Sapphire Princess Review

Cost cutting shows in lack of service and maintenance

Review for the Mexican Riviera Cruise on Sapphire Princess
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traveler-a-go-g0
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Dec 2009
Cabin: Balcony

This was our fifth cruise with Princess and likely to be our last. At first we thought the broken public toilets, non-working drinking fountain in the gym and stopped clocks were minor maintenance issues that would be addressed within a day.... but after three days without water in the gym and never knowing what time it was by the pool, it seemed more like a lack of attention to detail. Our cabin was great - a balcony cabin, aft, on the Caribe deck. (DEFINITELY grab the Caribe deck if possible, the outdoor balconies are at least 30-40 feet larger than other balcony cabins.) We cruised during Christmas week and the ship was filled to capacity with 700 of the 2800 passengers being under 18. They had Christmas carolers and Santa and real snow from the top of the atrium which were nice touches but the entertainment was sorely lacking. Every other night was a "repeat" of the previous night - the comedians were mediocre at best and the main singers in the production shows seemed more like the understudies. We ate in both alternative restaurants - Sabatini's Italian Restaurant had great service but seemed more focused on quantity than quality with scallops that were small and tasted like something previously frozen from my local grocery store. The Sterling Steakhouse seemed like an afterthought on this ship as it was set in a corner of the main buffet - no special decor, not even dimmed lights. The meal was good but not nearly as great as other Sterling restaurants in the Princess Fleet. The best thing that Princess has done was to create four alternative dining venues (Savoy, Pacific Moon, Santa Fe and Vivaldi) where you can eat if on 'anytime dining'. The International Dining room is for assigned seating as well as breakfast and lunch. The menus are all the same with one themed dish for each restaurant. The spa is typical of Princess' larger ships with the same high pressure sales and daily specials. In Puerto Vallarta we booked the Las Caletas Island getaway which was wonderful! If you can, book this directly with Vallarta Adventures in advance of your cruise and you'll save $34 a person! The tour guide located a pod of whales on our ride to Las Caletas which were worth the price of the trip alone! Las Caletas is a private cove with lunch, snorkeling, kayaking, monkeys and birds as well as good, inexpensive massages ($50 for an hour). Mazatlan was our day for shopping so no excursion was booked although we heard that the canopy tours were good. We only had a few hours in Cabo San Lucas which is a shame - it would have been nice to have an entire day. Beware that a tender is required to get to shore and the wait times were up to an hour at one point. Overall, it was a nice getaway but next time it will be a return to Royal Caribbean or Celebrity. BTW, we did get a fantastic rate through Vacationstogo.com (ask for Clarkson) which we booked five months in advance - we had balcony cabins with shipboard credits of $50 for only $849 per person.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin BA

C614 - Caribe Deck, aft. Good location between center and aft elevators but directly across from laundry. No loud noise. Fabulous, extra large balcony. Tiny showers (which is typical) but good closet and storage space.

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