Sapphire Review 2/4-2/11/06

[giggster11]

We're home from the Sapphire family cruise and what a great cruise it was! Weather for us was perfect. Seas were pretty calm as well.

 

Embarkation:

We arrived around 12pm, checked in (only 1 couple in front of us in line), went through security, pictures, and were on by 12:30. We did have Platinum check in so that did get us through the security line a little quicker.

 

Room:

We were in Caribe 731...a balcony room 5 rooms from the back of the ship. Room was great. The motion was fine. You could feel it here and there but nothing that got to us. Our steward Gerardo was awesome. He even got us some extra chocolate covered strawberries for our anniversary.

 

Dining:

Our family really enjoyed all the food. Buffets were great, pizza was yummy, burgers, hot dogs and fries all good! We were in Vivaldi dining room for first seating. Our waitress Karolina from Poland was really nice. She looked after all 10 of us very well, especially my niece and my grandfather. She wrapped our anniversary cake up into a tin foil basket with handle and flower for us to take to our room. We couldn't eat it then since I was full with my 2 desserts. My wife and I tried beef carpaccio, beef wellington, escargots, and a few other tasty items. Not a complaint in the world about the food or service. Also our assistant waiter Alex was great. He saw us the last morning in the buffet and came over to say hi. He also kept the supply of chocolate milk coming to our table for whoever wanted it.

 

Entertainment:

Lorenzo Clark, a magician and comedian was pretty good. Dan Bennett, juggler/comedian, was funny! We had seen both of these acts before but still laughed at Dan Bennett. Greg Otto was a hilarious comedian. Kevin Jordan was a pretty funny comedian as well. Only saw the show Undercover which was ok. Shows aren't crowded on the second day.

 

Activities:

We weren't lacking things to do onboard. We did ceramics, ping pong, shuffledboard, trivia (won twice!), watched Princess Pop Star, pool games, etc. Lots of fun things to experience!

 

Ports:

Puerto Vallarta- We didn't venture into the town. We did the ship sponsored canopy tour. WELL WORTH THE MONEY!! It was such a thrill. The guides who take you are so professional and make you feel at ease. My wife and my brother's girlfriend were scared but they enjoyed it immensely. The guys helped allay their fears.

 

Mazatlan- Land of the Mazats. We took the city tour (4 hours). Great city highlights. Saw the cathedral which was beautiful. Got great pictures of cliff divers. Drove along the Malecon. Saw the Papantla flyers and dancing. What a cool show! Then we did some shopping. All the jewelry shops are right there!

 

Cabo San Lucas-We got off the tender and went to one of the first kiosks to find parasailing. We were taken to Cabo Expeditions who handled everything. Took a ride out on one of their boats where we met the parasailing boat. We were supposed to do tandem but they said it would have been too shaky up there. My wife went first, again scared, but LOVED it! She even saw whales from up above. My turn was spent more by the ship. What great views! After a fun boat ride back (surfing it onto the beach to pick up others, seeing a sea lion, and spinning back and forth while going pretty fast) we decided to eat so we went to Captain Tony's. It was before lunch but we were able to have burritos. Good food! A little more shopping then back to the ship.

 

Overall, a great cruise! The cruise staff was so friendly and fun. They always took time to talk to us and joke with us.

[LARGIN]

Welcome home. Glad you had a great time....

[giggster11]

Forgot to mention....when they came around with the Baked Alaska everybody got a nice thin slice. Another waitress who came to help out from the next section over decided to give me the last of the baked alaska which amounted to about 1/5 of the whole dessert. Those of you who know the size of those things know how much that is! I ate about half of it and that was enough.

[From the OC]

Thanks for posting your review. My wife and I are on the Sapphire on 3/25. Did you or anyone in your party use the pool that has the swim-against-the-current feature? Is there a charge to use it? I swim a lot and it would be great to take advantage of. We tried booking the canopy tour in PV, but there was a wait-list, so we booked another canopy tour online.

 

In Cabo, how long did your parasailing last? We are going snorkeling with a Princess tour but want to parasail too, but not sure if we'll have enough time since the time in Cabo is short. Did you notice if there was parasailing available in Mazatlan?

 

Thanks!

Dan

[giggster11]

Dan,

Not much longer until your cruise. I bet you can't wait. We did use the current pool but couldn't figure out how it went. I did hear that there is a bar you pull down or up (when you're in there you can't miss it) and a knob to turn but other than that I don't know. No charge to use it. Too bad about being waitlisted for the canopy tour. I hope your other one you booked goes well. We had the most fun on that. I believe you can parasail in Mazatlan. It's nowhere near the ship and I don't know how you go about that. Parasailing in Cabo took about an hour overall. We were up for about 11 minutes. I've heard that's a really good amount of time and the view you get in Cabo is amazing! Hope that answers your questions. Any more you may have please fire away.

