Embarkation Day

Okay, the day of your cruise has finally arrived! What should you expect? This section will cover what can be one of the most thrilling days of cruising for first timers, but also may be one of the most stressful days of your cruise. But it doesn't have to be if you're prepared.

First off, make sure you have packed what you need in your cruise in your luggage and cruise carry-on. Most important is that your passport and OceanMedallion are readily accessible, as even when trying to drive into the cruise port area, you may be stopped by security and asked to show these items to verify that you have a purpose to being in this area. Without these items, you won't get far. 

Once you have downloaded the Princess Cruises app you will then have the opportunity to order your OceanMedallion™ and any accessories for it if you so desire. Hint: if you do not pre-purchase any accessories many of them are available for sale once onboard.

All cruisers will be receiving a complimentary OceanMedallion device and lanyard as part of their cruise experience. For guests with a Plus or Premier package, they may order these items delivered to their home 14 to 21 days prior to your departure date (for U.S. guests only) for no extra shipping fees. If you do not have the package, you pay a $10 flat fee to have these delivered to their home. Or you could choose to pick them up at the departure port for no extra fees. Upon arrival at the Princess Terminal you will pick up your OceanMedallion™. You then should be allowed to board the ship and begin your adventure.

Have your OceanMedallion™ ready and accessible (or plan to pick it up at the Princess Cruise Terminal if you had it shipped there) and make sure you have become OceanReady® at home by downloading the Princess Cruises App on your smartphone and filling out the proper information as outlined on the Princess Cruise Line page of this site. 

The OceanMedallion™ truly does enhance the embarkation process  by making it more streamlined and efficient. From the moment you enter the Princess Cruise Terminal you will start experiencing the efficiency of the system. 

As you're entering the Terminal area and the ship for the first time, be expected to be stopped by Princess Cruise photographers to have your photo taken. Get used to it. This will be common at every port and even while you're walking around the ship. If you don't want your photo taken, just give them a polite "no thank you" and they will back off. They will also often have backdrops in the Piazza to have more formal photos taken. There is no charges for the photos to be taken, and there is no hard sell, but you can buy these photos at the end of the cruise in various photo packages and albums they offer. On deck 7 (Promenade Deck) you will find the Photo Gallery where photos of you taken throughout the cruise may be viewed and purchased through their various photo packages. So how do they know who is who? Remember that little OceanMedallion™ hanging around your neck? You plop your Medallion down on the Medallion reader and up pops every photo they have linked to you via the OceanMedallion™. If the photo package is pre-purchased you can take home the 10 Portrait Package which includes ten professional 8" x 10" prints and digital files on a thumb drive for a pre-purchased price of $190. These photo packages are now included if you selected the new Princess Premier package which includes ALL digital and three prints of your favorite photos.

When passengers are allowed to start embarking onto the ship you may not have access to your stateroom upon boarding.  However, soon after boarding you should be able to visit your stateroom. 

While still in or near the port you can use your cellphone as you wish but we would advise that shortly after the ship embarks that you turn your phone to "airplane" mode to avoid large roaming charges you may unknowingly accrue as you cruise. Some cellphone plans also do not work in the Alaska or Canadian area so it is wise to check with your provider before leaving home.

However, now is a great time to open up you Princess Cruises App on your smartphone and start using its features! Turn your phone to "airplane" mode and access the MedallionNet. You do not have to purchase the MeddallonNet internet package to use this App. With the App you will now have access to the ship deck maps and can start requesting and accepting invitations from your friends onboard to allow you to chat and find them onboard. At first we had some issues with trying to learn how to access and use the App and the MedallionNet internet but Princess Cruises offers tech help the Ocean Front area. These techies were always very helpful in solving our initial issues with a smile.

Now is time to explore! This first embarkation day may give you the only opportunity to see some areas of the ship, unless you decide to indulge in their services. Staff at the Lotus Spa®  will give you personalized tours of these area and of course try to soft sell you some of the spa and salon services they offer at discounted prices during this embarkation day tour. Besides various types of massage packages, they may offer everything from full barber and hair salon services, teeth whitening, facials, skin rejuvenation, mud baths, and pretty much everything you could think being offered at a high class spa and more.

