Enchanted Princess - Sabatini's

In August 2022, we cruised onboard Enchanted Princess for a short four night cruise from Southampton. It was almost exactly ten years on from our first ever cruise onboard Grand Princess and we were excited to finally be back onboard a Princess ship again. Whilst there were several aspects of this shorter cruise that we weren't impressed with, Sabatini's bucked the trend and we enjoyed a great night dining there.

As we were only on a short cruise, we knew we couldn't eat in every venue onboard, but we both love Italian food so didn't want to miss out on Sabatini's. We were a little bit worried about getting a booking as we'd read a few horror stories, but we waited until we were onboard and were able to make a reservation quite easily via our stateroom television. We paid a cover charge of $25 per person for our meal, and we were also able to select from almost every drink on the menu as part of our Princess Plus package. We thought the meal was great value for money and the service we experienced was the icing on the cake. Having struggled with the poor drinks service using the medallion app, and the extremely busy bars throughout this cruise it was fantastic to finally be able to order a drink. In fact the wait staff were so on the ball that they were ready with our next glass of wine before we'd finished the first.

Onto the food! We'd thoroughly inspected the menu before even boarding our cruise, and had seen plenty of Sabatini's reviews. We were well aware that we'd be leaving feeling very full. Laura was desperate to make it to dessert so we decided to skip the soup/salad course. I'm sure our waistlines would have preferred us to skip something else, but it was the course that we were happiest to lose. After the tasty appetiser of the house, we dived straight into the antipasti where Lizzy enjoyed the grilled lamb skewers, and Laura the largest portion of deep fried calamari you'll ever see. Both were lovely, but Laura's calamari was such a large portion that she had to exercise some self control and opt not to finish it, otherwise it would have been game over very early on.

Next came the pasta course. Lizzy knew that she wanted the trattoria oven-baked trio, but Laura took a little longer to decide and eventually settled on the classic spaghetti pomodoro with meatballs. We had a bit of a wait between courses, which we probably needed to allow the food to settle a bit. When the food arrived it was definitely worth the wait. For our main course, Lizzy enjoyed the veal, and Laura the seafood parcel, again both were excellent. They were cooked beautifully and tasted great. After eating our mains, we weren't too sure we could manage a dessert so Lizzy opted for a limoncello shot. Not one to be defeated, Laura more than made up for it by ordering the Chocolate Journeys Rocher. This was amazing and one of the best desserts she's ever had on a cruise ship. Its a shame it was at the end of such a filling meal as there was just no way finish it!

Overall, our Sabatini's experience was excellent and we would say it was definitely worth the extra charge. One thing to be aware of is it isn't going to be a quick meal, so don't book for a night when you've got entertainment that you're desperate to watch. We will definitely pay a return visit to Sabatini's if we are on a Princess cruise in the future.