Live From the Sapphire Princess! (29 April - 10 May)

[nini]

I think you have the same Naturalist we did last September on the Grand. She was amazing and braved the elements while cheering us on!

[AlibearNS]

6 hours ago, SleepyBunny said:

A few notes for followers on this Live. Currently on this ship as well!  Super friendly staff, ship is super clean and in great condition.  Does not feel very full, but I haven't heard the total pax count yet (maybe at the M&G we will find out).

 

Coffee has not transferred to the Lavazza brand deal yet. 

 

Dinner was delicious at our slightly later visit to the International Dinning Room also, but our waiter & his partner had a rough day. Slow, no drink orders, took forever to even put our order in, water glasses stayed empty for long times, had to get a HW twice to be looked after.  2h30 minutes for dinner ☹️ Going to try a different dinning room tonight for formal night.

We had a similar experience in Vivaldi. And this morning we noticed while checking the menu that our long-standing reservation for the Savoy tonight had been switched from a private table for two to shared! Reservations line insisted their system wouldn’t do that, nothing they could do except advise we turn up and wait as usually someone doesn’t show and we’d get THEIR reservation! Here’s the thing, DH’s app hadn’t been updated and still showed the reservation as it was before they changed it so we got a screenshot! His app changed to shared just after. Also just noticed an email very late last night to say our reservation had been changed but the details looked the same so someone did something! Needless to say we’ve taken it higher but still waiting to hear. Very frustrating that we’ve lost our reservation for formal night and annoyed at being gaslit by Princess ☹️

[nini]

17 minutes ago, AlibearNS said:

We had a similar experience in Vivaldi. And this morning we noticed while checking the menu that our long-standing reservation for the Savoy tonight had been switched from a private table for two to shared! Reservations line insisted their system wouldn’t do that, nothing they could do except advise we turn up and wait as usually someone doesn’t show and we’d get THEIR reservation! Here’s the thing, DH’s app hadn’t been updated and still showed the reservation as it was before they changed it so we got a screenshot! His app changed to shared just after. Also just noticed an email very late last night to say our reservation had been changed but the details looked the same so someone did something! Needless to say we’ve taken it higher but still waiting to hear. Very frustrating that we’ve lost our reservation for formal night and annoyed at being gaslit by Princess ☹️

I am so sorry about the confusion. However, we found that being at a table for two may as well have been a table for six. The people next to us on each side were about 12 inches away.

[AlibearNS]

Just now, nini said:

I am so sorry about the confusion. However, we found that being at a table for two may as well have been a table for six. The people next to us on each side were about 12 inches away.

That’s very true! But at least you don’t feel obliged to talk to them 🙂 Last night our two pairs of neighbours on the left of us decided to have a conversation about their kids worst bodily mis functions. And I always thought it was only politics and religion you shouldn’t talk about at dinner 🤮

[nini]

41 minutes ago, AlibearNS said:

That’s very true! But at least you don’t feel obliged to talk to them 🙂 Last night our two pairs of neighbours on the left of us decided to have a conversation about their kids worst bodily mis functions. And I always thought it was only politics and religion you shouldn’t talk about at dinner 🤮

 

All I can say is; Oh no!!!

[EDVM96]

Some photos of the day

 

 

 

Alaskan Crab Cake

 

Gnocchi with Truffled Creme

 

Roasted Beef Tenderloin

 

MDR food is pretty good so far.

 

[dalsnibba]

How is the ship after drydock?
Renovated cabins (bathroom door...)
balconies,...?
common areas?
Thanks again

 

 

 

 

15 hours ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

Yeah, that’s not what I expected to see. We cancelled the Majestic and changed to the Sapphire for this reason (predominately, there are other pluses too). 

Exact same thing for us.

 

 

 

12 hours ago, EDVM96 said:

 

But it was cleary shown in the Princess journey mini-map that we would go outside of Vancouver Island.

 

I hadn't seen the map for this trip,  so everything was fine. Well.

 

 

 

[Drdarkknight]

We woke up at 6am due to the time change. After going back an additional hour last night we are now two hours behind MST. Being the nerd I am, I said to my husband “I’ve never been in this time zone before!” 

