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We arrived at Fort Lauderdale the day before our cruise so that we could go to the jetties and watch the parade of cruise ships leaving the port. We have been watching these cruise ships leave on www.portevergladeswebcam.com for months while impatiently waiting for our own cruise. We parked in the garage of Harbor Beach Marriott and walked down to the jetties. It was so cool to watch these huge ships leave! We had planned on eating at one of the many restaurants at Harbor Beach Marriott but after our walk to the jetties, we needed freshening up.
I Price-Lined a hotel and got the Hyatt Regency Pier 66. It is a nice hotel that is very close to the port. If I did it again, though, I think that I would have booked a hotel that was directly on the beach.
We arrived at the port at 11:15. The doors opened around 11:35. We were in our rooms at 12:30. The embarkation process was very quick and painless.
We had booked a BG guarantee and received a BB cabin. Our room was very roomy and had a huge closet. The bathroom was typical cruise ship size. We met Mario, our room steward. Mario is the best! We always greeted us with a smile and friendly comment. Our room was always kept in immaculate condition.
We bought a banner to hang over our balcony so that our "wave" could be filmed on www.portevergladeswebcam.com. The filming didn't quite work out, but we still had great fun doing it.
The food on the Ruby Princess has the best food that we have ever eaten on a cruise! We had late seating dinner. Our waiter, Santi, and assistant water, Alheli, always took good care of us. Once they found out that we loved our iced tea, it was always ready for us when we sat down. Santi always had the best recommendations about the food on the menu. For lunch, we ate at one of many other places that the Ruby Princess has available.
Every crew member that we encountered on the Ruby Princess was always smiling and always spoke. When I say every crew member, I mean every crew member!
We were on the Princess Entertainer of the Year Cruise. We considered ourselves to be lucky to be able to watch all these talented acts. We enjoyed all the shows!
The ports that we visited were Princess Cays, St. Martin, St. Thomas, and Grand Turk. We carried our own equipment and snorkeled at every port but St. Martin. We took a taxi to and snorkeled Coki Beach on St. Thomas and booked a private dive company for Grand Turk. At St. Martin, we took a taxi to Maho Beach and watched the big planes and jets land. Our favorite port for snorkeling was St. Thomas, but our most favorite port was St. Martin because it so much fun to watch the planes land. We should have taken our snorkeling equipment to Maho Beach because on that the day it was calm enough to snorkel.
We carried our own bags and did the walk-off disembarkation at 6:45 and at 7:00, we were in our car headed for home.
We had a wonderful time on the Ruby Princess!
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