On the Sapphire now

We boarded the Sapphire Princess on April 23rd in Osaka, Japan. We are crossing the International Data Line today. So we are on May 2nd Part II, every interesting! We will end the cruise on May 11th in Seattle. There are both good and bad things about this ship and I will try to give a fair picture of the Sapphire.

I had so many questions about a "mega ship", thought I would make some comments while I am living the experience! First this is not our frist Princess cruise or our frist cruise. We were first on the Royal Princess in 1988. We started cruising in 1984 on the old Vistaford-a great ship! Our last cruise was on the Royal Princess Nov, 2004. She is also a great ship. We have sailed on some or the other Princess ships though non as large as the Sapphire.

The Sapphire is a beatiful ship on the inside. The public areas are large, well layed out and beautiful. The food is good to great depending on the dish and what you like. Plus it is better than most other lines we have been on. So far the over all service has been OK to good. It is not as personal as that we on the Royal in Nov, though, as always, they are making a excellant effort at fixing the things on the menu I like, so they wont cause an asthma attack! (By far Princess is the best at this than any other ship we have been on) The service varries from dinning room to dinning room, the Pacfic Pearl is bad, but the International dinning room is great. The fixed seating and the any time seating works well. The only people who seem to have a problem are those that insist on walking in around seven and expecting to be seated at once with out a reservation. Or those who don't realize that open seated breakfast and lunch meals are served every day in one of the any time dinning rooms! The Lido is less appealing to me than so others. It seems harder to get around and there is not as good of a selection of food. The pizza is great as usual. The speciality dinning room has only been about half full every night. I think the $20 price is acting as a crowd controll. Persnally we will not pay that fee to eat in a different dinning area! So I can't comment on the food. In the main dinning room you can order anything off any menu on the ship plus the International's nightly menu.

There are plenty of Bar areas and lots of different nightly activities. The drink price is fair. We ordered a bottle of Crown Royal so as not to have to mess with it while travelling. Not much more and well worth not having to worry about it leaking while packed. The movies seem older than they were on the Royal and the in room movie selections are odd and the good ones seem to be onlyshown at odd times. Otherwise we have enjoyed the entertainment. We have been doing the comper at sea class. I did some on the Royal as I'm not too good at it. This time even my Husband is taking some class and enjoying them. He works on the computer all the time. They are $25 per hour of 4 hours for $75. This is something I wouldn't do at home, but am having fun and finding it well worth it.

Since the ship was built for it, the constant sales are so bad as on the older ships. There seems more room even with that going on and the walk areas are not so crowded. It is not so in yourface! The photo staff is not pushy either. We like the wine tasting and do those. Again I don't mind paying for this, because I like it, but if you don't you can pass. It is not really pushed, the waiter asked us once for each. We did the frist one right away, this last one we had to check the class schedule and then had to ask for the card!

Most things I have missed are small items and because of the size of the ship makes it almost impossible. For example there are no lap blankets for the balconies and it is a cold weather cruise, we had these in Nov. Also there is no ice crean station around tea time with free ice cream as there was on the Royal in Nov, only the fancy one with a charge. So I just get my Ice creaqn fix at lunch. There are many things to do, though they are charging for more of them each time we sail on Princess. My husband and I agree that as long as the charge is fair, the activity has a good leader and the price for the basic cruise is kept low as it is now, we will gladly pay for the extra activity or service. Personally we would rather do that, than pay for things we don't want or use with a higher cruise price. The cost or the day at sea is about the same as is was when we started in 1984 based on purchasing power of the dollar. Plus thefree things are about the same as then. They have just added more things to do and are charging for them! We have sailed on some of the- one price covers all- luxuary lines and find the price high for what we actually use on the ship. On Princess we pay for a balcony cabin of our choice, tips and the extra services, drinks etc we like and still don't spend as much as we would say on a Silver Seas Cruise for half the time. And we have cruised on the Silver Wind.

