Review Sapphire Princess 12/10 - 12/17

[atdahop]

Let me begin by saying we have not been on Princess since 1994 but have been cruising on other lines. We decided to go back to Princess after the last few cruises on Royal Caribbean.

 

Embarkation: Arrived at the pier at 11:20. Since we drove my husband dropped me off and went to park the car and was back in ten minutes. Gave the luggage to the baggage guy and went in, up the escalator and right to the platinum check-in. Since I had done all the forms on line we were finished with cruise card in hand in less then 10 minutes. We were escorted to the platinum lounge where we waited till noon to board.

 

Cabin: Upon boarding we were directed to the 9th floor Dolphin Deck and our cabin 608, a mini-suite. Great cabin, lots of space, for us worth the money.

You can compare it size wise to a balcony on the Royal Caribbean ships, the main difference being the tub in the bathroom, RCCL cabins only have a shower in their balconies. Yes we did have the new duvets and down comfortors and also requested the feather pillows. Had a great Cabin Attendant, MIchael from the Phillipines...gave him $20 the first day and had terrific service. Also there were bottles of shampoo,etc from the Lotus spa.

 

Ship: Beautiful clubs, bars, and public rooms. Sometimes hard to navigate since the only floors you can go from one end to the other(inside) is Deck 7.

Also for those of you who are disabled the Princess Theater can be hard to navigate. You enter on Deck 7 front, although in order to get to the orchastra section you have to walk yp stairs then down stairs to get a seat. There is no other way to sit in the Orchestra.. The last three rows of the balcony are for persons who have trouble walking and usually there is a crew member to stop others from sitting there. There is a ramp, you have to look for it on deck 7 that will let you get to the top of the balcony. But that is ther only place a disabled person can use. Also the early shows are packed, standing room only so get there early. Not so bad in the late show.

 

Dining: We chose Anytime Dining which is not really anytime at all. The dining rooms opened at 5:30 and are not large and fill up so that if you wanted to eat at say 7:15, you were ok as long as there was a table available. If not then you could get in at 7:45 or 8. You could only make a reservation up to 6:15 and after 8. Only ate at the Savoy the entire trip and only encountered a problem the first night. If you are a party of 2 they will seat you as such. They do not look to put you with other couples. If you want to meet and dine with others then go traditional dining. We were lucky we found a great waitress, Erica from South Africa and were seated with her the entire week. Also, we met another couple from Toronto, on this board who were doing Traditional dining and they opted out the 3rd night and they joined us after that in the Anytime Dining. We had a great time and spent all our time with them and their son. Loved the food in the Savoy!

 

I will continue the review later. But if you have specific questions I will be happy to answer them.

 

I do have the patters and will try to scan them in.

 

Carole

[devinc]

thanks for the info. a couple of questions please.

 

what was the motion/waves like?

 

how was the food quality?

 

any excursions?

 

thanks!

[ams cruiser]

Carole,

 

Thanks so much for the review! A few questions:

 

What was the weather like?

Did you feel much motion on the boat, esp. on the Dolphin deck?

Did you take any excursions?

With Anytime Dining, did you make your reservations each day, or make them further in advance? Would you recommend the Savoy over the other dining rooms?

 

Thank you!

[atdahop]

Weather: the sea days were cool, especially the first and last. Too cool to sit outside, but I expected this since I have been on this cruise, different line the same week for the past two years. Once you get furthers south it gets warmer.

 

Motion: I am prone to motion sickness and I take a Bonine every morning. I used to use the patch but have stopped since the Bonine works for me. I did not feel any real motion at all. Very calm seas, but again that can change with the weather.

 

Food: We really did not have a bad meal. Thought food in all was good. The buffet food was good but was never hot enough. A lot of variey. Never ate in the dining room for breakfast or lunch, but if I wanted something really hot I would suggest that or the Grill. Great burgers and Pizza.

We made a reservation upon boarding ship for the Savoy. Could only make before 6:15 and after 8:00. Made it for 8 and there was a line but after the first day there was very little wait. We decided to stay with the Savoy because of the service and maybe since they knew us it became easier to get seated. We did tip the server, assistant, captain and asst. captain at the end of the cruise in addition to the daily service charge assigned us.

So we made reservations for 3 days at a time after the first dinner..Anytime worked great for us because we ate a few times at 6:15 and we wouldn't have been able to do this in the Traditional dining room. There was an evening that we wanted to see the regular show, and the oldies show and you could not do both usless you ate early.

 

Excursions: Did not take any. We have been there many times before. You can see these places on your own much cheaper then Princess and a lot of times more fun. In Mazatlain you can hire an open air car ( get 4 people togehter and share) and the driver will give you a city tour and take you to the Golden Zone for much less then the ship's tour. Make sure that the driver speaks some english, some do some speak very little.

