Ruby Princess Review

A sadly disappointing first Princess cruise

Review for Alaska Cruise on Ruby Princess
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Cruisin_from_Tampa
2-5 Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Jul 2016
Cabin: Interior

This was a disappointing cruise. While there were some highlights, most were not due to Princess or the vessel itself.

The boarding was wonderful. The staggered boarding couldn't have gone better. We arrived at out appointment today time and there was no line and no crowd. What a change from our last cruise with RCCL when we stood for 45 minutes in a long queue. In and out in 2 minutes and onto the ship. Right to our cabin and to muster drill. Our baggage arrived with minutes of that concluding. We met our cabin steward in the hall, though we rarely saw or heard from him otherwise. He seemed pleasant enough, though somewhat disengaged. Not especially friendly or interactive. All business. In fact, that can be said for pretty much all the staff.

As for the restaurants, we can only comment on the buffets and the "normal" dining room. We didn't eat in the specialty restaurants. The buffet was small compared to other cruise lines such as RCCL, though the food was of comparable quality. We always found something to eat at lunch when we went as well as the two dinners. There were ample Asian selections consistent with the large Asian population on board. The main dining room food was not up to our expectations. Food was poorly prepared and served in portion sizes bordering on absurd. One example: a beef Wellington consisted of one 1/2 inch slice of a 4" Wellington round, with undercooked pastry dough (raw next to the meat) over a stock reduction that was so salty it bordered on being a salt lick. We observed others ordering multiple entrees to solve the portion situation.

Cabin Review

Interior

Cabin IB

This interior cabin is larger than most, but it's location makes it a terrible choice. It is directly under the Calypso pool deck, and deck and table chairs are stacked every night at 1230 and unstacked and dragged across the floor at 615am. We even went up and beeping to asked them to lift the chairs rather than drag them, but the next morning they just did the same thing again. We turned up white noise makers, put pillows over our head, etc., but there is just no way to drown out the sound of ten or twenty lounge chairs plus another 10 or so tables with four chairs each being scrapped across the deck right over you.

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