times and the Maitre-D recognized us and gave us the same table, because he knew we liked it.

Lon

I was really surprised to hear that some passengers in the traditional dining room went to the others. I thought one's card was checked at the door so that would be impossible, as ours said "lst seating". Evidently something went wrong. I think it would be very rude for the traditional diners to horn in on the other dining rooms. We did get menus from all of them, but only once from Sterling (the first night). Nancy

Our waitress (in traditional dining) informed us early on that we could order from any menu on any night.

As I mentioned in previous posts we were offered to try PC Dining even though we had 2nd seating Traditional. My guess is because it is a relatively new concept. We never did try the other restuarants but did see their decor on the kitchen tour. Because we had 2 empty chairs at our table, we invited others from our group with PC to join us in Traditional. It gave them a taste of Traditional. Our wait staff was fabulous.

We did get the other restaurant's condensed menus. We would check out the other restuarants menus that are posted early afternoon before dinner and if there was something on them that was not shown on the condensed menu we received, we just ordered it without a problem. In fact, you could get whatever you wanted from any menu not just the ones they gave you that night. I gave them part of the tip I was going to leave them at the end on the 2nd night. Maybe they liked that.

I recently returned from the Sun Princess and was "carded" only on the formal nights for personal choice dining. So many were trying to use the dining room that the m'd had to check cards. Hope this is cleared up by our cruise in January.

I am still trying to find out what obstructs the Partially Obstructed oceanviews as the fully obstructed are blocked by the lifeboats. On the Sun it was barrels that convert to rubber rafts. We still haven't gotten our assignments as we are guarantees.

Margie, did you get your shore excursion books? My DH wants to do them all!

Nancy,

We were told there were more people who wanted traditional dining than was able to fit in the International Dining Room. The overflow were seated in some of the PC dining rooms. I'm not sure how true this was, but it did explain some of the larger tables we saw and the familiarity we noticed between the passengers at those tables and the waiters.

Lon

I recently returned from the Sun Princess and was "carded" only on the formal nights for personal choice dining. So many were trying to use the dining room that the m'd had to check cards. Hope this is cleared up by our cruise in January.

 

I am still trying to find out what obstructs the Partially Obstructed oceanviews as the fully obstructed are blocked by the lifeboats. On the Sun it was barrels that convert to rubber rafts. We still haven't gotten our assignments as we are guarantees.

 

Margie, did you get your shore excursion books? My DH wants to do them all!

We got our excursion book and we have planned all our tours prior to this through private tour operators. If you would like to join us, we have a full day tour in Rotorua and have room for two more. We are going from Auckland on January 29.

Margie

Margie, can you send me the details at my e-mail address? Thanks, Janis

Margie, can you send me the details at my e-mail address? Thanks, Janis

send your address to exal732@aol.com

Margie