Sapphire Princess Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,020 reviews

Sapphire Princess - Asia

Review for Asia Cruise on Sapphire Princess
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New_horizon
First Time Cruiser • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Oct 2006
Traveled with children

We were first time cruisers and apart from what we had read on the roll call and boards we did not know what to expect. We are in our early fifties and were travelling with our 8 year old grandson. Our airline travel to embarkation port was arranged privately as was our three night stopover in Beijing at the Holiday Inn Central Plaza prior to cruise. (We are reviewing this hotel together with our Tokyo hotel on Tripadvisor.) We wanted to make our own way to the port because the Princess transfers were very expensive and also because we have travelled by train in several countries and wanted to experience it in China if only for a relatively short 2 1/2 hour journey. Our stay in Beijing was at the time of the National Holiday week and so everywhere was more crowded and much more difficult to get around timewise. We were assisted with touring in Beijing and buying train tickets by the fantastic guest relations officer, Storm, at the Holiday Inn. Nothing was too much trouble for him and after 3 days he was more like a friend and even travelled down to the port with us and saw us onto the ship. It worked out a fraction of the cost and was a very "interesting" journey. To get a taxi down would also have been quite reasonable only about 700-800 yuan.

Embarkation - Unfortunately Princess Cruises did not advise that we needed to check in at a nearby hotel and so when we arrived at the Terminal after a bit of confusion we were finally able to get the porters to take our bags on board and then we had to go on the shuttle bus to the hotel, check-in and then come back to the dock on the shuttle bus. By this time the embarkation line was relatively short as we were probably among the last to board.

First impressions - Once on board we knew we were in for a great trip. We had a mini suite and were greeted by our cabin steward with glasses of champagne and the accommodation was just as it was pictured on the Princess website. The bed had been converted into a Queen, there was a sofa bed which the steward made up every night for our grandson and quite a reasonable size bathroom with a bathtub and shower over. The bedding was very comfortable and we were never disturbed by noise in the corridors. Our cabin was on the port side in the aft of the ship. We did have a balcony which was not covered (I have noted complaints from some people about this) but we thought it was fine and if you sat in closer to the door it was reasonably private from above and we liked being able to lean over the railing looking straight out to sea.

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