DiRonT

11 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

We sail on the Sapphire on March 5, 2023, from Buenos Aires to LA, 32 days.

Thank you for this.  CC members are the best!

14 hours ago, beg3yrs said:

I don't know all of it but on Dec 1 2022 she sails for South America from Los Angeles. She then starts going back and forth from San Antonio (for Santiago), Chile to Buenos Aires. Many, if not all the itineraries include a cruise through the Antarctic Peninsula.

 

All these cruises should be available for viewing on the Princess website.

Thanks so much for this info - very helpful.

Trying to figure out what the Sapphire is doing in-between her 2 South Pacific cruises, which would be from Dec. 1, 2022 to April, 2023.  

3 minutes ago, Therese S. said:

We did the 28 day with Bora Bora in March 2019 on the Star Princess.  My all time favorite cruise!  We had a very active roll-call, met some super nice people and played games (LCR) in the afternoon on sea days. 

I am just thrilled that Princess has found a replacement for Bora Bora and would love to visit Fiji.  We were booked on the 28 day  itinerary for March 2023 but have since cancelled.  I'm ready to book April of 2024 but sadly out of FCD. 

 

Does Princess typically put these new dates on sale as soon as they come out?  We dont have a cruise scheduled until this October to purchase more. 

 

 

We are also out of FCD's and don't sail until September - just keep our fingers crossed, I guess.

8 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

We did it on the Golden 2019! Loved Bora Bora!

We did too, but unfortunately Bora Bora is no longer on the itinerary.  The island decided they don't want the large cruise ships arriving and risking their beautiful environment.  Can't say I blame them - but sad for us.

8 hours ago, DUCHESSRN said:

I want to do a Bucket List 32 Day Sapphire Princess round trip LA.

You will not regret it!!!  Our best cruise ever.

1 hour ago, Thrak said:

 

Ahhh... Thanks. We did the 28 day Hawaii/South Pacific cruise on Emerald Princess in 2017. It is our favorite cruise to date.

We did it on the Sapphire - love, love, love all those sea days.  May have to consider this again.

On 7/17/2022 at 9:57 PM, nini said:

Just assume that it is so. After reading many threads of different ships and aft balconies, this seems to be the case. I really do not know what it would take to get the point across to Princess.

I sent an email to 4 of the top level execs at Princess about 10 days ago, asking what their proposed solution to this issue was going to be and when. Obviously I have not received any response and probably won't.  We have 4 cruises upcoming in aft suites but due to health issues that are affected by smoke, we are contemplating how to move forward.  We will be on Baja for one cruise and Aloha for the other three.  Wondering if being that high up will give us some protection.  

1 hour ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

My favorite midship suite balcony was L302 on the Grand. 

 

A03758F4-AECE-4595-B81F-542D2E7C7170.MOV 20.86 MB · 0 downloads

 

Really Nice - is that the Grand Suite?

2 hours ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

You can always request a lounger but I have only once had them bring it to a cabin that was not a full suite. I think they only did it because I’d been on the ship in a full suite for some time and had to switch to a caribe deck balcony due to lack of availability of a full suite for that leg. 
 

Here are some photos of Ruby aft facing PH balconies. Aloha deck is better than the caribe deck. These were taken this year. 
 

If you absolutely must take a mid ship PH and find there are no cushions on the chairs you should request them. If they are on the ship they will bring them. I have had to do this in the past on the rare occasion the cushion was MIA

A751

 

A751

 

C749

My happy spot for sure.  Our next 4 cruises are in B751 on Sapphire and then A751 on Crown and A751 on Emerald B2B.

On the newer ships the suite balconies on the Riviera Deck are very narrow and what you see above is what you get (although I can not attest to cushions or not).  The PH Suites on Ri iera on Crown class ships are bigger than the newer shops and have a table, 4 chairs and 2 loungers.  This is why we always book aft PH Suites and definitely prefer the Grand and Crown class ships.  We have been on Majestic and Discovery in aft PH suites in the last 8 months.  Both times we specifically chose Dolphin decks because of the huge balconies.  Baja deck also has good size balconies, but the other decks are fairly small.

6 minutes ago, tonit964 said:

It's not sold out, lots of Insides still available. I'm on this sailing too and have been nervous about it not actually going. We'll see. I've been looking for back up ones, just in case. 😊

Sapphire is definitely on the move and is scheduled to arrive Singapore on 7/28.  After that (assuming she follows track of Diamond) she should head to Phillipines to pick up crew.  San Pedto shows her arriving there on 8/20.  Let's hope this all happens.

12 minutes ago, scottca075 said:

 

Not to veer way off topic, but......  we are on Sapphire the cruise after you, 15 Day Hawaii RT. Both the 10 Day Baja (Sept 24) and 15 Day Hawaii (Oct 4) are showing "currently not available" for booking, which has a few folks shook up on the Oct 4 Roll Call, because the Sapphire cruises before Sept 24 were cancelled and Sept 24 is (was?) her first cruise back. Have you heard anything?

