Sapphire Princess Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We chose this cruise for the dream destinations--Beijing and Xi'an, Nagasaki, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore. Unfortunately, the itinerary changed three times, the last time being on embarkation day. The first change was due to the unrest in Bangkok earlier in the year--Bangkok and Singapore were reversed in order. Understandable, but we had already made plans to spend a few days in Thailand after the cruise, and had to cancel that. It also meant that we made a reluctant decision to skip the Angkor Wat extension, for we would not have been able to see any of Bangkok. The second change was minor, changing the order of ports for Busan, Nagasaki, and Shanghai. No reason was given for this. The third change was due to two major typhoons. When I read the ship log at the end of the cruise, I did understand the changes overall--we had two nights with waves 7-8 meters high! While this was understandable, it meant that Nagasaki and Shanghai were cancelled for three, later changed to two, ports in Taiwan. I can understand cancelling Nagasaki, but cannot understand why Shanghai was also cancelled--no explanation was given. Taiwan was OK, but not what we thought we were paying for.
We took the pre-cruise tour of Beijing and Xi'an. The hotels were fine. A few people complained about mold in the showers, but we didn't experience that ourselves. Our tour guide was excellent. Our one complaint is that the lunch and supper meals were virtually identical every day--got tiresome.
I do think the ships are getting too big. The result is that that more and more often, they have to dock at cargo ports that are up to 2.5 hours away from the destination cities.
Cabin Review
We had our first (and probably only) chance to cruise in a full suite, and it was a great experience. This is the "Cancun Suite," located far forward on the starboard side. It has a bedroom and living area separated by a door. It's most outstanding feature is the wraparound balcony. The balcony is in two parts, a regular area with deck furniture and the huge wraparound area; they are separated by a door that was, at times, locked. The door was always open in port, and more than half of the time at sea. However, it can be extremely windy since it is in the very front. When the wind was predicted to be strong, the cabin steward had orders to lock that door and tie down the deck furniture; that made it less usable, of course. However, he opened the door and untied the furniture whenever he could. Because the bridge was directly above the balcony and light can affect bridge crew ability to see, we could not use the balcony light at night (no problem), and had to keep the curtains pulled at night. We got fresh flowers twice during the cruise, once at embarkation and again about 10 days later. The "upgraded" shampoo and conditioner were not good--I wish I had brought my own. The bed was quite comfortable. We had problems with the phone, and despite it being "fixed" twice, the problem reoccurred; we gave up on it. Service was outstanding--not only by the cabin steward, but if we didn't make a reservation for dinner at a particular time, we got a call asking us if we wanted one. And we always got the time and restaurant we wanted, something we didn't experience from regular cabins.