Grand vs Sapphire Entertainment

[cusematt4]

Hi all - we sailed on the Grand Princess 20 years ago, but are considering it, in addition to the Sapphire, for an Alaskan cruise.

 

Does anyone know what the difference is in entertainment on the ship?  I'd hope the shows have changed in 20 years.  Is there a similar amount of live music, and are the fly on acts and production shows similar or both good?

 

Thanks so much.

[Thrak]

If you have a choice of similar itinerary choose Sapphire. We recently sailed 63 days on Grand and the elevators had issues for most of the time. Various elevators were out of service from time to time and the doors of the ones that worked were slow and made weird noises. The floors of the elevators felt "mushy". Overall the ship was fine but, given a choice between Grand and Sapphire I would choose Sapphire every time. Sapphire also has the extra wide Promenade deck that accommodates not only walkers but also full sized loungers. Sapphire also has Skywalker's although we did find the One5 on Grand Princess to be okay.

[cusematt4]

Thanks so much.  Any idea how the entertainment compares on the two ships?  I'd imagine different shows from when we sailed 20 years ago on the Grand.

[Thrak]

20 minutes ago, cusematt4 said:

Thanks so much.  Any idea how the entertainment compares on the two ships?  I'd imagine different shows from when we sailed 20 years ago on the Grand.

 

No idea what is on Sapphire. On our recent cruise(s) on Grand they were still showing Stardust and British Invasion. They also had Born to Dance. Both Stardust and British Invasion are about 100 years old. We had never seen Born to Dance before.

 

The CD did say that the two old shows were "only available on Grand Princess!" as if it was something special rather than the only ship still using these tired old productions. Hopefully she was accurate and they aren't being done on other ships anymore.

Edited January 17 by Thrak

[rnr4thatsme]

What type of live music could be found around the ship on the Grand Princess?   Are there contemporary rock bands or is it more of a classical vibe (for Alaska if that matters).