Review of Mexican Riviera on the Sapphire Princess

[sadiea]

While my husband and I have been on 7 previous Princess Cruises, this was our first Mexican Riviera cruise on Princess and our first time on the Sapphire Princess. Overall, we had a fantastic time. We had great weather, the ship was enjoyable, we had superb service, but we were definitely underwhelmed with the ports of call. I'll get to that later in my review.

 

Embarkation: We arrived at the Long Beach airport at 9:30 am and took a taxi to the San Pedro pier. It cost $45 for both of us. We were at the pier by 11am and herded into a platinum/elite waiting lounge. We boarded the ship around noon and ate lunch in the International dining room.

 

Room: We chose an inside cabin for this cruise based on price and it's been a long time since we were in an inside cabin so I was a little concerned about feeling claustrophobic or cramped. We were in Baja 241 on the 11th deck towards the front of the ship. Our room steward was probably the best we've ever had. He was super friendly, cheerful and he organized everything in our room...I wish I could have taken him home with me. We asked for an extra foam for our mattress as it seemed to be unusually hard and our room steward had it on our bed within the hour.

 

Dining Room: We had traditional early dining which on this ship was at 5:30pm. Early traditional dining on every other Princess ship we were on was at 6:00pm. I don't know if this is a new trend or something only on this ship. 5:30pm was a little too early for me for dinner. I wish it had been later. Not a huge problem though. We were supposed to be at a table for 6-8 and ended up at a 6 person table, but with only one other couple. We enjoy chatting at dinner with other people and it would have been nice to have an extra couple of people to chat with. The couple who were seated with us were very pleasant, though, and we had good conversation with them throughout the cruise.

 

Dining Room Menu: The evening dining room menu has been dramatically cut back! This was a surprise for me. The dessert menu usually only had 1 new dessert each night...all the other desserts were the same each night. Love Boat Dream, Crème Brulee, Cheesecake were always on the menu. Not as many appetizers or salads were available as in the past. Everything just seemed to be "condensed". It was all fine and this isn't a complaint...just an observation.

 

Trident Grill/Pizza by the Pool: The cheeseburgers were great. We thought the buns on this ship were particularly good. Burgers were still juicy without being greasy or being too dry. Fries were good, but they were different than the last ship we were on. They were more like "steak fries" rather than McDonalds fries...does that make sense? Pizza by the pool was the same. Always available pepperoni and cheese/basil and then a "special" for the day that usually involved some type of ham/prosciutto and/or artichokes. We never saw sausage pizza offered by the pool or at the new Alfredo's pizzeria across from the International Café.

 

Alfredo's Pizzeria: This was new for us. On all the other ships we've been on this has been a "sushi/wine" area. This space is a sit down area where you order a flatbread type pizza on the menu. Pepperoni is not on the menu here...neither is sausage (but I have yet to encounter a sausage pizza on any Princess ship!). The pizza is about the size of a large dinner plate and could be shared if you have a small appetite or just want a light snack. The crust is very thin and the cheese seems to be of a higher grade than the type used at the Pizzeria by the pool. Even though we aren't vegetarians, we really enjoyed the vegetarian pizza here. You can also order wine by the glass here, but we don't drink alcohol I can't comment on that.

 

International Café: The offerings here also seem to have been cut back. On previous cruises, the items offered changed daily. I'd try something and like it then when I went back the next day to get it again, it wasn't there. On this ship, the same salads, Panini, cookies, desserts were offered daily. Not much of a change. I will say, however, the oatmeal raisin cookies on this ship were sooooo good. They were crispy, yet chewy and had the perfect cookie consistency. Sometimes the cookies on Princess are a little bit too dry and "cardboard-like". My husband and I would get a plate of oatmeal cookies and ask for cold milk from the coffee place next door and have a great afternoon snack. Guys came around in the afternoon on the pool deck with a cart of warm cookies and ice-cold milk. I hadn't seen the cookie cart before.

