This was our thirteenth cruise, third with Princess and also third on this same itinerary. We are a late 40s couple with older teenagers. This is the perfect cruise. Several sea days to relax from the stress of work, life, and getting ready for a cruise. Then you have four great stops in beautiful locations with no pushy vendors. Finally several sea days to relax from vacation and get you ready for the rat race again.

Embarkation: we usually arrive to the port early to take our chances on boarding early. This time we did not get there at 12:30. The advantage was we were on the ship in about 20 minutes.

The Ship: at first I didn’t care much for the Ruby, lots of dead-ends and wasted space. But after a while it grew on me and it was pretty nice for a larger (not mega) ship. It was in remarkably good shape for not being refurbished in so long. Starting from the top; the jogging track around the miniature golf course was really small. Sixteen laps is one mile. The surface was hard like concrete and people casually strolled around it making it difficult to pass in its narrow course. I tried jogging on deck seven which circumnavigated the entire ship -if you don’t mind stairs. That was more open but sometimes crowded with walkers going both directions. There wasn’t any “No Jogging” signs as some reviewers stated, just a sign that said “Walk-a-Mile 2 ½ laps”. I always gave walkers the right of way though. This was the best deck to see the ocean up close. The best place to jog ended up being the upper Lido deck. It went almost around the entire ship with no stairs and had an outdoor turf like mat that was soft to run on. You just had to be done by 8:30 am or so when sunbathers started coming out. Read more