The weather was good for our stay in Southend and though we were mostly using it as a seaside base to explore elsewhere there was one particular attraction jutting out from the coast that we were very keen on visiting: Southend Pier. Over two kilometres in length with a train to take you down or back and the longest pleasure pier in the world so we had to pay it a visit. We timed our trip to the pier perfectly to allow us to walk from the beach out to the end for a look around and some photographs before taking the last train back to dry land. It was quite fun taking our time and walking out to sea as the trains carrying other passengers rumbled past.

At the end of Southend Pier we watched as the sun slowly set on the horizon throwing some lovely colours into the sky and making for some stunning views and lovely opportunities to take some more photos. We’ll always wander onto a pier if there’s one around and it was nice to hit the longest in the world and see such a glorious sight to cap it off.

Our cabin was on the starboard side of the cruise ship which meant we got the evening sun as it dipped towards the western horizon beyond which lay Argentina. As my wife was showering and I was waiting for my turn I took a couple of photographs of the calm Atlantic ocean as dusk was approaching. It was a very relaxing sight with the sun partially obscured behind wispy clouds.

After showering and getting ready we then made our way to deck seven to meet up with quiz partners for the evening trivia taking place in the Explorers Lounge. It was at the end of this entertainment and because the curtains hadn’t been closed at that time outside the venue that everyone became aware of the light pouring in from outside. The promenade deck rapidly became filled with people making their way outside to see not just an incredible sunset but easily the most incredible sunset I’ve ever seen. The colours in the photograph below are almost 100% accurate to what we witnessed on the ocean gazing west on that evening. The photograph was taken on my phone as my camera had been left in the room and I didn’t want to miss a thing by heading up for it.

In the (temporarily removed) video below you can hear the low voices of other people around us on the promenade deck in awe of the spectacle as we looked out at the sunset.

We’ve seen many sunsets while on cruises but nothing has come close before or after that one on the Atlantic off Argentina.

We’d arranged parking with CPS and this was pretty painless. Friendly staff, a half hour wait to move our car into position for someone to take the keys off us, then we walked into the terminal, were handed a fast track ticket as we were almost bang on our due slot, and were through the check in process and on board about ten minutes later.

Southampton’s not the most attractive place in the world and it doesn’t even have the benefit of any real impressive dock architecture so pictures are few and far between. We were in the Ocean Cruise Terminal (the first time for us) and with the ship facing inland and our state room (B327) on the starboard side (which is our preferred side for reasons of trying to stay consistent and not confusing my wife’s poor sense of direction) we had a view from our balcony to the east and southeast which included the only building of interest, the brutalist design of the grain terminal behind the Queen Elizabeth II cruise terminal.

We, and many others on the balconies, did spend quite a bit of time looking at some container stacking taking place on the dock beside the ship; it was actually quite fascinating but for some reason I didn’t take any photos.

With it being late in the year after we’d had our muster (held in the Glass House for us and which was thankfully not quite as excruciatingly long as on our previous cruise with P&O) and the ship had finally started to depart Southampton we were afforded views of a setting sun and I did remember to take some pictures this time.

I decided not to take many photos on board Azura for this trip as it had only been seven months since our last visit on her and very little had changed. For pictures of the public areas of the cruise ship taken on our first trip please click here: P&O Azura. For the pictures we took on this second trip please click here: On Azura.

We’d showered, changed, the ship had started moving away from Puerto Montt, and we were killing a little bit of time before we were planning to head off to a quiz. My wife was reading her Kindle and I was contemplating whether to take a few last pictures during the sailaway when I suddenly became aware that the ship had stopped. Heading out onto the balcony I saw a very unexpected sight, rushed back, and persuaded my wife to put her reading material down and join me. She harumphed, sighed, stepped out, opened her mouth, ran back into the room, and returned with her phone to take some pictures too of the surprise awaiting us on the starboard side of the cruise ship: a Chilean Navy submarine was entering the port as we were leaving and we’d obviously had to stop to let it through the relatively narrow passage.

Seeing a submarine at sea was just another in a great series of memories from a fabulous cruise on the Princess Cruises ship Star Princess. A wonderfully-coloured sunset then started to appear in the sky as we completed our departure from the Chilean port so we headed off to the aft of the ship to take a few photos and another bit of video on my phone before making our way to the quiz.

Our walking tour took us in as far as Lions Square where the early-17th century Morosini Fountain was located. There were a few street entertainers here (of the “human statue” type) who would hilariously trap people or take items off them until our tour guide told them in Greek what I suspected to be “Fuck off and leave my group alone!” Generally, though, I’d have to say that all the Greek people we met on our Mediterranean cruise were some of the friendliest locals we’ve encountered on our travels. One of our guides explained at one point that they realised that for as poor a country as Greece is tourism is absolutely vital so good humour and manners were equally required assets.

