HaveDogWillTravel

Thanks for posting. Do you happen to know which cabins are affected ?

I was on the Sapphire Dec 1, 2023 to Jan 4 2024 LA to Ba with 4 days in Antartica. Everyone on the ship got them.

I sailed Sapphire Dec 1 to Jan 4,2024. I had premier the first leg Dec 1 -18 and enjoyed Alfredo’s to go several times. DH joined the ship for leg 2 with premier and they changed the policy and no longer allowed to go pizzas.

I sailed Sapphire Dec 1 to Jan 4,2024. I had premier the first leg Dec 1 -18 and enjoyed Alfredo’s to go several times. DH joined the ship for leg 2 with premier and they changed the policy and no longer allowed to go pizzas.

I sailed Sapphire Dec 1 to Jan 4,2024. I had premier the first leg Dec 1 -18 and enjoyed Alfredo’s to go several times. DH joined the ship for leg 2 with premier and they changed the policy and no longer allowed to go pizzas.

I use Kinfield. https://kinfield.com/products/sunglow I have extremely sensitive skin. This reef safe sunscreen goes on light and does not irritate my skin at all. I applaud you for being conscientious enough to research this.

Crew appreciation fees do NOT supplement crew members salaries. All crew are now on fixed salaries. You auto grats go to Princess not directly to crew. If you sail without a package you can remove auto grats and give the money directly to crew who made your sailing above and beyond your expectations. Do a search and you’ll find this policy is well documented.

On the Sapphire Dec & Jan I won a free international wine tasting (really? I get all the wine I want with premier) and $25. Adam won $250. Way better! They phoned my cabin to let me know where/when for the wine tasting. The money shows up on your journey view account as non refundable OBC. I check my account at least once a day. You can also look at Prizes in the ap and it will show up there.

I was on the Star Legend last October when the war in the Middle East broke out and all her sailings after us were cancelled. They put together that Mediterranean set of sailings and were selling them at crazy cheap prices. I imagine they still couldn’t fill the ship on such short notice. By inviting 650 influencers on board they can write off the expenses? Idk I’m really just spitballing here. I really hope this doesn’t come back to bite them. Thanks @Host Jazzbeau for posting. I’ll go read the Explora board.

I’m on that sailing. I really wanted to end up in Boston and am sad to miss Bar Harbour and Lunenburg NS. I’m from the east coast and have traveled to almost all these places extensively by land except for the ports inQC. I’ve sat with a picnic lunch watching ships transit the Cape Cod Canal and at first was excited that was added but then saw we do so in the middle of the night. Oh well. It will still be lovely, just need to decide if we head to Boston or to see family on the Island. (As in Long) Maybe a Broadway show first? Lots of choices in Manhattan.

I hope you have a wonderful time like I did. If you are up for a review of that sailing would be great as we are in that area this fall on Wind Spirit.

I don’t have that on any of my bookings. Thanks for posting the screen shot.

@dweebthanks for posting.

Cabin number and date of birth. At least that’s what was needed on Sapphire earlier this month.

