Question about seating at shows on the Sapphire vs. Celebrity Summit

[Yungs]

Hi all, just wondered if anyone could answer this question - We sailed on the Summit in November last year and never had any trouble finding seats for the shows, even the big production shows. In contrast, on the Sapphire Princess earlier in the year (Aust/NZ, Jan 08) you had to be there about 15 mins prior to the start of the show, in order to get seats.

 

I think the Sapphire was full-ish, but I don't think Summit was empty either. Why the difference in seating availability? I suppose being off-season in Europe you'd expect the ship to sail maybe slightly less than full, but the difference in the seating availability was immense.

 

Do they just have a better setup? If so, it would make quite a difference in the decision-making when contemplating our next cruise. It was sooooo nice not to fret and worry about rushing down to the theatre, and of course there's that whole "saving seats" thing as well - you just didn't see it because you didn't need to save seats.

[Toto2Kansas]

Hi all, just wondered if anyone could answer this question - We sailed on the Summit in November last year and never had any trouble finding seats for the shows, even the big production shows. In contrast, on the Sapphire Princess earlier in the year (Aust/NZ, Jan 08) you had to be there about 15 mins prior to the start of the show, in order to get seats.

 

I think the Sapphire was full-ish, but I don't think Summit was empty either. Why the difference in seating availability? I suppose being off-season in Europe you'd expect the ship to sail maybe slightly less than full, but the difference in the seating availability was immense.

 

Do they just have a better setup? If so, it would make quite a difference in the decision-making when contemplating our next cruise. It was sooooo nice not to fret and worry about rushing down to the theatre, and of course there's that whole "saving seats" thing as well - you just didn't see it because you didn't need to save seats.

 

I think some of this happens because of the passenger age onboard. We just returned from 14 days on the Grand Princess sailing January 2. The ages of passengers was much older on this cruise (and I admit, we are no spring chickens anymore ourselves). It was almost half way into the cruise before we were able to get to a show and find a seat. Even arriving 30 minutes prior the first week found absolutely no empty seats anywhere for the major production shows. On a mixed age group cruise (normal cruise), we can usually arrive 15-20 minutes prior and have no problem finding a seat. But this one was unbelievable and not worth the effort to arrive earlier than 30 minutes before to get any seat at all. :( We finally gave up and saw maybe two shows the entire two weeks onboard. I have no idea how early these passengers arrived, but the show lounges were always full at least 30 minutes before the show started. DH tried to go alone a couple of nights, and couldn't find one seat available 30 minutes prior.

[Colo Cruiser]

On any Princess ship we have sailed we always get to the theater at last 30 miniutes early so we can have the pick of the seats.

[RickEk]

Well, the Sapphire would be carrying at least 600 passengers more at full capacity than the Summit. The Sapphire is about 15,000 tons heavier but they can only make a showroom so big... :rolleyes:

[terrierjohn]

We have sailed both Sapphire and Millenium (Summits sister) and have to agree that the Millie theatre always had spare seats, and both sailings were full.

I do not know the individual capacities of each theatre but I would guess that the celebrity ships have a similar theatre capacity whilst having a lot less passengers. There is a distinct upper tier on Celebrity whilst Princess is on one level, so it is difficult to make direct comparisons.

However just be greatful that you are not looking at a super Grand ship, like Emerald, these have another 500 passengers and the same size theatre as Sapphire, so you need to ensure that you eat fast to guarantee a seat at the after dinner show.;)