To start with embarkation on the Ruby was a disaster, but this was not entirely the cruise lines fault. Because the Ruby arrived from a overseas the Coast Guard had to do an inspection, (Even though the ship arrived the night before). This held up passenger boarding the next day for over 2 hours, so we stood in line, in the hot weather, while waiting to board. No water or toilet facilities was available. The ships representatives at the dock fended off comments by saying there was nothing they could do about it. The Ruby is a lovely ship, but the dining service was a disappointment. We had asked for 1st seating and ended up with anytime seating even though we booked very early on, and this was our 5th cruise on Princess, (we have had 5 additional cruises on other cruise lines). On 2 occasions we had to wait more then 1 hour to be seated because the "anytime" dining room was full. The wait staff was responsible for too many tables, and we had to wait for service between servings. The wait staff was not friendly and appeared to be under a lot of pressure to serve all of the tables they were responsible for. Our stateroom, (balcony room on the 10th deck), was very small compared to the same category staterooms we have had on other cruises. All areas of the ship were very crowded. On a previous trip on the Star Princess there were 2600 passengers and on the Ruby there were about 3100. When you read the descriptions of the two ships you will find they are about the same size, so one is to conclude that they are crowding 500 more passengers into the same space thus reducing the sizes of the staterooms to accommodate the extra people. When we asked for stateroom service for coffee, food, etc. mistakes were made on our order and we did not receive what we had asked for. Our state room attendant did a good job, and was not responsible for the stateroom service. You called for this by phone from the stateroom. Elevator service was very slow when moving between decks. Again because of the over crowding. Food in the dining room was not up to the standards we had on 9 previous cruises. The buffet area on deck 15 was very crowded and tables were hard to find once you had your food. Again overcrowding in this area. We have been told that larger cruise ships are on the way, but we will stay away from them because of our experience on the Ruby Princess.