June 19-29, 2022

This was a 10-day cruise roundtrip from San Francisco to Alaska, aboard the Ruby Princess. This was my 7th cruise on Princess, 17th cruise overall, but first since Covid and first on the Ruby.

We had bus transportation from our travel agent from Sacramento to the ship – it’s nice not having to worry about driving or parking (or paying for parking), nor having to worry about your luggage as once you put it next to the bus, you don’t see it again till it’s in your cabin. There was a lot of traffic on the embarcadero! The last mile took 46 minutes. Yes, I timed it. There was quite a line outside the terminal, which we had heard about from previous sailings. The Princess rep who met us at our bus just said to go towards the big Entrance sign; they seemed to be unaware there was a big line wrapped around the grassy noll (and someone even asked about that; they said they didn’t know what the line was like). This caused some confusion as people headed straight for the entrance (as they were told) and eventually had to be turned away to the big long line. We ended up spending about 90 minutes in line before we reached the terminal entrance. It’s not hot there…but being completely exposed to the sun with no seats, no water, no bathrooms, for that long had to have been a hardship for many of their elderly patrons. We finally saw that there was one portable toilet up near the front of the line, but just as my son went to go try and use it, a person came outside and padlocked it shut. Gee, thanks. About this time, someone came outside with a couple cases of water to hand out to people. We were already near the front by that time, but the line behind us had doubled and was wrapped around itself in a spiral. Read more