During our free time period my wife and I broke with our tradition of immediately going off for a wander and headed for a café instead to get some beers and something to eat; the heat of Knossos had really taken it out of us. It wasn’t too long, though, before we did stroll around some of the streets off the centre of Heraklion in search of anything architecturally appealing. We didn’t have a huge amount of time, though, and we’d decided earlier that we’d head back on the coach, again, because it had been so hot.

The last point of interest as we made our way back to where the various coaches were parked was the Venetian era Bembo Fountain, built in the mid-16th century and the first time the citizens of Heraklion would have seen running water in the city.

Hey! Remember me saying that the tour guide wanted people to tell him if they were making their own way back to the ship so the coach wasn’t waiting beyond its due time? Well, funny story… We ended up waiting around for twenty minutes after we were due to meet. Ten of those were for a couple who couldn’t tell the time. And the other ten were for another couple who decided to head back to the ship on their own and didn’t tell anyone because it’s their holiday and they’ll do what they like and who cares about other people, right? Nice, eh?

Back on board the cruise ship and after some much needed showering and rehydrating we saw a very pleasing dusk sky beyond the hills surrounding the port of Heraklion.

There were a few differences, though. Firstly, we’d taken advantage of a loyalty perk that came into play through cruises on P&O (since discontinued) and become Platinum level passengers. In addition to free internet time on board ship this meant we could skip past the queue of people waiting to embark. I have to admit that this was a wonderful experience. I would guess we bypassed at least a hundred people in order to get priority boarding. The second difference was that we’d selected an aft balcony for this cruise as we hadn’t done one before. Our cabin was D735 and was more-or-less identical to any other Grand-class cruise ship we’d cruised with but the balcony was considerably different. While it is described as “obstructed” as you can see from the photos and video below the obstruction (the metal beam) is barely worth mentioning; the depth of the balcony was enormous, though. We measured and you could get my wife laying down twice with room to spare.

With our balcony furniture looking a little lost in all the space available our table was swapped out for a larger one and we were given foot rests over the course of the next couple of days by our cabin steward.

The muster out of the way (nice and short, just how we like it, P&O take note please) we dropped off life jackets back in the room and I took the opportunity to snap a few shots as a tug boat, the Svitzer Bargate, moved into position to help the Crown Princess disembark Southampton.

There was a brief delay as we waited for the Ventura to pass us by.

The tug was then able to resume its job of helping our ship away from the dock where it could turn around and head away from the city.

We took advantage of our new Platinum level status to attend Skywalkers nightclub not long after that where some finger food and a discounted cocktail of the day were available for us and Elite passengers. While there the ship passed Portsmouth on its way towards our first stop of Belgium. A group of Americans nearby remarked that it appeared that we were passing between France and England; I felt obliged to be helpful and indicated that the landmass they thought was French was in fact the Isle of Wight. They then asked questions about the English Channel that I corrected them again on, letting them know it was the Solent we were still in. They persisted in pronouncing it So-lont despite numerous attempts to get them to listen to me before they became distracted by “The White Cliffs of Dover”. After I once again explained that we were nowhere near them, probably wouldn’t pass them until it was dark, and what they were seeing were the chalk cliffs of Portsdown Hill to the north of Portsmouth they decided to head off somewhere else. I like being helpful.

We returned to our room to shower and change for the evening and caught a lovely bit of sunset from our aft balcony view.

June 3rd: Southampton

It’s a tradition when we’re cruising with Princess Cruises these days that we always head for Crooners Bar for the first drink and this trip on the Crown Princess was no exception with our first two drinks happening there. On the Grand-class ships operated by Princess this is a lovely place to sit and people-watch and invent back-stories to explain away what they’re wearing. “Lost a bet” features a lot.

We had a lovely summer sunset to see us off from Southampton.

This was our first Princess cruise travelling at Platinum level loyalty which meant we could indulge in a discounted cocktail of the day and some free snacks in Skywalkers early evening so we took advantage of this on our first night aboard. For the most part, though, we didn’t bother with this as the cocktail offerings weren’t to our taste. This was also our first time in the Adagio bar at the aft of the ship. Convenient both for our cabin and for Skywalkers above it at night this would become a regular haunt mostly because of the superb service of the bar staff there.

June 4th: Belgium

Drinks and views from Adagio and Skywalkers again with the great BOGO hours being taken advantage of in a few of the photos. BOGO (Buy One, Get One For A Dollar) has sadly now been discontinued by Princess with no explanation as to what might replace it (if anything) despite repeated requests to their media and PR people. Like many PR groups you can only get a response so long as your question and their answer fall within the “positive propaganda” guidelines of communication and voicing a dissenting opinion or asking something they don’t want to answer gets met with silence. The current Princess alternative to paying for every drink at full price is to pay for a drinks package and this is a sensible move if you are a raging alcoholic but we aren’t and haven’t decided if we’ll go down that route yet. Let’s see how much the world falls apart and make a decision later.