I’ve used EZ air successfully for shorter flights in North America but my most recent experience using them for a South America/ Antarctica sailing was horrible. Never. Again. My DH had a separate booking as I sailed LA to Buenos Aires (booked as 2 separate cruises) and he sailed only the second leg in his own cabin (thanks to great solo fares) Santiago to BA. Most of the issues below (except for the pricing problem) happened after the 45 day mark when we were ticketed. My first leg flight to SFO to LA no problem. My return flight on a different booking # was changed multiple times “by the airline” and always to a less desirable routing. I struggled getting any help from EZ air and wasted sooooooo many hours that I will never get back trying to keep the 2 stop flight BA to Santiago then Santiago to LAX, LAX to SFO that I originally booked. We ended up on a Santiago to Atlanta flight with only 1 hour 30 min to get our luggage, go thru border control and customs, recheck our bags and get from the international terminal to the furthest domestic terminal ATL is huge) on a train. And trying to keep Adam and I on the same flights with seats next to each other on all 3 flights was really challenging even though our reservations were linked. Presumably you won’t have that issue though as I assume you and your travel companions are on the same booking #. This is the issue I think you may face. This happened to us before the 45 day mark where you are ticketed. Since both of Adam's flights were on the same booking I couldn’t change his TO flight without also changing his FROM flight. That was super annoying. I could see the From flight on my booking separately and knew there was a better price but when I tried to take advantage of that for him it just increased to price of the TO. And it would not let me keep his seat on the TO flight. After the 45 day mark, when our flights were changed “by the airline” we were also repeatedly put on planes that did not have the lie flat seats like we originally booked. In EZ air if you say you want business class be really careful to look at the flight details and make sure the plane has lie down seats for that long leg. Then there is the whole code share issue. LATAM and DELTA do NOT play well together and it was a nightmare trying to see the entire flight. The various legs run by each kept saying go to the other ap/website but when we did the leg didn’t show or if it did it wouldn’t let us pick seats. We ended up on the last leg from ATL TO SFO not sitting together (but honestly after 20 hours of traveling it might have been for the best lol). Yes you pick your seats in EZ air but the seat charts on EZ air didn’t match the plane we saw we were on when we checked the airlines’ website. And even if you do pick your seats on EZ air you need to check the airline website to make sure you’ve been assigned those seats. When I tried to call the airlines or chat with them they said I had to talk to Princess. And you guessed it Princess said I had to talk to the airlines. We flew business class. We also traveled to Greece and Turkey in the last 6 months with Turkish air business class booking on our own. Much better experience & oh my goodness the food! I actually got off the plane in SFO really hungry as the food on Delta and LATAM was horrible. And with 2 very short connections there was no time to eat in the airports. We are traveling to Portugal, Spain and Italy this coming October and I just booked my own flights again. I found that booking 2 one way tickets in business class for each of us to be far less expensive ($3000 less) than booking 1 RT for each of us. Who knew?

The English take their fish and chips quite seriously. The best I’ve ever had was on the QM2 light fluffy chips and delicate, crispy perfect fish. The Brits on board said it was “OK”. I can’t imagine how it could have been improved on. While Princess never had fish & chips that good, they at least did a decent job when they had pub day in Wheelhouse. Those were the days! One of the rotating items on the new menu is chicken enchiladas (on sapphire anyway). They were pretty good.

We had excellent weather on our sailing and my friends are having great weather as well on the current return trip. I say excellent because one does expect cold, wind and rain. One also expects extremely rough seas. So to me excellent means the cold was bearable, the winds didn’t keep the outer decks closed, the rain was brief and not heavy the few times it came, the seas thru Drakes passage were like the potato patch out of San Francisco at its worst. And while in the Antarctica seas it was like sailing on a lake. Lots of sun breaking thru. From passengers onboard who’ve sailed this route multiple times I understood this trip to have the best weather & seas they’ve experienced.

Hi I was on the first Santiago to BA leg the Sapphire just did (I boarded in LA) and my friends stayed on and went back to Santigo. I’ll attach the Santiago to BA map thru the Antarctic for you. I see someone already posted the BA to Santiago map. While the best side is outside, with the below freezing temps compounded by strong winds we did have to spend some time inside even though we were very well prepared with multiple layers and good quality parkas and other outerwear. Surprisingly, the views on both sailings were best from starboard while in Antarctica until we got to Deception Island then port side was optimal. This was the first time the aft view was mostly not as good. I had the last Emerald deck starboard aft mini suite and my husband had the B4 aft facing balcony next to the vista suite on Emerald deck. We barely used his balcony! We always sale aft facing in Alaska where this affords just the best views. So we were shocked at how that did not hold up in Antarctica! Yes the Captain did sail by A23a iceberg on both the first sailing and the second. It was humbling to say the least. We also missed Hope Bay due to too much ice.

The pub lunch was only offered in the buffet and was horrible. The coating was thick and rubbery. The fish was over cooked and dry. This was what I experienced on my 19 day Emerald sailing Aug/Sept 2023 and my 34 day Sapphire sailing Dec 2023/ Jan 2024. Really disgusting. Why do they bother? And what kind of person actually eats this? How can anyone find that palatable?

