In order to keep this organized and simple, I have broken this review out into several categories:
General Information
Having been on 2 cruises prior (still a newbie to cruising really) my husband and I decided to do a cruise to our favorite place on earth - New Zealand. This was our second cruise together but the first on Princess.
We arrived in Auckland the day before sailing and did ...
We arrived in Sydney after a short flight from Melbourne and after a Princess Transfer we were on the ship by 1.00pm. It was a very easy embarkation with no hassles at all. We had a restricted view on Emerald deck which we booked 6 months previously and as we have always had balcony cabins before we were very apprehensive about this cruise. Well the view was fine! We had an emergency boat outside ...
The trip from Auckland, New Zealand to Sydney Australia was the first time we had been on a cruise ship. When I first saw the outside of the "Sapphire Princess" at the dock in Auckland I thought "oh oh..... this is not going to be my cup of tea".... too big... huge... but once we were on board I thought it was a floating palace.... beautiful... We had booked an inside twin cabin... found it to be ...
Please enter your review. I have to agree with the review by Victor Meldrew. I am Canadian and travelled on this same cruise with my husband. We stayed precruise(booked through Princess) in Bangkok at the ShangriLa, where we have previously stayed. Our stay was marred by the horrific flight we had courtesy of Princess with a 7 hour layover in Hong Kong having flown approx. 18 hours from Toronto ...
Booked the cruise in September 06, three months before flight schedules came out in January 07 - despite asking for World Traveller Plus seating on BA direct flights, were given Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong (as were quite a number of early booking passengers we talked to). Would this have something to do with it being cheaper to fly indirect?
The Sapphire Princess is a very large and beautiful ...
Embarkation at Auckland was excellent as was delivery of luggage etc.
The ship was impressive and spotless always. Staff were continuously cleaning or painting, sometimes, however, this was a little intrusive particularly at night.
The trips are well organized and not too expensive as is sometimes the case on cruises.
The ports of call were all interesting ( we missed Hobart due to rough ...
I was a virgin of the sea prior to this wonderful trip my wife Judy and I took to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.
We flew London - LA - Auckland with no problem until a wee sniffer dog at Auckland airport caught the scent of a dried thistle in my wife's handbag! A small fine and an acceptance of our adversity was a minor hic-up. I must recommend Quantas Airlines for their service.
We ...
Australia New Zealand Trip Report
Well, the beginning of the cruise started with a bit of adventure and a fair amount of stress. Out journey would take us from Seattle (SEA) -> San Francisco (SFO) -> Sydney (SYD) -> Auckland. The foreshadowing for the initial adventure was exposed when I received a flight delay for the SFO-SYD flight by two hours shortly before we departed the red Carpet lounge ...
My husband (age 50) and I (age 44) have previously cruised three times on Holland America and twice on Disney. We've also done a few one-time cruises on a number of other lines. We decided to try Princess because it offered an Australia-New Zealand itinerary with dates that would work for us. We honestly didn't have high expectations for Princess and expected it to be a notch below HAL.
We were ...
Our cruise began with a 6 day pre-cruise land tour. We made our own flight arrangements to Sydney and arrived early Sunday morning and took a taxi to the Four Seasons Hotel. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Princess had arranged special check-in for cruise tour guests and we were able to get our room key immediately. The Four Seasons is a lovely hotel very well situated near the ...