 

Scoops: This is where you can get free softserve vanilla, chocolate or swirl cones. Good icecream. You can also get milkshakes and malts here for $2.50 each or it's free if you have the UKP (Ultimate Kid Package?) sticker which gives you free softdrinks, mocktails, and shakes. There seemed to be a constant line here for icecream cones..especially on sea days.

 

Casino: I don't gamble so I can't comment. However, the couple that sat with us at dinner won $260 playing poker. And luckily they stopped when they won, so they got to take home some money!

 

Entertainment: We don't get too excited about the Princess Dancers, so we skipped those shows. We really enjoyed the comedians on this cruise. Alfred & Seymour, a comedian/magician and the Princess Entertainer of the year for 2011 (can't remember his name...he's half Puerto Rican...) They were all great. In the Piazza, the Checkerboard Guy performed several times. For a while it seemed like every ship were on, the featured comedian was Phil Tagg. While he is great the first time, the 2nd and 3rd time got old. It was nice to have brand new entertainers that we hadn't seen before.

 

Puerto Vallarta: This was our favorite stop on this cruise. We took the public bus from outside the gates of the pier for $1 to the downtown/seaside promenade area. Super easy. No need to take a taxi from the pier when such easy public transportation exists. The weather was nice, the promenade along the sea was pleasant and we had some of the best guacamole/salsa at the Sea Monkey restaurant on the beach. The thing that almost drove us crazy but we made a game out of instead was the non-stop harassment of Mexican vendors wanting to sell you everything. We sat down at a table on the beach and within the first 10 minutes we'd already been accosted at least 7 times. We couldn't even have a conversation without constant interruption. To keep my husband from boiling over, we started counting. We sat on the beach with our chips/salsa and fish tacos for just over an hour. In that time we had 42 DIFFERENT vendors come up to us and want us to buy stuff. I am not even exaggerating. It was relentless and annoying. I was prepared for some harassment, but not to this extreme. After that we went to the Krystal Resort and asked at the concierge desk if we could get massages at their spa. The concierge called and said that they had spots but that had to pay $5 each to the concierge and then it would be $40 for a 75 minute massage. We walked though the resort to the gym/spa area by the pool and had the best massages of our life. WOW! The massages we had took away any of the irritation still lingering from our beach lunch. We did not have reservations and it looked like there were probably 4 or 5 people on hand to give massages. We were taken to a "couples" massage room where we smelled aromatherapy products, listened to relaxing music and had a full body, head to toe massage for over 75 minutes...I swear it was more like 90 minutes. Best Deal Ever. I would go back in a heartbeat! The Krystal Resort/Spa is a 10 minute walk to the right of the cruise ship pier. Easy to get to.

 

Cabo: Seriously disappointing. We negotiated a $15 per person water taxi tour to the arch and a drop off at Lovers Beach. The taxi drivers initially told me the price was $25 and I told him No Way. I wanted the $15 price. He looked at me for a minute and decided not to haggle. We got the $15 price but the next people he approached paid the $25 per person price. The Arch was way smaller than I had imagined and it was overrun by water taxis, jet skis, sea kayakers and huge tour catamarans the entire day. It was a traffic jam of water craft the entire day. Lovers Beach/Divorce Beach was nice until it was overrun by tourists. There are no facilities here...just a couple of guys selling beer/water from a cooler. We had pre-arranged a time for the water taxi to come back to pick us up. We then took us to Medano Beach where we quickly left so as to avoid the spring break/wet t-shirt contests going on. Not our kind of thing. We wandered around town for a while and stumbled upon a great little restaurant called Gardenia and had some great tacos here. The Beef Barbacoa and the shrimp tacos were outstanding. We had planned on spending the afternoon at Chileno Beach but we were too tired to try it out. And we were a little worried that it would be a lot of work to get there and then we'd be disappointed. So after lunch we headed back to the ship. The ship was actually super relaxing because nobody was on it!