 

One thing I will say about inside cabins is you definitely feel the ship moving a lot more. We were rocking and rolling all night. Unfortunately once I was up and moving about it seemed to be ship-wide. I guess we’ve hit some rough waters. 

 

I have no idea how I managed to do this but my husband ended up joining me in getting up for 8am. We went downstairs to the International Cafe for a small breakfast. He was unfortunately feeling pretty seasick but he pushed through. I had a delicious egg tart and a ham and cheese sandwich. Super quick and tasty - I’ll definitely keep this place in mind for early mornings. 

 

Our first Naturalist presentation was at 9am in the Princess Theater. We arrived quite early but there were already people waiting. By the time the presenter was due to start, the theater was quite busy! The topic was Discovering the Inhabitants of Alaska’s Coastal Waters, presented by Sandra Schempp. It was very informative, especially the sections about salmon and whales. It made me really excited about all the wildlife we will hopefully be able to see this trip! Before we left my husband bought me a notebook for the trip (I’m a nerd) and I had already filled three pages of it with information from just this lecture. 

 

After this presentation my husband went off on his own and I stayed seated, awaiting the Shore Excursion presentation at 10am. All our excursions are already booked but I wouldn’t mind hearing more about the ports, especially since most our excursions are only half a day. It was informative for sure, though it did focus more on the excursions being sold, with some fun facts added in. 

 

My husband enjoyed the Welcome to Princess Event even though he didn’t win anything. They introduced the ship officers and guests had to guess what their role was. He has also learned how to find me in the Medallion App, which I found out when he asked me what I was doing in the bathroom…

 

We met up again at Alfredo’s right when they were opening and enjoyed some tasty pepperoni pizza. We’re starting to realize that drink service is incredibly slow. We were over halfway done our pizza before we received our beverages. 

 

We had some time to kill before my next enrichment lecture so we went for a walk up on decks 14 and 15. It was a little chilly (9° Celsius) but nothing crazy. At 1pm I attended North to Alaska: Hoonah Ambassador Rachel Moreno and it was so interesting. I was already excited to learn about indigenous culture but this went beyond my expectations. She was a fantastic speaker, funny and engaging. The time flew by. 

 

I used to Shipmate Locater to see my husband was at the pool bar so I went and joined him there. Despite it only being an hour later the temperature had dropped dramatically. We only had one drink before heading inside. 

 

This marked the first time I found the ship crowded. There wasn’t much going on at this time so we figured we would head to the Piazza and listen to some music. Everyone else had the same idea and it was quite busy everywhere. We did manage to snag a spot at Good Spirits at Sea. 

 

We ended up heading back to the room for an hour and by this point the ship was rocking pretty bad. My husband had a nap while I got ready for the first formal night. We went down to Vines for 4pm and had a couple glasses of wine before heading to the Vivaldi Dining Room for dinner. 

 

Dinner was the best yet, though it’s a tough call. I had the crab cake, truffle cream gnocchi and beef tenderloin. For dessert we shared the Turtle cheesecake. If I had to pick a favourite it would probably be the gnocchi. I love that you can get smaller portions of the pasta.

 

We then headed to the theater for the first production show of the cruise, Bravo. We showed up fairly early and that was a good thing because the place ended up absolutely PACKED. The show itself was so-so. Most of the singers were good, but I’d have liked to see more of the dancers. The theme of the show was unclear - there’s musicals, there’s opera, there’s a James Bond montage…but there’s also a random Queen song? Regardless, the girl who sang The Prayer and Skyfall was my favourite. 

 

From there we headed to Explorer’s Lounge for another Nathan Phan show. This was a more intimate crowd but I think I preferred it to his theater set, particularly the impressions and hearing more of his backstory. 

 

When that was over we returned to Vines for the rest of the night. At 10:15 the Dancing Through the Decades party started in the Piazza which we happily watched for the duration. I love music and I love dancing so I had a great time dancing in my chair. My husband does not and will not dance so chair dancing it is! I’ve been working my way through the red wine list at Vines. I only have Princess Plus but I don’t mind paying $3-4 extra for a nice wine. The party itself was really fun. A lot of participation after the first couple songs. I’m really enjoying the band Topaz. They are definitely my favourite musicians on board so far. 

