Princess Cruises
Sapphire Princess Cruise Review
Mexican Riviera

Linda Florance
Age: 50
Occupation: Accountant
Number of Cruises: 6
Sailing Date: April 22nd, 2006

My husband (56) and I (50) just got home from a fantastic 7 day cruise to the Mexican Riviera on the Sapphire Princess.

We flew to LAX a day early and took Primetime Shuttle to San Pedro. The wait for a van was long and we had many stops. Next time we will try the Super Shuttle service that had many more vans operating. We stayed at the San Pedro Holiday Inn. It was ok for a single night stay and had a shuttle service to the pier for $3 per person.

Saturday morning we were at the pier by 11 a.m. and in our room by noon. For the first time we booked an inside room instead of a balcony. I would do this again to save money, as it didn’t effect our enjoyment of the cruise at all.

Here are some of our experiences and thoughts by subject:

Dining: All sea days we enjoyed breakfast at the International Dining Room. This allowed us to meet many nice people and have a good cup of coffee to start the day. For dinner we got a noisy, not very private table at the Santa Fe one night. The next night we reserved table 405 (for 2) in the Pacific Moon and enjoyed it so much we booked it two more times. The other nights we went to the Horizon Court. My favorite dishes were Beef Wellington, Blue Crab appetizer, Mahi Mahi and Rum Raisin ice cream.

Activities: Daytime we liked line dancing lessons, ping pong, the gym and the various pools and hot tubs. The most enjoyable night time activities for the week were Piano Man, the 50’s party, Line Dance Mania, Dan Bennett, and Lovena B. Fox.

Shore: At Puerto Vallarta we did “Hideway at Las Caletas”. We liked the swimming, kayaking, cooking lesson, lunch and open bar. At Cabo we did “Chileno Bay Snorkeling”. The crew made the outing lots of fun, but the truth is that snorkeling is much better in the Caribbean. We stayed on the ship at Mazatlan.

Trouble: Friday at about 1 p.m. the captain announced that technical difficulties would delay our return to port significantly. It took us until 5:30 p.m. to get access to a phone and change our flight arrangements. It was not what we planned to do our last day at sea. However, the next day the staff had put together a list a daytime activities to keep us busy. We participated in line dancing and a game show “Majority Rules”. Then we went to the Trident Grill and ate the lunch that the next cruise was supposed to be eating. Next was a real treat; Cathy from two Survivor shows gave an impromptu talk on her experience in the Explorer’s lounge. We disembarked at 4 p.m. and had to take a red eye flight home. Oh well! We still think this was one of the best cruises we have ever been on and will not hesitate to book our next Princess cruise.

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