Sapphire Princess

Theater

The two-story Princess Theater seats 705. In 2018, a new 270-panel LED wall was installed, which is used in select production shows and by guest entertainers. It can be used to display still images, video and live feeds.

The other striking element here is a huge, black backdrop curtain laced with twinkling fiber optic lights -- very, very neat (and no doubt very expensive). Seats do indeed fill up, so be sure to arrive early; drink service is available and prompt.

The Deck 7 Explorers Lounge often serves as a secondary theater for comedians or a live band.

Daily Fun

Princess' daytime entertainment offerings emanate from its Scholarship@Sea program, which features a range of activities, from lecturers on various topics such as marine life, magic and history to more hands-on tutelage on computer skills, photography techniques and scrapbooking.

In addition to these offerings, there are regular wine-tasting sessions (Princess places a strong emphasis on wine), which vary in price. You can go for the $9.50 session, which features popular wines; or the $25 session, which features premium wines and canapes for food and wine pairing.

You'll also find film screenings on the pool deck with Princess' signature feature Movies Under the Stars. At night, complimentary popcorn is served.

There is also trivia, sports tournaments such as golf and table tennis and even a Wii challenge with the entertainment crew.

At Night

The ship is full of live music. The hub is the Piazza, where you'll hear various classical musical recitals throughout the day and then up-tempo dance tunes in the evening.

You'll also find live music in the Wheelhouse Bar, Crooners Lounge and Explorers Lounge.

Karaoke is a staple onboard, whether that's karaoke roulette or Princess Pop Star or Welcome Aboard Karaoke, all of which take place in Club Fusion.

On embarkation day, there is always a sail-away party on the Pool Deck (weather permitting) with a live band and dancing. The Captains Welcome Aboard Party -- complete with a Champagne waterfall -- takes place in the Piazza.

Princess Signature Movies Under the Stars takes place (weather permitting) most nights.

There are also various game show-type events such as Musical Charades or Majority Rules Gameshow in the Explorers Lounge most evenings.

The Asian-themed Grand Casino is a marriage of Vegas glitz and Far East glamour, with images of gondolas on the earth-toned walls surrounding clanging slot machines and gaming tables. Chips may be charged to your cabin account, but be aware there is a 3 percent surcharge for this.

Sapphire Princess Bars and Lounges

Vines (Deck 5): This elegant, wood-paneled venue is part of The Piazza and serves more than 30 wines by the glass alongside a selection of sushi and other small plate options (wine for fee, tapas free). Sapphire also has a "wine blending" experience (not to be confused with wine tasting, which is also available), which takes place in here. This involves blending four (or three if you choose the non-premium varietals) wines to find the perfect mix. The wines are from the Silverado Vineyards in Monterey, California, offering a nod to Princess' West Coast heritage. The 45-minute session is led by an experienced sommelier. The wines are a cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, a merlot and a Malbec for the full experience, which is $37. Take away the cab sauv and it drops to $15 per person. You learn a lot about the heritage of the wines and, of course, what your palate prefers, and it's a lot of fun to sniff, swirl and experiment to find your perfect blend.

Bar Piazza (Deck 5): One of a number of bars in the Piazza, this has plenty of window-side seating and is a great place for a coffee and a read (or even a nap) during the day, while at night it's the perfect spot to grab a pre-dinner drink and enjoy the live music in the Piazza on your way to dinner.

Wake View Bar (Deck 6): The Wake View Bar is hidden deep within the ship on the Fiesta Deck and is only accessible via the spiral staircase at the back of Club Fusion one deck up. This is a quiet place during the day to have a cocktail and collect your thoughts, or even to do some reading, with no music and little chatter. At night, though you can't escape the music from Club Fusion, it's far less hectic than upstairs.

Churchill Lounge (Deck 6): Sports fans and cigar enthusiasts should scoot down to Churchill Lounge, a combination cigar lounge and sports bar. Though an odd pairing, this is the ideal place to view satellite broadcasts of various sporting events when available.