Cabo.....you have so little time in Cabo what I would recommend is to walk into town and hire a guy riding a bicyle pulling a chair for 2, for any hour. He will give you the same tour for $20 that you would pay more than double on the ship's carriang ride, the only difference being a horse pulls this carriage instead of the guy on the bicycle.

In Puerto Vallarta, we just took the taxi to town and walked around for a few hours. I am not familiar with the ship's tours.

 

Hope this helps

Carole

[ams cruiser]

Carole,

 

This helps a lot! Thanks for taking the time to post, and glad to hear that you enjoyed the cruise. :)

[kayred]

thank you so much for the post, i am staying on the dolphin level (408) and I am glad that you liked the location.

 

Did you ever try to change the time of your reservation for dinner. I am thinking of making a dinner reservation for 8 but I would imagine a couple of times I would rather eat a half hour or so early....

 

Did you enjoy the shows, if so is there one that is your favorite?

 

Thanks again for the reviews, I love to hear about what others experience.

[atdahop]

Many days we made the reservation for 8 but arrived at 7:30 and since nobody was at our table we went right it, but remember not to do this on the formal nights the Savoy was really busy those nights so 8ish would be the likely hour to dine. Again everything has to do with how many in your party. They seem to have a lot of tables for 2.

 

The shows were ok. They had a hypnotist. That show was so funny, people do the strangest things when they are under. Also loved comedian Greg Otto. I was not that crazy about Lorenzo Clark, although many loved him. As far as the production show, they had a new team of dancers and had to change the day they performed to give them more time to rehearse so we skipped it. The last night is funny, I think the comedian was David Ware and singer can't remember her name but she was good. Also they showed the cruise video and did the what if bit. All in all, not bad entertainment. I enjoyed the shows in the smaller rooms, the oldies, the pop star contest,kareoke,(sorry about spelling).

 

Had a great time. You will love the ship!

 

Carole

[usgoobers5]

Thanks for the info. We will be sailing in January with a larger party 7 in all. Did it seem that the larger parties had a harder time getting seated for dinner? I plan on making reservations, but we ordinarily sit down for dinner around 6:30 ish and I can see that could be a problem. I figure we will be so busy that dinner time being later should not be a huge issue. We will be celebrating our anniversary on the 16th which I believe is one of the formal nights. Would it be silly to make reservations for one of the paid restaraunts? Should we wait and celebrate on another unformal night?:confused:

 

Sapphire Princess January 14th

[atdahop]

The Savoy had a few tables for larger groups that sometimes not occupied. I think that 6:15 would be a good time and would present no problem getting seated. Speak to the Maitre'D . It was Enrico and he was very nice or Marious, his assistant(wears a blueish/green jacket. They got to know us and we usually had our table when we wanted it.

Have fun,

Carole

[Pam in CA]

Carole, a silly question. When you embarked the first day, what part of the ship did you embark on? Forward, center or aft? The reason I'm asking is that my daughter will be wearing her "boot" (like a cast) and if we embark far forward, I might request a wheelchair since walking the entire length of the ship will be difficult for her. Our cabin is C722 so we're pretty far aft.

[rolando]

How was the lead singer in the production shows (Clint Clark). I met him some time ago on another ship. He just got on the Sapphire a few weeks ago.

[bearette]

Pam in Ma

They escort you in from the front and there are entrances on the front and middle. You have to start from the front the way the embarkation area is layed out.

[atdahop]

The way I remember it, we got on the ship without much walking. When we got on we were right by the center set of elevators. We were in D608 and had a short walk to the cabin. I would suggest a chair for the disembarkation because that is a really long walk to immigration.

Carole

[jpedge]

Our experience was very different to Carole unfortunately, we were a party of 11 for a family reunion birthday cruise. My family travelled from different parts of the world to meet in LA for the 7 day cruise to the Mexican Riviera. My wife and daughter and I shared a mini suite on the dolphin deck D716, we had made prior arrangements to share dinner with all 11 of us for at least 2 nights out of the 7, and had been assured this was possible.We quickly found out this was not to be the case. Not once was it possible to all eat together, we were happy to split the tables but found each time they were some distance apart, certainly not close enough to converse with one another. Needless to say we were very disappointed that some effort was not made to rectify the situation.

 

Our cabin steward never made up the room until late afternoon, and twice at 10.30pm the beds were not turned down or the bed from the ceiling brought down for my daughter. We asked that the cabin supervisor come to our room, he asked if we would like a new steward, we said that would be a great idea. Did it happen?? not a chance, the same steward continued to service our cabin albeit in a much more efficient manner.

