Sapphire Princess Review
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I took a 14-day cruise to Hawaii this fall on the Sapphire Princess out of the port of Los Angeles. I had booked an inside room, the cheapest one available on a guarantee, and I got upgraded to an obstructed view room which was fantastic. I was in Emerald 408, and the obstructed ocean view did not have much obstruction! I embarked on a sunny Saturday afternoon, October 08, 2011. The ship looked inviting, there were a lot of people mulling about at the port by noon yet it took less than a half hour to get on the ship. My luggage followed me many hours later, close to 6PM.
I had asked for anytime dining, and on the first night I found myself seated at a table for 10 with 9 other women in the Vivaldi Dining room, we called it the "chick table". We tried to arrange for this table permanently but this was not in the stars and we all separated after the first night. It seemed like all the tables in all of the Anytime dining venues had too many settings; I felt cramped at the tables and many tables for 8 had 10, tables for 6 had 8, and so on. In addition, there were too many tables in each room and I often found myself not able to back my chair up without running into another person. This is why I usually take traditional dining, there is more personal space at the tables, in addition to more personal service! I ended up favoring the Pacific Moon dining room because of a great waiter named Norbert from Hungry.
The food in the dining rooms was good, but not great, and I did notice some differences in what was available this time compared to my last cruise on the Crown Princess in May. I am not a big foodie and yet I noticed a general decline in quality. There were no more Marzipan cookies anywhere, not even at high tea. I missed those cookies so much. I noticed cost cutting everywhere; no nuts in the salad bar, the cheese selections were boring like American cheese, pepper jack, and cheddar and never any French cheese or Italian cheeses. There were some disappointing menus, and not many good alternatives for me because there was a preponderance of pork and seafood and I don't eat either. I found some good vegetarian meals in the Horizon Court Buffet.