Random thoughts about my 1/5-15 Sapphire Cruise

[Pam in CA]

First, I had a great time and enjoyed the Sapphire. I'm not much fun in that I don't go to the shows, don't go to the pool or pool parties, don't go to bingo or art auctions, etc. but love to read and relax onboard. This isn't so much a review as random thoughts about the cruise.

 

-- No more balloons on doors celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, etc.; just a big sign. I believe the balloons were inside the cabin.

 

-- The Patisserie on deck 5 in the Atrium has started serving small sandwiches mid-day. I didn't go there but my sister did.

 

-- There were several balcony cabins directly below me with heavy smokers so I wasn't able to use my balcony during sailaway or some other times. Several times, I woke up in the morning to the smell of stale smoke. My cabin steward told me that no one was smoking in our section. It must have come from the ventilation system. I reported it but didn't expect anything to be done. I made sure I wrote comments on my comment card and on the questionnaire when I got home. It didn't ruin my cruise but did affect it.

 

-- The people-watching was pretty darned good on this cruise. I want to be politically correct but there were a lot of walking (or riding) heart attacks waiting to happen and some pretty "interesting" fashions displayed. The first formal evening, a woman had extremely short black shorts on but with see-through gauze black panels sort of like a skirt so I guess that passed as formal. There were scooters and walkers left everywhere, in hallways, elevator areas, etc.

 

-- Food is very subjective but we didn't think the food was particularly well-prepared or cooked. There were five of us traveling together and we often ordered different meals (from appetizer to dessert.) The fish, which was lovely on the Crown in September, was overcooked, dried out and tough. I ordered the fried chicken one night and there were three small pieces, two of dark meat and one white meat, and they were way over-cooked and tough, practically hockey pucks. KFC has nothing to fear from Princess. Many nights, there were soups and entrees that were being made for that night but weren't on the menu. For instance, there's no longer a "French" night but there was onion soup one night even though it wasn't on the menu; escargots and frog's legs on other nights but also not on the menu. On the "Chef's Dinner" night, we had two menus, the one for the dinner plus another one with other options. As we discovered, there was soup, salad, entree, etc. available that weren't on either menu. Just plain weird. The kitchen was very, very, VERY slow with our Assistant Waiter often waiting 15 - 20 minutes to pick up a course. By the time we actually got it, the food was cool or cold. Not the waitstaff's fault. I'm not particular about whether my food is super hot or not, but meat that's barely warm doesn't cut it for me. There was never a "Be careful, this plate is hot" warning that I've gotten on just about every other Princess cruise.

 

-- The CD was Lee Childers and since I didn't go to the shows, I had no idea who he was. He showed up the final night for the "parade" in the dining room and I got to see him, and I could swear I never saw him walking around the ship, greeting passengers, etc. The available daytime activities were very poor. I'd emailed him almost three weeks before the cruise, asking that he arrange a "Needle Arts" get-together on sea days. We've done this on every cruise with anywhere between 20 - 50 people showing up for 1-2 hours. Many people bring knitting, needlepoint, crocheting, crewel, etc. and you will often see them sitting in a lounge near a window. I never heard from him; no acknowledgement; no get-together. I ran into many people sitting around with their needlework who said they were surprised and disappointed that there wasn't a get-together. Yet there were some activities he planned where only four people showed up. When you see the Patter in larger type to fill the space, you know there isn't much planned. Bah humbug to Lee Childers.

 

-- Using my iPad in my cabin was an adventure. If I tried using it during the day or evening, I'd lose the signal almost immediately. I wound up using it only if I woke up very early in the morning (5-6am) and then it would be OK.

 

-- Many of you followed my thread a year ago when my brother-in-law got sick while on the Coral Princess and subsequently passed away a month later. He wanted to be cremated and his ashes distributed at sea, so I made arrangements with Princess to do it on the ship. I will post a separate thread about this but wanted to mention it in this thread because Princess was fabulous and very sensitive to our needs.