June 5th: Sea Day

A day at sea meant a chance to try out a wine-tasting onboard. Canapés were nice and the hosting was reasonably entertaining but the wines were very hit and miss. Princess are no P&O when it comes to wines but we keep persevering. We’re little troopers.

The great thing about having a balcony is that you can retreat to it if you want to have a read or look out at the view and you can always take a drink back with you from one of the bars. So we did.

The rest of the day included spotting the champagne fountain being poured (we’ve never really bothered with it but are happy to oblige ourselves to a glass of fizz if it’s being passed around, just out of politeness you understand) and grabbing a few drinks at our usual venues.

June 6th: Denmark

We’d had a long day in Denmark (and had tried some local beer) and with a long cruise out past the country in order to look across at Hamlet’s Castle (although we’d already visited it) there were only a few drinks on this day. But they were nice ones as you can see from the photos.

June 7th: Sea Day

Our to-date only Movies Under The Stars experience happened on the second sea day. The sun is, of course, a star. “Let us watch a movie outside on a cruise ship!” “What a splendid idea! Something action-packed? Something invoking the surroundings, perhaps, a pirate movie or something of that ilk?” Yeah, you can tell this conversation is heading straight towards The Boss Baby can’t you?

The rest of the day included a smattering of cocktails and I was taken with dessert at dinner that evening which was a Norman Love signature chocolate piece.

June 8th: Sweden

More cocktails after we’d returned from our excursion in Stockholm as you can probably guess from looking at these photos.

We also decided to try out Vines wine bar at the bottom of the piazza on the Crown Princess. We weren’t expecting great things as we’re familiar with the rather thin offerings and low variety of wines on Princess and our expectations were met. Would it kill Princess to have just one full-bodied red wine on a ship? Apparently, it might. Cannot fault the service, though.

June 9th: Estonia

The part of the Baltic Sea between Estonia and Russia (our next stop) was ridiculously calm and beautiful to look at.

We didn’t have very many drinks on account of having had a few in Tallinn during the day and knowing we’d have a very long day ahead of us in St Petersburg.

This was the night, however, that we booked in to dine at the Crown Grill. We’ve had fabulous experiences at the Crown Grill every time we dined on Princess with the exception of the infamous Royal Princess Cruise Of Immense Disappointment (read more) and this one was everything we hoped for. We even got a window booth seat so we could stare out at the sea between gorgeous courses. The steak was fantastic, as usual, and those flavoured salts are just wonderful.

The end of the evening included some more gazing out at the sea and, as we were heading east, staring at the long, drawn-out sunset that was occurring later and later as we cruised towards Russia. I don’t think it got dark before one in the morning at this point in the cruise.

June 11th: Russia

No chance for a drink on the ship on the first of our days there with us having a full day in Russia culminating in a trip to the ballet (highly recommended) but we returned to some attractive cocktail-imbibing along with my favourite tipple, Lawford’s Libation, as we started on our return leg back to the UK.

June 12th: Finland

It had rained the entire time we were in Finland and as we set off from Helsinki it was in a thick fog so while this post is supposed to focus on sea views you’ll have to make do with the same volume of water, just in cloud form in this video (removed temporarily).

Fortunately, that dissipated pretty quickly.

You can tell it’s a formal night if you spot a photo of a Vodka Martini with three olives in it. It’s the only time I’ll drink it and, amazingly, I’m getting used to the taste. Of course, one never eats the olives; they’re there to add some saltiness to the drink until about a third of the way down after which they are removed and stared at with pure hostility.

We grabbed what had become our regular seats by the dance floor in Skywalkers for the evening to see the people in their formal wear strutting their stuff to the sounds of DJ Iron Mic who we quite often talked to in the evenings.

June 13th: Sea Day

The odd drink as you’ve come to expect and the decoration changed in the Crown Princess’s piazza enough to warrant some photos too.

In the evening we were treated to more wonderful sunsets to stare at. We’ve yet to see any sign that we’re getting bored with looking at sunsets at sea. I suspect that becoming bored of views like that are a sure sign you died somewhere on the ship and you’re now haunting it so definitely a goal to aim for but I’m not there yet.

And there was more dancing into the early hours in Skywalkers with dancers being led on the floor by the DJ himself.

June 14th: Poland

Drinks from a couple of BOGO hours and just in general rounded off our final port stop on our Baltic cruise aboard Crown Princess.

June 15th: Sea Day

Our penultimate sea day began with another flat stretch of water and long wake to look out on from our balcony as we rose.

With a fair chunk of the day having been spent securing our viewing spot to experience cruising under the Great Belt Bridge, then quizzing and swimming there wasn’t quite as much drinking going on during the day that saw balloons installed in the piazza ready for some celebrating later in the evening.

Our evening, though, was spent at Sabatini’s, the Italian specialty restaurant on Crown Princess. This was the first time we’d booked at Sabatini’s with all our previous specialty dining having taken place in the Crown Grill. In terms of service and general range of food on offer it was an exceptional experience indeed.

