ALMOST live. Sapphire Princess. 10 day Mexican Riviera. Oct 23rd

[fellswoop]

Stayed in San Pedro where the LA cruise port is located.  Stayed at Crowne Plaza San Pedro and had a room with 2 double beds for  around $300 including all taxes. Many great eating places within walking distance.  Hotel offers bar and restaurant.  No free morning breakfast. We elected just to have the kuerig coffee in the room for breakfast and save our appetite for ship.  The transfer shuttle for port was $5.50 each so we signed up and they gave us the voucher. Shuttle was prompt for 11a pickup. ( We had 11:30a boarding) and from the time we got off shuttle to on the ship was 17 min and 30 sec. Did Discovery to Alaska in  August out of Seattle and we waited in line more than 1 1/2 hrs. In San Pedro what they did different was reverse order.  First we did our Princess check in and THEN security line. This was much faster. We are platinum so immediately there was a priority line and we already had our Medallions.  There was only 2 people in front of us for security.  We did bring 2 bottles of wine and they told us to stop at the desk set up for alcohol but oops...we walked past as we knew we were allowed two bottles. We were on ship by 11:30a and rooms weren't ready  ( fire doors to room halls were closed) so we immediately went up to sanctuary to reserve a spot .  Go to deck 15 then walk forward and up stairs to Sanctuary . There was no one there and they walked us around to pick where we wanted to be. We signed up for two afternoons at $40 each per day. A luxury for sure.

After that we enjoyed our first drinks,  then we went to our room. We are Club Class. We listened to the safety video then went to our muster station to check in. At 1p they were making the announcement that 1800 people still needed to do their safety check. People... get that done first thing!

We had lunch at Alfredos Pizza.  It was excellent.  ( much better than Discovery)

The only down side was we couldn't order premium wines ( we have the premium alcohol package) because they get their premium wine from Vines and it wasn't opened yet. No worries...wine was still good.  Hopefully our itinerary will be unchanged. A hurricane (Roslyn) hit Puerto Vallarta yesterday so hopefully all people there are safe and okay.

Plan dinner tonight at Sterling Steakhouse as we always avoid dining rooms first night due to first night chaos that often happens.

Hoping for a healthy cruise. We are Novids  so far. I'm a retired RN, and as we did safely on Alaska cruise, we wear our masks in elevators and indoors unless sitting down to eat or in a bar. Happily now for crew, they are mask optional too. We are fully vaxed and have the latest bivalent booster.  We are hoping to fully enjoy our first cruise post "pandemonium?" 

More to come.

[fellswoop]

I should say...this is first post "pandemonium" cruise for my husband. The Discovery cruise to Alaska I did with my girlfriends...! 

[memoak]

21 minutes ago, fellswoop said:

Stayed in San Pedro where the LA cruise port is located.  Stayed at Crowne Plaza San Pedro and had a room with 2 double beds for  around $300 including all taxes. Many great eating places within walking distance.  Hotel offers bar and restaurant.  No free morning breakfast. We elected just to have the kuerig coffee in the room for breakfast and save our appetite for ship.  The transfer shuttle for port was $5.50 each so we signed up and they gave us the voucher. Shuttle was prompt for 11a pickup. ( We had 11:30a boarding) and from the time we got off shuttle to on the ship was 17 min and 30 sec. Did Discovery to Alaska in  August out of Seattle and we waited in line more than 1 1/2 hrs. In San Pedro what they did different was reverse order.  First we did our Princess check in and THEN security line. This was much faster. We are platinum so immediately there was a priority line and we already had our Medallions.  There was only 2 people in front of us for security.  We did bring 2 bottles of wine and they told us to stop at the desk set up for alcohol but oops...we walked past as we knew we were allowed two bottles. We were on ship by 11:30a and rooms weren't ready  ( fire doors to room halls were closed) so we immediately went up to sanctuary to reserve a spot .  Go to deck 15 then walk forward and up stairs to Sanctuary . There was no one there and they walked us around to pick where we wanted to be. We signed up for two afternoons at $40 each per day. A luxury for sure.

