Sapphire Review

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SDFish42

Guest
Hello my fellow addicts. I am a new member here although I have been viewing the boards for a couple months now in preparation for my Alaska Inside Passage cruise on the Sapphire Princess. With all the advice I got from reading the discussions I thought I'd try and do my part too. I will make it fairly short and sweet I promise.

Overall, the trip was absolutely incredible. I've been on nearly 10 cruises and everywhere I've been to it was HOT. Although I do respect my family's dire need to lie on a beach on vacation, it was nice to finally steer in a different direction and truly enjoy the port of call and do other things besides shop.

The ship is beautiful, it is enormous and being docked in Seattle next to the Holland America Amsterdam and Norwegian Sun I believe it was, the mere size made the other two seem like tugboats. A word of warning however is that if you have sailed on the Grand or any of its sister ships and obviously the Diamond, (its immediate sister ship), don't expect a whole lot of changes. The layout is more or less the exact same on each of these ships with a few minor adjustments.

As you might already know, there are now 5, yes 5, dining rooms (International, Italian, Santa Fe, Steakhouse, and Asian) on the ship in light of their "Anytime Dining" option which we chose. Just because we chose it, I DO NOT recommend this option to you at this early stage of the ship's travels. The idea for Anytime Dining is to allow people to eat whenever they want by making reservations ahead of time. What they fail to tell you is that reservations by 75% of those who chose Anytime were made on the first day of the cruise!!! Only one night did we actually get a reservation before 8:00 at night. For a system that allegedly allows you to dine anytime, you end up eating whenever they have availability, which defeats the purpose if your not sure how long you would be ashore. My advice would be to choose traditional dining, late or early, you get the same waiter/waitress, same time, no long lines, and no hassles. If you miss your dinner because your ashore, no big deal, you can walk into or make a reservation in any of the other 4 dining rooms anytime. Feel free to ask me if you are confused about this dining stuff. The food in general was very mediochre. The buffet was never desirable for me personally and everything just sort of started tasting and looking the same. Perhaps I have been on too many Princess ships. My girlfriend would definitely say that it wasn't a ship for chocolate lovers because there was hardly any to be found besides those on our pillow every evening.

To balance out the less than satisfying food though was the staff. Princess clearly has a standard to be set and I know I've seen it before on the boards, but the people were always friendly and we in fact got to know quite a few of the hosts for the various activities. Our stewardess was delightful and efficient and for the most part waiters were above average as well.

Alaska was beautiful and though we weren't there long, Victoria was a nice bonus as well. For being only 3 weeks old, the line management was tolerable when it came to embarking and disembarking which seemed to be a problem on the Diamond for a while. When it is said and done, I can guarantee you that whatever problems you run into aboard the Sapphire wil be subsided by an excellent staff, shore excursions (I can recommend the Helicopter & Dogsledding Tour), and the overall atmosphere of Alaska.

Sure it has its flaws but don't let them ruin the experience of your vacation and make the best of it! All of you with tickets already, I wish you a wonderful cruise and happy sailing.

-Bryan
 
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Jeana

Guest
Thanks for your great review. We are booked for the Sept. sailing from Seattle to inside passage!
 
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Cruise cutie

Guest
:daisy..very nice review..She sounds so lovely too..Thanks for sharing your review..:)..Joanne
 
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Princess Pat

Guest
Thanks for the review. Entices me to offer an Alaskan cruise to the family next year. We're sweltering so I don't even want to think beach right now.

Pat
 
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Dkelley

Guest
We are booked on the Sapphire for next May 2005. And we are getting excited allready and we still have 10 1/2 months away. Dont know how we will wait that long. This will be our 6th cruise but our first to Alaska, so we are really looking forward to it. I am so glad you told me about the dining, we had allready decided on the traditional dining and not the freestyling, so your comment was good to hear. I do want to have something clarified for me, if we want to try another restaurant instead of the traditional dining, do we go at our regular dinner time, or do we have to make reservations or wait in line. We do want to try some of the other restaurants but we like the traditional dining experience.

Thanks for your great review

Darla
 
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SDFish42

Guest
Hi DKelley!!! It's a great idea to at least check out the other restaurants! To answer your question about dining in the themed dining rooms, the best way to do it is to decide on an evening where you'll know you'll be back at a certain time, perhaps from a shore excursion or something and book a reservation with the concierge on the first day of the cruise. Your traditional dining time is irrelevant to your options in the other restaurants, its all about those reservations...

Congratulations on your booking!!! You'll have a fantastic time!

-Bryan
 
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daddowdalls

Guest
DKelley: I called Princes yesterday about this. We are signed up for traditional dining, late seating. The rep told me that if you want to dine at one of the four venues other than the International (main) dining room, you make a reservation through the concierge, preferably 24 hours ahead, and you should get a seating at or very close to what you want. You can also just show up at one of the 4 dining venues, ask for next available and they'll give you a pager device; she said you might have to waiy a while, and when I tried to pin her down, she said, well this is a new approach, so it's hard to say, but maybe 30 minutes maybe a little more, depending on what time you go. Although we did not discuss it, it seems logical that if you have an idea of when you are not going to be eating traditional, you make yoyr Sterling, Vivaldi, China Moon or Santa Fe reservations upon boarding.

She also said the restaurants all pretty much operate out of the same kitchen, so you can get just about anything that's being served in any of the dining rooms on any given night wherever you go.
 
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happiness

Guest
Glad you had a great time and thanks to everyone for all the tips. We've cruised about 8 times but never to Alaska. We're going on the Diamond at the first week in August. Any tips on weather would be great. Is it like jeans and sweaters all the time? Should I even bother to pack a pair of shorts? We are planning on the helicopter/dog sledding tour in Juneau (already pre-registered). Someone mentioned it was good. Any details you have on it would be great. I'm hoping it's incredible since it costs a small fortune. Thanks to everyone for your help.
 
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MSN

Guest
I was on the Sapphire in june(6/13), I suggest layers, and yes bring a pair or 2 of shorts. I was actually surprised at how many days I wore short sleeve shirts, but the week I went was unusal weather I'm told, warm and sunny.
 
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