The only blot on the evening was my wife’s steak which she’d asked for rare (the only way to eat steak and I will fight to the death with a lump of myoglobin-dripping meat anyone who argues differently). It and my food arrived and we tucked in except that on slicing into her meat we could both see immediately that it was medium well done. This in itself would have been a minor problem except that our very friendly waiter also spotted it and whisked her food away to have it re-done. In principle, a great idea; in practice, it left me with a plate of food that would go cold unless I ate alone. So that’s what I had to do. When her food returned the waiter was accompanied by the head waiter and they gathered to make sure that the steak was better. My wife said yes, there were smiles all around, and we were left alone once more; me with my nearly-finished plate and my wife with a plate containing a steak almost as well done as the previous one but which she couldn’t face telling anyone it was still hopelessly wrong. Again, a minor thing in the grand scheme (although if you’re paying extra you expect it done right), and the service was so good we can overlook it this time. It certainly won’t put us off trying Sabatini’s again although, as I told my wife, probably best leave ordering steak to the steak house in future.

June 16th: Sea Day

In all our cruising this was the first time we’d been at dinner when they did the traditional Baked Alaska Parade. Surprisingly noisy and long.

Our last day at sea and on a wonderful cruise ship was so depressing I clearly forgot to take any photos of drinks during the day. I’m pretty sure we had some, though. Instead, enjoy this final view from our cabin of the wake view after we’d rounded the top of Denmark and were heading down towards the English Channel and home.

We knew roughly what we were going to be getting as we’re old hands at cruising with Princess Cruises these days but this was to be our first time on Sapphire Princess and there was a special reason we were looking forward to it. Our very first cruise was our honeymoon, it was to the Far East, and it was on Diamond Princess (view the cruise posts here: Cruise: Far East 2008). Diamond and Sapphire are sister ships, both being the only ships of the Grand-class design built in Japan, and both sharing some features not present on other ships of the class in the Princess fleet. This would be our chance to see with more cruise-experienced eyes elements of the ship that we’d likely overlooked when awed on our first cruise almost a decade earlier. In fact, Diamond was originally named Sapphire and vice versa; some last-minute name-swapping took place in the wake of a fire after promotional material had been sent out in order not to delay sailings. Had it not then our honeymoon would likely have been on the ship bearing this name instead.

Embarkation is usually pretty slick and probably would have been for this cruise too had the port worker in Southampton realised our tickets gave us priority boarding (from your fifth cruise with Princess onwards you reach Platinum level which includes this as one of its benefits). That was sorted after a few minutes when I queried it and subsequently followed the normal route: short queue, advance to the desk, get passports scanned, get credit card read, get handed cruise cards, wander through security, then onto the ship to have the cruise card scanned and a photograph taken to match against when getting on or off. Princess take your photo at the security gate on the ship when first boarding; this differs from P&O, for instance, who take your photo in the port building.

The atrium (or piazza as Princess like to refer to it on their ships) is the first thing you’ll then see (well, after you’ve run past the photographers trying to snap you for the gallery if you’re us, that is) and it follows the fairly standard Princess style you’ll see on any of their ships; warm, light, fairly neutral colours are the norm here. Typical arrangement was followed with, generally-speaking, drink and food options off the lowest level, shopping and customer services off the middle, and main lounges and bars off the top.

I didn’t bother taking any photos of our cabin or bathroom as they were in most respects identical to every other one we’ve been in on Princess ships. Unlike our Diamond Princess cruise, though, where we were in an inside room, for this cruise aboard Sapphire Princess we’d chosen a balcony room and had selected one on Caribe deck. There are three types of rooms on Princess cruise ships that have balconies: suites, mini-suites, and balcony rooms. Mini-suite rooms are a little larger than standard rooms and have a double-depth balcony that is fully exposed above. Standard balconies are covered but those on the C-deck have a double-depth balcony too, half-covered, half-exposed. If you like the idea of a large balcony with the chance to sun yourself or look at the stars at night and don’t mind the chance that someone might see you from above (quite why you’d be bothered by this is a mystery) then I’d recommend C-deck balcony rooms. If you take a look at this post from our first time aboard the Crown Princess cruise ship you can see the C-deck balconies and below that the mini-suite balconies as seen from our room; you can see a couple of shots of the room itself which was identical to that we experienced on the Sapphire with the exception of new, larger, wall-mounted TVs featuring an entertaining safety drill video to the tune of The Love Boat and a good selection of movies and programmes on demand.

Something I drew my wife’s attention to were the carpets along the hallways as these provide a visual queue as to which side of the ship you’re on if you get turned around at any point (something she’s prone to do). The red and green accents indicate port (left) and starboard (right) sides respectively. Another guide on these sorts of Princess ships is that most of the standard elevators (not some around the atrium area, though) face forwards. As our room was on the starboard side we simply had to remember to turn right when exiting an elevator and to make sure the carpet had green markings.

