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Princess Cruise Line

MS Sapphire Princess

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: Kim Ba
Date of Trip: December 23, 2004
# previous cruises: 2
Itinerary: Australia

14 night cruise from Sydney to Auckland over the Christmas/New Year period. The ship was decorated for the holidays and we had a wonderful, relaxing trip. Weather was cool to warm, never hot and it was rainy on a few days.

As on most cruises port stops are too short and only really give you enough time to get an overview of each city. If you want to really see New Zealand or major attractions/cities in Australia then don't take a cruise, do a land tour instead.

Being a new ship all areas where well laid out with many smaller intimate lounges. The Wakeview Bar seems a waste of space and Club Fusion while great for viewing with so many flat screen TV's everywhere is made small by having a ceiling that is way too low for the size room it is. The Wheelhouse Bar is nice and quiet, the Princess Theatre is very good for shows and movies. The atrium is quite small but it does look good especially all dressed up for xmas/NY.

There are many pool areas so if it is crowded in one you can always walk a short distance to another, not too many chair hogs around either.

The promenade deck you can walk right around the ship but you have to walk up a few stairs forward onto another deck so it isn't much good for joggers but very nice to sit and relax or just stroll around. The spa/gym area is well laid out and quite popular, jogging track is above this area as well as a half tennis court.

Casino is quite large, never seemed crowded. Whenever we were in there the staff seemed friendly and willing to help if you didn't know how to play the table games.

Dining Rooms; We had personal choice dining and loved it. Never made a reservation, just walked up and were seated straight away, every time, no matter what time we went or which of the four restaurants we went to. The food; sounds impressive on paper, looks great when it is presented, tastes like meat and vegies. Looks aren't everything, it is nice, sometimes even great but it looks like it should taste so much better. Three star, sometimes four but never five!

Horizon Court; Always found a table, they were constantly cleaning up usually before you even left the table. Only time we ever found a line up here was in the afternoon for the ice cream. There is no lining up in the buffet area, it is walk around and find what you want to eat and move on.

The food; very good for buffet, always hot, a lot of variety and at dinner most of what is on the International menu in the main dining room is on the buffet menu so you can try a lot more of it here. Service; Mediocre in the PC dining rooms nothing outstanding. I found the staff in the Horizon Court more helpful especially at breakfast when they have a staff member walking around serving coffee and tea. None of the waiters anywhere seemed overly happy, friendly and helpful yes, for the most part but not too happy, I guess because they are so busy.

I don't like the pizza much because the cheese they use is awful, the crust is great but that cheese is yuk. The hamburgers and chips are ok but don't get the vegetarian burger it's horrid.

We had a balcony cabin close to the back of the ship on Baja deck and enjoyed it very much. The cabin was very nice, neat and clean with plenty of storage space for two people. The bathroom was small but adequate, if you're a very large person you won't get into the shower! Many larger size people used the spa/gym showers.

There was a slight vibration, most noticeable at night when in bed which was the reason I kept getting up during the night to use the bathroom I'm sure. I didn't always sleep too well on this voyage and I would not recommend an aft cabin on this ship. Our room steward, Rodrigo, was excellent, personable and friendly. Room service was always prompt.

We attended most of the shows in the Princess Theatre and enjoyed them all but we found the individual shows like the comedians and singers etc not to be to our liking.

We really enjoyed the cruise director, Alastair Greener, and his staff, they all did a great job and we enjoyed participating in trivia and game shows with them.

We don't like the art auctions and do not participate in them.

Loved all the pools especially the Lotus Spa pool with the swim against the current feature, very nice in the evening to have a swim and then hop into one of the hot tubs to relax.

We never had staff pushing the purchase of drinks, wine seminars etc. on us at all and the bartenders were all very nice and friendly. We purchased one soda card and never had a problem getting drinks anywhere on the ship.

Overall, we never had a problem with anything at all on board this ship, it all went pretty well perfectly. We are very easy to please though and some people are going to find fault no matter what!

Itinerary; Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Fjordland Nat. Park, Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Tauranga, Bay Of Islands, Auckland.

We had rain in Hobart (afternoon) and Dunedin (morning) with most days overall being cloudy and cool to warm. Fjordland Nat. Park was clear in Milford Sound but low cloud and rain throughout the rest of the Sounds, and quite heavy seas crossing the Tasman to get there. We did all ports on our own, organising our own tours either online before the cruise or on the day. There were tours available when you walked off the ship in all ports which were much cheaper than the ship sponsored ones.

There were 2804 passengers with approx. 45% Americans, 40% Australians, 7% Mexicans and the rest made up of Great Britain, Canadian, Asian and the rest from other countries around the world.

All ages were represented with approx. 260 under 18 year olds. We never had any problems due to over zealous children on board nor did we encounter any rude or obnoxious over 18 yo. There were of course, complaints especially over the very long and unorganised embarkation in Sydney but we felt this was due to the Sydney Port Authority not being organised for the amount of passengers that turned up at 11 in the morning and not Princess cruise lines fault, it took an avg. of three hours of waiting in line for most passengers to get on board.

There were also some complaints made when one of the shows was cancelled because of rough seas but safety comes before everything else people.

Would I invite any passengers home for dinner after the cruise? A few, yes but most people wanted to tell you how many cruises they had been on and how they enjoyed them more or less than this one etc etc (the reason we don't like fixed dining times/tables), we find most of these people to be so fake and boring that we totally ignored these types and found ourselves mixing mostly with the people we met on an online cruise forum and enjoyed their company or just did our own private thing together.

This cruise was chosen so we could get away for a quiet relaxing time and it definitely lived up to that. I would not cruise to New Zealand again but would definitely do a land tour so I could see more of the country, so beautiful.

Don't get me wrong I would cruise again but probably only once to any destination.