[tiecrane]

Thanks for your random thoughts.My wife and I will be on the Sapphire Feb 12 for our 30th anniversary.When you can will you post the patters we like to plan ahead.Thanks

[grandmaa]

Pam...Thanks for your "Random Thoughts." We too,like Tiecrane, will be on the Sapphire February 12 for the Valentine's Week cruise. I am sorry to hear that the CD Lee Childers is a non entity. People really make their own good time but when the activities on board are non existent or poorly attended it reflects on the entire crew. We have had such wonderful CD's on our past cruises..Neil Chandler, Billy Hygate, David Cole, Paul O'Loughlin, just to name a few that it really infected the attitude of the crew and the passengers and made for happy people. You are correct, food is subjective..food temperature is not! I hope they have their act together when we sail. I did follow your thread re: your brother in law..was so sorry to hear about the sad outcome when you posted. I am glad to read that your sister is going about this thing called "life".

Enjoy our beautiful California weather..it is glorious this week.

Anita

[recyclelady]

Thanks for the comments. I've learned that your thoughts are always worth reading!:)

[Saruman]

Well, this doesn't bode well for those of us looking forward to being aboard the Sapphire this year. I won't lose sleep over the CD, as CD's seldom have any effect on my enjoyment of cruises, but ignoring a "frequent flyer" like Pam is a poor move on his part and may be indicative of the ship's overall attitudes and practices. Plus, her comments on the food bear serious attention on the part of PCL. I hope they monitor these boards, especially comments from veteran folks like Pam, whose influence on the rest of us is not to be underrated. Here's hoping things improve for the better. Soon.:(

[Coral]

Well, this doesn't bode well for those of us looking forward to being aboard the Sapphire this year. I won't lose sleep over the CD, as CD's seldom have any effect on my enjoyment of cruises, but ignoring a "frequent flyer" like Pam is a poor move on his part and may be indicative of the ship's overall attitudes and practices. Plus, her comments on the food bear serious attention on the part of PCL. I hope they monitor these boards, especially comments from veteran folks like Pam, whose influence on the rest of us is not to be underrated. Here's hoping things improve for the better. Soon.:(

 

We were on the ship for 14 days before Pam embarked. While I am not discounting Pam's comments by any means - we actually had great service and great food on our cruise. I can think of only 1 meal that was not very good. Maybe we were in different dining rooms and/or had different wait staff but we had very good food and service. It actually was much better than my previous cruises with Princess.

 

I actually thought the entire crew on the Sapphire was some of the best crew I have encountered on any ship on any of my cruises. At times, we felt like we were treated like Royalty.

 

Though, from what I understand, the ship is going to have a huge turnover in room stewards and wait staff in Feb/March time frame. There is a large percentage of staff from Phillipines and many of them joined the ship in May and will be leaving soon.

 

I have no comment on the CD...

 

I have 2 cruises planned this year on the Sapphire and am not hesitant at all.

 

I am sorry that Pam didn't have the same experience that we did. Just a difference of wait staff, kitchen not at their best that week can make a huge difference.

[sassyredhat]

Sounds like you cruise very similarly to use. Sometimes, the ship is the destination.

That said, on our next cruise (0nly our 2nd w/Princess), we will be sailing with DS and DIL. They will be 44 and 35, and both are deaf.

Will there be enough to keep them occupied for the 4 sea days to and from Hawaii ??

Pat

[u2cruiser]

Thank you for your very honest review.

That's a shame about the cold food.

 

I'm sure you must have smiled when you saw 'formal shorts lady', thinking of how that would go down in the dress code threads :D

[icyfrost]

Well, this doesn't bode well for those of us looking forward to being aboard the Sapphire this year. I won't lose sleep over the CD, as CD's seldom have any effect on my enjoyment of cruises, but ignoring a "frequent flyer" like Pam is a poor move on his part and may be indicative of the ship's overall attitudes and practices. Plus, her comments on the food bear serious attention on the part of PCL. I hope they monitor these boards, especially comments from veteran folks like Pam, whose influence on the rest of us is not to be underrated. Here's hoping things improve for the better. Soon.:(

my brother and his family along with two other families were on this same cruise. Opposite thoughts on the food and service, all were very satisfied. do not take comments here as gospel, don;t lose any sleep over another persons thoughts.

