Sapphire Princess Sep 24, 2022 cruise report

[dhanakorn]

Patters (1)
 

Here’s the first batch of the Patters. 
 

Day 1

 

 

Day 2

 

 

Day 3

 

 

Day 4

 

Day 5

 

[fpsphil]

Kinda disappointed no overnight tender service in Cabo. Loved that on my April cruise

[dhanakorn]

2 hours ago, fpsphil said:

Kinda disappointed no overnight tender service in Cabo. Loved that on my April cruise

The last tender for overnight was at 10:30pm. Weather was very hot and humid.  I think September is kind of low season in Cabo, probably not a lot of nightlife during this time. 

[srpilo]

Thanks for all your efforts... Good stuff !!

[fpsphil]

1 hour ago, dhanakorn said:

The last tender for overnight was at 10:30pm. Weather was very hot and humid.  I think September is kind of low season in Cabo, probably not a lot of nightlife during this time. 

Hopefully this will change by our Oct 23rd sailing. We were planning on going to a couple resorts late into the evening but now are rescheduling

[dhanakorn]

Snapshots

Savannah Jack: This guy and his band is amazing! I really enjoy the show. He’s very entertaining with the audience. 

 

String Duo: they play various kind of music - from classical to pop. They’re very good. Very relaxing music for the evening.  

 

Chileno beach in Cabo: I think this beach is much better than Medano beach. Plenty of fish in the water - bring your own goggles or snorkel gears and swim with the fish. You could get there by public bus ($1.5), Uber ($10), or with excursion tour. 

 

Tecolote beach in La Paz: the famous Balandra beach was closed to public due to  oil-polluted incident so I went to this beach instead. It’s about 15min from where the ship docks ($20-$35 taxi fare) and about 30-45min from downtown La Paz ($3 public bus or $10 Uber). 

 

Turndown service: I was surprised that the turndown service was offered on this cruise. Most mainstream cruise lines already cut down this service and I didn’t have one during my previous 3 cruises with Princess. It’s very nice to come back later the night and see the room tidy up. It gives you a warm welcome back to sleep. This’s what my room looks like every night when I get back. I’ve very good room steward. 

[arizonaperson]

dhanakorn- great pictures and information 

Edited September 29, 2022 by arizonaperson

[Pluto_fan]

Thanks for your report!  I'm enjoying following along...booked on the Sapphire Princess next June, our first time on Princess!

[baggr42]

I’m on this ship right now. This is how the voyage is going. In o

[baggr42]

59 minutes ago, baggr42 said:

I’m on this ship right now. This is how the voyage is going.. our room is so cold we have to keep our door to the balcony open all night  The ac runs constantly with no control  it is no more than 65 degrees on our room  while others on the boat complain tat their room is over 80 degrees and can not be cooled  The medallion app works for us not problem but the staff hates it as it continues to fail for them  they have to writ your order and cabin number to be input later  we have eaten at all the venues and sadly the buffet has been the best with the exception of Alfredo’s you must get a pizza there  Today we have no hot water  so cold showers are on order  I forgot but we were without a flushing toilet for two days  also many of the public toilets are inoperable   Please don’t take this as a person that bitches about cruising  we love it and never have had a bad experience  But the items I listed are just facts and in much opinion this ship should not continue on to a 15 day voyage in the middle of the pacific to Hawaii until the  systems are working correctly. If you are next to board this ship without them addressing these issues GOOD LUCK and have fun  

 

[Carlos A.]

32 minutes ago, baggr42 said:

I’m on this ship right now. This is how the voyage is going.. our room is so cold we have to keep our door to the balcony open all night  The ac runs constantly with no control  it is no more than 65 degrees on our room  while others on the boat complain tat their room is over 80 degrees and can not be cooled  The medallion app works for us not problem but the staff hates it as it continues to fail for them  they have to writ your order and cabin number to be input later  we have eaten at all the venues and sadly the buffet has been the best with the exception of Alfredo’s you must get a pizza there  Today we have no hot water  so cold showers are on order  I forgot but we were without a flushing toilet for two days  also many of the public toilets are inoperable   Please don’t take this as a person that bitches about cruising  we love it and never have had a bad experience  But the items I listed are just facts and in much opinion this ship should not continue on to a 15 day voyage in the middle of the pacific to Hawaii until the  systems are working correctly. If you are next to board this ship without them addressing these issues GOOD LUCK and have fun  

Wow! I think you're right, we're on the next sailing and thinking about not having AC, hot water or a flushing toilet on a 15 days trip sounds horrible!

 

What are they doing/ saying about it? Any compensation? 

[GoHuskies!]

2 hours ago, baggr42 said:

 

Wow--we're on the next cruise too.  I hope the ship's engineers are working feverishly to fix all these problems.  Any word yet on fixes?

[LACruiser88]

4 hours ago, baggr42 said:

Today we have no hot water  so cold showers are on order  I forgot but we were without a flushing toilet for two days  also many of the public toilets are inoperable   P

Wow!  This is definitely no bueno!  I'm sure they will have these things fixed before we board the Sapphire in March.

[beg3yrs]

22 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

Wow!  This is definitely no bueno!  I'm sure they will have these things fixed before we board the Sapphire in March.

Hoping for January 4 for us!

[hpeabody]

7 hours ago, baggr42 said:

I’m on this ship right now. This is how the voyage is going.. our room is so cold we have to keep our door to the balcony open all night  The ac runs constantly with no control  it is no more than 65 degrees on our room  while others on the boat complain tat their room is over 80 degrees and can not be cooled  The medallion app works for us not problem but the staff hates it as it continues to fail for them  they have to writ your order and cabin number to be input later  we have eaten at all the venues and sadly the buffet has been the best with the exception of Alfredo’s you must get a pizza there  Today we have no hot water  so cold showers are on order  I forgot but we were without a flushing toilet for two days  also many of the public toilets are inoperable   Please don’t take this as a person that bitches about cruising  we love it and never have had a bad experience  But the items I listed are just facts and in much opinion this ship should not continue on to a 15 day voyage in the middle of the pacific to Hawaii until the  systems are working correctly. If you are next to board this ship without them addressing these issues GOOD LUCK and have fun

 

It really bothers me that with all the downtime due to the pandemic and the late restart of Sapphire, Princess did not assure the ship was passenger ready!  Had I seen this before final payment I would have canceled my upcoming Nov 2 cruise. I had already canceled Crown 28 day Nov 9 due to her generator/propulsion issues and switched for this one on Sapphire. UGH! 

[tonit964]

I’m on the ship too and everything that baggr42 is saying is accurate. My brother and his wife had toilet issues/hot water issues as well. My neighbor next door had to shower in a nearby cabin because they couldn’t get hot water for a few days. Many restrooms around the ship are not working. 
 

Make sure to check your onboard account daily because there are many charges that are incorrect. Have to go to guest services every day to remove charges. 
 

The staff are all wonderful and the cruise is great but I don’t think the ship was ready for passengers.

[cruzin4us]

Makes me sad things aren’t up to par 

[JF - retired RRT]

43 minutes ago, hpeabody said:

 

It really bothers me that with all the downtime due to the pandemic and the late restart of Sapphire, Princess did not assure the ship was passenger ready!  Had I seen this before final payment I would have canceled my upcoming Nov 2 cruise. I had already canceled Crown 28 day Nov 9 due to her generator/propulsion issues and switched for this one on Sapphire. UGH! 

No $$ coming in = no maintenance. Everything was mothballed. These ships aren't designed to sit idle.

[dhanakorn]

Sanctuary

After working out at the gym, I went up to see the Sanctuary. Weather is great today, not as hot and humid like when we’re down in southern Baja peninsula. I observed about 6 people enjoying the Sanctuary this afternoon. Open from 8am to 5:30pm. $40 for the full day and $20 for half day. 

This’s around 4pm. Nice cool breeze today. 

 

Food is included. 

 

If you’re here in the afternoon, they also serve afternoon tea from 3pm. 

 

 

[dhanakorn]

3 hours ago, tonit964 said:

I’m on the ship too and everything that baggr42 is saying is accurate. My brother and his wife had toilet issues/hot water issues as well. My neighbor next door had to shower in a nearby cabin because they couldn’t get hot water for a few days. Many restrooms around the ship are not working. 
 

Make sure to check your onboard account daily because there are many charges that are incorrect. Have to go to guest services every day to remove charges. 
 

The staff are all wonderful and the cruise is great but I don’t think the ship was ready for passengers.

I’ve an opposite issue to hot shower. During the past few days, the water is lukewarm to hot. It’s hot and humid down in Mexico so sometimes I want to take a cold shower to cool down. I think they’re working on it. No drainage issue in the shower and no flushing issue in the toilet. 
 

A/C in my room is little warm. I think it never gets down below 65F. I’m comfortable with this temperature so I don’t make any complain. I’ll leave it to the next guest if they like cooler temperature 😆

 

A/C and water temperature seem to be the common issues on this cruise. It’s not a very big deal to me. I take it as a drawback of taking the first cruise after a long out of service break. After reading the horrible stories about the Grand and the Crown, I think Sapphire is in a relatively better shape. All the complaints are valid but I think Sapphire is better than the Grand or the Crown. Hopefully all the issues will get fixed over time. 

[NownZen]

23 minutes ago, dhanakorn said:

I’ve an opposite issue to hot shower. During the past few days, the water is lukewarm to hot. It’s hot and humid down in Mexico so sometimes I want to take a cold shower to cool down. I think they’re working on it. No drainage issue in the shower and no flushing issue in the toilet. 
 

A/C in my room is little warm. I think it never gets down below 65F. I’m comfortable with this temperature so I don’t make any complain. I’ll leave it to the next guest if they like cooler temperature 😆

 

A/C and water temperature seem to be the common issues on this cruise. It’s not a very big deal to me. I take it as a drawback of taking the first cruise after a long out of service break. After reading the horrible stories about the Grand and the Crown, I think Sapphire is in a relatively better shape. All the complaints are valid but I think Sapphire is better than the Grand or the Crown. Hopefully all the issues will get fixed over time. 

We were on the Grand earlier this year and had no problems. Then the Island where there were a couple of glitches. One was in getting a proper shower temperature. I think the valves had gotten sticky sitting around but if you ran the shower at full flow it was much better. By the end of the cruise it was working fine without any intervention.

[baggr42]

I have to comment on this. We are eating dinner in Sterling Steak house, which is nothing more than a closed down area of the buffet in the operating hours. So as we are having our meal a Family wrapped in pool towels and dripping wet just walk right thru the dining room on their way to the buffet. That was amazing as we also battled a small swamp of knots hovering over us.  Adventures in cruising.. Gotta Love it to do it. 

[baggr42]

Here is an update … The AC issue continues with guest services acting as of each contact with them is new and they have never been advised of the issue  AMAZING .The solution to the hot water problem was for these geniuses to lower the cold water pressure to accommodate the lack of hot water pressure. So now we have hot water but no cold water. That sounds better but keep in mind that the toilet needs cold water to fill the bowl. So you can only imagine that if you flushing anything other than liquid waste it is quite the messy affair. We sent laundry in to be done two days ago and haven’t seen it yet. So that is a hill to climb tomorrow. Wish us luck. I will be contacting LA County Health Department on Monday this ship needs to be inspected. It really is not ready to go across the ocean  with these issues . Public  toilets are a big problem 

[latebloomer56]

2 hours ago, baggr42 said:

Here is an update … The AC issue continues with guest services acting as of each contact with them is new and they have never been advised of the issue  AMAZING .The solution to the hot water problem was for these geniuses to lower the cold water pressure to accommodate the lack of hot water pressure. So now we have hot water but no cold water. That sounds better but keep in mind that the toilet needs cold water to fill the bowl. So you can only imagine that if you flushing anything other than liquid waste it is quite the messy affair. We sent laundry in to be done two days ago and haven’t seen it yet. So that is a hill to climb tomorrow. Wish us luck. I will be contacting LA County Health Department on Monday this ship needs to be inspected. It really is not ready to go across the ocean  with these issues . Public  toilets are a big problem 

I keep reading plumbing issues but nobody lists which cabin they are in? Are these issues all in a specific section of the ship?

We sail next week so curious, as you can imagine.

Stay safe, try to enjoy your time outside the cabin.

[baggr42]

I am on deck 9 Dolphin at the aft. The climate issues are thru the ship as well as the plumbing. Public toilets all over the ship are inoperable. Become operational then others go out. My concern also is there proper hot water in the kitchen area as well as staff areas. If we the paying customers are being treated as such. What about those that ado not have a “voice”. Not that my voice means anything as nothing has been corrected. 😩😩