LIVE: Sailing Solo on Sapphire! Cheeky Little Coastal Sep 24-28

[ceilidh1]

Does anyone else feel as if 3 weeks between cruises is just too long? In that time, I could forget the words to Sweet Caroline (that’s for you, @YVRteacher), forget how to Wobble (actually, I wobble far more than I would like these days), and totally forget how to get my shenanigans on Like I could ever really forget that). This can only mean one thing…let’s CRUISE again! Join me on a quick, kid-free jaunt down the coast on my favourite ship in the fleet!

 

[ceilidh1]

First, thank you to everyone that hopped on over to the RC boards last month and joined me on my family cruise on Harmony. If you didn’t catch it and want to, go trawl the RC board (I’m not a link to kind of gal – sorry). I had a blast with my kids, but this sailing is 100% ME time. No plans. No schedule. No expectations. Just pure, unadulterated (that’s a great word), uncensored (ahem) FUN! So, buckle in, grab some popcorn, kick off your shoes and join me on this sneaky, cheeky little 4 day coastal on Sapphire Princess.

[ceilidh1]

Living in Vancouver, I am totally spoiled – I can walk from home to ship in 8 minutes (my teen can do it in 5). This means we do lots of cruises out of Vancouver (yay, no flights) and have done so many Alaska cruises that I’m kind of jaded. I love the coastal repositioning cruises, as they are often great pricing and provide a nice little mini break at the start and end of Alaska season. What I don’t love is that 90% of the time, the start and end of Alaska season clashes with the start and end of my work season so all those cruises I COULD be doing, I actually CAN’T do. Someone needs to fix this. Imagine if we had year-round cruise season in Vancouver…Here is my beautiful lady from a few weeks ago. This view never gets old...

[ceilidh1]

I booked this cruise before I booked our summer sailing on Harmony – we weren’t originally planning on doing a summer trip this year as the teen had work experience and online classes, so I was badly in need of some retail therapy. I knew from the outset that neither child would be sailing with me if I did this in September, as one just started grade 12 and the other just started high school. Not a good time to be pulling them out of school. Nonetheless, they are at an age where they are fine to be left alone, plus we have great friends and neighbours that stop by/stay as needed, so I felt no remorse booking me a solo trip. Then I felt guilty. So, that’s how it came about that I booked the family cruise the last week of August (the only week we could possibly do a trip). Now I don’t feel at all guilty about jetting off on this little jaunt without them (well, maybe a twinge). The cruise was a great price, with no solo supplement when I booked. Shortly after, the prices went up and the availability went down – it’s part of a longer cruise, so I think that put a lot of inventory out of the mix (many passengers will board in Vancouver and continue on through the Panama Canal after I hop off in San Fran). It is now showing as sold out. Since it’s only a 4 day cruise, I added Princess Premiere (the old version) as it makes most sense on shorter cruises. I may upgrade on the ship to the new version, but not sold on it yet since specialty dining is limited on this ship. But I may need more than 15 drinks a day.🤣

[ceilidh1]

For this trip, I booked an inside guarantee. I’m not in the least bit picky about room type or location as I am rarely in the room. It’s funny, as my DS simply loves cruise ship cabins and would happily just spend his entire vacation in the cabin, laying in bed, watching tv. DD and I are the opposite and have to be constantly on the go. In the past, I have booked guarantees and received exactly what I booked but have also received some really decent free upgrades to oceanview/balcony/minis and one time, a full suite! In some ways, I like the mystery and suspense. I did receive many emails inviting me to bid for an upgrade. I politely declined. It looks as if I did finally get a cabin assignment - I will keep you all in suspense until I board and can show the big reveal with pictures (spoiler - it's not a full suite)

[ceilidh1]

Our itinerary is Vancouver-Victoria-Sea Day x2-San Fran. I plan on staying on the ship in Victoria as I’ve seen all I need to see there many times. Don’t get me wrong, I love Victoria, but I go there often enough that I don’t need to waste a perfectly good ship day to go again. I do have Sabatinis booked for embarkation night and Churascarria booked for night 3. Other than that, a wide open schedule.

[ceilidh1]

I booked my return air from San Francisco through Princess EZ Air. One of the really great aspects of cruising with Princess is their air programme. I love that you can lock in your flights and not pay until final payment, but I love even more that after locking them in you can keep watching pricing and change them if it drops. That happened for me a few times through the course of the booking. I ended up with a flight home from San Fran to Vancouver for a grand total of $86USD. You can’t beat that! It’s great knowing that if anything goes wrong, Princess will figure out the air rather than me having to scramble to rebook or find flights. The flight home is late in the afternoon, so I booked a Princess excursion to Sausalito with drop off at the airport to fill the day. At the airport, I fully intend to make use of my lounge pass.