Many people head straight for the buffet when they first board, the source of almost-around-the-clock eating on a Princess ship. We like to get a drink instead as it really brings home the feeling we’re actually on holiday and makes for a great photo to post on social media to annoy anyone you know who’s working. Our bar destination of choice is Crooners at the top of the piazza as you’ll find the other lounge bars won’t typically be open at the time you’re getting on. We headed there from our room via a quick nose in the Princess Theatre and walk through the Wheelhouse Bar.

A fantastic introduction from Princess Cruises over the last year has been the removal of the need to bring your lifejacket to the mandatory muster that takes place before you leave port on the first day. May every cruise line bring this in please. The muster was gratefully short too so with that done we headed up to the top of the ship to see the Sapphire Princess casting off from Southampton on its week’s cruise down to a handful of all-new ports for us.

This was our second cruise on Princess at the magical Platinum level status (the first being our Baltic Heritage cruise of the year before) so it was our second chance to try out the Elite Lounge. Effectively, Skywalkers Nightclub (usually) is set aside for Platinum and Elite members for a couple of hours in the early evening and free snacks are provided along with discounted drinks. On our previous cruise we hadn’t been too impressed with the set-up; there was one discounted cocktail each day which we mostly weren’t interested in and the food choice was pretty poor. I’m pleased to say that it was a vastly improved situation on the Sapphire Princess. A set selection of cocktails were offered and the food range and quality (expect dips, chips, breadsticks, cheese; that sort of thing) was substantially better too. Needless to say but it didn’t take many evenings to make our way through the cocktails offered.

One of those parts of the Sapphire Princess it shares with Diamond and no other Princess Cruises ship is the Wake View Bar. We have fond memories of this location from our honeymoon cruise in the Far East where we disappeared to it on a number of the sea days. Technically located on deck 6 but only accessible down a spiral staircase at the edge of the dance floor in the lounge at the aft of the ship on deck 7 it’s a small bar with some seating, a few porthole windows to gaze out at the ship’s wake (hence the name) and was generally a quiet spot ideal for reading on our first cruise. We were happy to see it again but its usefulness on this particular cruise was limited; we never found if or when the bar was actually open there and on the one day we decided to read in it there were no lights on and a noisy game of bingo taking place in the lounge was thundering down into the spot. I’d like to think on a longer cruise it could be better utilised.

The other notable difference on Sapphire and Diamond is the arrangement of the dining rooms with some additional splitting down the middle taking place to form more separate venues. They’re still served from the same kitchen areas so it’s arguable as to what benefit this brings, if any, and the effect is of making the smaller rooms a little more intimate at the expense of reducing the potential views in both directions of the sea. What it does seem to do is increase the chances of getting in without standing in a long queue or being handed a buzzer (we always go Anytime Dining if we can as we don’t like to commit ourselves to a set time or group of people with whom to potentially share a table). I will cover food and drink aboard this Sapphire Princess cruise in more detail in a separate post but I will state here that the general quality of food (i.e. not speciality dining) aboard Sapphire Princess was the best we’ve had on any cruise ship.

In the past we’ve been disappointed with the wines aboard Princess ships. They’ve probably been very good for what they are but our palates prefer heavy reds and this has been something that we’ve found impossible to get hold of; it’s something where our P&O cruises have really exposed an area in which Princess could improve. I’m happy to report that there certainly seemed to be some progress in that respect as our daily visits to the Vines wine bar at the bottom of the piazza can attest to. While still not as heavy as we’d like we were happy to see a Malbec aboard for the first time and although the venue was understaffed our actual service by Ronnie and the knowledge he demonstrated there (as well as the impromptu wine-tasting he provided in my hunt for the heaviest red they stocked) was exemplary.

Adjacent to Vines was Alfredo’s Pizzeria where the pizza is made fresh and free for you. There’s not a huge range of pizzas to choose from but what they produce is fantastic. We were lucky enough to decide to eat there one lunchtime when there was only one other couple present so we were seated right by the window. On other occasions when we considered going (even one evening we thought we might skip the main dining room in favour of a pizza) there was a queue waiting for tables to free up which tells you all you need to know about the quality. One thing to note was that they had an Italian red that wasn’t offered next door and which was probably the best of the wines we drank on Sapphire Princess.

Skywalkers Nightclub was a daily fix at the end of every evening for us. It’s a place, again, that triggers great memories, not the least of which being listening to disco music and watching a thunderstorm on the horizon while leaving Singapore in 2008. We tend to sit around the dancefloor area as we like to people-watch and it’s a good place to strike up conversations with the DJ who is usually perfectly happy to play whatever you like (Rob Zombie for us, second cruise in a row). The removal of the drinks promotion hours on Princess ships clearly had an impact as the nightclub was practically empty most evenings and you can read the Hits And Misses article linked at the top of this post for more problems here too. A shame, but it’s still possibly our favourite place on these ships. What was good, though, was that we got to see a couple of celebrities in there. The first was a soap actor who was every bit the alpha male around any group of people who talked to him (if the group had an attractive woman in it); amusing to watch. The second was Gareth Gates who looked terrified when approached by some of the passengers and didn’t stay long but whom we bumped into on the way back to our cabin and had a quick chat with; an absolutely lovely person.

