The Cruisin' Fools: November 2008

First of all, we apologize for not posting while we were on board the beautiful Ruby Princess. There were so many passengers accessing the Internet, which caused it to slow down immensely. So we decided to just sit back and enjoy the two-day trip to nowhere and tour the ship.

We arrived at Port Everglades about 11:30 AM after a 4-hour drive from our home in Lakeland, Florida. Our first glimpse of the Ruby Princess was as we drove to the parking garage. It was a breathtaking site. The Ruby Princess is 931 feet in length and 118 feet wide. She has a maximum passenger capacity of 3,150 her gross tonnage is 113,561 tons. Fuel capacity is 701,983 gallons. Fresh water capacity is 722,349 gallons. Cruising speed is 22.5 knots.

Check in was a breeze; all check in is done by deck so the lines weren’t as long as we’ve experienced on other ships. We were given a cabin on the Baja Deck, or Deck 11 and once we checked in we headed for the line to board the ship. We were told by a Princess employee to use the elevator if we needed to. So we headed over to the elevator and came out on the second floor of the terminal where we were able to have our photo taken and we got to board in the front of the line.

Once on board we went to our balcony cabin number B246, which was port side forward, deposited our luggage and met our cabin steward Enrenkia from Portugal. The cabin itself was ok. The shower was too small for Tim; that meant the shower curtain and Tim were very close friends.

We decided it was time for lunch and headed up to the Lido deck and the Horizon Court for our lunch. The Horizon Court food selection was not very large but it was adequate. The quality of the food provided, however, was very good as was the service from the staff.

After eating we embarked on our own self-guided tour of the Ruby Princess top to bottom; after all, we did need to work off the great lunch we’d just eaten. The pool deck mid ship was being decorated for the Naming Ceremony and a wedding that was going to be held on the upper pool deck. Part of the decorations included deep red roses everywhere, even floating in the middle of the pool

We continued on our tour and made our way to the aft of the ship where there was another pool and hot tubs overlooking that pool. We also saw Skywalkers Nightclub, which is located above the Funzone Youth and Teen center. Ruby Princess is making sure to provide entertainment for all age levels and has three Funzone groups: Princess Pelicans, Shockwaves and Remix.

The next stop on our tour was the three dining rooms. Yes, you read that right; Ruby Princess has 3 dinning rooms. Botticelli on Deck 5 aft, Michelengelo on deck 5 midship and Da Vinci on deck 6 midship. We had dinner in Botticelli on Thursday evening and we are sorry to say that the lobster tasted old. Like lunch, service again was excellent. On Friday night we joined friends from our host agency for dinner in the Da Vinci and enjoyed a much better dinner.
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The Ruby Princess also has two specialty restaurants available on board. Sabatini’s and the Crown Grill, although neither was open for this two-day cruise.

On Friday we decided to try a different dining option and had lunch in the Wheelhouse bar. This was a very popular dining location as it was English Pub style. Diane had the Fish and chips and Tim had both the fish and chips and an English sandwich since he couldn’t decide. And of course Tim had a Guinness while Diane had her champagne.

The most popular public area of the Ruby Princess, and our most favorite, is the Piazza. There is variety of activities in this area from live entertainment to pastries, a European style coffee and Sushi bar.

Princess Theater is very audience friendly and provides a good view of the stage from all seats. We attended two shows while on board. Thursday night we watched ‘Adbacadabra’ this is a musical Tribute act to the Swedish group ABBA. The second show we attended was a tribute to the life of Gavin MacLeod, which included a video of his life and audience questions and answer session.

Now remember the naming ceremony I mentioned earlier? This took place on the pool deck, or to be more specific The Neptune’s Reef on decks 15 and 16 midship. We arrived late but we were in time to see the introductions of several people including the original love boat Captain - Captain Merrill Stubing. The national anthem was sung, speeches were given by all of the invited dignitaries and then it was announced by the cruise director, James Lay, that there was going to be a wedding ceremony. A couple from California had won a contest to be married on board the Ruby Princess and Captain Stubing (Gavin Macleod) was to give away the bride. We watched as the bride made her way down from deck 18 to the alter and then we decided that we would view the remaining parts of the ceremony on video because it was very hot outside. To view the Naming and Wedding Ceremony click here.

Our overall impression of the Ruby Princess is that she is a very beautiful ship with an excellent utilization of both public and cabin spaces.

Enjoy the photos that we took during our short two-day cruise feel free to comment.