It is also a good time to take a tour of the Adult Sanctuary, located on the Sky Deck (16) forward as you will not be able to enter this private area unless you have booked a reservation for it once the cruise is under way. Half day and full day reservations, especially for sea days, fill up rapidly, and on our second cruise, since we were one of the first to board the ship, we immediately scurried up to the Sanctuary area to reserve a spot. However many back-to-back cruisers who were already on the ship had already made reservations for the two sea days. Standing in line for an hour while the hostess showed people around and allowed them to select the day, time, and area of the Sanctuary they wanted to relax during their stay was frustrating. Hopefully Princess Cruises starts to improve this reservation system. We did however score one of the last remaining lounges chairs for the last sea day.... However it ended up to be less than ideal weather that day... no worry, the hostess decided not to charge us for the stay ($20 per person for a half day, $40 per person for a full day, with Cabanas costing extra). The Sanctuary on the Sapphire Princess is not as nice as the Royal class ships, plus there are a lot of loungers available throughout the ship so this may not be a worthwhile investment.

Take the time to walk around and discover where many things are but don't expect to do it in a few hours. By the end of the cruise, you'll still be stumbling across areas you never knew existed. 

You may discover that not all of the elevators are working on embarkation day. Some of them are re-programmed to be used only by the ships crew as they begin the task of delivering all of the luggage to their appropriate decks for distribution. They also want to discourage cruisers from going to their cabin before it has been totally prepared for them.

E-Muster Drill

In the past ALL guests, whether it was their 1st or 100th cruise, had to attend a "muster drill" to explain how to react during a declared emergency onboard. Each guest had an assigned "muster station" to meet as a group to listen and observe the drill information. You did not have to bring the life jacket from your stateroom to this drill, but instructions on how to put it on and use it were demonstrated in a live session.

In order to reduce the amount of guests congregating together in one space, cruises have now adopted a more "virtual"  or "E-Muster drill". This requires all guests to view a muster drill information video on their smartphone using the Princess Cruises App or your stateroom TV and acknowledge that it has been viewed in its entirety. Guests will also be required to visit their "muster station" and login into the area with the OceanMedallion™ to verify that they were familiar with their muster station location so they know where to go in case of a declared emergency. 

Don't feel you have some sort of special entitlement and can forego this requirement. By law, all passengers must comply before the ship departs the port.

At 8:30 pm the cruise ship embarks on the cruise. We encourage everyone to go up to the upper pool decks where most of the action is  as the "sail away" party begins with music and dancers on the Lido deck (14) as the passengers wave to other boats and people along the shore below as it exits the port area. One feature we loved about our previous cruises on the Royal Class ships was their ability to play the signature "Love Boat" theme song on the ships horns as we left many ports. Unfortunately, the Sapphire Princess does not have this feature.

Eating on embarkation day can be a mad house in the Horizon Court Buffet area located on the Lido Deck (14) as most people will tend to gravitate there for an easy and quick meal so they don't miss anything going on during this embarkation day. You can try your luck there, or try grabbing a pizza from Pergo Pizzeria or a burger from Trident Grill on the Lido Deck (14), or a small sandwich from the International Cafe on the Plaza Deck (5). All of these food options are included in your cruise fare and are typically fast service.

If you want a more leisurely lunch, the International Main Dining Room may also be serving during this time, and all food is included in your cruise fare.

Anytime during the afternoon you can also go and check out your stateroom as it should be ready for occupancy by then. Like magic (think OceanMedallion™) your door will unlock as you near your stateroom and your picture will appear on the nameplate to identify the room as yours. Your room steward will also probably be notified (via the OceanMedallion™) that you are nearby and they will come by to introduce themselves and offer their services to you throughout the cruise. Your luggage may, or may not be delivered there yet, but it will show up shortly (again, via the OceanMedallion™ notification to your room steward).

Disembarkation Day

All good things must eventually come to an end. Hopefully you enjoyed your cruise and this day is something you are not looking forward to. It is time to get back to reality. 

