On 1-21-2006, I sailed on the Sapphire Princess to Mexico from Los Angeles. This was my 6th cruise, first with Princess. My wife and my 5 year old son sailed with us. Since I live in Orange County, my family drove to San Pedro to check out the ship, the week before.

We parked at the port, which was very convenient. It was $12 a day. I think we only walked about 50 yards to the terminal building. We checked in around 1:30 PM and there was quite a long line. There were two separate areas to check in and I didnt know which area to go to. The were no signs other than on top of the check in counter, which were electronic and hard to decipher. But there were courtesy agents who directed us to the right line. Check in totaled about 50 minutes. 25 minutes to wait in line to check in and 25 more minutes to wait, until they call your group number to go through security and board the ship. The check in process went smoothly.

Once we boarded the ship, we headed to our cabin, which was an inside on the Baja deck mid ship. The room was clean and we met our room steward, Crespin. He was very nice and kept our cabin clean during the cruise. This was a designated triple room. There were your two standard beds put together to make a king and the third was a drop bed from the ceiling. This was my first experience with this. During the turn down service each night, the steward used a hex wrench like tool to lower the bed from the ceiling. Once dropped down, it was like having a bunk bed. In the cabin, there was a small refrigerator. There are two electrical plugs near the desk and the hair dryer is also plugged into the wall near this outlet. Read more