After that we enjoyed our first drinks,  then we went to our room. We are Club Class. We listened to the safety video then went to our muster station to check in. At 1p they were making the announcement that 1800 people still needed to do their safety check. People... get that done first thing!

We had lunch at Alfredos Pizza.  It was excellent.  ( much better than Discovery)

The only down side was we couldn't order premium wines ( we have the premium alcohol package) because they get their premium wine from Vines and it wasn't opened yet. No worries...wine was still good.  Hopefully our itinerary will be unchanged. A hurricane (Roslyn) hit Puerto Vallarta yesterday so hopefully all people there are safe and okay.

Plan dinner tonight at Sterling Steakhouse as we always avoid dining rooms first night due to first night chaos that often happens.

Hoping for a healthy cruise. We are Novids  so far. I'm a retired RN, and as we did safely on Alaska cruise, we wear our masks in elevators and indoors unless sitting down to eat or in a bar. Happily now for crew, they are mask optional too. We are fully vaxed and have the latest bivalent booster.  We are hoping to fully enjoy our first cruise post "pandemonium?" 

More to come.

If you have a club class cabin there should be no chaos on first night dinner. You have your own entrance they just need to scan your medallions and seat you. Are you sure you have club class mini ?

[fellswoop]

27 minutes ago, memoak said:

If you have a club class cabin there should be no chaos on first night dinner. You have your own entrance they just need to scan your medallions and seat you. Are you sure you have club class mini ?

Yep we do...we still enjoy specialty dining first night. It's usually calm and a great way to start our trip. You are right though....wouldn't expect too much dining room problem first night in club class but usually everyone heads to dining room first night so just being on safe side. 😊

[PacnGoNow]

54 minutes ago, fellswoop said:

Stayed in San Pedro where the LA cruise port is located.  Stayed at Crowne Plaza San Pedro and had a room with 2 double beds for  around $300 including all taxes. Many great eating places within walking distance.  Hotel offers bar and restaurant.  No free morning breakfast. We elected just to have the kuerig coffee in the room for breakfast and save our appetite for ship.  The transfer shuttle for port was $5.50 each so we signed up and they gave us the voucher. Shuttle was prompt for 11a pickup. ( We had 11:30a boarding) and from the time we got off shuttle to on the ship was 17 min and 30 sec. Did Discovery to Alaska in  August out of Seattle and we waited in line more than 1 1/2 hrs. In San Pedro what they did different was reverse order.  First we did our Princess check in and THEN security line. This was much faster. We are platinum so immediately there was a priority line and we already had our Medallions.  There was only 2 people in front of us for security.  We did bring 2 bottles of wine and they told us to stop at the desk set up for alcohol but oops...we walked past as we knew we were allowed two bottles. We were on ship by 11:30a and rooms weren't ready  ( fire doors to room halls were closed) so we immediately went up to sanctuary to reserve a spot .  Go to deck 15 then walk forward and up stairs to Sanctuary . There was no one there and they walked us around to pick where we wanted to be. We signed up for two afternoons at $40 each per day. A luxury for sure.

After that we enjoyed our first drinks,  then we went to our room. We are Club Class. We listened to the safety video then went to our muster station to check in. At 1p they were making the announcement that 1800 people still needed to do their safety check. People... get that done first thing!

We had lunch at Alfredos Pizza.  It was excellent.  ( much better than Discovery)

The only down side was we couldn't order premium wines ( we have the premium alcohol package) because they get their premium wine from Vines and it wasn't opened yet. No worries...wine was still good.  Hopefully our itinerary will be unchanged. A hurricane (Roslyn) hit Puerto Vallarta yesterday so hopefully all people there are safe and okay.

Plan dinner tonight at Sterling Steakhouse as we always avoid dining rooms first night due to first night chaos that often happens.

Hoping for a healthy cruise. We are Novids  so far. I'm a retired RN, and as we did safely on Alaska cruise, we wear our masks in elevators and indoors unless sitting down to eat or in a bar. Happily now for crew, they are mask optional too. We are fully vaxed and have the latest bivalent booster.  We are hoping to fully enjoy our first cruise post "pandemonium?" 