We left Southampton on the Saturday. The following day found us anchored off St Peter Port in Guernsey. This was a port we’d decided not to take an excursion at simply because it’s a fairly notorious port for cancelling stops altogether. As it was the weather was warm, the seas were calm, and there was no trouble getting ashore at all. We’d taken a later-than-usual breakfast then headed down to the photo gallery area where numbered cards were being handed out for the tender boats. With some spectacular timing on our part we were told we could leave immediately and were on the boat and heading from the Sapphire Princess to Guernsey inside five minutes. Individual posts covering what we did can be found here:

• The Bluebell Woods and Ozanne Steps – We went for a walk along a coastal path south of the island’s capital in search of a set of steps built for a former governor to provide easy access down the cliffs to a private beach.
• Clarence Battery – On our way back to St Peter Port we stopped for a look around an old gun emplacement.
• Guernsey Aquarium – We’re fond of an aquarium and we couldn’t pass up a visit to one housed in former World War II tunnels used by the Germans during the occupation.
• La Valette Underground Military Museum – More tunnels but this time housing a museum dedicated to wars.
• Castle Cornet – It’s hard to miss the castle when you’re in the island’s capital city.
• St Peter Port – We finished up our visit to St Peter Port with a wander through its streets in search of beer.

Monday was a sea day. As regular art-purchasers on Princess ships we’d been invited to a gallery viewing the day before and had met with the staff there. We’d later received a handwritten letter inviting us to a private preview on the sea day before the auction which we duly attended and indicated that one of the Lebo pieces had caught our eye. You can try to guess which one. No surprise then when we bought it and another piece too. What was more of a surprise was that I won a free piece (to be selected from four) as I’d been the most enthusiastically clapping. Anyone who knows me will know this to be… unlikely. Nevertheless, as luck would have it, one of the four pieces was another Lebo print. You can never have too many. Art auctions aren’t for everyone and they could generally do with being a bit shorter but we enjoy them.

Tuesday saw us arrive in France. Not the port we were supposed to be at because of yet another French dockers strike but at least we actually got to set foot in the country from a cruise ship for once. Our original plan had been to visit a cognac distillery but with the change of location for the Sapphire Princess to La Rochelle we opted to simply take a walk around on our own to see what the coastal city had to offer. The answer to that was: a surprising amount. La Rochelle was absolutely beautiful and filled with all the sorts of things we like, topped off by discovering a little gem of a drinking location that ate up the whole afternoon. Posts of the French city are:

• La Rochelle – Our bus ride from the port into the city and first impressions from a wander along the waterfront.
• La Rochelle Towers – We took the opportunity to climb two of the three medieval towers along the city walls.
• Charruyer Park – A pleasant walk through a former marsh turned into a park thanks to a generous donation.
• La Rochelle Aquarium – Another port, another aquarium. You can’t keep us away from them.
• Belle Du Gabut – The surprise discovery was an area given over to street art and temporary structures providing musical entertainment, festival-type activities, and food and drink.

In the evening we saw that Black Panther was showing on the Movies Under The Stars screen and as we’d not seen it and not seen any movie on the screen on a cruise ship at night we decided to try it out. Almost everyone was staying inside for entertainment provided by the Sapphire Princess staff because it was windy and the air had a bite to it so the ship felt deserted on the top deck. Ultimately, only around six of us braved the movie and we only managed it with multiple blankets covering us. We’d heard that popcorn and hot chocolate were supplied for these movie viewings but if that is the norm then we managed to choose the exception night. Glad to have seen the film at sea, though, as it’s something to say you’ve experienced.

On Wednesday we arrived at Bilbao, Spain. You already know that we’re art fans and you might know from reading any of my other travel accounts that I also keenly appreciate architecture so the obvious draw for us was the Guggenheim Museum. We took an organised excursion which also included a walking tour of the old town area of Bilbao. This was not without its problems, covered in the individual posts:

• Bilbao Walking Tour – A wander through the winding, pedestrianised streets of the old town.
• Guggenheim Museum – An all-too-brief visit to the architectural masterpiece that is the building itself and a viewing of some of the impressive art pieces inside.

The final stop for us was the next day at A Coruna but the place we wanted to see was inland via coach: Santiago de Compostela. Rather than go for anything guided we decided to pay for the Princess ride into the city with free time to wander as we wanted; the main reason for this was that we’d done some research and had our eyes set not just on the famous Santiago de Compostela cathedral but on a nearby museum too. We really enjoyed this stop and found the lack of exploitation of the pilgrims who regularly visit surprisingly nice to see (being the cynical atheists we are). Posts describing our visit to this Spanish city are here:

• Sapphire Princess At A Coruna – Views from our balcony of the port.
• Santiago de Compostela, Part One – Our arrival in the city and visit to the cathedral.
• Part Two, The Museo do Pobo Galego – The museum we wanted to visit with an incredible triple helical staircase just begging to be photographed.
• Santiago de Compostela, Part Three – A little bit more exploration, a stop for a drink, and discovery of a festival taking place.

