Cruising with Princess

Travel and Leisure

If you follow my FB page, you'll have noticed that we went on our third cruise recently, this time on an amazing itinerary through the Scandinavian and Baltic countries. We chose Princess this time (previously Celebrity and Virgin Voyages) solely because the cruise started/ended in Copenhagen. If you look at most other cruises for this region, they'll often use Southampton or Amsterdam, forcing you to spend 1.5 to 2 days at sea just getting to the area. So with no other rationale other than convenience, we looked it up on Costco Travel and booked it.

Booking value

The "obstructions" to our view

I learned from our Alaska cruise experience, that using a travel agent sometimes gives you perks that you may not get if booking directly. I then checked with Costco, and noted that they not only had access to some room types that the direct site didn't list, but they also offered significant kickbacks to members. We also didn't purchase additional premium packages, as the value is typically used for big drinkers; since she doesn't drink at all, it is cost prohibitive for me, as I'd need to buy the upgrade for both of us. Also, this ship lacked extensive dining options, which were accompanied by mediocre reviews. We felt that the weather in the region would not be conducive to sitting out on a balcony, so we opted for the "obstructed ocean view" stateroom. So with a bare bones booking, we were in at about CDN$250/night per person, not including the CDN$350 Costco gift card and USD$80 onboard credit. To that, we needed to add tips and any excursions or spa services we wanted; overall a deal hard to pass up.

Low expectations = hard to be disappointed

We knew that these traditional operators couldn't hold a candle to new-kid-on-the-block Virgin Voyages, so we didn't even try to consider comparing to that cruise. But with our Celebrity experience as a baseline, we had set a pretty low bar for Princess. I had also done some research on the Sapphire Princess, and noted that the rooms looked dated, as the ship is a little over 20 years old. While the room matched the photos and videos I had seen, it was very clean and functional; our room steward was amazing too. There were a few of niggly little things; shower curtain vs. glass door, an irritating motion light in the closet area, and the fact that the music channels on the TV never worked for the entire cruise.

Four dining rooms with the same menu options

Desserts were too good to pass up

A curious thing about the Sapphire Princess, is that there is no one single main dining room. Instead, there are four separate dining rooms that have slightly different decor and reservation policies, but serve exactly the same menu in each. I found the entrées to be good to pretty good, but lacked unique flavour. e.g. the pepper steak was well cooked (medium rare), but the sauce lacked oomph. Other diners noted that the chicken meal was virtually identical from evening to evening, with just subtle differences in preparation/sauce. Service was very good everywhere, with some hiccups in the main dining room (e.g. claims that they were unable to seat our group of 8 despite a table for 8 being available).

Buffet offered more choice and variety

Being serenaded by one of the servers

After a few days, we realised that the Horizon Court buffet was usually a better option for our mixed group of diners. Each night was a different theme and they offered a number of menu items for that evening. French night was a particularly good dinner, and I'd have to rate it at very good - high praise for a buffet meal. It's a strangely cramped buffet area, and the food is duplicated on each side of the Horizon Court, with no access through the middle. We didn't have many lunches on board, as we were usually in the towns exploring, but breakfasts were pretty good (3.5/5) provided that you weren't trying to grab food at peak rush hour. i.e. you could waltz right up and grab a fresh waffle if you timed it right. And then there was the server, John, who had a great voice, and would wander through the tables, belting out tunes from a portable speaker.

Other food and beverage on board

RFID token access to room

We didn't sample any of the paid, premium restaurants, and we only had the pizza by the pool a couple if times, which was decent enough. We didn't try the burger bar, but the soft serve ice cream bar got visited more times than it should have. Drinks were not ridiculously priced, but it seemed odd to me that a 222 ml can of soda was priced the same as a 355 ml one. Wine by the glass that I ordered with meals was good enough for my palate; we didn't try any by the bottle. One couple in our party had upgraded their package, and they usually made a point of coming back from the bar with both hands full. Similar to Virgin Voyages, a small RFID medallion was used to buy drinks, access your stateroom, and identify you when coming and going from the ship during the day.

Ship spaces

Cornhole games in the atrium

Unlike our Celebrity ship, the Sapphire Princess did not have a massive, open air atrium in the centre. There was an open space that spanned three floors, where the main shops and a few lounges were connected, but not nearly as grand as Celebrity Solstice class ships. However, these spaces were still in good nick, despite the age of the ship, whereas our experience on Celebrity showed lots of needed maintenance. At over 20 years old, the ship was a little more traditionally decorated, but it wasn't a deterrent to the experience on board. We spent a fair bit of time in the Explorer’s Lounge, where they held daily trivia and other entertainment, but we called it the "Freezer Lounge", due to the extreme level of air conditioning.

The Princess Theatre

The last visitor on the tour

Speaking of entertainment, we only went to the main theatre a couple of times, where we found the performances lacklustre, even to the Celebrity experience. Shows didn't have the polish or zazz that we'd seen on our Alaskan trip, and couldn't come close to the Virgin experience. The magician was a cheesy version of David Copperfield, if that's even possible, and I didn't last more than 15 minutes before ducking out the back. They also held some port talks in the theatre, but one guy just stood in front of his Powerpoint presentation and read the bullets from his slides. With some amazing port cities and old town areas, some cruisers likely missed great things to see and do if they relied solely on that guy's presentations for content. The best "show" in the theatre was the cooking demonstration on our last at-sea day, where the head chef and restaurant manager put on a comical display, followed by a tour of one of the galleys.

Overall impressions

In summary, this was an excellent itinerary and aside from a couple of rushed stops, it was a pretty good balance of ports/cities and at sea days. Given that Princess was one of the few operators that had this region but used Copenhagen as their home port, we have to give credit for that. While our Celebrity Alaskan cruise had a far less interesting itinerary, the one thing that it did better than Princess was entertainment. Looking back at my review of that cruise, the dining room meals were barely passable and rated the food between a 3 and 3.5; I'd have to give Princess a leg up from that, so maybe almost a 4 for most meals, with a few disappointments here and there. I preferred the room layout on Celebrity, but still have to give the overall win between the two to Princess. If only Virgin Voyages had an itinerary like the Princess one!