My wife and I were on the October 25th sailing of the Ruby Princess. This was our first 10-day cruise and we were really looking forward to getting away. Our trip to Fort Lauderdale on Saturday October 24th was uneventful. We spent the night in the Comfort Inn and Suites in Fort Lauderdale. Nice people at the hotel, and the facility was nice enough. They offer a shuttle from the airport as well as to the cruise port. We took the shuttle to the cruise port and arrived at the ship at a little after 1:00 pm. The line was pretty long, but it moved fast and we were on the ship by a little after 2:00 pm. Our room A746 was a balcony room at the back of the ship on Aloha deck. The room itself was standard for a balcony room, but the balcony was oversized, and had a nice view forward as well as to the side. Our room steward Mariano was one of the nicest persons you would ever meet. He always had a big smile on his face, our room as always made up nice, and he helped with correcting some issues with the room.

Regarding the Ruby Princess it is a beautiful ship, and it was nice to see that the maintenance staff worked diligently to keep it that way. We were on the Crown Princess in January and didn't get the same sense that the ship was being cared for. We dined at the Horizon Court and Caribe Cafe for most meals. We do this because we just prefer the convenience of eating when we want. We ate at the Crown Grill one night. The food over all was good. One thing that I didn't really understand was that on about the 5th day out they started closing the Horizon Court at about 5:30 pm. My wife took the opportunity to utilize the spa a few times, and talked me into going once. We did a couples thing with a hydro bed, and massage. The massage was nice, but I was sore from it for several days after. Can't really blame that on the masseuse, as I'm normally quite stressed out! My wife liked the hydro bed, but I can't say I did. Didn't take the opportunity to go to any of the shows on the ship, but we did watch Movies under the Stars a few times.

During the trip we made 6 stops! After 2 sea days we made our first stop at Aruba. While there we took an excursion with Jolly Pirates. It was the 3-stop snorkel, which included a stop at the shipwreck Antilla. The excursion was a lot of fun and the crew of the Jolly Pirate II was very entertaining. Going to and from the excursion we rode on the banana bus, which was equally entertaining. Once back at the port we boarded and got cleaned up and went back into town to do a little shopping. All together this was a great stop; I really enjoyed Aruba, and would like to go back some day. Read more