 

Ensenada: Two things impressed me here. One was the giant Mexican flag waving in the wind on the biggest flagpole I've ever seen. Very impressive. The second thing was the great seafood/fish taco stand called La Guerrerense. There was a non-stop crowd hovering around this stand most of the day, so we decided to try it. At first glance, it looked scary. Sea snails? Sea urchin? Sea cucumber? I don't normally eat this stuff. But everybody around me was in ecstasy eating the stuff so we tried it. We ordered a tostada of mixed seafood. I don't know what seafood it was but it was tasty! We put habanero mango salsa on it and some kind of spicy peanuts (strange, right??) and it was amazing. Once I got home and looked the place up online, it turns out that it made the Newsweek 101 best places to eat list. I believe it. I'm not a princess who demands cleanliness and aesthetic perfection and I actually really enjoy wandering off the beaten path to experience true culture, but other than these two things (flag and seafood tostada) Ensenada is a grimy armpit. Completely unimpressed. Sorry if this offends anyone reading this.

 

Disembarkation: We chose Express Walk Off. We ate breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet at 7:30am and walked off the ship with our luggage at 8am. We got a taxi to the Long Beach airport and we were checked in by 8:30am. Our flight wasn't until 12:55pm. I wish I had booked the 10:15am flight. We would have made this earlier flight with time to spare! The Long Beach airport is close and so much easier to get around in than LAX. My husband accidentally put our toiletry case in our carry on and of course security found it. Rather than throwing it away, the security guys arranged to have our checked bags brought over so we could put the bag in the checked luggage. This nice gesture would not have happened at the huge LAX airport I am sure!

 

Overall, this cruise was the relaxing getaway that my husband and I both needed. Great service, great food and great entertainment kept us very happy on the ship. The ports of call were somewhat disappointing. But that's what travel is all about. Going to new places and experiencing new things. Sometimes by experiencing things you don't like, you find out what you really DO like. I found out on this cruise that I really DO like the Caribbean better and next time I'll be more willing to pay the extra expense for us to get to Florida to go on a Caribbean cruise.

 

That's all! Thanks for reading!

[melody hounddog]

Wonderful review! Thanks so much. Glad you enjoyed your trip.

 

Melody

[azdmelani]

Great review, we were also on this cruise!

 

I think there were three new desserts every night. Two regular and one sugar free (plus the rotating ice cream flavors). I agree there has been cutback and we requested the flourless chocolate cake served on the first night a few times during the cruise. That cake was to die for (and should replace the blah love boat dream).

 

The comedian you're thinking of is Carlos Oscar :)

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for the review.

 

It was Carlos Oscar. :D

[luvcdays]

Your review was great because it was filled with lots of detailed information. It sounds like you had a good time.

 

Only 4 more weeks and we will be back on this beautiful ship!!

[username008]

Great Review ! Thanks for the information!

 

I was wondering, how were the waters during this cruise? Eg. How were the full sea days and night sailing? Rough waters? Calm? Something that needs getting used to? Any details about this would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thank you!

[sadiea]

Great Review ! Thanks for the information!

 

I was wondering, how were the waters during this cruise? Eg. How were the full sea days and night sailing? Rough waters? Calm? Something that needs getting used to? Any details about this would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thank you!

 

 

The water during this cruise was surprisingly calm! I've been on 9 previous cruises, but only in the Caribbean. I was prepared for rougher waters, however both my husband and I were amazed at how little movement we felt. We didn't get any gentle rocking of the boat at all. I actually kind of enjoy that gentle sway I've experienced before in the Caribbean. I don't know if it was a fluke that the water was calm or not.

[Woobstr112G]

OP;

Thanks for sharing your thought. We were on the Sapphire for the Hawaii cruise right before your MR cruise. Sapphire cruise is a beautiful ship.....:):):)

Bob

[username008]

The water during this cruise was surprisingly calm! I've been on 9 previous cruises, but only in the Caribbean. I was prepared for rougher waters, however both my husband and I were amazed at how little movement we felt. We didn't get any gentle rocking of the boat at all. I actually kind of enjoy that gentle sway I've experienced before in the Caribbean. I don't know if it was a fluke that the water was calm or not.

 

Thanks for the response! I'll be going onto that cruise in a couple of weeks and that is my biggest worry! I get sea sick quite easily