Just back from 30 days on the Sapphire...any questions

[JimandLouise]

Hi all,

 

We've just got off the Sapphire this morning after the 30 day LA to Sydney cruise. Photos to follow. Anyone got any questions?

[bdjam]

How’s Frankie?

[JimandLouise]

Hi bdjam,

 

Frankie, Alistair and all of the other staff were all great. Frankie was fun and bubbly, but towards the end of the 30 days was looking pretty tired. Those guys work so hard.

 

Jim

[ndjoe]

Hi Jim & Louise,

 

Hope you had a wonderful cruise. My wife and I are leaving in about 6 weeks on the 02/11/05 cruise from Sydney to Auckland. Been following your trip on the Princess web cam, and it seemed to be raining the entire time you were in New Zealand. Also heard your Wellington stop was cancelled because of weather. I hope the weather does improve before we go.

 

Any comments you have on the ship, staff, food, & entertainment would be greatly appreciated. Did you eat at Sabattini's and would you recommend going? We are doing early traditional dinning, do you know what time dinner is usually served, is it 6:00 or 6:30 PM.

 

I assume we will have the same Captain and Cruise Director, would you kindly give me their names. Looking forward to hearing from you, and seeing your photos.

 

Joe & Kathy

[seattlekckckc]

Did you meet my favorite asst waiter Lucien from Romania? (Like they all seem to be now!). I am glad you had a good trip! We would love a short rundown of the trip!! (And how you felt about such a long trip yourself!

 

Casey

[JimandLouise]

Hi ndjoe,

 

The Cruise was great, despite the weather. We had rain every day of the trip, but we expected that during rainy season. The weather around New Zealand was particularly bad, with high seas from Tauaranga towards Wellington, and as you said Wellington was cancelled due to the weather.

 

The ship is without any thrusters at the front on the ship, as the final one of the three installed died in Moorea, so we've been a little late arriving in ports as tugs were needed a little more than expected. The Captain expected them to be repaired in about 2 months or so.

 

The Cruise Director was Alistair Greener and Frankie was his deputy, although I know Alistair was starting 2 months off after a further 3 trips, so you may have a different cruise director. Frankie was also leaving soon.

 

I believe early seating was at 6:00pm for traditional dining, we had anytime dining and were very happy with it.

 

Although we didn't go to Sabatini's a few friends did and they all said it was great value, particularly the Sunday brunch with as many mimosa's as you care to drink at that time of day.

 

The captain was Atillio Guerini, and he was very open and honest about missing the port and the thruster problems.

 

Entertainment was good, was a great variety, I'll scan the patters in over the next few days for people to look at.

[cactusrose]

Welcome back. We have booked the reverse trip for Spring 2006 and are wondering about the number of sea days. Was it too many? Did you run into any rough seas?

[JimandLouise]

Hi Casey, I don't think I met Lucien, but Balazs and Judit from Hungary in Sterling were outstanding.

 

We'll write more on our general impressions later, but overall we loved it, so much that we're booked onto the Diamond for a 29 day Sydney to San Francisco for April 2006.

 

There were some small areas where we thought there was room for improvement but overall it was an amazing 30 days.

 

Jim

[JimandLouise]

Hi Cactus Rose,

 

We found the probably 3 sea days to be fine without a problem, by the fourth day each time, we were ready for land. With missing Wellington, we had three lots of 4 sea days in a row, but the entertainment was good, and the first 2 or 3 days passed by all too quickly.

 

We ran into the rough seas particularly around New Zealand, with the night before we were supposed to come into Wellington had particularly rough seas (from memory they were 12 meter swells - but I could be wrong) other than that the ship handled the rough seas fairly well, even though we were quite a way forward on Lido.

 

Jim

[scampi]

Hi Jim and Louise,

 

We are on the Jan. 6th, 05 sailing Auckland to Sydney and have an aft balcony. Will we be o.k. if this rough weather continues in New Zealand? Did you feel a lot of motion from the large swells? How late were you getting into the ports?

Will we still have Alistair for our CD? Many thanks for answering these questions.

and a Merry Christmas, or Happy Hannukah, Happy Boxing Day, Happy Holidays!

:) Scampi

[JimandLouise]

Hi Scampi,

 

I'm pretty sure Alistair will be CD on your cruise and I think that is his last before a 2 month break. The rough weather only caused an issue 1 night really, and that was more due to the huge bang that 3 waves in particular made when they hit the ship, within about 4 hours during the night. The motion wasn't too bad, and most nights were perfectly fine.

 

We were anywhere between an 30 minutes and an hour late into most ports, but we did manage to arrive in Sydney early this morning. I think its got to do with how quickly the tugs respond. Hopefully now that they know they are going to need the tugs for the next couple of months they can make advance arrangements so there are no delays.

 

Jim

[JimandLouise]

For those who want to take a look, I'm building up a photo gallery here :

 

http://www.cruisemates.com/MBindex/PGindex.cfm

[S&D]

Hi there,

 

Glad to hear you had a good trip.....just a question or 2...

which band was onboard for the entertainment in the Explorers Lounge?

 

How did you find the dining with the different restaurants, Asian etc?

 

S&D :)

[JimandLouise]

Hi S&D,

 

In Explorers the band was called 'Amante' they were quite good. Anytime dining suited us really well. First few nights we made reservations, after that we didn't bother, we showed up at about 8pm and we got in fine....the only exception to this was Formal nights and the final night of the cruise.