[Mary Ellen]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

[Pam in CA]

Another random thought. There were two nights that we didn't receive Patters until the next morning. Which shouldn't happen. One night, it was delivered at about midnight and the next night, at about 2am.

 

As I prefaced my remarks, food is very subjective and I'm very aware that two people can have completely opposite experiences. FWIW, we had late traditional dining and the kitchen prepares and serves all three dining rooms, including the two Anytime dining rooms and the Traditional dining room. Overall, I thought our service was very good and have no complaints about that. Our Table Captain, Johnny, was the best we've ever had. It was the first time I've ever tipped extra to the Table Captain. He certainly deserved it. He made note of our likes and dislikes, often asking if we'd like something special made for us. He often jumped in to help the waitstaff, even so far as running into the kitchen to get entrees the Asst waiter couldn't handle on one tray. My sister asked for the BCS football score and he called Skywalkers and got updates every half an hour; he had chocolate souffles made just for us the last night.

 

There was a huge turnover in staff last Saturday. More are leaving this Saturday.

 

While I post on CC frequently, that doesn't mean what I say is gospel; these are just my thoughts and impressions.

[Crzn-Life]

Most interesting reading; your thoughts and comments are always appreciated. You sound like our kind of "people" except for the knitting/needlework; don't do that anymore. We don't do the shows much. They tend to be the same shows that weren't that good the 1st time around so assume they haven't improved. We are also inveterate people-watchers. We're on the ships because we love being at sea, reading, and relaxing.

 

We were on the Sapphire Sept-Nov on the round trip to Oz. I think some the same passengers may have still been aboard while you were on. ;) It does seem that there were more wallking heart-attacks-in-waiting than ever before. We were wondering how low in the water the ship must have been riding. But...even saying that, I think there is a different demographic on the shorter cruises and also different expectations of what constitutes a fun/good cruise with concomitant behavioral differences. On the Mx. Riviera & Caribbean cruises folks dress differently and tend to have more of a let's party attitude.

 

As you said, food is subjective but it sounds as though your dining experience was quite different from ours. We had excellent service, but occasionally my entree would be luke-warm but that was more the exception than the rule. The waiter hovered over us after serving and if I showed one little bit of dissatisfaction he would try to take the food back. The headwaiter did the same. I also don't eat a lot & they serve large portions so I constantly had to defend myself and the quality of the food because they thought they should bring me something else if I wasn't eating everything! Guess they equate quantity with quality! We had the French Night menu on both segments. Our headwaiter went above and beyond seeing that our needs were met and expectations exceeded. We did notice that there was a change in kitchen staff in Sydney so the quality of some of the dishes changed.

 

The maitre d' Jacques Ghennai also kept things going well. We commented to him several times about the excellent service and he always gave credit to his team. Was he still on board?

 

We like the casino but the enjoyment of that was hampered at times by the smokers. Also there was a couple that chain smoked & drank excessively that ended up driving us away from the 3-card poker table with their smoke & drunken antics. The casino supervisors would end up at the table watching them. They were playing higher stakes than us so they were never asked to "clean up their acts" & since they were so inebriated they bet foolishly and lost a lot so guess for the casino staff it was a no brainer in who they'd rather keep at the table.

 

We also had a different CD. It was a guy with 2 first names, Richard James or something like that. We typically don't pay much attention to them, but this one you couldn't miss because he was everywhere. Constantly smiling and saying what a glorious day it was.

 

It is interesting that the same ship can change its personality with just a few key staff changes.

 

We had such a wonderful time on the cruise that even after 62 days onboard I didn't want to leave. Three weeks after leaving the ship we went to Puerto Vallarta for our annual 4 week stay there and saw the Sapphire come in 3 times and each time we saw her we were homesick.

 

The only times we've had less than stellar experiences on the Princess ships have been on the 7-day and sometimes 10-day cruises to the Mx Riviera & Caribbean. We haven't done a scientific study so aren't sure if there really is a cause and effect thing here, but we've pretty much decided that the only ship we'll book now for a 7-day cruise is the QM2 transatlantic. Other than that the minimum is 14 days.