 

Another sea day tomorrow!

[AlibearNS]

So much enjoying your experience and comparing it to our own. We’re just off a Celebrity cruise so also comparing this to that (elite on both lines). We got off to a rocky start Saturday with no water in the cabin. It took two hours from reporting for maintenance to come with an easy fix. I was at the point of brushing my teeth in the public washroom (I’m obsessive about my teeth lol). My big suitcase arrived minus one of it’s wheels. The ship’s upholsterer (who knew they had one!!!) is attempting to fix it. I told them I don’t care if it comes back as Frankenstein’s monster as long as I can wheel it onto the skytrain. I have a broken wrist so a little stressed about how I’ll manage. Princess overnight changed our dinner reservation to shared table, gaslit us and left it to guy at the restaurant to sort which was incredibly stressful for him. Big thumbs up for Henry.

Staff have been friendly but chaotic and slow, many telling us they are new and still learning, so things should settle down. 

We’re positive people and we ARE going to have a great cruise! One difference I can’t help noting is Celebrity have soft drop toilet seats and I’m still getting used to the change. If you hear a loud bang from the ladies loo, that will be me!

[nini]

From one of the pics, it looks like you have the same Naturalist we had on the Grand last September... she was amazing and very friendly.

Enjoy!!!

[PittCrusing23]

@Drdarkknight can you post your daily Princess Patters? I’m interested to see the activities on the Sapphire for the Alaska season.

[EDVM96]

The new "I Love This!" slogan at the ship's front. We can be sure this will be fleetwide soon.

[VaCruzers]

@Drdarkknight, If not too much trouble, could you please let me know if Vines on Sapphire is serving Meiomi Pinot Noir? It was the only drinkable red we found on our last Princess Cruise. Many thanks!!

[outtoseacruise]

While Sapphire was in drydock did they do the conversion to Starlink for the internet? If so how is the bandwidth and latency? 

I just got off Grand Princess this morning and while onboard was told that prior to leaving San Francisco the Starlink equipment and installers came onboard. No date was given to me when it would be live on Grand.

[SleepyBunny]

15 hours ago, dalsnibba said:

How is the ship after drydock?
Renovated cabins (bathroom door...)
balconies,...?
common areas?
Thanks again

They have added new carpets which isn't particularly exciting, but you can tell as they're giving off lint because lots of people are walking on them for the first time (most notably on the stairs).

 

Attended the "Ship Navigation - View from the Bridge" today and the First Officer mentioned lots of confirmation about propellers, height of the ship, etc.  Nothing super specific.

[EDVM96]

54 minutes ago, SleepyBunny said:

First Officer mentioned lots of confirmation about propellers, height of the ship, etc.  Nothing super specific.

The 1st officer mentioned the brand new HD MUTS Screen today.

Edited May 2, 2023 by EDVM96

[Drdarkknight]

[Drdarkknight]

Vines menu 

[HaveDogWillTravel]

We have a group of 5 with standing reservation every night at 6:20 in Savoy. I made the reservations a long time ago and they’ve never been changed. I’m sorry others had had trouble with that. 
Our waiter, Sirirat, and jr waiter Ryan are amazing. Sirirat makes us origami every night. The service is perfection, professional and quick. Ap, salad and main completed by 7:45. Desert done by 8:15. 
Francesco the DORO came by each table tonight with the executive soup chef to chat. Vasco our restaurant manager is excellent going above and beyond to make our evening great. 

The wild coho salmon ap was outstanding. 
 

There are two new wine sommeliers. More cvs on that later. I’m pretty tired and will just post a few pictures. 

[HaveDogWillTravel]

If you want a cheese plate for room service but don’t want to pay the 5 bucks, order a chef salad with no turkey or ham. This is what I got yesterday. Thank goodness I brought ziplock bags to store that cheese in. 

[EDVM96]

Another sunny but chilly day in the north Pacific.

