Ruby Princess Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,976 reviews

Another Great Princess Cruise

Review for the Mexican Riviera Cruise on Ruby Princess
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macnicol
10+ Cruises • Age 80s

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Sail Date: Jan 2018
Cabin: Balcony
Sunset leaving port
Grand Princess in port with the Ruby
Holland America Westerdam accompanied the Ruby from Cabo to LA
One of the many statues along the Malecon
Sunset south of Catalina on way to Puerto Vallarta

We booked this cruise was for my 75th Birthday celebration. Our cabin steward, Cyrus, was excellent and kept the cabin neat and clean without being intrusive. The Botticelli dining wait staff, Richard and Edson, were excellent and service was what we've come to expect from Princess. The Princess Theater singers and dancers were very enthusiastic and talented and although we've seen these production shows many times, they still are interesting and exciting to watch.

The featured singer, David Austen, was one of best we heard on a cruise and we bought his CD. The comedian, Doug Funk, was a fantastic improvisationalist, and had the audience laughing from the beginning to end of his performance. He was assisted by some very bright and engaging volunteer audience participants. The assistant cruise director, a young man from Australia, was very funny and always had a smile for everyone entertaining everyone with his dialect impersonations.

The Ruby, even thought it is not one of the newest Princess ships, still looked great and was well maintained. However, it is due for a refurb, especially the cabin carpets because some passengers are not careful about spills that leave minor stains that can't be removed by shampooing.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin BE

We booked this cruise was for my 75th Birthday celebration. We booked at end of Nov and we couldn’t pick a balcony in our category so we were in a guaranteed cabin status. We were getting anxious because on Friday morning before the cruise we still hadn’t been assigned a cabin. I checked again late Friday afternoon and saw that a cabin had finally been assigned. We were expecting to get a poor location since the cabin was available so late.

However, we were pleasantly surprised to find our cabin was where we had wanted on the aft Riviera deck except on the port versus the starboard side. The cabin was a standard balcony with excellent views from the aft Riviera level, close to Carib Cafe. Our cabin steward, Cyrus, was excellent and kept the cabin neat and clean without being intrusive.

We had second seating and had an aft window table for 4 but just for the two of us since our friends who had booked to accompany us had to cancel due to illness literally at the last minute.The Botticelli dining wait staff, Richard and Edson, were excellent and service was what we've come to expect from Princess.

The Princess Theater singers and dancers were very enthusiastic and talented and although we've seen these production shows many times, they still are interesting and exciting to watch.

The featured singer, David Austen, was one of best we’ve heard on a cruise and we bought his CD. The comedian, Doug Funk, was a fantastic improvisationalist, and had the audience laughing from the beginning to end of his performance. He was assisted by some very bright and engaging volunteer audience participants. The assistant cruise director, a young man from Australia, was very funny and always had a smile for everyone entertaining everyone with his dialect impersonations.

The Ruby, even thought it is not one of the newest Princess ships, still looked great and was well maintained. However, it is due for a refurb, especially the cabin carpets because some passengers are not careful about spills that leave minor stains that can't be removed by shampooing.

We saw about a dozen whales and many, many dolphins that rollicked in the bow waves of the ship jumping and doing flips at the cheers and laughter of the passengers.

In Puerto Vallarta we were in port with the Grand Princess and were berthed at pier 3 since the usual pier 1 area is under construction. We repeated the Viva Tequila excursion since we enjoyed it so much the last time we did it in March 2017. It has changed with the open air, multi-car "trolley" thru the city tour was replaced with a bus because the city decided it was too disruptive to local traffic. The Tequila Museum is a newer building converted by the Mexican Tequila producers and is in a refurbed large stage theater. We were given "unlimited" margaritas made the traditional Mexican way not the American way and they were much better. The museum staff gave a tour and presentation on the myths and origin of tequila and how it is made which was very informative. In the theater there was an enlightening discussion of how to drink and distinguish between the major varieties of tequila based on its processing and aging. We then had a sample of each of the tequila varieties, Blanca/Silver, Reposado and Anejo to taste. One of the best folkloric shows that we've ever seen was then presented. This was then followed by a short walk to the beach for a complementary lunch at the Mangos beach side restaurant. Highly recommend this excursion when in Puerto Vallarta.

At Cabo we were in port with Holland America's Westerdam which left with us and we paralleled our courses all the way to LA being only a little more than mile or so apart for the last 2 days. It was neat to see their lights at night off the port side.

In summary, our cruise on the Ruby was great and we truly did come back relaxed and renewed.

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