 

Next the balloons and the champagne for my birthday surprise were never delivered as ordered, along with the bathroom robes.

 

Now I have cruised quite a lot in the past and would never consider myself a whinning pax, but these incidents certainly were very unacceptable, especially the lack of effort to seat us either together or close to each other at dinner.

 

On the plus side the mini suite was really nice and roomy, the staff in the restaurants and bars were extremely cheerful and helpful. The ship is beautiful, and we did think the food on the whole was very good.

 

At the end of the cruise we filled in the comment form accordingly, and asked that the $10 per day tips be taken off our bill, we then asked for separate gratuity envelopes and tipped the people that deserved it.

 

We may have been very unfortunate in our experience, others on the ship may have had a great experience, but for us we probably will not cruise with Princess again :(

[Ula]

jpedge,

I am so very sorry. We were on this cruise and for us it was wonderful. Made up for our last one and I will explain why and you can relate.

Our last Princess cruise the cabin steward was horrible. We could not even loan him a clue. We spent our time working around him and to his very strange schedule. He did not get a personal tip. We did leave on the 10.00 a day. That does cover the whole ship. We would not punish the whole for one twit.

If this cruise would have run that same way I would have reconsidered the line. But sometimes, I guess you do get stuck with the great clueless. I blamed it on the kid being new. Personally complaining about that will I think fix the problem pronto.

[atdahop]

jpedg

 

Gosh, I feel horrible that you and your family suffered such poor service. But it sure show what a difference an experienced Steward can make. What time did you leave your cabin in the morning? Also did you have Anytime Dining or Traditional? In the Savoy there was a huge table seating at least 10 or 12 that went unused almost all the time we were there. We did see four people seated there one night and on second formal night it was full, but otherwise was unoccupied.

 

Also, my Steward never put the spreads on following the first day, which was fine with us, in fact on a cruise I usually ask them to leave it off...much more sanitary. But our cabin was always made up by 10 am. As for the robes I asked for one and 2 extra feather pillows and 2 extra regular pillows the moment we arrived and got them immediately. I also tipped $20 when we arrived but that does not always insure great service. I guess we were luckier than you.

 

We have been on other cruise lines and it's always the luck of the draw. We had a horrible waiter on RCCL last year and truthfully it ruined our entire dining experience. The food always came late and was not hot because he was taking care of a table of 12 before us and since they discontinued the wine stewards the waiter had to take on that job and these folks loved their wine so by the time he got around to our table of six it was quite late in the seating. We were first getting our appetizers when the tables around us were having their main courses. Of course we should have complained but we didn't so it's partly our fault.

 

Hope you try Princess again

Carole

[jpedge]

jpedg

 

Gosh, I feel horrible that you and your family suffered such poor service. But it sure show what a difference an experienced Steward can make. What time did you leave your cabin in the morning? Also did you have Anytime Dining or Traditional? In the Savoy there was a huge table seating at least 10 or 12 that went unused almost all the time we were there. We did see four people seated there one night and on second formal night it was full, but otherwise was unoccupied.

 

Also, my Steward never put the spreads on following the first day, which was fine with us, in fact on a cruise I usually ask them to leave it off...much more sanitary. But our cabin was always made up by 10 am. As for the robes I asked for one and 2 extra feather pillows and 2 extra regular pillows the moment we arrived and got them immediately. I also tipped $20 when we arrived but that does not always insure great service. I guess we were luckier than you.

 

We have been on other cruise lines and it's always the luck of the draw. We had a horrible waiter on RCCL last year and truthfully it ruined our entire dining experience. The food always came late and was not hot because he was taking care of a table of 12 before us and since they discontinued the wine stewards the waiter had to take on that job and these folks loved their wine so by the time he got around to our table of six it was quite late in the seating. We were first getting our appetizers when the tables around us were having their main courses. Of course we should have complained but we didn't so it's partly our fault.

 

Hope you try Princess again

Carole

 

Hi Carole thank you for replying to our post, we did leave the cabin every morning before 7.30 am usually popping back to pick up our towels and head off to the upper deck. Also we did have anytime dining, probably a mistake now looking back in hindsight. We did eat in the Savoy 3 nights, and again were told that the row of tables along one wall could not be used for all of us due to the fact that there were tables for two amongst them??? One thing I also forgot, we paged the steward for towels for the pool at 1.50pm,no reply, paged again at 2.30pm, no reply, so we resorted to the customer service desk, after three calls to them we finally received our towels at 4.30pm. Then at 7.25pm we received a reply from our steward to the original page at 1.50pm, not to shabby after a five hour wait!!

 

In all trurthfulness we may be persuaded to try Princess again in the future, others in my group had a better experience except for the dining arrangements, so we were probably just unlucky.

 

Happy holidays.

 

James :)