[ceilidh1]

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of the Princess app. It’s glitchy, frustrating, and rarely functions well. On the ship it is much better, but the pre-cruise stuff is enough to make me want to pack Princess in altogether (almost). This time was no exception. While I was able to get all the check in stuff done without too much pain, I was not able to book dining. I kept getting the dreaded message about needing to be elite or paid in full to do so. Since I was both (and that was reflected on the app) I was frustrated. I did what any sane person would do – deleted the app, reinstalled, and started over (is that the app equivalent of turn it off/turn it on?) Lo and behold, suddenly I was able to reserve Sabatinis. The Brazilian place showed no availability for months and then 2 weeks ago, was wide open and I was able to book that, too. At one point, I had 4 additional reservations for Sabatinis and Churrascaria under a group booking with 7 other people that I do not know (a different 7 for each reservation). I was looking forward to meeting new friends and having them pay for dinner…but then those bookings vanished, along with any hopes of post-dinner shenanigans.

 

Ordering the medallion for this sailing was seamless and I just got notification that it was shipped and my tracking number shows it to be getting delivered on Tuesday 17^th. As a side note, I have another short sailing on October 10^th – for this one, I could not order the medallion no matter how hard I tried as the app thinks I already ordered it and keeps bringing up the order for this sailing. Ugh. It did, however, decide that I needed 4 Premiere accessories for the medallion (the little clip you get with the package) and added them to my cart. Now I can’t delete them or progress from there and it just takes me in circles. Princess, please fix your dumb app.

[ceilidh1]

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to get on the Koningsdam for a ship tour and lunch. This is a beautiful ship and I would definitely sail on her. Very elegant and tasteful, beautiful spa, great food. My only hesitation would be around entertainment- sometimes I don’t even feel princess has enough to suit me (I really dislike classical, jazz, strings, ballroom, etc) so not sure about HAL. I guess a trip to find out is on the horizon. Here are a few sneaky peeks of that ship!

[ceilidh1]

And the lunch, which was excellent!

[ceilidh1]

I was also blessed this weekend to meet up with @AmyJA and @YVRteacher for brunch, laughs, and drinks! It’s always great to connect in person rather than through a screen! 

[WisCruiser2]

I enjoyed reading your replies and banter on @YVRteacher's posts, looking forward to this review 🙂 Enjoy your Me Time!

[MeganGC1983]

Let’s go! 

[ceilidh1]

Well, lookey here…

This is the first time I ever asked for medallion shipping as it wasn’t available to me previously (Canada). Looks like it might arrive today!

[princess76021]

@ceilidh1 thanks for inviting us!!  looking forward to this!!

hugs from texas!!

[AmyJA]

@ceilidh1 had me a bunch of fun in your home town, with not only one but two wonderful ladies. 
 

Long live shenanigan!

 

 

[TravelE]

23 minutes ago, AmyJA said:

@ceilidh1 had me a bunch of fun in your home town, with not only one but two wonderful ladies. 
 

Long live shenanigan!

 

 

 

What kind of trouble did you get into? 😄

 

[TNVolnteerCruiser]

I'm here.  Let's do this!  Will there be shenanigans?  Thanks for letting us follow along.

[LACruiser88]

Enjoy your solo time!  🙂

[YVRteacher]

20 minutes ago, TravelE said:

 

What kind of trouble did you get into? 😄

 

We had not one but two types of jam for our sourdough toast!!!

 

Lemon tarts, lemon meringue doughnuts and mini bottles of gin were purchased at the farmer’s market. 

[TNVolnteerCruiser]

57 minutes ago, AmyJA said:

@ceilidh1 had me a bunch of fun in your home town, with not only one but two wonderful ladies. 
 

Long live shenanigan!

 

 

Um, did they have to call out the National Guard on you ladies??  That's next level shenanigans 

 

Edited Monday at 04:19 PM by TNVolnteerCruiser

[Sadebud]

Looking forward to following your shenanigans!  Safe travels!

[voljeep]

9 minutes ago, TNVolnteerCruiser said:

Um, did they have to call out the National Guard on you ladies??  That's next level shenanigans 

 

 "Nico" Iamaleava (EE-yama LAY-av-uh;

 

oops, sorry for the 'slight' thread drift

 

following

[ceilidh1]

38 minutes ago, TNVolnteerCruiser said:

I'm here.  Let's do this!  Will there be shenanigans?  Thanks for letting us follow along.

This used to be my local. I pointed it out to @AmyJA but sadly it closed down. Funnily enough, it was shortly after we had a mammoth karaoke night there (with lock in after hours)...

[ceilidh1]

40 minutes ago, TNVolnteerCruiser said:

I'm here.  Let's do this!  Will there be shenanigans?  Thanks for letting us follow along.

🤞🤞🤞