Sapphire 10/2 Review Part3

Games: during the day they had several trivia games, scavenger hunts, pictionary etc. The prizes for the winners were things like luggage tags, passport holders, Princess sipper bottles. Wanda played trivia several times and I am happy to say we know have a passport holder and a sippy bottle.

Weight: Hey I lost 2 pounds, I should go on more cruises maybe I could drop this extra 20 I have!

Communication Breakdown: We had our 15th wedding anniversary celebration at Sabatini's, great as usual. One of the wait staff served us when we were on Star 13 months ago. Well after eating 17 courses of food, ending with 2 large lobster tails and a very, very, very RICH cake (brought to the table with a candle and 3 singing waitpersons) we waddled up to our cabin. It was about 9 o'clock we were just stuffed and what was awaiting us, a shrimp platter, a cheese and cracker platter and a dozen chocolate dipped strawberrys. These were all anniversary gifts from our CC buddies (along with 2 bouteniers (sp) sent before dinner. So, we have all this food and the frige isn't big enough to store it. I went and hunted down our friends and told them we LOVED everything, they shouldn't have and it was all in the room, was anyone hungry? What they were told when they ordered it was that a card would be in our cabin and we COULD CALL FOR the trays when we wanted them! The person at the passenger service desk told me "no, no, if this is ordered BEFORE the cruise a card will be delivered to the cabin, but not if it is orded while ON the cruise. While I stood there and waited she called room service told them of the problem. When done she told me, no problem someone from room service will pick up the trays and deliver them when we request them the next day. I then made my way back to the room, when I entered the hallway I saw a room service person in fromt of our door and Wanda who knew nothing of this, trying to figure out what was going on. (I didn't think they would get up there that fast). The person TOOK the trays and dissapeared, two minutes later I got a call from room service manager? who told me they could NOT keep the shrimp as it was "seafood" so it could not be kept overnight (like they never use day old shrimp in the buffet?) SO we had to take it back. I informed him I was told it was ok, I had no place to put it, surely would not eat it and really wanted to tell him to sick it up............................oops. I then said better not to let it go to waste, give it to the staff, his relpy was he couldn't do that, I was now pretty ticketed and told him to throw it out! Thinking he wouldn't do that, his answer "well sir, your room will still be charged for this shrimp" So it was one more trip down to the desk, another phone call to room service and NOW It WAS OK, they would keep the shrimp and bring it the next day at 2:30. We got it, took it to Marilyn and Pats suite and all were able to munch on it. I don't know if my frustration will come thru here but this was a bad example of "customer service"

We loved the cruise and the ship. Had a great time and want to get back aboard tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed this read, if you have any questions, fire away. Sorry for any typos/spelling.

Thanks for your great review! We will be on the November 11th sailing and I can hardly wait. Reading your review made me wish we were leaving tomorrow! What time did you disembark in San Fran? If you weren't one of the first ones off, do you know when they started the process? We have an early flight, so I'm curious.

Well done Chuck. I will have to agree with you in that we had a fantastic bunch of roll call people on this ship. We spent alot of time together and felt like all of them were old time friends.

I will add that it took us a few days to get our bearings in moving around the ship. I am a pretty good direction finder but this ship even messed me up a couple of times. I am not sure if it was the way the elevators were placed or what but I had a heck of time figuring out what was starboard, port, bow or aft. But after a number of days I finally got the hang of it.

Marilyn

Tara, thnks for you question and be sure to read all 3 parts of the review.

I listed a private pick up at 9am on our disembakation forms (you get those to fill out a few days before the end, sniff). If I remember correctly they started about 7:45-8 and we were called off at 8:30, since our ride couldn't get into the city until close to 10 we hung out on the promenade deck for awhile before leaving (really helped us find our bags).

Marilyn, why didn't you remember the coral strip on the carpet runner in the hall was the port side and the blue strip starboard? Even though I knew that I still got turned around until day 8..........LOL

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=90021

hey all of you guys, the above link is for part 2...............it looks like everyone is here and no one is over there..................LOL

Thanks for sharing your cruise with us. Terrible communication with the tray ordeal. Happened to me a few cruises ago. The tray was sitting in our room when we got back from dinner. But they took it away when I called and explained. They brought a new, fresh tray the next day. That's what they should have done with you without all the hassle. Horrible customer relations. Shame on Princess. Overall, it sounds like you had a great cruise and didn't let that ruin it for you.

Great review. Just finished all three installments.

Any ports or excursions you would like to comment on? :)

lynda, heck no, the tray ordeal was a hassal and the room service manager should get a tongue lashing, it was horrible customer service but again, it was the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing........it probably passed through several people and departments before reaching us, it was really stupid to pile all that stuff in our room when we weren't there and ESPECIALLY after Sabatini's LOL.

Northender, sorry a little late on getting back to you, I do hope you pick this back up. We did an 8 day last March and went horseback riding with Randi in Mazatlan back then, she is a real character and I highly recommened her to all. I hadn't been on a horse in over 20 years, had a blast! We wanted some of her t-shirts (which she didn't have last March) so we made arrangements to meet up with her before she took out her group and get the shirts. We got them and bs'd with her for awhile, she is booking in 2006 now! Anyhow we get all the way back to the ship and see we have 5 shirts not the 4 we paid for so back we go............when we get back to her we told her she gave us one too many, "we have 5 not 4"........."I know" she said "I gave you an extra one" That's the kind of person she is.

In San Diego we did the old town trolly tour, it was about 2 hours and hit all the highlights of the city, what we found out when we got on the trolly is this: they run about every 30 minutes and at all the different highligts (like the zoo or the Coranado Hotel etc.) they stop and you have off/on privledges, so you can get the tour and hop off at visit any of the cool spots where it stops, old town, gaslamp area, zoo, coranado etc. Well worth of few bucks for just the tour.

Very dissapointed in P.V. and what we thought would be a Tequila Factory tour and a visit to an old church. The country drive throught the dirty poverty stricken viallages was interesting but one was enough, not 6 of them and the Tequila tour was not much more than a sales pitch for 25 buck and up hootch.

Cabo we just ran in to get the usual gifts and were so turned off with the pushy vendors, what about NO don't you understand? I laughed my butt off at the "glass bottom boats" they looked like row boats with a square cut out of them and saran wrap stretched over the top.

We will do Mexico again but are not big adventure's so no para sailing, snorkeling for us, we will just stay on the ship and eat!

Catmand,

Thanks for the great reviews. We will be on the Nov. 11 cruise. We have done this itinerary many times, but the lure of sailing frm SF is too much!!!

I feel like we are neighbors - we live in North Concord. Keep on sailing.

Sally

I am seriously considering this cruise for Thanksgiving 2005.....thanks for the great review. Really do appreciate your comments.

PS I'm in Martinez!

The "Shrimp Platter Incident" is so weird. I'm really surprised they just didn't come get it and bring you another one when you wanted it, considering how much food must get thrown out on that ship every day. Very poor judgement on Room Service's part.

Thanks again for the great review! I would love to take this same cruise again.

I am absolutely appalled that the room service person said, "Your room steward will be charged for the shrimp." As if the room steward had anything to do with it. Shame on that person. They should have just helped you and solved the problem. The food cost of a tray of shrimp is really negligible on a ship that size, and is already accounted for in the long run. Especially as this was bad communication on the part of the ship's staff, and had little to nothing to do with the room steward.

It really reflects badly on Princess.

No, not the room steward......the room service manager siad "Your room will be charged" which I think was almost as bad.