 

The order of popularity for the restaurants seemed to be Stirling first, Vivaldi second, Santa Fe third and Pacific Moon was the least popular.

 

We dined in Sterling on more nights than any other, the New York Steak was a great back up if there was nothing that took our fancy on the International menu, the Fajitas in Santa Fe were great too, and the guacamole in there was the best I've ever tasted.

 

It was great to have the choice, and - Sterling and Vivaldi have the International Menus out from about 9am so you can check those out early to plan where you want to dine that evening. Our only dissapointment with the Anytime restaurants was that they didn't vary their menu at all over the 30 days, but with the choice from the international menu, that didn't really matter.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Jim

[S&D]

Thanks so much for that info, we sailed on the Star last Feb up thru Asia and the dining was different then, now there is more to choose from.

 

We are looking forward to the Sapphire for 3 weeks again in March...or 9 weeks, 6 days..(no..we are not counting)....MUCH :D :D

 

We are going again thru Asia, to Bangkok, it was a fabulous trip and we are hanging out to do it again.

 

We have also booked the Diamond for 2006 Syd to San Fran....can't wait, we have been 3 times so far, with Princess, and we save very hard all year to get our yearly CRUISE FIX....LOL

 

So happy that you had a great time.

 

I take it that Sabatinis doesn't have that brunch thing anymore...boy...that was great!!!

 

S&D

Adelaide

[JimandLouise]

Hi S&D,

 

Sabatini's still had brunch, a group of 20 or so from our Roll Call all went and can testify to the quality of the mimosa's.

 

Jim

[APH]

Jim - did you keep the welcome princess patter? If you wouldnt mind, could you kindly scan/post/e-mail me the front page with Captain Guerrini's photo and bio?

 

My e-mail is aph3012@yahoo.co.uk

 

Thankyou and have a wonderful christmas! :D :D :D

Andrew.

[Dortmunder]

Thanks for the comments.

Will be on the Sapphire in March too and would be interested in the patters and menus.

How varied were the production shows during the 30 days? How often do they perform and how many repeats are there?

 

Andi

[bdjam]

For those who want to take a look, I'm building up a photo gallery here

Great pictures so far – and speaking of Frankie! Thanks!!

[JimandLouise]

Hi,

 

APH - I did keep the Patters, but I haven't hit them in the unpacking yet - Louise shopped like crazy so we've come home with 6 BIG bags. I'll send it through once I find it.

 

Dortmunder, I didn't keep copies of the menus, but the food was great, no menu was repeated over the 30 days and there was plenty to chose from, especially with the Alternative dining menus as well. Production shows were good. We got Undercover, Piano Man, Ports of Call, and two more based on broadway muscials whose name escapes me at the moment. they were played twice each night they were first shown and a single show the night after. They played around a little with the show timings to try and accomodate everyone, and Ports of Call didn't play a second night because of the weather. Quality was good.

 

Bdjam, I'm adding to the photos gradually - went to see Sapphire sail out last night and saw Frankie on deck.

[Ahhh]

Thank you for sharing your trip with us! Really enjoy your stories and pictures. Nice that we could be on that cruise (vicariously) thruogh you. I checked the bridge cam everyday trying to envision the cruise. You are making it complete! Thanks. :D

[Painter]

Keep posting those pictures ...thanks.

 

If we hold our "Meet & Greet" at 3.30pm on the Sapphire on the 6th Jan...will that be OK.

What time is the safety drill?

 

Marleneann.(Spangles cruise)

[JimandLouise]

Hi Mareleann,

 

from memory, the safety drill was at about 5:00 or 5:15 so 3:30 should give you all time to say 'hi'.

 

I'm in the process of putting together a review, but its going to be really quite long I think.....

 

Jim.

[Joe Beach]

Make it long, you have my permission :)

 

I'm really interested in the thruster problem. That's a fairly new ship and all 3 went out, AND it will take a couple of months to fix? Seems like a major problem that they would want to fix right away, even just one of them. Do they have to be in drydock to fix it??

 

Do you know why they can't fix it sooner?

[PescadoAmarillo]

Hi Jim and Louise, and Merry Christmas!

I returned home last night about 9 pm our time, uneventful flights home except delayed a bit in LA. Returned home to 0 degree Fahrenheit weather, a bit of a shock. Miss you guys!

 

I also saved all the Patters and the cruise log, but if Jim is going to scan his in, will "allow" him to do that. The Maitre De gave me, on the final night, a copy of every one of our 30 different dinner menus, will scan those in at some time, but am also up to my eyes in laundry and unpacking and holiday celebrations, and I leave in 6 (!) days on another cruise for 3 1/2 weeks, so it may take a bit of time.

 

We also loved this cruise very much! For Scampi...we were 3 cabins from the back of the ship on Deck 12 (Aloha). If you have weather like we did around New Zealand, you will definitely feel the movement. We were literally airborne in bed several times on the worst night of the cruise, and awoke a bit bruised. Sea sickness was never an issue, but I have cruised quite a bit in some rough seas at times, and this was definitely the worst movement I've ever felt.

 

We loved the sea days but agree with Jim and Louise that it was too bad that we missed Wellington. One of the biggest thrills of the trip was waking at 4 am to watch the ship sail into Sydney Harbor. The Opera House and the Harbour Bridge were awesome sights. Jim and Louise, when we do this cruise in reverse in 2006, we will definitely have to spend some time in your beautiful city!!

 

I will also post photos at some time, and write a review, but, again, it will probably be after January 22, when I return from the Galaxy.