We have an back facing aft cabin A749-BC catagory. It is asolutely the best we have ever had including mimi suites!! If we sail on a ship of this class again we will only do it in an aft like this. The cabin is well laid out and very quiet. I like the dressing area off the bath. Ths bath is small because of this area, but the whole area makes the room live more like a mimi suite. Our balcony is completely covered and a nice size-lounge and table with two chairs. It is very protected for the cold wind so we are able to enjoy it even in this wet cold weather!

There may be other things that come to mind when I comment on the itenerary in the next post. If any one has a question I will try to answer. Hope the internet is still up now that I'm ready to post this!

You might want to try the Horizon Ct. Buffet every afternoon between 3 and 4 (if I remember correctly) on one side just inside the forward doors to the buffet a table has been set up with ice cream sundaes on both of our Princess cruises. These are no charge.

Oh, but nothing compares to Princess' home-made ice cream! It's so rich that all you need is a small serving.

There is one question that I do have. We will be on the Sapphire in a mini-suite and across the hall, our daughter will be in an inside cabin with our 3 year old, twin grand children. With having a balcony and nervous about these two, could you please tell me what kind of locks are on the door. I plan on taking a small screw type lock that fits on the slots that the door slides on, either on the top or bottom part. Will this work, or do I need to think of something else to bring?

Enjoy your cruise and check back often.:)

Oh, but nothing compares to Princess' home-made ice cream! It's so rich that all you need is a small serving.

I agree - Princess ice cream is as good as any other I have had - including Hagan-Daz!

Ron

I am currently on this cruise also, along with 25+ other CC contributers. The free ice cream HAS been available daily in the Horizon Court during the hours of afternoon tea (3:30 to 4:30). I have found the food to be good, although a step (or so) below that found on other PRINCESS ships. To me, the Horizon Court has been fine for breakfast and lunch. Americans seem to be in the minority on this cruise ... UK & OZ seem to outnumber us, with quite a few Asians (to be expected on a cruise originating in Japan). Osaka embarkation poor, but not the fault of PRINCESS. The port of DUTCH HARBOR (Alaska) will be missed due to logistical problems (size of ship), giving us 6 straight days at sea! Plenty of activities, and even some current movies (Bridget Jones/Edge of Reason & Ray, just to name a couple). So far, so good! Any other questions while we are here?

i have a question about your room...is this on the deck that has the terrace pool? how is the nose level? can you you walk right out to the pool area? how does the balcony area compare to the other balconies? Can you open your balcony to the next bacony?

thanks for the info...just by chance...i was looking at this ship and the 4 cabins aft on the aloha deck. i would love to see some pictures!!!

have a great time!

Hope you have a great cruise. Sounds like you are so far.

My son and his wife will be on the Sapphire in October for the 7 night Mexico cruise. Will you be posting any pictures?

Oh, I am envious. I was on the Sapphire on the Transpacific crossing last November, for 30 nights. We were right down the hall from you (A730)...don't you LOVE that location? We lost a day crossing the dateline, but are doing the cruise from Sydney to San Francisco next year at this time (on the Diamond), so we'll make it up then!

Is Mario still the Maitre D'? We had the best service on that ship, and I think it was because of the standard he set, and also the length of the cruise. Yes, there is ice cream in the Horizon in the afternoon, but it's just vanilla and chocolate, and I'm not even sure it's homemade, and the lines are way long for it, for some reason. There are lots of reasons to cruise the Sapphire, but free ice cream of quality is not among them.

Hi CWN, you say you are in A749. we will be in A744 & A746 accross the way from you on the Diamond May 14th. Is there any way you can post a few pictures of the cabin and deck. Is the size of the room a regular size or is it a little larger and same with the deck. We will be having both cabins so can the balcony partition come off. Is it as nice and secluded as we have heard. Is it easy access to most other places and is Skywalkers an easy place to go if the weather turns a little nasty. Thanks.....Roy

I have heard that this ship had several mechanical problems, how is it working now. We are staying in a inside jj cabin on the caribe deck. Will they serve steak every night if we ask for it? Carnival did on our last cruise.

