Sapphire Princess to South America, hotel near Santiago airport or in the city? Dancing on Sapphire?

[gam888]

We are considering the Sapphire Princess to South America in March. It finishes in San Antonio, Chile. We are catching a flight home from Santiago to Canada. Thinking of joining an excursion on disembarkation day with the ship. It's a 8 to 9 hours excursion and they will drop you off at the Santiago airport. In order to join the ship excursion, you need to be on a flight leaving later than 9pm. But our flight leaves at 7:30pm  So we are thinking of staying in a hotel and catching a flight home the next day.  We are debating if we should book a hotel at the airport that has a free shuttle,. So after Princess drops us off at the airport after the excursion, we can take a free shuttle to the hotel. Since we don't need to be at the airport the next day until around 4:30pm (our flight departs at 7:30pm), we will have at least 4 to 5 hours the next day to do something. So don't know if it's convenient to take some kind of transportation from the airport hotel to Santiago city to spend some more time there, and then back to the airport hotel to collect our luggage from their storage, and take their free shuttle back to the airport. Or, should we book a hotel in Santiago itself. But we would have to get to the hotel in Santiago ourself after the excursion with Princess, because they are not going to drop us off there obviously. Could you please share your experience where you stayed if you did a post cruise visit in Chile. Any hotels you would recommend, we just need a clean place to stay for 1 night, no need for luxury hotels. We are concerned about the transportation issue. Also wonder if there is time to do a hop on and off bus, or hire a local tour company to do some sightseeing for maybe 4 hours before heading back to the airport. Also, we enjoy doing some ballroom dancing, in the previous Princess ships we have sailed on, there were usually a small amount of ballroom dancing available,  how are the music/dancing venues on the Sapphire Princess? 

[TBfrPH]

3 hours ago, gam888 said:

Also, we enjoy doing some ballroom dancing, in the previous Princess ships we have sailed on, there were usually a small amount of ballroom dancing available,  how are the music/dancing venues on the Sapphire Princess? 

We were aboard when the Sapphire had its first post-Covid cruise out of LA in September.  Entertainment line-ups do change every few months, but our experience was pretty recent and hopefully may still apply to your trip in March. 

 

It was the best dancing that we had for a long time by far.  There were 5 bands (including the house band) rotating amongst the Piazza (small), Wheelhouse Bar (more room),  Explorer's lounge (pretty good space) and Club Fusion (rare amount of dancing space by today's standard).  Every day/night we found opportunities for dancing somewhere, sometimes as early as noon on sea days and continuing into the night.  Not every number is conducive to ballroom, but there was enough to more than satisfy.  We had a blast!

[Bobbiegentry]

You tried. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[Aggie83]

I just did the Dec 19 Sapphire cruise from Santiago to BA and spent 5 days in Santiago before the cruise. My recommendation is to find either a tour that will pick you up from the cruise port and drop you off at a hotel in Santiago or an airport hotel.  If you stay at a hotel in Santiago, you can spend a few hours arrival day and the next day walking around Santiago.  The following day take a car from your hotel to the airport.   

 

There are private tours available from the cruise port that will take you to visit a winery in the Casablanca region and other sightseeing and they will drop you off at your hotel.  Check out Trip Advisor for tour options.  I had tried to do that tour in reverse (Santiago to the cruise ship) but unfortunately the tour company didn't have others sign up.  Ultimately, we used them to transport us from the hotel to the cruise port (San Antonio).  There are apparently a couple of bus lines from the airport to the city.  This site has some info:

 

✈ Transfer Options from Santiago Airport to City Centre (welcomepickups.com)

 

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by Aggie83
bus info

[farodeluzgirl]

A question to Aggie83: what do you think of the itinerary?  How do you rate the ports of call? Thanks