 

So...same ship on different itineraries with cruises just a few weeks apart and very different experiences (even with the internet).

[Saruman]

my brother and his family along with two other families were on this same cruise. Opposite thoughts on the food and service, all were very satisfied. do not take comments here as gospel, don;t lose any sleep over another persons thoughts.

 

Your are correct, and I don't. But I have learned to pay attention to certain regular posters (like Pam) and tend to give them more credence. I have read other positive reviews of the Sapphire, so I was paying attention to what Pam had to say.and I stand on my original comment about hoping that PCL pays attention to the veteran (and usually positive) CC members. I will keep an open mind and hope for great meals and terrific wait staff! ;)

[califgary]

Welcome back Pam and thanks for posting - we too are on the Feb 12 sailing as per previous posters - so hearing about whats going on from an experienced cruiser is always welcome. We will hope for the best on our upcoming trip!

[never2late]

Hi Pam -- We met at the CC Meet and Greet -- Enjoyed meeting you, your sister, and niece -- Chris and I looked for you the rest of the cruise, but you do keep a low profile -- we never saw you again. :)

 

We also had smoke issues in our balcony cabin on Aloha deck -- never could figure out where the smoker or smokers were, but the smell of stale smoke was present, especially in the morning.

 

I felt the staff on the Sapphire were warm and gracious -- everyone we met including our cabin steward Jay and our wait staff in the Savoy DR were the nicest we have had. The Maitre d and the wine sommelier and his assistant were very kind and came by our table to chat several times. We did participate in the "Chef's Table" and they would recognize us in and out of the dining room and always took the time to ask us if we were enjoying our cruise.

 

The coffee bar on the 5th deck was my to go place every morning and the servers recognized me after the 2nd day, getting my 2 large coffees with cream to go ready before I even asked. The mini-pastries and mini-muffins at the coffee bar are a huge improvement from the items they have offered in the past at the coffee bar on other ships -- didn't miss the IC at all because of it.

 

We enjoyed the Platinum/Elite Cocktail Party up at Skywalkers that they offered -- $2.99 for the drink of the day and very nice appetizers almost every evening from 5 to 7 PM.

 

The internet was terrible -- especially for my husband who has an I-Pad -- never really improved for him -- he was quite frustrated. I had better internet access with my little netbook. This was from our cabin -- I did go down to the library and try to access the internet there, but it was no better.

 

I took a Yoga class up in the fitness center and was quite disappointed to be charged $12 for the class, only because the instructor was not qualified to teach a yoga class (in my opinion). He did not have a clue about the breathing, the flow, the poses, or any modifications. It was almost laughable. It was like he had watched a video once and now he was a yoga teacher.

 

The beds were hard, hard, hard, but I won't get started on that one. :)

 

All in all, we had a wonderful cruise -- lovely weather, smooth seas, relaxing ports of call, and full tummys -- Eating room service cheese burgers and hamburgers with an ice cold beer out on our balcony was the best! And did I mention the beautiful sunsets! We feel so fortunate to be able to cruise -- so thank you Princess -- you are not perfect, but we still love you -- looking forward to our next cruise!:)

 

Andrea

[denims]

I was on the same cruise as Pam. We did go to the shows. Howdy Doody could have done a better job than Lee C.! Not only was he colorless, we got tired of him when he got excited and his voice hit uncomfortable high pitches! I did notice that we didn’t see ANY officers walking around the ship; unlike X, which we have cruised the last two times.

We just got off a Celebrity cruise and their new ship the Equinox; on both the X cruise and this Princess cruise….the food was about the same! IMHO, the food has really declined on ALL cruise lines.

