This was a first for us in many ways. Our first cruise in several years, our first "big ship" cruise and our first Alaskan cruise, so most everything was new to us. Since the Sapphire Princess was a new ship we were never concerned about the quality of the facilities. Our faith was justified. Everything about the ship showed it was still new and very well cared for. The colors are bright and tasteful, the dEcor elegant without being ostentatious and all facilities were cleaned several times a day. The cruise line spends many thousands of dollars annually on artwork for their ships and it shows.
Our main initial concern was crowding. This is a big ship. Around 2600 passengers and this cruise was overbooked. However, even though there were the usual crowds at the more popular shows or in the main concourse during special events, this proved to be no problem. If you want to attend a popular show, go about 30 minutes early. Just like you'd do anywhere. The rest of the time we hardly noticed any crowds.
We noticed two things about the food buffets. They could get crowded at times - usually the last half hour of serving. However there were two different buffets on either side of the ship and one or the other was always much less crowded. Why I don't know because the food was great in both. Finding a place to sit inside the buffet area was always problematic since people would come down and camp at the window tables for hours. However there are plenty of tables and chairs else where on the ship so finding a place close by was never a problem.