My wife and I left for the cruise a day early, as living in Wisconsin the weather can make travel difficult.  We arrived at LAX on time and used the Princess transfers to our hotel the Airport Marriott.  After inquiring at the hotel they recommended that we take a bus to Santa Monica, bus fare was pretty cheap $1.50 ea for the round trip.  In Santa Monica we walked around the shopping area and then went for a walk on the beach and pier.   On Sat morning we took the Princess transfer to the ship and got to the dock about 1:45 or so.  Check in was a breeze,   we got on the ship and checked out our cabin, E615 on deck 8 with an obstructed view.  Shortly after getting to our cabin our luggage was delivered.  The cabin was adequate space wise, I did remember to bring a clock as the on our previous cruise on the Crown, the cabins don't have clocks in them.  The only complaint I had about the cabin was that there are only 1 set of outlets by the desk, so if you have need to plug something in I would recommend an extension cord.  Our room steward was Paul and he did an excellent job.   This was my second cruise; the first was on the Crown Princess, Southern Caribbean Explorer.  The Sapphire Princess and Crown Princess are very similar ships so I found that I could get around very easily.    After the muster drill which lasted way too long we meet on the aft deck for a meet and greet with other Cruise Critic members.  This was a great get together and we meet several interesting people that we saw regularly during the cruise.   We then took a tour of the spa, at which we signed up for yoga classes during the sea days.  The yoga classes were really good and I would recommend them.  We also signed up for a free 1 hour educational seminar  on De-toxing.  It turned out to be a disappointment as very little was learned except that it would cost an additional $35 per person for a consultation that I believe would lead to a sale of some specific products.  The showers in the spa area are a good deal larger than the one we had in our cabin, so I took most of my showers there.  The spa also offered spinning and Pilates classes.  The spinning class filled very quickly.  I believe the charge for the classes were $30 for 3 classes.    We had anytime dining and the only night we had a reservation was the first formal night where we ate at Sabitini's.   The other nights we ate at the Solvay, Santa Fe and one night the Horizon buffet.  The food was very good but I don't recall any dish that was really outstanding.  The service in the dining rooms was outstanding.  The wait staff was always very friendly and usually pretty quick.  Near the end of every meal someone in charge always came to our table and asked how our meal and the service was.   On deck 5 in the Atrium area there is a bar which also serves specialty coffees and lattes.  We purchased a coffee/latte card which is a punch card for 15 drinks that saved us a little money.   In Puerto Vallarta we took the ship ATV adventure,  We were bussed about 20 minutes out of town and then rode individual Honda ATV's to some small towns and got  a flavor for the small town Mexico.  Our guides were very good and added a lot of local information into the trip.  If you take this trip plan on getting dirty as the roads are not paved and very dusty.  There were some areas where the speeds got close to 50 mph, and we made a couple of river crossings.  After the trip when we got back to the bus area we had a taco lunch provided with beverages available.  I would highly recommend this excursion but be aware that everywhere it stops someone is looking for a hand out.   In Mazatlan we found a couple who were also going to the Golden Zone and had been there before, so we shared a taxi with them.  The taxi driver kept wanting to drop us off at the old town by some friend of his who would give us a good deal.  We all insisted he take us where we wanted to go and he finally did.  We walked around the shopping area for a while and then went to the hotel Las Flores where we used their beach.  We rented an umbrella and some chairs for the day and had a fairly relaxed day sitting on the beach.  We were approached by vendors about every 10-20 min. to buy something, most moved on after we said we weren't interested but it did get old after a short time.    In Cabo it was a very short stay.  We were tendered into the dock.  We had signed up for the Eco snorkel trip through the ship.  This trip was on a Zodiak and only held about 9 people.  The driver was the only one who was with us on the excursion.  He took us out to the Arch and a sea lion colony near the harbor.  Then we went to Santa Maria bay, the ride was a bit bumpy and fast.  We were told the water temperature was about 65 degrees F, which was a bit invigorating.  After we got in and saw the large amount and many different types of fish it was a really great experience.  After a time we were called in and then proceeded to Chilean Bay where we did some additional snorkeling, this area also had a lot of fish but not as many as the first stop.  After a while we were called in and the captain then tried to find us a whale to watch but after looking quite a while he had to give up and take us back to port.  We were provided with bottled water and soft drinks on the trip.  This is an excursion which I enjoyed very much and would highly recommend.  The water in this area was very clear, someone on our trip had also snorkeled at Puerto Vallarta and said that the water was very cloudy there and they didn't see much of anything.    We had later flights and the Princess transfers back to the airport so we were near the last people leaving the ship.  Our luggage was fairly easy to find and we literally walked through customs as someone was just standing there collecting the form we needed to fill out.  Our return trip home was slow and uneventful.   Over all I had a great time on this cruise.