Embarkation was quick and painless... no waiting at all (we arrived around 12:45). The first-day buffet was insane, but expected. The Ruby is a gorgeous ship, inside and out. It is a little hard to get around the rear of the ship, but otherwise it's very well-designed and nicely laid out.

We had balconies forward on the Aloha deck (three in a row, with an inside for the kids across from our cabin). The cabin was smallish, but it worked pretty well. There was plenty of closet space, although it would have been nice to have a little more shelving. The fruit baskets delivered to the cabin was a nice touch. Our cabin steward, Romlan, was wonderful, and made some great towel animals for my daughter, which delighted her. It was nice to be able to open the dividers between our balconies, so that we could move between our cabins without going through the halls. I don't know if it was the acoustics of the ship, or just the passengers, but we could hear other people's conversations on the balconies, often being woken up by loud talkers.

The food in the dining room was delicious, and it was always difficult to make a selection, with so many great choices. I thought they did a nice job of balancing the more exotic choices with "safer" ones. For us, one of the joys of cruising is being able to try something that you might not like without any risk, so we really appreciated the number of unique dishes available. They also did a good job of letting us mix-and-match from the kids and adult menus- so that my daughter could order fruit salad and king crab. The waiters were good with the kids, and stuck a nice balance between warm and professional. Read more