More to come.

Was 1100 am the first shuttle? 
Have a great cruise and stay safe.

[fellswoop]

1 minute ago, PacnGoNow said:

Was 1100 am the first shuttle? 
Have a great cruise and stay safe.

I know there was one at 10:30a...but otherwise don't know other times. There were only 8 people signed up for our shuttle. Surprising.  But saw a few taking cabs and having a car service.

[cr8tiv1]

6 minutes ago, fellswoop said:

Yep we do...we still enjoy specialty dining first night. It's usually calm and a great way to start our trip. You are right though....wouldn't expect too much dining room problem first night in club class but usually everyone heads to dining room first night so just being on safe side. 😊

 

Will this be your first Club Class mini experience?  There is absolutely no chaos the first night in the CC MDR.  Many of the "regulars" would be in suites enjoying their complimentary dinner at a specialty restaurant.  

 

From first day forward, keep in mind that the "first wave" will be through about 1.25-1.5 hours after the doors open.  Sometimes they can actually have 3 seatings.  I show up between 6:10 and 6:30 and very rarely have had a wait.

[fellswoop]

6 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

Will this be your first Club Class mini experience?  There is absolutely no chaos the first night in the CC MDR.  Many of the "regulars" would be in suites enjoying their complimentary dinner at a specialty restaurant.  

 

From first day forward, keep in mind that the "first wave" will be through about 1.25-1.5 hours after the doors open.  Sometimes they can actually have 3 seatings.  I show up between 6:10 and 6:30 and very rarely have had a wait.

We had Club Class once before but didn't enjoy the full aspect of dining because we had friends join us last minute who didn't have CC so of course we wanted to dine with them in regular MDR. Luckily we are late diners so expect to close the dining room down most nights.

[tonit964]

I just don't understand why people delay doing he safety drill. It's so much easier now!

 

[Vexorg]

Apologies if I piggyback onto this thread, but I'm on board now and thought I'd post some initial impressions:

 

So far I'm really impressed with the crew.  I know many are relatively new and inexperienced, but they have gone out of their way to be helpful, and so far our room steward in particular (we are in an interior cabin on Aloha Deck) has been excellent.  The food so far has also been quite good, and aside from some issues with our room safe (some digits on the keypad don't work) I haven't seen any issues that would suggest the ship had been sitting for the better part of two years.  Looking forward to the next ten days of a badly needed vacation after several stressful months of preparing to sell our house, selling it and moving out (in fact it was just a week ago that we drove the moving truck to our temporary home while we find the next one) and looking forward to another cruise on what is easily my favorite ship in the Princess fleet.

 

There was one minor hiccup shortly after boarding when the ship lost shore power, causing the lights in the International Dining Room to go out.  The captain made an announcement about 20 minutes later explaining what was going on, and aside from one or two entrees being unavailable I didn't see any effects beyond the lights going out.  

[Mike45LC]

45 minutes ago, Vexorg said:

There was one minor hiccup shortly after boarding when the ship lost shore power, causing the lights in the International Dining Room to go out.  The captain made an announcement about 20 minutes later explaining what was going on, and aside from one or two entrees being unavailable I didn't see any effects beyond the lights going out.  

I don’t consider “no elevators” for about 30 minutes to be a minor hiccup!  You didn’t notice, being safely ensconced in the MDR!

 

My cabin was ready before we got to it at noon.  No fire doors blocked our access.

[fellswoop]

Thank you @Vexorg and @Mike45LC for chiming in. Please add more as we go along esp regarding entertainment. We skipped the comedy show tonight as after a great dinner at Sterling we called it a night.

We had two problems that occurred this afternoon.  First I did not get my bag delivered. The room steward said wait till 6p and if no bag go to guest services. Decided to try the chat feature on the app and I received a response within 2 minutes. In fact they called me. I told them I had no contraband in my bag so was surprised that I had to go to the "naughty room"....I mean security, to get my bag. Sure enough the port security noted my small scissors in my bag that I have taken many times on cruises. Security said it was fine and they apologized for the trouble.  I won't ever fault good port security following their rules. No harm done.