[Pam in CA]

I wanted to add that when I was on the Sapphire in April 2009, the food was overall the best I've ever had. And, I've been on longer cruises when the head chef was on vacation for the first week or ten days and food prep was awful; he came back onboard and it was suddenly greatly improved. Overall, the food on the Sapphire wasn't awful and I had meals that were pretty good. I'm perfectly happy with many of the "Always available" menu items and often ordered the filet with a loaded potato. :) I'm really not that picky unless it has tomatoes or mushrooms and then I go, "Yuck!" :)

[Pam in CA]

Hi Pam -- We met at the CC Meet and Greet -- Enjoyed meeting you, your sister, and niece -- Chris and I looked for you the rest of the cruise, but you do keep a low profile -- we never saw you again. :)

Andrea, it was great meeting you and the others. FYI, that was my daughter. :)

 

I really wasn't hiding. :) I was usually reading a book on a lounger in the Calypso Reef & Pool area or in Crooners. After leaving Acapulco, I was often reading on the Promenade deck and sometimes, sat on my balcony when the smokers weren't there. We always met outside the Explorers Lounge at 7pm for a drink. Maybe my next cruise, I should post my usual schedule on the Roll Call. :) :) I ran into Larry (denims) and his wife outside the Horizon Court one day.

[oral1139]

Thanks for the comments. I've learned that your thoughts are always worth reading!

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[Sillyjilly]

Why, oh why do they keep the escargot and French onion soup a secret? (Among other items.)

That was the one night I was looking forward to. I guess checking the posted menus is no longer good enough.

 

I ate in the buffet every night and the food was some of the worst buffet food I've ever had on Princess. No variety. I usually love their buffet. Veggies and fish, fish and veggies.

I never saw any shrimp or those yummy pot pies. Hmmmm.

 

For breakfast the food was always cold. Yuck!

 

I'm hoping it was a fluke and is not a vision of things to come as I truly love Princess.

[Dena]

Hi Pam,

 

Thank you for the information. We will be sailing soon on Sapphire in a covered mini. Were you in one of the covered mini suites that you prefer? Have you ever had a problem with smoke smell in the covered minis? Based on advice from the Celebrity boards, we are bringing Febreze plug in charcoal air filters from Target (I think they are called True Air). I hope they help.

 

Do you have any thoughts on dishes that should be avoided? I hope you will be able to post the patters soon. We don't go to the shows either, but may want to stop by the atrium area when they have live music or other short acts. This will be something new for us, since Princess didn't have this last time we sailed.

[Dena]

Hi Pam,

 

One more question: did your iPad fit in the safe? Also, were you having a problem with the ship's wifi or your cellular service?

[Pam in CA]

Dena, I have the Patters but don't know if I'll be able to get to scanning and posting them for several days.

 

I didn't even try to put the iPad in the safe and if I did, I doubt it would have fit. I just kept it on the side table next to my bed and didn't worry about it. My jewelry isn't replaceable; my iPad is. I didn't try using the ship's cell phone service as I'm not about to spend $2.49/minute on that on top of international and roaming rates. :) The iPad kept dropping the WiFi signal if I used it during the day or evening; it worked best very, very early in the morning.

 

I had a Baja deck balcony, not Caribe nor a mini-suite. When the people on Caribe smoked under their covered area, it didn't bother me. Unfortunately, they preferred to sit out in the sun. I've never had a problem with smoke when in an AD mini-suite (the category with the covered balcony.)

[Dena]

Thanks, Pam!

[Quenby]

I was happy with the food -- but, as I always say, if I don't have to shop/cook/clean up, it's always good :D

 

I was finally able to get the internet to work without being dropped if I opened my cabin door and placed my netbook on the table by the bar. Luckily there was not a lot of traffic in my hallway.

 

Jacques was still on the ship -- did a really nice job with the Chef's Dinner. My cabin steward and our waiters in the dining room were great.

 

I was the one who coordinated the CC get-together with Princess. When I boarded the ship at noon, I immediately dropped off hand-written notes to the Captain and Cruise Director, inviting them or their staff to join us. No one showed. :( I guess I should not have been surprised. On our Crown cruise in Sept, the same Captain (Nick Carlton) announced at the Captain's cocktail party that he hated Cruise Critic.

 

Pam -- AV incorporated July 1, 2001.