 

giggster11

[suzyluvs2cruise]

This is giggster11's mom. Great review of our wonderful family cruise. :D

[giggster11]

Also did the couples massage on the ship. After getting relaxed from the massage we got the sales pitch too. It puts a bad taste on the experience, especially for the amount of money involved. No chance for even friendly advice on what you can use.

[the three Cs]

Hi, thanks for the review. May i ask please who waere your cruise staff who did the daily entertainment please?

[giggster11]

Billy Hygate was cruise director.

Peter deputy cruise director.

Also had Danny, Eric, Denise, Sam, Edwin, and Will. Edwin was hilarious! All were friendly.

[Kerry's Girls]

I was on this cruise and when I was watching the commercial for the video on board, I thought I recognized one of the cruise staff members as an old friend. Does Denise have long dark hair? I'm going to be so disappointed I didn't run into her while we were on the same ship!

 

Thanks for letting me know...

 

Best,

Mia

[chelsea_gal]

My husband, I and my mother where also on this sailing

 

We all had an absolute FAB time, and we agree with everything that was mentioned.

 

As was mentioned in the initial thread the embarkation was smooth in fact we could not believe how quickly we actually got through and was also onboard by 12:30 and was having lunch in the Horizon buffet shortly after.

 

It was great to see that the buffet was open as we all where quite hungry (we had a earlier start 7am from Calgary Canada which meant that we had been up from 3am and travelling from 4am ( had to be at the airport at least 2 hours beforehand to clear customs and US immigration).

 

My husband and I had an balcony stateroom on ALOHA deck 220 and my mother had an inside cabin right opposite in ALOHA 220.

 

One tip ( another one I found on this board) was to have a twin bed conifguration for my mother whihc gave her lots of extra room.

 

My husband and I kept ours in a double configuration but still had lots of room to get around the bed. The closet had lots of room ( in fact we where surprised how much).

 

Both rooms where excellent and roomy and our balancy was shaded ( which was great becuase my husband is fair skinned and gets burnt really easily). The Aloha balconies have no one overlooking them.

 

However being so high up we where initially concerned amout the possible motion but actually even with the captain setting 21 knots on the way back to LA and saying that there maybe some swells we never felt a thing and no one in our group was sea sick at all.

 

In fact the only complaint we have is the extra weight that we put all on from the great food that we experianced :)

 

Even with taking regular walks along the promenade deck :D

 

We had the personal choice dining and taking the tip that I read on this board about making reservations for three nights at a time. Which we did ( we did this the moment we got on board) all the dining rooms where okay. But I will admit we liked the Vivaldi the best. The waiter that we had there was great and chatted with us and made us actually feel very special.

 

I guess I should be honest and mention that we did experiance in the Savoy dining room a slight indifferent attitude by our waiter. He seemed to be in some sort of rush and did not give us the same level of attention that we had experianced in the other dining rooms. We did not let this bother us as it was on night 5 and we just shugged our shoulders and said oh well !!

 

We had some great steaks in the Sterling Steak house and watch a guy on the table next to our eat his way through a 22oz steak

 

Our best port was Cabo where we took the coastal cruise and we had a great local and knowledgeable person you gave us all a very informative talk on local species of whales.

Although it was intended as a coastal cruise they devoted a lot of the time to whale watching and I got some great shots of whales.

 

The other ports of call

Mazatlan: we did the show, shop, lunch and beach tour and that was good the lunch buffet was good at a local hotel. And we where able to just sit by the hotel pool afterwards and simply relax.

 

Puerto Vallarta- we just ventured into town on our own for a few hours and just came back to the ship early and relaxed by the pool. Which was empty as everyone else was ashore ;)

 

We tended to eat late around 8:15pm ( thats just our style) but it also meant that we got a chance to see all the shows ie the 10:15pm ones. All the show where fine and we all felt that the Cruise Director did a great job.

 

The champagne Waterfall Party was excellent and fun to see people dancing in the Atrium ( and even my two left feet husband had a jig or two )

 

Most nights we listened to Rosie Trio and Ralph Rubino Trio in the wheelhouse who played and sang some great songs, Jazz, swing and blue.

Whilst we had a few after dinner drinks.

 

Hip Pocket band was also great to listen too as well.

 

Our only sad part we all felt was that we had not done a back to back cruise as we sure did not experiance all the ship had to offer . But alas we had to get back to work ( with the exception of my mother who is retired).

 

Altogether a great cruise !!

and although our previous cruise that my husband and I took which was some 10 years ago when we honeymoon onboard the Sovereign of the Seas a Royal Caribbean line which was also great.

 

We now have a real problem deciding which line is the best :(

 

So I guess we will just have to now go on another cruise to decide that fate :)

 

yep a great cruise and we all wish we where there now.

[giggster11]

Chelsea Gal: Sounds like you had a great time as well! Did your excursion in Mazatlan include the Papantla flyers? I thought the whole show was amazing!

 

Mia: Denise did have long brown hair. Also, I think my mom (karalun) met you. Glad to see you had fun too!

[Coolmama_1]

Great reviews! Glad that y'all had a great time.