Friday was a sea day as the Sapphire Princess sadly headed northwards back to England. Checking the daily guide that tells you what’s going on around the ship, the Princess Patter, we spotted a few activities taking place that we decided we’d take a look at. First off, though, was a walk around the ship to grab some photos. The weather wasn’t ideal and you can probably find almost identical photos from other ships of the class on this site but it typically takes more than that to stop me and my camera.

Prior to cruising out of the UK the Sapphire Princess had been based in Asia and evidence of this was present throughout the ship with the bilingual signage. We’re looking forward to seeing similar touches when we next board Diamond Princess later this year for a tenth wedding anniversary treat to ourselves.

The first time that a cruise ship visits a port it is usually presented with a plaque and these are prominently displayed on Deck 7. I love the variety of styles and the pride in their port cities that the designs demonstrate.

One of the activities we stopped to watch was the ice carving demonstration. This was something we’d last seen ten years ago and our memory of that occasion was flimsy to say the least so it was nice to see it all fresh. Taking photographs of blocks of ice in a way that shows the shape is not the easiest of tasks so the two carved pieces are a mermaid and a fish (possibly an angelfish) in case it’s not easy to see.

The main activity we were interested in was the culinary demonstration. This took place in the Princess Theatre and was hosted by the maître d’hôtel Generoso Mazzone and the executive chef Ottavio Bellesi. We were shown how to make Trenette alla Moda Ligure (pesto sauce), Gamberi alla Fra Divolo (flambéed shrimp in hot and fiery tomato sauce with pearl rice), and Tiramisu. As reasonably interesting as that was it was mainly the constant chatter from Ottavio that made the demonstration worth viewing; he was typically Italian and very funny indeed.

Cooking demonstrations are all well and good but that wasn’t the real reason we were interested in this cruise activity. At the conclusion of the food preparation we were all led to the rear of the ship for what was described as a “Galley Tour”. In fact, this was simply a wander through the kitchens rather than any real tour but it was not something we’d done before and still interesting enough for us to be pleased to have done it. And videoed it.

A regular activity that we do whenever we can is the trivia. Our track record with Princess is that we’ve won at least one quiz on every cruise we’ve taken but things weren’t looking good on Sapphire initially. We had paired up with another couple on the first two days on the ship but despite our best efforts we weren’t getting anywhere close to the people who were winning. However, there were mutterings from various quarters in that regard; the people winning had been on the ship during its transitioning cruise from Asia to Europe and it was suspected that the quiz questions were not rotating slowly enough. We resigned ourselves to not really having a chance on this cruise but still kept on at it as we like a good testing of our general knowledge. I’m pleased to announce that on the very last quiz and on a tie-break we won and our track record is still intact. Quiz prizes are not fantastic on a Princess cruise – that’s arguably part of their charm – but if you’re taking part in the quiz to win the prize then you’re doing it wrong anyway.

Being on a cruise is better than not being on a cruise; this won’t come as a surprise to anyone. Our cruise on Sapphire Princess wasn’t perfect by any means but the issues we encountered with occasional drinks orders being wrong or being missed out by staff we can assign to it being just one of those things. We’re not the sort to put in major complaints about a bit of bad luck especially when people work as hard as they do onboard. If we had to pick the worst thing about this cruise it was that it was too short. We are most definitely fortnight-long cruising people at heart.

Sapphire Princess was in good condition overall and wasn’t really showing her age anywhere. A Princess cruise suits our temperament perfectly; it’s the right mix of attentive service and relaxed attitude we like while at sea taking us to the destinations that fulfill the itinerary that is the prime driver for our holiday choice. We’re simply not interested in ships with climbing walls, zip lines, or racing tracks. La Rochelle was the standout port on this cruise (a surprise as it was a late replacement) and our decision-making at Bilbao is the one area we’d have loved to do over. However, the week from Southampton to Guernsey, France, and Spain was a great, short cruise that would make an ideal first cruise itinerary for would-be cruisers. Much as we enjoy the weekend cruises they’re really just too short to give a true cruise experience so this was perfect in that respect.

In a few months (from time of writing this) we’ll be flying out to Tokyo to get back on Diamond Princess and we’re very much looking forward to seeing our first cruise ship again and comparing elements with her sister ship, Sapphire.

For another review of Sapphire Princess on a cruise taken just before we boarded her see Cruise Lifestyle‘s Cruise Ship Review: Sapphire Princess Public Areas & Dining. If you’re interested in gluten free options on the ship then Gluten Free Horizons has a post about it here: Cruising Gluten Free on Sapphire Princess.