Club Fusion (Deck 7): Club Fusion serves as a dance club and features a nice-sized dance floor and 42 high-definition video screens, which gives it the high-tech feel of a big-city hangout.

Explorers Lounge (Deck 7): Explorers Lounge, with decor inspired by an African safari, is a cabaret-style lounge featuring singing and dancing acts, as well as occasional magicians and comedians. Snag a spot near the Tangier-inspired windows.

Crooners Bar (Deck 7): This spot is situated at the top of the Atrium, looking down on the Piazza and serves a wide selection of cocktails. It's a space, rather than a room, and quite a small one at that but there's a pleasant after-dinner atmosphere, helped along by live piano and vocals.

Wheelhouse Bar (Deck 7): Princess' signature Wheelhouse Bar is another great place to meet, with friendly bar service, a cozy members-only-club atmosphere, and nautical art and history displayed throughout. It also has live jazzy music. (The scene -- and the dancing -- picks up a little later in the evening.)

Outrigger Bar (Deck 14): This is a fine spot overlooking the aft pool, which makes it a perfect place to watch the sunset and the wake of the ship. What we particularly liked were the number of tables, which are ranged around and look down on the aft pool.

Calypso Bar (Deck 14): This bar is part of the ship's covered Conservatory, which also includes the Calypso Reef and Pool. The entire space is covered by a magrodome roof.

Mermaid's Tail Bar (Deck 14): This is the main pool deck bar, serving Neptune's Reef & Pool.

Tradewinds Bar (Deck 15): This bar overlooks the main pool deck and serves wine, beer and cocktails.

Oasis Bar (Deck 16): A small bar serving sunbathers and the hot tub users at the aft of the ship.

Skywalkers Nightclub (Decks 17 & 18): The ship's most stunning public area is Skywalkers lounge located high up on the Sky Deck; a spot we think should get the vote for the best positioned nightclub/lounge on a cruise ship. A Princess staple, the Skywalkers' on Sapphire Princess actually hangs over the aft end of the ship, so that its 125-foot balcony and dramatic floor-to-ceiling windows offer fantastic, unobstructed panoramas both day and night. (When you can, observe the ship's wake by moonlight.) The decor is a nod to outer space with stars and swirls, but done with great style -- we loved the brass table lamps with miniature moon-shaped cutouts.

After hours, Skywalkers' becomes a hopping club scene, but also works as a quiet place for a cocktail-with-a-view before supper.

Sapphire Princess Outside Recreation

Pools

Princess has a plethora of pools -- four in total (excluding a kids-only splash pool). Neptune's Reef & Pool, a spacious open-air area with colorful mosaics and lots of space for tanning, fills the ship's full-size outdoor pool requirement; the indoor Calypso Reef & Pool, covered by a retractable crystal magrodome, is decorated in a coral reef motif and the whole area is known as The Conservatory. Neptune's and Calypso Reef are located on the Lido Deck (14).

Elsewhere, you'll find the out-of-the-way Terrace Pool at the aft end of the ship on the Aloha Deck just below, and our favorite, an adults-only pool just below The Sanctuary on Deck 15. It looks as if it's part of The Sanctuary or Lotus Spa, but it's not; it's open to all.

Recreation

The Sports Court is about as high as it can be on the ship -- on top of Skywalkers Lounge, which is effectively Deck 19. Here you'll find a basketball court, which is also used for soccer.

There is also a lovely secluded Lawn Court midship, above the Neptune Pool. Just climb a flight of stairs and find yourself in a bowl, with a grass lawn in between with a little shop for borrowing equipment. It's a nine-hole golf course primarily, but can also be used for croquet and bocce.

Sun Decks

The best sun deck on Sapphire Princess is on Deck 16 aft. Not only will you find lots of space to relax, you've also got two hot tubs -- and a bar, almost like your own private sanctuary. If you really want to get away from everyone, and snag a great view, climb the steep stairs to the Sports Court on top of Skywalkers, and you'll find another sun deck. At the other end of the ship you'll find more sunbathing around and just above the adults-only pool, on Deck 16.

