LACruiser88

No gas, they are just pumping the air out. That helps but not much. They really should invest in Corvin's, but I don't see that happening.

Here are some photos of the mini-Vines onboard. If I'm not mistaken the original Vines on the Sapphire was located where they currently have Alfredo's Pizzeria? We have not been on the Sapphire since 2012. The current Vines is next to Alfredo's. There is no "bar" area, wines are served from a built-in buffet and the seating area is not very big. We were lucky that we have known the server in Vines, "Red," for many years. He is an extremely funny guy! So far our go to wines have been Spellbound Petite Syrah and the Spanish Embruix Red Blend. The nicer, higher end wines are not being ordered and most have been opened for several days, no bueno!

There has been no "wine police" anywhere. They do not seem to care and our MDR servers were happy to open our wine at dinner with no mention of the corkage fee. I see a nice tip coming their way! 🍷🙂

Being one of the older ships in the fleet I would say that the general condition of the ship is very good. On its way up for the Alaska season the Sapphire will go into a dry dock in Portland (Oregon) in mid April. From what we have been told it will be for general maintenance, including cleaning and painting the hull. The crew has been FANTASTIC! They are friendly, happy and have gone out of their way to please. Sorry, we do not care for the Sterling Steakhouse location and will not be dining there. If we hear any good or bad comments about the steakhouse I'll let you know.

The internet has been working really well for us and we have also been streaming Netflix with no issues. I just ran a speed test, below. Let's see how it does as we head south towards the Falklands...

The below information was waiting for us in our cabin.

We boarded with you. Below are my comments from our boarding experience and posted on my Live thread. Well, we finally made it onboard! Today we experienced our worst embarkation ever! We arrived at the terminal at 11:20 and got into a line outside the terminal to drop off our bags. The bag drop off line took about 20 minutes. We were given a red priority card with the letter "C" and were allowed into a waiting area that was a sea of people! Two ships were using the same terminal, ours and a Regent ship. We were told that the Sapphire was having a computer issue and no one had yet boarded. There was no separate waiting area for suites or Elites. After a while they started calling priority letters. They started with the letter P, followed by A and B. There was a mass of Elites and Platinums jamming the "gate" claiming that they had not been given a priority card. What a freak'n mess! They finally called C and D and we proceeded to a check-in line to verify Medallion info and passports. We then went into another room for an Immigration passport inspection. Then into another room to collect our passports. We will have our passports returned at the end of this 14 day segment. The saga continues, we then went down stairs to the outdoors to get onto a bus that finally took us to the ship! During this whole time the inside of the terminal was around 90 degrees and very humid. The process took us 90 minutes. I made it to our cabin ready for a cold shower!

A few facts about Montevideo, Uruguay. Nestled between the continent's two giants, Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay is the second smallest country in South America. More than half of the country's population of three million reside in the capital of Montevideo. It was extremely hot and humid today. After about an hour of strolling thru the main pedestrian promenade we rushed back to the a/c on the ship. Of course this was after buying 3 bottles of Argentinian wine at the modern and air conditioned super market.

View of Montevideo (Uruguay) from our balcony. Regent and Costa in port with us today. Also a photo of towel art by the pool.

Tonight we received our invitation to the MTG Luncheon. I also included tonight's dinner menu. The food has been very good (so far 🙂).

??? We don't attend, I don't play well with others! 😄😄😄

I just had a nice chat with the Loyalty & Events Manager. As far as milestone recognitions the program has been totally discontinued regardless of when your cruise was booked. Below are the most traveled passenger sea days for this sailing: 1 - 2,194 days 2 - 1,879 days 3 - 887 days The cut-off for the MTG Luncheon was 377 days. Below were the top 3 on the previous cruise: 1 - 790 days 2 - 742 days 3 - 507 days We would have been #2 on the previous sailing.

We have no idea? We rarely attend the shows...

Vacation, he is spending a month in Buenos Aires with relatives before returning to Italy. He plans to be back in a couple of months.

Can someone update the chart to show that Francesco Ciorfito has taken over for Mario Propato as the DRO on the Sapphire as of yesterday. Thank you! The photo board has not yet been updated.

He is no longer with Princess, he is now at MSC.

Totally agree. We saw him last night in the Wheelhouse, he is very talented and entertaining.

We are currently onboard the Sapphire and noticed that the paper "Patter" is now called the Princess Event Listings. GS told us this change happened awhile ago. We never noticed! 🤭

We are frequently asked how we hang clothes to dry in our cabin. Debbie will not let me send out what she considers delicate items and she prefers to hang dry them. Magnetic hooks are great for this!

Princess South America Admistrative Requirements:

Today's Events Listings, it is no longer called the Patter.

We were happy last night at dinner (we are in the Savoy at a set table at 7 pm) to see that the Sapphire still has the "old" menus. We are not ready for Mama's Lasagna! 🙂 As we overnighted in Buenos Aires the MDR was maybe at 50% capacity. We are scheduled to depart at 6 pm today. It appears that most passengers are going ashore. We decided to stay onboard today. Debbie is doing laundry (of her delicate items) and after having my morning cappuccino I'm going to the gym. I can feel the waistline expanding after a week of no workouts! Below are a few photos of our aft mini-suite and of our huge covered balcony. There is also a photo of the view from our balcony. We are docked in a cargo area and must be bused to the cruise terminal.

Here is the passenger count for this cruise: Blue- 700 Gold- 308 Ruby- 222 Platinum- 520 Elite- 347 Total- 2,097 There are approx 1,700 passengers staying on for the b2b to Los Angeles.