Sapphire 4 day coastal praises......

[Qcruise]

Well, we just got off the Sapphire this morning at 8am, I'm here at work lunch time and reading some terribly nasty recent reviews by folks just off her prior to us. I find it troubling that folks must be so quick to look at what they "expect" to have instead of what they "do have". We were so blessed to have a crew that worked hard for us, fed us gourmet food, cleaned after us everywhere.....it's a well oiled machine, kudos to all her crew and staff. Our weather was incredible, not a marine layer to be seen, Santa Barbara was great.....sea day was sunny and warm, and Ensenada was very windy but nice. My review will be posted in a few days, but in the mean time please believe that Princess still delivers.....thanks to all.....:)

[candide333]

We are sailing to Osaka on Thursday and unlike many, I love watching movies in our minisuite. Were the tv's finally working properly? I was last on the Sapphire in January and the new tv's were fine, but the boxes had not been installed. I look forward to reading your review.

[Qcruise]

We had no issues with our TV.....however did not use all of the features

[RickEk]

We are sailing to Osaka on Thursday and unlike many, I love watching movies in our minisuite. Were the tv's finally working properly? I was last on the Sapphire in January and the new tv's were fine, but the boxes had not been installed. I look forward to reading your review.

 

We also just got off this cruise. The TV's were working in our stateroom. VERY NICE! You can start a movie, stop it and resume at a later time. There was music, TV shows, news and sports and movies. There were a few glitches... it wasn't available for a few minutes one morning, but all in all, it worked very well. The resolution was also very good. TV shows (even The Love Boat!) looked great with an almost 3D-ish quality.

 

As for the service, we had great service, the crew was uniformally friendly. The steak I had at the Sterling Steakhouse was probably the best I've ever had on Princess! Done to perfection...

 

They're still working on the ship's interiors. There was carpeting stored on Sun deck near the main pool. There was also some construction type smells (lacquer, glue, that kind of thing) in some areas. Nothing terribly offensive though.

[critterchick]

We are also just off this cruise and had a surprisingly wonderful experience. Sapphire was our second-least favorite Princess ship when we boarded, but she really redeemed herself. We found the MDR food and service to be outstanding, which I have not experienced in recent years on any Princess ship. Our suite attendant was terrific and most of the other staff and crew we encountered had really upbeat attitudes and provided excellent service.

 

Yes, there were a few issues, such as the pouting and overly negative winetender in Vines (who also seemed to know nothing about the wines she was pouring) and the room service delivery person whose English was limited to "hello," "thank you," and "I don't understand," but for the most part we were very pleased with the ship.

 

The ship is in transition for the Asia season (which one officer told us is a multi-year commitment), so the front desk was staffed mainly with Chinese personnel, the casino was swapping out machines (and there were a lot missing, but that saved me money:D) and they were doing a lot of touching up around the ship.

 

We had a terrific first night dinner in Sabatini's and enjoyed breakfast there daily as a suite perk. We both purchased the beverage package (it was required that each adult in the cabin do so) and, although we easily got our money's worth, I don't think I'll do it again - I tended to say, "sure, why not?" every time I was offered another drink, and that just wasn't healthy.:eek:

[shredie]

Me too! We were on this cruise, and I found just about everything a notch below par. But just a notch. There were lots of problems with the transitioning to Asia work, but we still had fun. I liked the new TVs a lot.

[happymom88]

We were on this cruise a little over a week ago. Had a great time! Yes, the weather could have been better, but no one can fix that:)It is nice that the Sapphire does have the one 'inside' pool for bad weather. I think the 'vibe' on a shorter cruise is a little different than on a 7+day cruise, but that's just how it is. The food and entertainment were great and the ship was, well, ship-shape as they say. Always very clean and well taken care of. Would do it again in a heartbeat!

[rubrrick]

We were on the Sea of Cortez cruise, and stayed aboard for a 4 night coastal, that was supposed to take us to Santa Barbara, but because of all of the rain that the West Coast received shortly before, there was too much mud that had not been dredged out for the tenders to reach the pier, so it was announced on our day of departure that we would be going instead.......to Catalina Island.

 

The ship overall was in pretty good shape, but new crew were coming aboard, that were Asian, and we knew that the ship would be headed for Asia in the first part of April.

