A day at sea today, before we arrive at Montevideo, Uruguay. Overall we have been pleasantly surprised with life aboard the Sapphire Princess, there are plenty of activities organised throughout the day if you wish to participate.
The ship has been brought into the modern electronics era with their “medallion” that I mentioned before. This little gizmo has a multitude of uses. It can unlock your door as you approach, it is used to register you when you leave or rejoin the ship at a port. There is an associated app for phones which allows WhatsApp like messaging between people who have set themselves up as a group, it also allows you to locate any members of the group and will give you instructions on how to meet up with them.
All around the ship are large (50 inch plus) screens that you can interact with to get information about activities, restaurants etc. You can also present the medallion to the screens and they will act very much like the phone app.
The medallions are used by the ships staff if you wan to order food or drink. The staff have cell phone devices that can “read” the medallion from a few feet away, so often they will approach you and say “What can I get you Mr Barry” All very easy.
Another pleasant surprise we had was the quality of the internet, whilst maybe not quite good enough for streaming movies at certain times of the day, it worked well for eMail , browsing, WhatsApp etc. Even better was the fact that out upgrade package gave us unlimited internet on one device each; however you could easily swap devices between cell phone and tablet and back again! I am not sure why anyone would buy the $400 upgrade for multiple devices.
Dining on this ship is different to others we have been on. Rather than there being one large main dining room, there are 5 dining rooms around the ship. There is one dining room that is much larger than the rest and has open seating so that reservations are not required. They all have the same menu, but 4 of the 5 are smaller and quieter than one large one. When we first got on the ship we were under the impression reservations were needed for the 4 smaller restaurants. We tried making reservations, but none were available until the last 2 days of the cruise, and these were for 5PM sittings. We were not impressed. On the second or third night we decided to try our luck and went to one of the smaller restaurants to see if we could get a table with no reservation. “No problem, sir” was the answer, ever since that is what we have been doing. On a couple of nights we felt like a break from all the “posh” eating and just went to the buffet.
In the evenings we would go to a bar for pre dinner lubrication before heading off for food. I am glad we got a booking for this cruise that offered a “free” upgrade to a plus package which included amongst other things, free booze (up to 15 drinks per person per day with a maximum value of $15 per drink). These drinks included pop, coffee alcohol etc. Some days it was easy to blow $60-$80 as alcoholic drinks were $10-$12 each and coffees at $5. The package also included gratuities, which if you follow the companies guidelines could easily work out at $450 -$500 for each of us. I wish they would do away with this tipping mentality and just build it into the price, and up wages accordingly!!
After dinner we went back to one of the bars for coffee and a night cap. This was one occasion where the medallion caused us “problems”. One night we ordered coffee and our drink, and somehow the waiter talked us into a double for the drink. For the next few nights we kept getting doubles!! There was often entertainment in the bars, and there was one particular guitarist/singer we kept meeting up with. For those of you at Anchors Aweigh his music and singing were very much like Jimmy.
Like all big ships it is easy to get lost, medallion app not withstanding. A couple of days ago I made a discovery that I am sure seasoned cruisers already know. The carpets on each side of the ship, although appearing identical in design have one subtle difference. Those on the port (left) side of the ship have a small red design in them. Those on the starboard side have a green design. Problem solved.
Lyn particularly likes the idea that we can go to breakfast and on our return the the cabin has been miraculously cleaned and the bed made. The same thing happens on a smaller scale in the evenings!Hopefully I won’t have problems when we get back home
Today the temperature is around 27C (81F) with clear blue skies and a fairly calm sea. Balcony weather!
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