HaveDogWillTravel

The English take their fish and chips quite seriously. The best I’ve ever had was on the QM2 light fluffy chips and delicate, crispy perfect fish. The Brits on board said it was “OK”. I can’t imagine how it could have been improved on. While Princess never had fish & chips that good, they at least did a decent job when they had pub day in Wheelhouse. Those were the days! One of the rotating items on the new menu is chicken enchiladas (on sapphire anyway). They were pretty good.

We had excellent weather on our sailing and my friends are having great weather as well on the current return trip. I say excellent because one does expect cold, wind and rain. One also expects extremely rough seas. So to me excellent means the cold was bearable, the winds didn’t keep the outer decks closed, the rain was brief and not heavy the few times it came, the seas thru Drakes passage were like the potato patch out of San Francisco at its worst. And while in the Antarctica seas it was like sailing on a lake. Lots of sun breaking thru. From passengers onboard who’ve sailed this route multiple times I understood this trip to have the best weather & seas they’ve experienced.

Hi I was on the first Santiago to BA leg the Sapphire just did (I boarded in LA) and my friends stayed on and went back to Santigo. I’ll attach the Santiago to BA map thru the Antarctic for you. I see someone already posted the BA to Santiago map. While the best side is outside, with the below freezing temps compounded by strong winds we did have to spend some time inside even though we were very well prepared with multiple layers and good quality parkas and other outerwear. Surprisingly, the views on both sailings were best from starboard while in Antarctica until we got to Deception Island then port side was optimal. This was the first time the aft view was mostly not as good. I had the last Emerald deck starboard aft mini suite and my husband had the B4 aft facing balcony next to the vista suite on Emerald deck. We barely used his balcony! We always sale aft facing in Alaska where this affords just the best views. So we were shocked at how that did not hold up in Antarctica! Yes the Captain did sail by A23a iceberg on both the first sailing and the second. It was humbling to say the least. We also missed Hope Bay due to too much ice.

The pub lunch was only offered in the buffet and was horrible. The coating was thick and rubbery. The fish was over cooked and dry. This was what I experienced on my 19 day Emerald sailing Aug/Sept 2023 and my 34 day Sapphire sailing Dec 2023/ Jan 2024. Really disgusting. Why do they bother? And what kind of person actually eats this? How can anyone find that palatable?

Wow thanks for posting your experience!

I’m just getting caught up reading your live from! You took my birthday cruise without me this year 😂. Great comments, I always live reading your threads. 🥰 I am so sad to hear they are going towards those industrial glasses. I just got off 34 days on Sapphire and they were really strict about not taking those glasses out of MDR or vines. I did bring enough good glasses for me, Adam and our friend on board. But what a pain. I’m so happy you guys had such a good time! What a treat with that whale show! We will see you for the Eclipse!

Great start to your live from! I just disembarked in BA Jan 4th and stayed thru Jan 6th night. There is currently a huge mosquito explosion in BA. Insect repellent of any kind is hard to come by. My friends who stayed on for the next leg back to Santiago said their balcony was so overtaken with mosquitoes they couldn’t use it and GS came and sprayed it with raid. The promenade deck and deck 15 were similarly over run with the buggers. My poor husband got bitten quite a lot during our time in BA. Coconut sunscreen helped though the day he had it on. The enrichment speakers and naturalists onboard were excellent and all the talks are in your tv. You’ll have a great time. It was stunning.

You can buy ginger pills as well. You start taking them a couple of days before boarding and then keep taking them every day. They are quite effective. Adam gets horribly sea sick and hates to take drugs for a lot of reasons unless there is simply no alternative. The pressure bands and ginger pills do the trick even in the worst of it. As a side note, I read the original research paper where the ginger pills were tested in randomly assigned controlled trials. Pregnant women were their test subjects and the process, protocols and statistical analysis were sound. I’m a statistician (and a professor) and can usually find a flaw in anyone’s experimental design. This study was graded an A. Lol.

@misguy Thank you for the photos and updates to your sailing. I am really enjoying reading about your experiences. @medskis I just booked this itinerary (different line but will watch WS to see if they offer it) for April 2026. I’ll admit I haven’t done any research yet. I assume you are referring to very rough seas in this area? Or were there issues with the ship and or staff? Apologies to @misguyfor a brief off topic query.

Thank you so much for the kind words @BellaBayi truly appreciate them. @medskis The tender issue was only that one time and on subsequent tender days they used the other side of the ship or the prevailing winds were in our favor. We simply loved having that balcony door open with fresh air and sound of the sea. Packing for your trip will be a challenge with the skiing part first, but how wonderful! We just returned from 39 days….LA to Buenos Aires with 4 days scenic cruising in Antarctica. We actually sailed by the largest iceberg in the world (A23a) that recently dislodged. It was massive and quite a treat. Anyway our weather went from high 80’s and humid to 28 degrees F with 40-50 km winds so biting, freezing cold. As we were determined to be on the outer decks for these spectacular scenic days we brought all the gear and were not disappointed that we went to all that trouble. Our days in BA were hot and humid which meant a change of clothes needed before dinner after being out in it. It was a horrific amount of luggage. I keep swearing that I am going to pack less and someday I hope to succeed. I don’t really engage with the entertainment staff on cruises. A combination of port intensive itineraries and cruising style mean events don’t usually align with what we want to do. ‘’That said we did wonder up decks for a beer one day and found our ED just starting a lively game of Beer Trivia. Adam is a home brewer so we thought oh boy finally a trivia game where we don’t feel like complete idiots! We soon found out we know nothing about beer but it was a good time. The beer was cold, the skies were clear, the seas were calm and the other guests were fun. We thought she did a good job of it. She would also be up decks with Willhelm scooping out fresh ice cream some afternoons. I’ll attach some pictures. I just booked the Wind Spirit, 7 day Med Is mosaic, for Oct 27 this year. The itinerary looked very interesting and it gets us back to Barcelona from Rome after taking the Oceania Vista Barcelona to Rome Oct 3rd followed by 2 weeks in Italy on land. I read the reviews of the Wind Spirit cabins and picked 127. The tiny cabin will be a new experience for both of us and we figure we can do anything for 7 days. But again there’s only one sea day and we have 2 very late nights in port.

The link to my review that @Crystabelso kindly posted is a very comprehensive recent review of the sapphire D736 cabin. My friend was in the aft facing balcony on that trip so I got to contrast and compare the two. Her balcony was much less windy than mine but mine had better vistas for scenic cruising. I think having both available to use was the best of all worlds. But if I had to choose only one I’d choose D736 for the couch and living room space.

Thanks for doing this review! It’s great to get more information about WS from those onboard. We sailed on star legend in October 2023. Sounds like the same executive chef we had, Joseph. We missed doing the Shop with the Chef excursion as we had a different one that day. I loved his cooking demonstration. I’m glad it’s working out well for you even though there’s a bit more mobility required than you expected. Was it a third party TA or a Windstar cruise vacation planner who initially asked if your wife could “handle a few steps?”. Please post photos if you are able. Especially of your favorite crew. Thank you for taking the time to do this!

I’m glad you found this useful. Thank you for saying so. We are just finishing up 34 days on Sapphire Princess LA to Buenos Aires. We are finding that we really miss the food and level of service we received on WS. In fact we are missing it so much we booked another WS sailing for this coming October on one of the sailing ships from Rome to Barcelona.

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I use Nikon Monarch M7 10 by 42. I love them. I use an OUFABE harness to hold them. It’s elastic and takes all the pressure off my neck so I can wear them comfortably all day long. Binos are only good if you can have them with you always and have fast access to using them. Adam carries his in a backpack. Guess who sees more cool stuff?

We have a full ship at just a hair under 2600 souls. For Adam & I the NYE celebration was in our mini suite with our good friends watching The Next Generation Season 1’s best episodes that we downloaded before boarding. The patter will show what the rest of the ship was doing. And hopefully someone on this sailing will pipe in on those events. Adam has the premium package and tried to get a glass of the Hasslinger premium champagne last night around 8 pm and gave up after being told at wheelhouse and crooners they were out. I had purchased the sparkling 3 bottle wine package so I shared my Veuve with him and friends. I thought it rather sad that at least at those two bars there was no premium champagne for NYE. Passengers shouldn’t have to run around from deck to deck trying to find what’s included in their package. Especially not champagne on NYE!

The Bluff cove excursion thru Princess was outstanding. The snacks and beverages served were excellent. A short 15 minute drive from the pier.

There you go OP @Old Sea Dog These should give you the information you’re looking for regarding entertainment offerings. Sorry I can’t review any of the shows, activities or music other than the outstanding Diamond Strings Duo. maybe someone from this sailing will eventually see this thread and pipe in. There’s also a FB group for this sailing that’s pretty active so you might try asking questions there too.

We did not get scenic cruising at Cape Horn due to weather. We got to view iceberg a23a that recently broke free. The largest iceberg in the world. And we got to Antarctica earlier too so great trade offs.