Sapphire also has Princess' signature, adults-only Sanctuary (Deck 16). The front-of-the-ship space features lots of thickly cushioned loungers, massage cabanas, signature beverages, complimentary light meals and on-call stewards. Enjoying the area comes at a price: It's $20 for half a day and $40 for a full day, plus there's a $3 service fee for dining orders. There's also a per-cruise price that varies.

Sapphire Princess Services

The heart of Sapphire Princess is its Piazza on Deck 5, the aforementioned Italian-style atrium. The bustling, three-deck-high space is a combination bakery, wine/sushi/tapas bar, pizzeria and performance venue. You'll find the guest services, shore excursion and Captain's Circle Loyalty and Future Cruise Sales areas on Deck 6, and an array of shops here and on Deck 7, including duty free, branded goods, essentials and some brand names such as Church handbags.

The Art Gallery is on Deck 5; one deck up is the library, a cozy reading room with a mediocre collection of fiction and nonfiction books and a number of comfy chairs.

The Internet Cafe is on Deck 7, sandwiched between Explorers Lounge and Sabatini's, and its huge size is likely a reflection of the ship's age. Even though most people have a handheld device nowadays, we found it surprisingly busy. Internet access costs 79 cents per minute if you pay as you go or you can buy a package: 100 minutes for $69; 200 minutes for $99; 400 minutes for $159 and 600 minutes for $199. Though pricy, the good news is it's fast and it's billed by usage not time, so you don't have to worry about logging out.

The Photo Gallery is just beyond here, and the Platinum Suite -- for professional photo shoots -- is up on Deck 16, forward.

There are self-service launderettes on every passenger deck.

The quality of free food onboard Sapphire Princess is impressive for a ship this size, as is the variety of dishes. We were really impressed by the snacks available in the International Cafe, which are all freshly prepared and super tasty -- and available 24 hours. And the Horizon Court buffet delivered every time. Generally, there's a lot of attention to detail and evident care at every level, especially in the main dining rooms. In terms of dietary restrictions, there is a good selection of vegetarian dishes in the main dining rooms, but we didn't notice evidence of vegan or gluten-free dishes.

Princess also offers its Wild for Alaska Seafood menu on Sapphire Princess when in Alaska, making it possible for guests to order Alaska seafood dishes every night in the main dining room. Wild For Alaska also encompasses regional drinks. Think spiked coffee and hot-chocolate offerings; Alaska beer tastings; cocktail flights made from Alaska-distilled spirits.

There is just one dedicated for-fee specialty restaurant -- Sabatini's -- and two specialty dining experiences -- Sterling Steakhouse and Crab Shack -- neither of which are in a dedicated space.

Free Dining

Savoy, Vivaldi (Deck 5); Pacific Moon, Santa Fe (Deck 6); The International (Deck 6): There is no single main dining room on Sapphire, but five dining rooms. Though all the dining rooms have a distinct design, and to a certain extent, vibe, they all offer the exact same menu.

Savoy, Pacific Moon and Santa Fe are for those who choose the line's flexible "Anytime Dining" program, which gives people the option to choose when they want to eat. Dinner in these restaurants runs from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Vivaldi offers traditional seating (same waiters, time and tablemates each evening) at 5:30 p.m., but becomes Anytime Dining from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. The International is the only dining room that offers traditional seating at both sittings -- 5:30 and at 8 p.m. 

You can make reservations for those dining rooms offering Anytime Dining -- and if you're counting on a special table for a special night, we'd recommend it. Otherwise, waits aren't typically too bad even at prime-time dining hours (restaurant-style pagers are available to beep you when a table is ready); restaurant managers have a good sense of which dining rooms are busier than others and suggest alternatives if one is backed up.

Of the five, The International is the only one that serves breakfast and lunch, both of which are open seating. (This restaurant is a tricky one to get to -- you have to go up to Deck 7, walk all the way to the back of the ship, and then go down to Deck 6.)

Breakfast features everything you'd expect (cereal, yogurt, a selection of eggs, sausage, bacon), but with a daily specialty or two, typically the same choices available in the buffet, such as flavored pancakes or eggs Benedict. Breakfast runs from 6:30 to 9 a.m. on port days and 7 to 9:30 a.m. on sea days.

The lunch menu might include chicken liver mousse or a seafood quesadilla to start and for mains, a selection of pastas, roast chicken, griddled rockfish or a selection of salads and staples such as burgers and sandwiches. Lunch is served from noon to 1:30 p.m.

Afternoon tea -- complete with white-gloved waiters serving scones, piping hot tea and petite sandwiches -- is offered at Santa Fe every day from 3:30 until 4:30 p.m.

Though classics (or "Princess Favorites"), such as burger, grilled salmon and grilled chicken, are always available for dinner, Princess offers an interesting selection of dishes in the dining rooms. Starters might include beef satay with a spicy peanut sauce, sea scallop and shrimp, or mussels in pasta. Mains include pan-seared red snapper, braised lamb shank or island-spiced jerk chicken, which on paper sound appetizing, but although it's all well-cooked, it tended toward the milder side of tasty (the jerk chicken had no heat to it at all and the red snapper was a bit bland).

Sapphire Princess excels when it comes to desserts, which are uniformly delicious, decadent and filling. Options might include warm chocolate fudge cookie, Princess Love Boat dream (a chocolate mousse on a brownie), New York cheesecake and creme brulee.

There is also always a good selection of vegetarian options (four starters and two mains). We didn't notice any other allergies or food requirements specifically catered for on the menu, but if you inform your steward beforehand every effort is made to cater.

A special mention must go to the wine list -- and the knowledgeable sommeliers -- which was outstanding -- keenly priced, a wide selection and some really standout bottles. There is an emphasis on Italian and New World varietals, with the Belle Glos pinot noir ($59), romping home as our firm favorite (it's not cheap, but it's worth it for a special meal).

Horizon Court (Deck 14): You'll find the ship's buffet venue toward the aft of the ship. It's a large, well-thought-out space with plenty of seating, including lots of tables against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that flood the space with light. It never feels too crowded even at peak times (i.e., breakfast on a port day) and leads out to the Pool Deck toward the middle or out to the more private Outrigger Bar, which has plenty of outside seating should you wish to take your meal outside. There are buffet stations on both sides, offering the same food and several cooking stations with themed cuisine where you can grab a freshly made pizza or wok-fried noodles, for example.

It serves an early continental breakfast with freshly baked pastries and breads from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. and then a full breakfast until 11:30 a.m. Lunch is served from 11:30 a.m. offering everything from the aforementioned cooking stations to create-your-own sandwiches and build-your-own salads and classics such as burgers, dogs, pasta and roasts. One area is given over to the Pastry Shop, serving delicious, freshly made pastries throughout the day and into the evening.

Light snacks are served in the afternoon from 3 to 5:30 p.m.

It opens for dinner from 5:30 p.m., but note on some evenings the rear of the buffet turns into the Sterling Steakhouse, which is a "pop up" specialty restaurant.

Alfredo's Pizzeria (Deck 5): A Princess stalwart, this occupies a prime spot in the Piazza, offering a selection of tasty pies including capricciosa, Romana and the Sapphire Princess, which includes Parma ham. Oddly, there is no pepperoni or margherita listed, but just ask and they will make one up for you. The pizzas are not the best we've tasted at sea, but they are certainly up there. Open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

International Cafe (Deck 5): Occupying one part of the Piazza, and serving up some of the best coffee we've had at sea, the cafe also offers a lovely selection of freshly baked pastries at breakfast and a wide selection of sandwiches, wraps, melts and soups at lunch. We loved this spot, it's ideal for spending hours people-watching and observing how the character of the Piazza changes, depending what time of day it is.

