This was a generous gift, from a wonderful lady who wanted to treat all her children and grandchildren to a family vacation. On the whole, it was a great trip and a great success. My criticisms of Princess should not detract from the fact that overall we had a great time and I would recommend an Alaska cruise to anyone. Embarkation was easy, we paid for embarkation from the hotel and disembarkation to the airport and it was worth it. The cabin was a balcony and I cannot stress enough how much getting a balcony is worth it. We had a block of rooms on the starboard side and the cabin steward opened "secret" doors on the balconys so they were all connected for the entire trip allowing us to spend more time together as a family. Our room was clean and well maintained, but bringing a multi plug and USB extension is advised since there was only one plug socket. Our room steward was excellent (Teddy) and our service experience with the room was 5 star quality, the dining room service was adiquate 4 star, for the remainder of the ship, service was mixed, but on average 3-4 stars. The entertainment was not to my taste, aimed as it was, squarely at the heart of middle aged, middle America, so I withhold any critique. The comedian was very good, quite vaudevillian, he knew his audience and crafted his set well. The onboard daily activities were generally bad, like a glossy magazine, mainly blatant advertisements and even the "educational" stuff contains some kind of sales pitch. The trivia contests were delivered by bored staff and pretty uninspiring. The spa advertised "$149 massage" that ended up costing my wife $240 and the upselling is relentless.

Food was a major disappointment on the Ruby. Hard to tell if this is a corporate Princess change or just the Ruby, but the buffet quality was well below what I have experienced on Royal Caribbean or Carnival, the dining room food had a commensurate drop in quality, both in dishes offered and the quality of preparation. For example the crab legs served on "crab night" were thin, pre cooked, cut in half lengthwise, frozen, then reheated and the resulting product served was tough, dry and tasteless. Some evenings almost every appetizer at our table of 8 was cleared with hardly more than a bite out of them. If you wanted better quality, you had to pay for it, by buying from the "Crown Grill" section of the menu. The Crown grill food quality was approximately what I have experienced as standard free dining fare in the main dining rooms on prior cruises. The pizza and hamburger bar amidships served blah pizza (think Pizzahut) and the burgers are cooked from frozen. The hotdogs were all beef and quite good however. We paid to eat in the Crown grill ($29 per person) and the food was very good there, though they mislayed my mignon and 10 minutes after they served the rest of the table they brought it to me so raw it had a pulse. We did not try Share, the menu looked so pretentious and questionable we just avoided it altogether.

ALASKA: To start, we had phenomenal luck with the weather, sunny, warm and blue skies every day but the last sea day back to Victoria BC, when we had fog, but not a drop of rain the whole trip. Juneau was charming if very touristy, we booked the Princess helicopter trip to the Mendenhall glacier and it was well worth the money. Skagway was a delight and we did the Princess sled dog mushing excursion, once again worth the money. Glacier bay itself was worth the price of the cruise, absolutely stunning vistas. Ketchikan was charming (most of us did the rainbird hiking trail) but the stay there is too short approx 4 hrs, as was the stay in Victoria BC approx 4 hours (7:30PM - 11:00PM). On the whole I would say Alaska really came through for us and we plan to visit again (just not by cruise ship). The staff on the Ruby Princess were for the most part good and did an excellent job. My complaints are almost exclusively with management and corporate decisions. Overselling is turning the Ruby into a timeshare experience, the onboard entertainment is weak, uninspired and lacks discipline. The quality of food has dropped noticeably, however the begging for a higher rating has increased. Finally the decision to include Victoria BC, is a bad one, give your customers a full day in Ketchikan and skip Victoria, as much as I like Victoria, this is an Alaskan cruise and would benefit from more time in Alaska.