A bit more disturbing though was that our sink water and shower water was BROWN! I took a picture but I'll spare you. We first noticed after husband showered and it drained poorly then there was a ring of dirt around the tub and he just wasn't that dirty. 😁 So I filled the sink up and let's just say you couldn't see the bottom.  We reported to room steward and she saw it and called her supervisor.  We were told it may be related to the power loss as reported above by another cruiser and adjacent rooms were having same problem. We were told just to run it for 5 min and it did clear  but I can't unsee that sink of brown water, and will use bottled water going forward for drinking and brushing teeth. 

Overall the ship looks good for her age, carpets and furniture all look great...but the best part is the staff have been amazing and helpful at every turn. We asked how many were aboard and was told at least 2000 but we will try for confirmation on that tomorrow. The ship has not felt crowded at all. We were at Crooners at 7:30p for drinks and were one of only 3 couples in there. That was shocking. Looking forward to a day at sea tomorrow. 

[HaveDogWillTravel]

Thank you for the live from. I hope the internet works well and you can continue posting without too much trouble. 
Very happy to hear about the easy embarkation!  I’ll be boarding as you debark. 

[caribill]

7 hours ago, fellswoop said:

 we immediately went up to sanctuary to reserve a spot .  ...... We signed up for two afternoons at $40 each per day. A luxury for sure.

 

 

I thought it was 40 for a full day per person and $20 for a half day (afternoon or morning) per person.

 

Each afternoon should have been $20 each per day.

[travelin.sisters]

7 hours ago, fellswoop said:

Stayed in San Pedro where the LA cruise port is located.  Stayed at Crowne Plaza San Pedro and had a room with 2 double beds for  around $300 including all taxes. Many great eating places within walking distance.  Hotel offers bar and restaurant.  No free morning breakfast. We elected just to have the kuerig coffee in the room for breakfast and save our appetite for ship.  The transfer shuttle for port was $5.50 each so we signed up and they gave us the voucher. Shuttle was prompt for 11a pickup. ( We had 11:30a boarding) and from the time we got off shuttle to on the ship was 17 min and 30 sec. Did Discovery to Alaska in  August out of Seattle and we waited in line more than 1 1/2 hrs. In San Pedro what they did different was reverse order.  First we did our Princess check in and THEN security line. This was much faster. We are platinum so immediately there was a priority line and we already had our Medallions.  There was only 2 people in front of us for security.  We did bring 2 bottles of wine and they told us to stop at the desk set up for alcohol but oops...we walked past as we knew we were allowed two bottles. We were on ship by 11:30a and rooms weren't ready  ( fire doors to room halls were closed) so we immediately went up to sanctuary to reserve a spot .  Go to deck 15 then walk forward and up stairs to Sanctuary . There was no one there and they walked us around to pick where we wanted to be. We signed up for two afternoons at $40 each per day. A luxury for sure.

After that we enjoyed our first drinks,  then we went to our room. We are Club Class. We listened to the safety video then went to our muster station to check in. At 1p they were making the announcement that 1800 people still needed to do their safety check. People... get that done first thing!

We had lunch at Alfredos Pizza.  It was excellent.  ( much better than Discovery)

The only down side was we couldn't order premium wines ( we have the premium alcohol package) because they get their premium wine from Vines and it wasn't opened yet. No worries...wine was still good.  Hopefully our itinerary will be unchanged. A hurricane (Roslyn) hit Puerto Vallarta yesterday so hopefully all people there are safe and okay.

Plan dinner tonight at Sterling Steakhouse as we always avoid dining rooms first night due to first night chaos that often happens.

Hoping for a healthy cruise. We are Novids  so far. I'm a retired RN, and as we did safely on Alaska cruise, we wear our masks in elevators and indoors unless sitting down to eat or in a bar. Happily now for crew, they are mask optional too. We are fully vaxed and have the latest bivalent booster.  We are hoping to fully enjoy our first cruise post "pandemonium?" 

More to come.

thank you for doing this, we are already missing the Sapphire.

