This was by far, our best vacation. This is our second time on the Ruby Princess and we were not disappointed. We stayed pre-cruise one night in Barcelona at the Hotel Regencia Colon. Very nice hotel, in great area. We spent our day on the Hop On Hop Off bus....saw so many things. Saturday morning, we had breakfast and headed over to the ship about 11:00, got right on and we were poolside by noon. Our cabin was E229 which was an obstructed view, between two lifeboats. This was fine for us as we just wanted a window and knew we would never be in the cabin. We didn't take any Princess tours, we joined two private tours with 6 other people from cruise critic. In Rome we used Rominlimo, which was excellent. The tour guide was great, the vehicle was very comfortable, and was able to get into places that the large tour buses cannot. The Vatican is amazing...I can't even describe how wonderful that was to see. The other private tour we took was in Ephesus...our tour guide was great there also....very knowlegeable. In Livorno, we got off the ship and grabbed a cab who took us to Florence, Pisa and Lucca. Cab driver spoke english and pointed out all the sights along the way. Here also, the taxi could get into places where the big tour buses couldn't go. In Naples, we also grabbed a taxi who took us down the Amalfi Coast....we stopped in Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi and Ravello. The taxi driver was more than happy to stop whenever we wanted to take pictures or shop. He also took us to a local restaurant that he goes to with his wife...no tourists, great food on the side of a mountain.

Athens was our least favorite city...very conjested with traffic, but our taxi driver managed to get us to the sights we wanted to see and back to ship in 2 hours...another great day by the pool. Mykonos we did on our own, as well as, Monte Carlo and Istanbul....Grand Bazaar is amazing...shop till you drop. Venice was by far my favorite stop. We stayed post cruise one night at the Hotel Becher...the hotel was very nice, but the air conditioning was not working and they did not tell us until they brought us up to our room. It was on one of the smaller canals, and we sat outside on the boat dock of the hotel and watched the gondolas go by and drank wine. That was very nice. Of course, we took our own gondola ride, can't go to Venice and not ride in a gondola. As for Princess, the only complaint I have is the internet service. It's expensive, and very slow. I found no problem with the service on the ship, our room steward was great....the head waiter in the anytime dining room amazed me that he remembered our names every night and put us with great dining companions every single night. Yes, the dinners were longer than we were use to, but we had so much to talk about, the time flew. Normally I feel very rushed in the dining room, but this time I was not. The entertainment was okay, nothing great. All in all, it was a great cruise and we would like to do it again.