The Sapphire Princes is now about 5 years old. Our family took a cruise on this ship to Alaska during it's first year. Overall, I'd say the ship is holding up well, but it's clearly not as new and shiny as it was.

My biggest concern was how Princess was handling the recession. Would the level of service decline? Overall I would say the answer to that is no. Some of the premium food items did seem to be a bit less premium, at least in the standard dining rooms. The food at Sabitini's (sp?) was still very good and well cooked. For the extra $20 cover fee, it would be foolish to not visit at least one of the specialty restaurants during the cruise.

The entertainment included three different comedians, two of which were very good and one merely good. The production shows I watched (one fully, one partially) were painfully bad compared to prior cruises. The best entertainment was the rock band Wavelength, who were very good. They did four types of shows: (1) Small venue rock; (2) "Rock Star" where customers sang the lyrics (most of which were better than the professionals in the production shows); (3) An "unplugged" show in the main Atrium; and (4) A production "Rock Show" in the Princess theater with orchestra support. The songs performed ranged from 60s and 70s rock, to modern alternative. They were clearly the highlight of the cruise, and attracted "fans" of a surprisingly wide age spectrum. Read more