So exciting to hear "live" reports from the Sapphire!! Hope everything runs smoothly for your trip and that all the bugs are worked out!!.

Take care of her til we get there next month!!

Deb

CWN,

Thanks for post on your current cruise. Brings back memories of our Sapphire Alaskan Cruise last August. We had a wonderful time. May the rest of your cruise go by ever so slowly.

Well, we are having too good a time!! I did find the ice cream- I really didn't want any, but it is a issue with my son's family and we had free ice cream on the Royal. The ice cream is good, but by no means the best thing on the ship! But still no lap blankets though the letter in our room from the President of Princess said they were availible on deck 15 midships. Oh well, I just asked for another blanket!

The problem in the Pacfic Moon that we were having greatly improved after my husband turned in a comment card the third time we had problems. We have received a personal response from the head man and there are more supervisiors on the floor at breakfast. The service is good now. Yes, you can have steak, chicken, shrimp or salmon evey night for the asking. I had grilled shirmp and my husband had a very nice steak last night. With the four set menus and the multi choice-ever changing main menu, there are many choices. You can order off any menu any night in any combination. Plus the things they always have availible for the asking. If you don't like something ask about something else. As far as I am concerned, of all the lines we have sailed, Princess food and choice is the best, consistently across the line. If you are having bad service write a comment, what they don't know about they can't fix! We have found if we do have a problem they will fix it if we turn in a writen coment.

The A749 cabin is the same size as other BA-BC catagories and the balcony is the same size as other A deck balconys and very private. There is enough room for a lounge chair and a table and two chairs. There is a small connecting door between the two balconys on the A deck aft cabins on each side side of the aft pool. The cabins are very private, comfortable and quiet-no ship noise at all and only slighty more movement than deck 6 midships in heavy seas. The deck access to the upper decks is right out the door or down the hall to the frist set of elevators-very good and easy to get to the aft pool, two aft hot tubs, skywalkers and the Horizen Court! The aft pool right is right out the door. We are enjoying the pool and hot tub in the afternoons-feels good in the cold and the veiw is neat. Usually we are the only ones in the pool and the deck chairs are not used much either even on sunny days. This my favorite part of any ship. The balcony door is very hard to open ie heavy, not sure any small child could open it. The railing is four feet plus high also. The Ship is very long so it is a hike to the front, but we need the exerise!

The days are going too fast now. We did go to Dutch Harbor this morning to pick up the US immigration officals. We had a great sail by of some of the Islands, plus the captain stayed in the harbor for a while so every one could see the town. I got a really nice picture of the church and my husband was able to see the WWII stuff from the ship. It was raining and, of course, cold plus a Crystall ship was at the dock(that was maybe why we were going to tender or else we were too big). If Princess has a problem, it is comunications with the passangers. If the Captain had told every one that we would do a sail by of the Island and we would be able to see the place, most people would have been satisfied. We were happy to see the area and get the $50 ship board credit to boot!

There is a lot of grumbling by some of the people we have eaten with-mainly the ones that have done back to backs. I have never felt a big Princess ship was would be my choice for a 40 of 50 day sail, but two to three weeks is great. They repeat most activities about every three weeks. Plus this is the first time for the Sapphire for all these ports and that has it own bag of surprises for everyone! She is truely a floating hotel.

We choose our cruises by the ports of call and the time. We like different ports and two to three weeks at sea. Plus places we can do a pre or post side trip. Over the years, Princess has had the most to offer along these lines. I hope this trend continues as we do like Princees, but these mega ships do have a problem with dock space in alot of the ports, plus the loggistics of 2600 people dropped in a small place all at once can be problematic too.

Well once again I have rambled on and not talked about the ports yet! We are having a great time on the beautiful new ship. I will try again on the ports later.

