Getting on the Sapphire Princess – January 31, 2009

I am not sure I can adequately describe our first time meeting Ally, Rich, Nancy and Rick. We found them down in the lobby and Nancy quickly ushered us all over to the shuttle. Thankfully she had made a reservation for us the day before and so we could all go over together. Within the first few minutes we heard about their adventures the night before which consisted of Ally biting into glass when she took a bite of the hotel’s complementary cookie and the whole group getting pulled over for speeding on the way back from picking up Ally and Rich at the airport. They were all so animated and gregarious; I knew we were in for great, amusing week.

Once we got to the sapphire, Karen was stunned by the sheer size of the ship. It is pretty impressive to see this huge vessel, our home for the next week.

We stayed with the group as we moved through the check in process, and then went over to a waiting area for our group to be called. Nancy and Rick were giving a lower number then the rest of us. When they were called they had us come with them so that we could stay together as a group. We made our way through the building, stopping to get the obligatory pictures taken and then onto the ship.

The first thing you do when boarding the ship is get your “mug shot” taken for security. As you enter the ship they take your room key card and digitally embed your picture so that they have a visual reference of you when you get back on the ship in the different ports. It is reassuring to know that Princess takes security that seriously.

After we got through security we went to the Emerald deck, down to cabin 107 and entered our cabin. It was so funny how the little things can make such a big difference. Our cabin was on the odd side of the ship or starboard side. On the Alaskan cruise we were on the port side, so basically the room was the exact opposite and I will be honest, I never got used to it the entire week. Once we got to our room we decided to take some pictures of it. One question I kept getting over and over again after the last cruise was how small are the rooms? So I took lots of pictures to show the room.

Here are the beds and nightstands. The desk/vanity/TV area. The desk area showing the hall with me standing in it looking at the pictures I just took.The closet. The cupboard with shelves – there is lots of storage space. The bathroom – which is admittedly pretty small. The sink/counter with some nice shelves for stuff. To get a really good idea of how small the shower is, I thought I would demonstrate by standing in it. And here I am in the shower with my foot on the toilet. After we checked out the room we went to go explore the ship before the muster drill.