If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:
Click on each photo on this page for a larger and clearer image or click on the first photo for a slide show.
We already did this wine tasting experience on Sunday, March 17, 2024, but enjoyed it so much, that we decided to repeat it. Click Here to see photos and comments from that experience.
Well this makes 5 wine or spirit events we have signed up for that have been canceled on this cruise due to lack of sign ups: Both "Tour de France" Wine Tastings, Premium Whiskey Tasting, and now this second Antinori Wine Tasting. I don't know what happened to the second Caymus Wine Dinner. That was probably canceled also as they only had one couple of the ten needed to hold the event. They wouldn't even let us sign up for that one.
The Somaliar Wine Program on Princess is new. I've never seen so many wine and spirit events planned on any of my prior Princess cruises. I think the biggest problem with the events on this cruise is lack of promotion. They put the list of wine and spirit events on a table in the Vines Wine Bar, but I think most people ignored it since it was there along with promoting sign ups for the Princess Plus and Premier upgrades, the Wine Packages, and other things most people ignored. It was also promoted a few other places, but only on the first day of the cruise. Most people just ignored these tables. A lot of passengers that I spoke to said they were not aware of these events and would have signed up for them had they knwon. What they really needed to do was follow the example of the Art Department and the Spa Department and deliver the event flyers to every cabin on the ship at least twice during the cruise. These are very effective at making sure everyone is aware of these events and giving them a chance to sign up.
We selected to be in about the last group of passengers to leave the ship. We are in no rush to depart as we will just be taking an Uber or Taxi to our Southern California Vacation House in Anaheim Hills, California. There is usually a big demand for Uber and Taxis during the morning rush hour not to mention the huge demand from all the passengers debarking from the ship. So we figured we'd wait some time for the morning rush hour to die down and all the passengers that are in a rush to the airport to disembark. Our debarkation meeting time is 9:50 AM in the Pacific Moon Dining Room.
Princess did not provide a specific time to have our suitcases out of our cabin but just said to put them out before passengers to to dinner. We usually go to dinner pretty early, like around 5:30 PM, so will probably not put them out that early. Some people have dinner reservations as late as 8 PM, so it will probably be OK to put them out that late. In the morning they want us out of our cabin by 8:30 AM. That won't be a problem. We'll be out by then and head to breakfast in either the buffet or a main dining room.
WiFi on cruise ships has changed a lot over the last 20 years. I remember when it cost 40 cents per minute just to be connected to WiFi and it was slower than dial-up modem speeds, if it worked at all. You also had to get a cabin near the computer center if you expected to have a decent signal. Almost all of today's cruise ships have decent WiFi at much more reasonable cost. The Princess Sapphire uses Starlink to provide internet access and the speed and reliability were excellent, better than any cruise ship I've ever been on. Just today I noticed that the entire ship is saturated with WiFi hotspots. The white circles with an inner ring that you can see in the above photos are WiFi HotSpots. There is about one every 5 feet throughout the entire ship. You can see from the signal display that everywhere is covered by many WiFi HotSpots. It is needed on this ship as this ship makes extensive use of WiFi via the Princess App. Using the Princess App you can find the location of everyone in your party and you can also order food or beverages and they will be delivered right to you no matter where you are located on the ship.
The singers and dancers that have been with us since the start of this cruise got off at the last port and a whole new set of singers and dancers came on board. This was their first and only performance for our cruise.
I decided to splurge on this next to last day of the cruise and get us 2 glasses of the Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon. Each were $13 above the $15 limit of our Princess Plus upgrade, but they were worth it! I had to promise to return the Riedel glasses back to the Vines Wine Bar. Normally they only allow the Riedel wine glasses to be used in the Vines Wine Bar, but I did not want to drink these premium wines from anything but Riedel glasses.
Click on each photo on this page for a larger and clearer image or click on the first photo for a slide show.
If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:
