Mediocre cruise

Sapphire Princess Cruise Review

Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 7
Helpful Votes: 138

Overall rating:

3 out of 5
Sapphire Princess

Search for the Northern Lights

Sail date: October 19, 2019

Ship: Sapphire Princess

Cabin type: Suite

Cabin number: D421

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

Cruise to the north. This was two or three weeks later than it should have been. Warm weather oriented ship above the Arctic Circle. Lots of mobility challenged people trying to negotiate snow, ice, and areas not designed for access. Spent two days in Alta with tenders to go ashore. Terrible excursions in Alta. So so excursions in Tromso. Loved having foreign college students leading the tours. No need for local knowledge? Just a poorly thought out cruise.

Embarkation

1 out of 5
Sat for two hours, what a mess. Had to replace radome but they could not figure out how to do it and keep the gangway open.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5
Just keeps getting worse, no longer anything special.

Onboard Activities

2 out of 5
They did not plan for the cold weather. This is not the ship for this cruise. Movies under the snow?

Entertainment

3 out of 5
Some entertainers were very good, others, not so much.

Service and Staff

3 out of 5
Some staff were fantastic, others forgot who the customer was

Ship Quality

4 out of 5
Ship was clean but not really setup for the weather.

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5
Cabin was spacious but worn. Furniture definitely showed its age.

Ship tip

Don’t have high expectations.

Ports of call

Tromso, Norway

4 out of 5
Nice very walkable around town.

Stavanger, Norway

4 out of 5
Nice, excellent excursion. Great town to walk about.

Alta, Norway

1 out of 5
Could have skipped this. Terrible excursions and nothing to see or do in town except the cathedral. 45 min and ready to head back to ship. Everyone complained about their excursions.

Alesund, Norway

4 out of 5
Nice. Center of fishing industry. Probably better in summer.

Southampton (London), England

3 out of 5
Ok, not much to see

Disembarkation

4 out of 5
This went very well
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5 Comments

Gwbigdog    2 years ago

hagerrc    5 years ago

I don’t see where I said I was irritated by the weather. My comment was that Princess did not adjust to the weather. Outdoor movies in the snow? We were prepared for cold weather excursions. My comment about the timing was for people planning for this cruise in the future.

willwork4cruz    5 years ago

Maybe you should be a cruise planner.

cruisereckoning    5 years ago

Nice cruise

4tanya    5 years ago

Considering you new what the weather is like this time of year and one is just a few key strokes away from knowing what the average weather is like where the cruise is heading why were you surprised by the cooler temperatures and irritated by it ????

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