 

 

Today's dinner at Sterling Steak House.

 

Jumbo Sea Scallops, Salmon Caviar

 

Black and Blue Onion Soup

 

 

Surf & Turf Filet Mignon with Maine Lobster Tail

 

I ordered the filet medium, but it came well done. Anyway, it was a superb dinner. 

 

[Drdarkknight]

Second sea day today! 

 

We were able to sleep in a bit today as the first lecture I wanted to attend was at 10am. Extra hour! My husband has been struggling. I think it’s a combination of the time change and ship movement. He’s a trooper though so he’s been pushing through. One thing I’ve noticed (being the neurotic planner that I am) is that the activities have been changing ever so slightly since we boarded the ship. For example, the pub lunch was supposed to be today but it isn’t anymore. I’ve honestly just decided to follow my schedule that’s delivered to the room each evening. 

 

There’s a few changes I’ve noticed since I last cruised on Princess in May 2019. Vines no longer does flights which is sad because I really liked how it was done, and the variety. There’s also very limited wine tastings. Can we tell I’m mostly noticing the wine? I’ve also noticed a change with Movies Under the Stars. It used to be that you would get blankets and popcorn. No such thing here from what I can tell. I miss the popcorn most. I would go up and grab a bag of popcorn every night even if I wasn’t watching the movie because popcorn is great. 

 

We woke up at 8:45am to find out the coach of the Calgary Flames had been fired. Definitely a good start to the morning. We went downstairs to the International Cafe for breakfast, which is quickly becoming our go-to spot for breakfast and snacks. The ham on this ship is delicious. I need to know where they get it because we don’t find ham this good at home! 

 

From there we split up and I headed to the Princess Theater for Sandra Schempp’s next Naturalist presentation. This one is Enjoying the Wonders of Alaskan Wildlife. Since we’ll be doing a bear expedition in Icy Strait Point this seemed more than a bit relevant. As with yesterday’s session, it was quite busy. I’d argue it was actually busier than yesterday. 

 

This lecture was fascinating. If I wasn’t excited about wildlife sightings before (I was) I sure would be now. There’s way more variety than I was expecting. I even learned about delayed implantation in bears. And got to see cute pictures of baby animals throughout. 

 

My husband skipped out on the lecture but according to the Shipmate Stalker he decided to walk around the promenade deck. He joined me at 11 for a presentation on ship navigation. This was also really well-attended. It was very interesting to hear about how ship navigation worked from the First Officer. He was funny, too! He spent a good while after his presentation answering audience questions. 

 

We next went to the International Dining Room for lunch. It was already pretty lined up when we got there, but we were seated quickly. Which was lucky for us because the entire time we ate there was a massive queue of people waiting. I think this cruise might not be the buffet crowd. Service was slow but the food was really good, as usual. I had the gazpacho, Chef’s salad with thousand island dressing, and the cherry trifle. I’m not sure what it is about this trip but I’m finding by about noon I’m ridiculously hungry. Must be my body adjusting to all the moving about or something.  We were almost ninety minutes, which is unusual for lunch. 

 

We wanted to catch Deal or No Deal at 1:30 so we quickly headed there after lunch. We didn’t buy cards because I’ve never seen the show and had no idea what to expect. It was really fun to watch. Two contestants went on stage and both played right through to the end. One lady won $125 and the second lady won $1000! That was cool to see. 

 

We decided since we were on 7 to walk outside along the promenade deck. Suddenly I saw people rushing to the side of the deck so I ran near where they were and we saw a whale! I think it was a humpback. 

 

We had to rush pretty soon afterwards, however, as we had signed up for the Fine Wine Tasting which started at 2:45. It was quite busy; about 50 people. It was educational, though I already know a lot of this information since I’ve probably been to more than one hundred wine tastings. I needed a hobby during the pandemic… Still, these were good wines for $35. We had 6 wines with small bites as pairings. One sparkling, two white wines, and three reds (including the Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon). My favourite after the Caymus was actually the Chardonnay! I was surprised by this since I’m a red wine drinker. I was even more surprised that my husband’s top 3 were all of the reds. We joke that he’s a ‘basic girl’ because he loves Riesling and Rosé. 