Trident Grill (Deck 14): Trident is a poolside grill serving hot dogs, cheeseburgers, veggie burgers and chicken sandwiches (among other things), along with French fries. It's open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Prego (Deck 14): A pizza counter (Sapphire's second pizzeria) offering a selection that ranges from day to day. It's open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Room Service: There's no extra fee (except for pizza), but the menu is limited. For breakfast, it's continental fare (pastries, cereal and coffee, for instance) with no options for hot food such as eggs or bacon, disappointingly. The rest of the day you can order a handful of sandwiches and salads; under "hot dishes" you are limited to soup and sandwiches. You can also order room service pizza -- medium-size pies only -- for a $3 surcharge.

Fee Dining

Sabatini's (Deck 7); $29: Sabatini's is Princess' popular Italian option serving pasta, seafood and meats. Dinner begins with herbed focaccia grissini, rosemary flatbread with air-cured prosciutto and marinated green and black olives. Then you choose an antipasti (soft-shell crab over baby arugula), a pasta (vegetable pappardelle), a secondi course (duck with fava beans and pancetta, or baked striped bass in a herbed salt crust) and a dessert (raspberry frangipane tart tiramisu). All in all, it's a delightful experience. It's definitely worth making a reservation here.

Sterling Steakhouse (Deck 14); $29 per adult and $14.50 for children ages 3 to 12: Offering the same fare as the Crown Grill on other Princess ships, the biggest drawback of this specialty "restaurant" is that it's not a proper restaurant -- it's a space given over in the buffet, which means there's no special atmosphere, people are wandering by from the buffet and it just doesn't feel, well, that special. However, the food and service are both outstanding. It's straightforward steakhouse fare: chops, steaks and lobster, all served with a selection of sides including delicious garlic and herb French fries. There are also soups, salads and a selection of appetizers, with an emphasis on seafood (shrimps, scallops, mussels). It's all done to perfection, in fact one of the best at sea. Note: Sterling is not open every night; check the Princess Patter for opening days.

Crab Shack (Deck 14); $29: This is another pop up, which you'll find in the Horizon Court buffet once a week. It's a more casual specialty option, with bibs and crab-crackers and a lot of mess. The meal starts with popcorn shrimp in a basket, followed by soup and then you get to choose from mains including "Bayou-style Mad Dog Boil," which includes crawfish and corn on the cob; or steamed Alaskan king crab legs; a mixed steamer; or a shrimp pot. Again, what it lacks in atmosphere (in that it's not in a designated dining room), it makes up for in service, quality of food and fun. But don't even think about booking this if you don't like seafood, in particular shellfish.

Swirls (Deck 14); a la carte: This poolside ice cream parlor offers soft scoop ice cream for free, but if you want a frozen yogurt sundae there is a charge (from under $5). Create your own by selecting a flavor and toppings (like whole chocolate chip cookies and Caribbean rum cake), or order from the menu of concoctions.

Room Service; a la carte: Canapes and snacks are available for purchase to accompany your cocktails, from guacamole and chips to pate de foie gras.

And for a really special evening, try the Ultimate Balcony Dining room service experience. You need a cabin with a veranda, of course. The $100 per-couple dinner includes a four-course meal, a half-bottle of sparkling wine, a pre-dinner cocktail and a photo portrait. The Ultimate Balcony Breakfast includes a chilled half-bottle of Champagne, an assortment of fresh fruit and pastries (including the line's popular Norman Love chocolate bites), as well as smoked salmon and quiche. Unlike dinner, the wait staff at breakfast leaves food and drinks at the table versus serving them in courses.

Chef's Table (Savoy Dining Room); $95: Another splurge-worthy experience on Sapphire Princess is the Chef's Table, which involves a personal, behind-the-scenes galley tour (including hors d'ouevres) with the head chef, followed by a six-course wine-pairing dinner, especially prepared for your small group. Depending on how many passengers sign up, it usually happens twice a cruise.