 

have a wonderful trip & I do hope you get to Puerto Vallarta (although I was not sad when we switched to San Diego because of Orlene...this has been a rough month or so for that area, Roslyn is the 3rd in maybe 5 weeks!) 

[travelin.sisters]

4 hours ago, Vexorg said:

Apologies if I piggyback onto this thread, but I'm on board now and thought I'd post some initial impressions:

 

So far I'm really impressed with the crew.  I know many are relatively new and inexperienced, but they have gone out of their way to be helpful, and so far our room steward in particular (we are in an interior cabin on Aloha Deck) has been excellent.  The food so far has also been quite good, and aside from some issues with our room safe (some digits on the keypad don't work) I haven't seen any issues that would suggest the ship had been sitting for the better part of two years.  Looking forward to the next ten days of a badly needed vacation after several stressful months of preparing to sell our house, selling it and moving out (in fact it was just a week ago that we drove the moving truck to our temporary home while we find the next one) and looking forward to another cruise on what is easily my favorite ship in the Princess fleet.

 

There was one minor hiccup shortly after boarding when the ship lost shore power, causing the lights in the International Dining Room to go out.  The captain made an announcement about 20 minutes later explaining what was going on, and aside from one or two entrees being unavailable I didn't see any effects beyond the lights going out.  

I generally think Princess crews are so good, but the Sapphire crew were absolutely delightful & even when they didn't quite know everything they should or were a bit slow they were trying so hard & so pleasant doing it. And I think Captain Ravera was wonderful...so much better than many of our cruises at keeping the passengers informed as things came up or adressing problems (we were on a month ago for the RTS sailing so you should have a lot fewer of those early issues). 

 

Have a wonderful trip.

[Mike45LC]

Passenger count is 2,248 per cruise director.

 

Comedian Phil Tag was fun.  Looking forward to his show tomorrow.

[fellswoop]

8 hours ago, caribill said:

 

I thought it was 40 for a full day per person and $20 for a half day (afternoon or morning) per person.

 

Each afternoon should have been $20 each per day.

Well they said $40 pp for 1/2 day 1-5p but $30 pp per  1/2 day if you sign up for the whole 10 days.  2 days will be plenty plus they have a beautiful covered area.

[LawDog61]

How is the WiFi on board?  I am on Sapphire for Hawaii in a few weeks and am debating getting internet.  On the Discovery last week, it was so bad, basically unusable.

[JF - retired RRT]

Could someone ask what the passenger count for next week is? We're boarding for a B2B on 11/2.

TIA

[JF - retired RRT]

9 minutes ago, LawDog61 said:

How is the WiFi on board?  I am on Sapphire for Hawaii in a few weeks and am debating getting internet.  On the Discovery last week, it was so bad, basically unusable.

Book it now for the reduced price. If it's horrible, complain and get a refund.

[Mike45LC]

Embarkation Day:  we had dinner reservations in one of the MDRs.  We were seated within ten minutes.  Service was good, food was good.  No beef on the menu except Texas Chili.  
 

In preferences, we had said that we like fast meal.  It took 1:40.  Not what I consider “fast.”

 

[donswife]

23 minutes ago, Mike45LC said:

Embarkation Day:  we had dinner reservations in one of the MDRs.  We were seated within ten minutes.  Service was good, food was good.  No beef on the menu except Texas Chili.  
 

In preferences, we had said that we like fast meal.  It took 1:40.  Not what I consider “fast.”

 

I don't think the waiters see the speed preferences.  If you tell them you want to be somewhere, they will try to get you through on time. 

[Pluto_fan]

Excited to be following along!  We are looking forward to enjoying the Sapphire Princess next June.  Thank you all for sharing your experiences.

[fellswoop]

2 hours ago, LawDog61 said:

How is the WiFi on board?  I am on Sapphire for Hawaii in a few weeks and am debating getting internet.  On the Discovery last week, it was so bad, basically unusable.

Not sure how Hawaii will be be but husband calls it pretty speedy for a ship. And going further south to Hawaii should make yours better because communication sattelites are circling the equator and you will be closer. Communication sattelites are in a geosynchronous orbit. (You can google that) 😊