Two nights before disembarkation day arrives, your room steward will leave disembarkation instructions on your stateroom bed. You have a couple of options to consider on how you want to debark the ship. You can tag your luggage with newly supplied color coded luggage tags (taking your old luggage tags off of your luggage), and then leave your luggage outside of your stateroom door after 9 pm. The room stewards will then collect this luggage and have it delivered to the Princess Cruise Terminal when the ship docks the following morning. You will then pick it up from there. If you choose this method, you will be given an assigned time and assigned location to meet to debark the ship from. If you use this method be sure to not pack essential items you may need in the morning, such as toiletries, etc. Pack a cruise "carry-off" bag for these items and also remember to leave yourself some clothes to wear that morning, otherwise you may be leaving the ship in some formal attire. 

We used that method for our first cruise but now we have started to use the self-assist disembarkation option. This requires us to handle all of our own luggage when disembarking the ship but it really isn't an issue if you have suitcases that are easily transported. You will most likely have to use an elevator and they may be more crowded than usual. 

The ship will arrive back in the Vancouver, Canada Port around 7:30am and start the disembarkation process around 8:30 am with passengers leaving in groups. If you have an early flight to catch you may want to contact Guest Services a few days ahead of disembarkation so you are placed in an early disembarkation time slot. Breakfast in the buffet area starts earlier that day, say around 5:30 am, and is much busier than normal. You typically must debark the ship by 9 am so the ships crew has enough time to start cleaning the staterooms for incoming guests.

During our first cruise we had a brief stop to talk to a Customs officer in the Terminal. On our next cruises they started using face recognition software to identify who we were which made the process extremely fast. Make sure you have your passport and OceanMedallion™ with you! They will log you off of the system and assure themselves that everyone who is supposed to be leaving the ship has done so.

If you're flying out of the Vancouver airport, one mistake many first time cruiser make when booking their return flights home is to book a morning flight, figuring that they will easily make it to the airport by 10 am to catch their flight. While that might work, you never know if there have been some unforeseen circumstances that may have caused the ship to be late coming into port (on our last cruise there was a medical emergency for a crew member which required the ship to dock at an unscheduled port - this caused a 2 hour delay in arriving back in our port 2 days later). It is better to book an afternoon or evening flight. Yes, that means that you may be lounging around at the airport for a few hours but at least you will be assured of being there on time. You may also want to consider sticking around the area for a few days, as we did on our first cruise, and fly a few days or a week later.

Transportation to the airport can be by Taxi, bus, or Transportation Shuttles you have booked prior, or arranged for, or just find waiting for walk up service at the Terminal.

A good article explaining the disembarkation options in Vancouver can be read by clicking here.

Turnaround Day

Since embarkation and disembarkation occur on the same day the Sapphire Princess finds itself in a race against the clock as it makes its "pit stop" in its homeport.  The process of a turnaround day for a cruise ship is an organized chaos. Within about an 8 hour span all of the disembarking passengers and their thousands of pieces of luggage must leave the ship and the new guests and their luggage must be brought onboard and transferred to the correct decks for distribution. 

In addition, the ship is refueled (with 384,000 gallons of fuel), waste which could not be incinerated at sea removed, and more than 20 semi trucks offload new stores of food and supplies and they are brought onboard in an organized fashion. Besides the tons of fresh food and beverages brought onboard the ship for the next 7 day cruise, it also maintains a several day reserve of food stores in case severe weather or an emergency keeps the ship at sea longer than scheduled. 

Security teams, including sniffer dogs, scan everything that is due to be loaded onto the ship. An inventory manager inspects the food products and carefully tracks the count of food and beverages. They don't want to run short of anything during the cruise, because of health restrictions, they cannot purchase food from ports outside of the United States.

As soon as passengers start to leave the ship (all must be off the ship by 10:30 am), the room stewards begin the laborious process of cleaning and sterilizing all of the staterooms. Each steward is assigned to clean 30-35 staterooms. Thanks to their years of experience they can thoroughly clean and prepare a room in about 15 minutes. While the steward does the bed making, vacuums the carpet, and stocks amenities within the room, the assistant steward cleans the bathroom and removes sheets from the bed. This is to prevent any cross contamination. They try to be very particular about cleanliness and sanitation.

Details matter. After a room is cleaned, a head steward will inspect to make sure everything is shipshape. In addition, before oncoming guests arrive, a two man security team checks each room safe to assure nothing has been left behind. Jewelry and other valuables are often forgotten in the safes and are returned to passengers.