Glad to hear everyone's enjoying the cruise. Keep the reports coming as it's holding us over until we can sail. :) We love hearing about what happening on board Sapphire, makes the days until we board seem not as far away.

The computer is very slow today, but I will post a little on the cruise ports. They are doing immagration today. The 983 US aboard were cleared by noon, but they are working on the other now. It is 2pm and they are up to #1400, a ways to go yet. It is rainy, cold and rough seas today. There have been gale force winds off and on since last night I heard, but I have only seen 30 knots on the TV. I'm not sure that is gale force though. We were bobbing around like a cork last night about 11pm. This morning every one was real slow. There are many on the ship who have never been to Alaska so I hope the weather improves for us to morrow for Seward. This is our 4th time so we have seen all kinds of weahter.

We had a very easy fast boarding about 5pm on the 23rd. We went first to Honolulu for a few days. Then we stayed in Kyoto for 5 days pre-cruise and spent most of Sat doing last minute shopping and site seeing before getting a taxi at 3:30pm to drive us from our hotel direct to the pier. It cost about $112 dollars versus the $180 for the Princess bus from Kyoto that morning! The ship didn't sail till midnight, so I really didn't see any reason to rush. I really wanted to sight see. Apparrently there was a crowd trying to get on early, so glad we enjoyed the day in Kyoto. All our luggage arrived right away except the carry on bag with most of MY clothes. I unpacked what we had and went to our late seating dinner- table for four made up for two as we requested. When we got back to the cabin the other bag was there, unpcked it and went to bed. We were tired puppy dogs!!

After a relaxing day at sea, our first port was Nagasaki. We docked right down town, near the tram stop where we docked in Nov on the Royal. I was glad the ship wasn't to big. I think that is the main complainent from passenagers on the three earlier cruises. They were docking at the container piers and had a long trip to the town centers. Plus the peir area left much to be desired!

It was a nice mild spring day, with a few cherry bloosoms still on the trees and flowers in everyones flower boxes. Since we had been there in Nov, we skipped all the must sees(if you are interested in those go to my Nagasaki post on the roll call for S P Osaka April 23) and walked up to the neat little church near Glover Gardens about 9:30am. We explored some of the interesting little hiden streets. Then we took the tram to the covered shopping arcade. It is alot of fun to walk through. I was still looking for obis & the jackets ladies wear over their kimonos. I found three nice used obis in Kyoto at the monthly Toji Temple market on April 21. I also found a really nice antique one at a Kimono shop down from Nijo Castle. So I was just having fun. When we were there in Nov the shops were closed. This time I found two nice inexpensive jackets in the last Kimono shop we went in. We walked back to the ship through China Town. That was interestiong also. I found a few little things for the grandkids there.

We got back to the ship about 2:30. Dick went up and got some slices of Pizza and a nice big salad. We sat out on our balcony and had a nice lunch watching the harbor and shore activity. Nagasaki is one of my favorite ports of call. It is really a beautiful city. They are building a high bridge at the harbor intrance. It had extended out from each end in Nov and now is connected but not finished. We had a nice show by some locals just before sailing.

We fixed some drinks from the liquior and cokes I ordered from Princess for the cabin before we left on the cruise. Then sat back and enjoyed the sailaway view for our aft cabin balcony-snaks and drinks inhand-it was absolutely beautiful! I love this cabin!! The best thing I have ever done is to pre order the Crown Royal and cokes. It made things so easy on boarding day and really wasn't expensive-better than worrying about a bottle leaking in the suitcase! To me, it has always been a big brother finding six packs of cokes in the ports and bringing the liquior in the suitcase.

There seemed to be a number of enpty cabins on our floor when we sailed from Osaka. We found out why in Nagasaki. A large Japanese tour group boarded in Nagasaki along with a group of people flying United from San Fransico to Osaka. Their flight was canceled at the last minute and couldn't get to Osaka before the ship sailed. So they got to Osaka the next day and transferred to Nagasaki to board! Apparently is was some exprience!

On to Pusan---later!