Ruby Princess Review
Ruby Princess Eastern Caribbean March 3-10 2013
Rating by category
Additional details
Background: My husband and I have been married for 15 years, have no kids, and are 41. This is our 7th cruise, 2nd on Princess. We have been on 5 with RCCL and chose Princess for the itinerary since we had not been to Grand Turk yet. We were cruising with a total of 5 couples (no children). My in-laws, SIL and her husband, husband's uncle and his girlfriend, and the in-laws best friends. Age range is from 41-70. We have cruised with the same bunch of people 2-3 times before, but they have never been on Princess, only RCCL. The in-laws and SIL +hubby arrived in Florida before embarkation day, so they were already in town at a hotel. My husband and I were the only ones flying in that morning.
Embarkation day Sunday March 3:
We flew from Baltimore to FLL on Southwest with no issues, arriving in FLL around 10:30 am. We collected our luggage and took a taxi directly to the port. Taxi for 2 with tip included was $20. We arrived at the port around 11 am, dropped our luggage off with a porter ($20 tip for 4 bags) and proceeded into the terminal. Have your boarding pass document ready to show in order to get in the door. We were assigned a color coded number on a laminated card -- this is the boarding group we will be called with. We sent our carry-ons through the xray machine and waited in line to check in. Once we checked in, we grabbed a seat and watched for the rest of our group to make their way into the terminal to check in.
Cabin Review
Balcony
We were in Riviera 334, our first balcony room. After booking, I read that rooms on this floor get a lot of noise from the Lido deck chairs scraping above. We did hear it some, but were not bothered by it and were usually awake in the morning around 7 am so it was not bad unless you like to sleep in late. The balcony is shaded at all times, which was fine with me. There is also no one looking down on you, since the floor of the Lido deck extends beyond your balcony edge, making it very private, as long as your neighbors are not home ? We will definitely get a balcony room again on future cruises, we felt it was worth the extra money. We slept with the door open every night and heard the waves as we drifted off to sleep. I also enjoyed taking a sunrise picture each morning from the room, and having breakfast and pre-dinner drinks on the balcony throughout the week. We also spotted a whale from the balcony one day and saw dolphins too, so it was cool for wildlife viewing and we loved watching the ship come into port from there too.