Wow thanks for posting your experience!

I’m just getting caught up reading your live from! You took my birthday cruise without me this year 😂. Great comments, I always live reading your threads. 🥰 I am so sad to hear they are going towards those industrial glasses. I just got off 34 days on Sapphire and they were really strict about not taking those glasses out of MDR or vines. I did bring enough good glasses for me, Adam and our friend on board. But what a pain. I’m so happy you guys had such a good time! What a treat with that whale show! We will see you for the Eclipse!

Great start to your live from! I just disembarked in BA Jan 4th and stayed thru Jan 6th night. There is currently a huge mosquito explosion in BA. Insect repellent of any kind is hard to come by. My friends who stayed on for the next leg back to Santiago said their balcony was so overtaken with mosquitoes they couldn’t use it and GS came and sprayed it with raid. The promenade deck and deck 15 were similarly over run with the buggers. My poor husband got bitten quite a lot during our time in BA. Coconut sunscreen helped though the day he had it on. The enrichment speakers and naturalists onboard were excellent and all the talks are in your tv. You’ll have a great time. It was stunning.

You can buy ginger pills as well. You start taking them a couple of days before boarding and then keep taking them every day. They are quite effective. Adam gets horribly sea sick and hates to take drugs for a lot of reasons unless there is simply no alternative. The pressure bands and ginger pills do the trick even in the worst of it. As a side note, I read the original research paper where the ginger pills were tested in randomly assigned controlled trials. Pregnant women were their test subjects and the process, protocols and statistical analysis were sound. I’m a statistician (and a professor) and can usually find a flaw in anyone’s experimental design. This study was graded an A. Lol.

@misguy Thank you for the photos and updates to your sailing. I am really enjoying reading about your experiences. @medskis I just booked this itinerary (different line but will watch WS to see if they offer it) for April 2026. I’ll admit I haven’t done any research yet. I assume you are referring to very rough seas in this area? Or were there issues with the ship and or staff? Apologies to @misguyfor a brief off topic query.

Thank you so much for the kind words @BellaBayi truly appreciate them. @medskis The tender issue was only that one time and on subsequent tender days they used the other side of the ship or the prevailing winds were in our favor. We simply loved having that balcony door open with fresh air and sound of the sea. Packing for your trip will be a challenge with the skiing part first, but how wonderful! We just returned from 39 days….LA to Buenos Aires with 4 days scenic cruising in Antarctica. We actually sailed by the largest iceberg in the world (A23a) that recently dislodged. It was massive and quite a treat. Anyway our weather went from high 80’s and humid to 28 degrees F with 40-50 km winds so biting, freezing cold. As we were determined to be on the outer decks for these spectacular scenic days we brought all the gear and were not disappointed that we went to all that trouble. Our days in BA were hot and humid which meant a change of clothes needed before dinner after being out in it. It was a horrific amount of luggage. I keep swearing that I am going to pack less and someday I hope to succeed. I don’t really engage with the entertainment staff on cruises. A combination of port intensive itineraries and cruising style mean events don’t usually align with what we want to do. ‘’That said we did wonder up decks for a beer one day and found our ED just starting a lively game of Beer Trivia. Adam is a home brewer so we thought oh boy finally a trivia game where we don’t feel like complete idiots! We soon found out we know nothing about beer but it was a good time. The beer was cold, the skies were clear, the seas were calm and the other guests were fun. We thought she did a good job of it. She would also be up decks with Willhelm scooping out fresh ice cream some afternoons. I’ll attach some pictures. I just booked the Wind Spirit, 7 day Med Is mosaic, for Oct 27 this year. The itinerary looked very interesting and it gets us back to Barcelona from Rome after taking the Oceania Vista Barcelona to Rome Oct 3rd followed by 2 weeks in Italy on land. I read the reviews of the Wind Spirit cabins and picked 127. The tiny cabin will be a new experience for both of us and we figure we can do anything for 7 days. But again there’s only one sea day and we have 2 very late nights in port.