 

We got ready for dinner and then headed for, where else, Vines. It was so busy! We found seats at the bar but every other spot was taken. 

 

This has definitely been the worse day for wifi so far. It’s been absolutely brutal trying to get any websites to load. Apple iMessages have been about 50/50. 

 

Dinner tonight was at the Savoy Dining Room and I wish I could have ordered the whole menu. I certainly tried. I ordered the Alaskan Coho Salmon; chicken, ham and Parmesan croquette; crab and corn chowder; seafood orrechiette, and seafood risotto. I ate like a fat kid and I have no regrets. I wasn’t a huge fan of the soup, orrechiette or risotto but that salmon and croquette was just so so so good. For dessert we had the crème brûlée and you can’t go wrong with that. 

 

I will say service here was the worst yet. It wasn’t that it was slow, necessarily, just hugely impersonal. Our waiter just sort of came and went and didn’t really follow up about anything. We weren’t told any recommendations for the menu. No offers of freshly cracked black pepper or anything like that. I felt bad for the guy; he seemed really overwhelmed. Tonight is also when I felt the true size of these two person tables. On my way to the seat I knocked the other table and sent a menu and glasses flying. It was pretty embarrassing and I spent most of the dinner stressing about trying to leave at the end. International Dining Room has been the only spot where we’ve consistently been provided with a four top table. 

 

From there it was on to our normal routine of heading to Princess Theatre for the night’s entertainment, which was comedian Dan St Paul. He was pretty funny. It was largely geared towards older people but it still made me laugh, particularly a bit about Costco. Afterwards we went to Explorers Lounge for the Yes No Gameshow. We didn’t participated but we enjoyed watching a dozen people try and fail to make it three minutes without answering yes or no. 

 

We stuck around Explorer’s Lounge afterwards for True or Moo. The crowd had thinned out significantly by then but it was still fun to watch. Once they finished we were off to our last activity of our very busy day - a 70’s Disco Party at Club Fusion! Having not been in here before I was surprised by how massive it is. But also how cold it was! It was a decent event, though they definitely played at least one song that was from the 80’s. I love watching the older couples dance. It’s so adorable. 

 

Scenic cruising through Hubbard Glacier tomorrow. Almost in Alaska! 

[CruzeQueen2]

@DrdarkknightThank you for all the detailed information! I am enjoying your comprehensive reporting. Last night I was thinking about the Shafer Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay (SRSRC) and couldn't quite get the name into my brain, and VOILA, your report gave me what I needed. I appreciate that you shared the fine wine tasting list with us ( as well as the list from Vines). Preference for reds myself, I like that particular Chardonnay as well as the Caymus, of course! Happy sipping...

Three days to boarding a ship for me. Hoping you have a clear day of viewing Hubbard - the BIG one! Here's a photo from last May.

Edited May 2, 2023 by CruzeQueen2

[HaveDogWillTravel]

We are due at Hubbard in about 4 hours. Around 1 yesterday the weather turned to this and hasn’t budged. The heat didn’t work in my cabin but I didn’t report it until yesterday morning around 8 when I woke up to icicles in my room. They fixed it by 3 and I’m am really happy to be warm again. I’m glad I have my waterproof and very warm Columbia Parka. I’m doing the Birds of Hoonah walking tour in Icy Strait. The weather is supposed to be cold and wet but I’ll be dressed for it. 

[BamaVol]

1 hour ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

We are due at Hubbard in about 4 hours. Around 1 yesterday the weather turned to this and hasn’t budged. The heat didn’t work in my cabin but I didn’t report it until yesterday morning around 8 when I woke up to icicles in my room. They fixed it by 3 and I’m am really happy to be warm again. I’m glad I have my waterproof and very warm Columbia Parka. I’m doing the Birds of Hoonah walking tour in Icy Strait. The weather is supposed to be cold and wet but I’ll be dressed for it. 

So, you’re saying I shouldn’t bother packing shorts for my September Alaska cruise on the Sapphire?