The heat of the day and spread-out nature of the Chinese city had really surprised us so we were glad to be back on the ship with about an hour before the scheduled departure and checking the Princess Patter we saw that afternoon tea was still available so decided the chance of some sandwiches, rolls, and cakes with a cup of tea or two would be a nice change from what we’d normally do (burger or pizza and a beer, as you’d possibly guessed). Afternoon tea is served in the International Dining Room on the ship and is free of charge.

We then returned to our room so that we could watch the sailaway. Princess do have sailaway parties on the top deck with the resident band usually but even though they’re a bit more relaxed and not as embarrassingly jingoistic as the ones you get on P&O, for example, they’re still not really our sort of thing. Our balcony gave us a good view of the international cruise port in Xiamen.

And we waited. And waited. And waited a bit more. A couple of coaches that had been out on excursions were late getting back due to traffic problems. The good thing about going on a ship-organised tour as opposed to doing things yourself is that the ship will wait for you in those circumstances.

We waited long enough that the moon started to make an appearance behind one of the nearby buildings.

And then without really realising it the ship was edging away from the port, making its 180 degree turn once we were sufficiently far enough way from the dock, and starting its slow run out towards the sea. With Diamond Princess now facing southwards our balcony on the starboard side of the ship gave us a pleasant view of the sunset over the Chinese mainland and spread of Xiamen there.

We passed between the pylons connecting the island of Xiamen to the mainland again.

As the sun finally vanished in the murk of the horizon we glanced back to see something we hadn’t expected: a Xiamen light show. We knew Hong Kong put on a light show as we’d seen it before (Hong Kong Harbour Light Show) and were expecting to see some of it again on this cruise but hadn’t realised Xiamen had its own version. While the buildings may not have had the grand scale of Hong Kong and there seemed to be less in the way of coordination in the lights we could see, they were, nevertheless, arguably far more impressive than Hong Kong. Some buildings had stylised, color-changing waves; others Chinese writing; others had pirate ships animated in the lighting. If you’re ever in Xiamen after the sun goes down then it looks like the light show along the waterfront of the city is something that should be seen.

All-too-soon we left the attractive lights of Xiamen behind and passed some of the industrialised areas that marked the boundary of the city before hitting the sea and starting the run south towards Vietnam.

For us, then, the evening followed pretty much the standard pattern: showered, changed, off for a pre-dinner drink or two, then dinner itself followed by a quick nose around the various lounges to see what was going on before heading up to Skywalkers nightclub to people-watch, drink some more, and dance as much as our tired bodies would allow us.

Our body clocks were still not fully adjusted to the timezone difference from the UK which meant waking at ridiculous o’clock was still the norm so breakfast was eaten nice and early and we followed that – as we’d gotten into the habit of doing so on sea days aboard Diamond Princess – with a quick walk around the top deck to see if there was anything of interest happening aboard or visible out to sea and to take part in the Radio Taiso exercises that were displayed daily on the large movie screen on the cruise ship. The overcast conditions were the visual clue to the increasing humidity.

After that it was inside and down to the piazza to pick up the daily puzzles from the library before picking an activity (or not, depending on the mood and offerings) to occupy our minds and bodies. The source of information for choosing what to do around the ship with Princess Cruises is the Princess Patter and here are scans of this particular sea day’s programme:

We are creatures of habit for the most part, typically limiting ourselves to trivia and seeing if we can get some swimming in around reading, drinking, and relaxing. Prior to this cruise we’ve also tended to pop along to art auctions but over the first few days on Diamond Princess we’d had a nasty run-in with the people of Park West Gallery who manage the art on Princess ships (and many others). I’ve alluded to this in previous posts and do intend to fully write up just what happened at some point but to drop a rather massive hint as to what that might entail our eyes lit up when looking at the Princess Patter and spotting a lecture on the psychology of scammers and scam victims. This lecture didn’t just appeal because it had a direct bearing on what we’d experienced but also because I’ve been a long-time member and supporter (and for a while, organiser) of sceptical organisations in the UK and I wanted to see what a police officer might bring to bear on a subject I knew a little about anyway.

It was a good lecture and a good one for a cruise line to put on where there are a lot of elderly people who tend to be far more vulnerable to scams. We did find the slides describing how scam artists work to be most amusing when comparing how the Park West Gallery salespeople had behaved towards us and mentioned as much when we filed our post-cruise complaint to Princess.

The rest of the day went pretty much as expected, though: a long swim in the Sanctuary Pool led to the pair of us burning various bits we’d missed when applying our Factor 50; burgers and fries were eaten by the pool at lunch; trivia contests were entered and lost in crushing style; the odd drink or two might have passed our lips while reading or playing cards.

As we got ready for dinner in the early evening we had a lovely view of the setting sun on the South China Sea from our stateroom balcony.

Dinner was perfectly fine again with fabulously quick service from our waiter, Alexander. Skywalkers at the end of the evening was practically empty and we ended up back in our cabin earlier than we’d expected, looking forward to the first of two new ports in Vietnam for us in the morning.