 

The TV's were in the process of being worked on, and, at the very best, were intermittent.

 

Sabbatini's was excellent, and I gained a couple of pounds eating the poached eggs over home friend potatoes in the mornings, along with a couple of mimosas every morning.:rolleyes:

 

We found more positives than negatives aboard, and all in all, a very good couple of cruises!:)

 

Rick

[Colo Cruiser]

They have been working on the TV's for several months now.

[rubrrick]

Me too! We were on this cruise, and I found just about everything a notch below par. But just a notch. There were lots of problems with the transitioning to Asia work, but we still had fun. I liked the new TVs a lot.

 

It's good that you had a cabin where the TV's worked. It was explained to me that the system ran vertically, with modems on the low decks, and then the receiver boxes on TV's on cabins above the modems. When the ship was built, coaxial cable was used, which presented a problem to installing the new system.

 

One of the ships officers took me to an empty cabin, where the TV's were working under the new system, and apart from the fact that not all systems were functional, I was amazed at what the system was capable of doing, and as someone else here mentioned, one could start a movie, put it on hold, and at a later time go back to it. A very nice upgrade when completed.

 

Rick

[stinky1]

To the OP, glad you had a good cruise. But I think you would have seen the best in this cruise, inspite of any troubles. So, you will always enjoy your time cruising ! We where on her in November, and felt sorry for the crew with short turnaround time, but they made it a wonderful trip.

[Qcruise]

My wife and I love to cruise, we have not done all that many of them, and used Carnival, RCI and Princess so far. We still work and consider ourselves blessed to be able to vacation like this. Gosh, we're on a cruise....how bad can it be.....everyone works so hard for us. I know the Sapphire is going through some changes and not everything is perfect, but we choose to look at all the great things, and we're also greatful we're healthy enough to be able to continue to work so we can afford to do this. I just wrote my review so it should get out there in a few days.....thanks to all.....

[jerlen]

Well, we just got off the Sapphire this morning at 8am, I'm here at work lunch time and reading some terribly nasty recent reviews by folks just off her prior to us. I find it troubling that folks must be so quick to look at what they "expect" to have instead of what they "do have". We were so blessed to have a crew that worked hard for us, fed us gourmet food, cleaned after us everywhere.....it's a well oiled machine, kudos to all her crew and staff. Our weather was incredible, not a marine layer to be seen, Santa Barbara was great.....sea day was sunny and warm, and Ensenada was very windy but nice. My review will be posted in a few days, but in the mean time please believe that Princess still delivers.....thanks to all.....:)

 

I was also on the Sapphire just prior to your experience. It goes without saying, any cruise is a good cruise to me. However, having been on many Princess cruises (13), I can say without hesitation, that this cruise was not up to Princess' usual standards. The food was disappointing, and the service was less than it normally is. Based on previous trips, I "expected" better, simply because I have had much better. We have two more booked for the late summer and fall and my expectation is that they will measure up to what we have come to expect from Princess. In any event, I will feel free to express both positive and negative comments.

[sueajp]

We also just got back from the 4 day cruise. This was our 4 th Princess and our 10 th cruise. Overall it was a nice trip but there were a lot of little annoying things. The carpet in our room was soaking wet near our bathroom door when we came on board . The room steward fixed it when asked, they even brought in a dryer when we went out for the day. The carpet was coming up in the closet area. Not a deal breaker but not ideal. The lamps were in bad shape. Food was ok most of the time. You could def see the Asian influence in the Horizon Court. I will write a full review soon but it was different on a 4 day cruise! Great entertainment btw! Mostly met some interesting folks!

 

 

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[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for your comments.

[loma linda ca a & j]

we enjoyed 2 4 day and the 10 day sea of cortez which was exceptional

& were so lucky to meet really fun people at the sailaways, m & g, dinner mates,

and the same cabin & same steward (wilson) for all 3 !!

we loved being on plaza deck inside cabin P230 not far from international cafe

& elevator to casino & theater !! ;)

 

looking forward to booking 4 more short or long cruises between now and

next spring so we can be elite for our TA !!:D

as others have said, how can people be negative ??

we have loved every cruise we've ever taken even on carnival !!!:)

Edited April 2, 2014 by loma linda ca a & j