Sapphire Princess Review
The Sapphire Princess shows a Very Good Face up to Alaska
Rating by category
Additional details
Like many people that submit a post cruise review on Cruise Critic, hopefully my review and insights will be helpful to those vacationers in their selection process for their cruise to Alaska or future travels on the Sapphire Princess.
The dismal postings on the Cruise Critic site for the early Alaska cruise season regarding travels aboard Princess Cruise's Sapphire Princess, in my humble opinion, have been completely blown out of proportion. Other friends and acquaintances who have sailed on the Sapphire also have expressed their dismay on the prior negative comments posted about the ship and staff. This was my sixth cruise aboard a Princess ship and my second sailing to Alaska with Princess. My first sailing was in 1997 aboard the nearly new Sun Princess which was also the ship we traveled upon for a Panama Canal cruise in 2004.
The Sapphire Princess is a 'Grand Lady' and a wonderful vessel to see the sights of the inside passage up to Coastal Southeast Alaska. The Sapphire is a young seven year old cruise liner that will be improved upon next January (January 2012) with significant upgrades as part of the Princess Cruise Line's fleet wide process to keep their ships in tip top shape. Any vacation cruiser would be amazed at the incredible transformations which take place over the course of several weeks when these mega ships hit dry-dock. Princess does a good job in their emails and virtual tours of the upgrade process as was evident to me in the transformation of the Grand Princess in late April. That being said, the Sapphire Princess is still in wonderful shape and should please any passenger right up until her upgrade next winter.
Cabin Review
Balcony
We had previously booked balcony cabins on board Princess ships and found our Starboard side by side cabins Lido 232 and Lido 228 quite adequate and in great shape. Since the Lido deck is at the top of the ship, prior cruise reviews of this location noted that it was a location where footsteps from the above deck could be heard. We did not find this to be true on our cruise. As a matter of fact, in our opinion, this was the best cabin location that we've had in all our nearly dozen cruise sailings. Our cabin Steward was able to open the divider between balconies which gave us a wonderful area to watch the scenery go by. These cabins were not as large as the mini suite balcony cabins as we had on the Crown Princess but they were very comfortable and quiet. The furnishing were not dated and we knew they better things would be in store for these cabins in the January 2012 renovation. There was ample storage outside the cabin's bathroom in the built-in bed stands & desk as well as beneath each bed. Our cabins were on Lido deck near the front of the ship on starboard side. Lido 232 and 228 was a great location which had us on the same level as both the main outdoor & indoor pools, the Horizon Court dining area and conveniently located near the Grill, the Pizza area and the Ice Cream station, all three a taste pleaser for my 11 year old son.