On this cruise we were part of a small group of friends celebrating a significant birthday for one of the group. The selection of Ruby Princess was down to others in the group and we just tagging along. We had a really great experience on the Ruby, with limited fore knowledge but a few so, so reviews didn't have our hopes to high and were mainly looking forward to the natural beauty of the inside passage. Turned out for us the actual cruise experience was a huge bonus. We've been on a couple of cruises and got to say the quality of the food in the Da Vinci dinning room was just excellent, you would need to be pretty fussy to find much to fault; good menu variation, quality excellent, staff excellent very friendly and attentive - just really nice people with a very tough job. We tried our best to stay away from the buffet offerings at the Horizon deck but others in the group were more frequent visitors.

We also tried the Crown Grill for a special celebration dinner - again fantastic service and wonderful food, lots of whatever you wished including lobster - well worth the extra cost but given the high standard from the dining room understandable if you didn't bother. I think most of the group would agree the standard of food at the dinning room was excellent.

Generally we liked the ship, nice appearance, well maintained, just enough shops. The entertainment was fine but like some cruise lines they are starting to double up on the entertainers (same performer for 2 nights with different shows), can be a little stale but given the short cruise time - understandable. Other ship activities were okay nothing brilliant, we did however enjoy winning a bottle of bubbly at one of the trivia nights. Didn't use the gym or pools, outside activities or movie by pool - a bit cool. Princess should get a pat on the back for the on board laundry facility which was very handy and did the job. Read more