 

PS yes, MDR are pretty much the same when it comes to food. They were named in the days before "specialty" dining and menus did reflect the name more.

Just checked my Personalizer and Medallion App and texted my TA- no notification of change or cancellation, BUT I do see that this cruise shows as Unavailable when trying to book.  Wondering if sold out???

Sapphire is our favorite ship.  Will be on her in September for a 10 day.  The various dining rooms, as has been said previously, all serve the same menu.  The decors are different, Savoy = old fashioned steakhouse/private club.  Vivaldi = classic old upscale Italian.  Pacific Moon = Asian theme and Santa Fe = Southwestern (think New Mexico) theme.  Santa Fe is Club Class, but I don't know if it is exclusively Club Class.  Can't tell you about International, never been in there.  Try them all and enjoy!

1 hour ago, sofmall said:

 

I have checked but found nothing else. Everything else is ticked, but I'll try again because that awful app is so counter intuitive.

Ours still show pending and we uploaded 3 months ago, but we have never changed from green lane so it sounds like I must be another reason that you went to blue lane.  Have you ordered your Medallions?  I know on one of my future cruises I couldn't get out if blue lane until I did that.

20 hours ago, Italy52 said:

ccqueenanne:  Interesting comment about your pizzas.  When we were on the Majestic we had the pizza twice from Alfredos.  Embarkation day the pizza was great.  On another day, the pizza tasted under baked and the sauce was on the runny side. 

We loved Alfredo's on Majestic last November, so really looked forward Gigi's on Discovery.  So disappointed.  The pizza was dry and tough, the soup was lukewarm at best.  

16 minutes ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

That’s pretty funny. No one’s on their balconies because of the stench from that smoke. I pay a lot of money to use that balcony and I should not be denied that part of my cabin. This was never a problem pre Covid.  It is long past time the crew goes back to their pre Covid smoking areas. They are no longer socially distanced anywhere else on the ship or in their quarters. The crew bars are open and so on. 
 

Moreover, all passengers should be given access to the aft promenade for their exercise and/or leisure. 

Agree - we love aft cabins and are very fortunate to be able to afford PH and Owners Suite cabins.  However, we have worked very hard to get to this point and to not have full use of the balcony due to a small percentage of the crew that needs to smoke does not seems right.  We have 4 cruises coming up in the next 12 months and are having 2nd thoughts due to this situation. 

2 minutes ago, Mike45LC said:

As I reported above, when we arrived at the pier at 11:30, we were on board at 12:30.  The only real drawback was the scrum at the luggage check-in area.  

Since we drive in maybe we will shoot for noon and if things look crazy we can just wait in the car for a bit.

Going thru the Suez today and headed to Singapore.  Then on to Phillipines to pick up crew assuming she will follow same schedule as Diamond which will be sailing from San Diego a few weeks before Sapphire sails from San Pedro.

For a number of years now, we have been lucky enough to cruise in Penthouse or Owners suites on Princess and almost all our of San Pedro.  Never have we received any special treatment as regards boarding.  Yes, we are able to wait in the suite/elite area and therefore able to board a little earlier than most, which is really all we have expected.  In April, boarding the Discovery at about 10:30am was chaos.  We started up the escalator and the crowds were backed up all the way to the top of the  escalators.  We were shuffled into a line and were in that line for almost an hour before we were finally able to move into the elite lounge, within about 15 minutes we were allowed to board.  We have 3 more cruises coming up out of San Pedro and we are hopeful it will have improved, but since one of those sailings is on the Sapphire assigned to Berth 46 we are quite anxious to see how that will work out.  We have decided, going forward, not to arrive at the port until about 1:00pm so maybe most people will be on board already.  We do not worry about lunch in MDR on embarkation and we don't need to reserve spaces in the Sanctuary - so no hurry to board.  Rather be relaxed than stressed when we do board.

6 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

We have several FCD's on the books, so we booked using those.  This way we also get the OBC's associated with the FCD.

Yes, unfortunately we had used all of ours.  Will buy more in September..

1 hour ago, LACruiser88 said:

We just booked a July (2023) Hawaii cruise on the Emerald.  All of their summer sailings were listed.  🙂

We booked B2B Calif. Coast and Mexico with La Paz  for July 2023 and got the $1 deposits!!!

42 minutes ago, Sarnia 432 said:

This is the first release since becoming elite.  When I look at the sailings (logged in or logged out), I do not see the prices, nor have the ability to book online.  Am I doing something wrong?

Did you log in?  If your account recognizes that you are elite, you should be able to see pricing once you log in.

Just found them - booked with $2 deposits.  WooHoo - thanks so much for the heads up.  Never would have known if I were relying on Princess to let us know.

2 minutes ago, ceilidh1 said:

I don't see a time listed, just the date - it's usually some random time like 11am PST or something...

Ok - will be checking all day as there is a back to back we want, but we want a specific cabin and there are not many of them.