Ruby Princess Review Mexican Riviera March 21, 2015

Hello fellow cruise fanatics! I was onboard the Ruby Princess for her first Mexican Riviera voyage in March, and the ports we visited were: Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas! It was me and my wonderful grandmother, and this was our first cruise ever, and it was an amazing experience! This is my first review so bear with me, let's hope these photos come out good! I am finally on summer vacation so I have plenty of time to work on this review for you guys! ] Test image, let's see if the picture comes out! First time doing this so I hope the pictures will load!

Hello fellow cruise fanatics! I was onboard the Ruby Princess for her first Mexican Riviera voyage in March, and the ports we visited were: Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas! It was me and my wonderful grandmother, and this was our first cruise ever, and it was an amazing experience! This is my first review so bear with me, let's hope these photos come out good! I am finally on summer vacation so I have plenty of time to work on this review for you guys! Test image, let's see if the picture comes out! First time doing this so I hope the pictures will load!

Thanks for posting a review.

Can't see the photo. :(

Thanks for posting a review.

 

 

 

Can't see the photo. :(

Fixed it :D I figured it out haha!

First of let me introduce myself, I'm Alex,16, (I know I'm super young) I have had a huge passion for cruises ever since I was young, and had always dreamed of going on one! I was supposed to go on the Carnival Splendor in May 2012 with my grandparents but they backed out at the last minute! So after bugging my grandma for so long, I found this particular voyage, and one day in December 2014, there was a huge sale going on at Princess and we got an outstanding deal on this cruise! $1,200 for both me and my grandma in an inside cabin (which I didn't care what room I was staying in, I was so desperate to go on a cruise!!) We live in Southern California so it would only be an hour drive to the port! So I told my grandma and she was in! She didn't really want to go at first because she had a huge fear of the ocean LOL! But I was able to convince her and we booked! Finally my dream of a cruise had came true and the countdown began!!

After months of waiting the day finally arrived! [/img]

I had this app called "ShipMate" and it had a countdown and I was able to stalk the Ruby's webcam, and I even woke up that morning at 4 Am to see her as she docked LOL that's how excited I was that I could not sleep!

I'm looking forward to your review! :D

So now the day I have waited for, for sooo long had finally arrived and you can only imagine the excitement I had!! I was up at 7 am (I don't mind waking up early for a cruise, school on the otherhand...) My grandma refuses to drive all the way to San Pedro so we decided on taking the train from our town to LA and from there my aunt would pick us up and take us to the port! So at 8 am I left my house and me and my mom went to go pick up my grandma at her house! Our train left at 10AM and arrived at LA Union Station at 11:20am! I wanted to be at the port at around noon-ish to be on the safe side and get onboard ASAP!!

[/img] And here is the beautiful Ruby awaiting us after her long South American voyage from Ft. Lauderdale!

We soon arrived at Pier 92 to board the Ruby and we saw a huge line outside and I asked the porter what that line was for? And she replied and told me it was for those who didn't tag their luggage, and I was like "Whew Thank goodness we already printed ours out and had them attached!!" So since we were all set to go, we hand her our bags and tipped her and she told us where to go. We entered the terminal and luckily there we no line to go in since we were pretty early, it was about 12:20 PM when we went inside! After security, we checked in and got our cruise cards! We were given boarding zone 13 (scary number, I know!) and I asked the lady near the escalators what zone she was on, and she said "Oh doesn't matter come on in! Enjoy your cruise!!!" So I rushed to my grandma sitting down with our stuff and told her "LETS GO! VACATION BEGINS NOW!" I was like the energizer bunny full of excitement!

Me and my grandma waiting to board!

I'm looking forward to your review! :D

Thank you!! Hope you enjoy it! :)

So excited and happy for you that you got to take your first cruise, and that your Grandmother came with you. I grew up watching "The Love Boat" and agree that your very first cruise will always be special. Can't wait to read more of your review.:D

One more thing I forgot to add! My grandfather passed away in 2013 to cancer, and he had always promised to take me on a cruise, but when he got ill, he was terminally ill, and it was just a hard time in our lives. He told my grandma to take me on a cruise one day, and she did. After losing my grandpa, my grandma was having a very tough time, and she really needed a vacation and that's when the cruise idea was a perfect plan for that! Ok let's continue on with boarding the Ruby!

We headed up the escalator to the gangway and that's when I got to see how huge and beautiful that this ship was! I couldn't contain my excitement and as we boarded, I got a bit emotional and cried tears of joy because I could not believe this was happening, it felt like a dream, I just simply could not believe this was happening!! There was a lot of people (Spring Break!) in the gangway so it took like 10 minutes to finally set foot aboard the ship. I stepped on the ship for the first time and they took our pictures and we were finally onboard the ship! We headed up to our room A521 on the Aloha deck 12 and I quickly found the room because I had studied all the deck plans beforehand :P

[/img]

[/url][/img] Grandma settling into vacation mode near Sabatini's restaurant!

After exploring the aft areas and Lido, I wanted to show my grandma the beautiful Piazza that I kept telling her about. She was wowed and amazed of how elegant this ship was, and she was not scared of cruises anymore because it was nothing like what she had in mind, it was completely the opposite (in a good way!). We relaxed for a while in the Piazza when I saw my friend Marissa who I had met on ShipMate and we messaged everyday and she was a cruise fanatic like me, but she has like 10 cruises with Princess under her belt so she knew a lot more! It was so nice seeing her because we had became so close during the wait for the cruise and she was as excited as I was! [/url][/img] Me and Marissa and her cousin!

After meeting up with Marissa, it was time for muster drill so me and my grandma headed up to the cabin, got our life jackets, and headed to our muster station, Explorer's Lounge for the safety briefing on what to do in an emergency, my grandma was already pooped out and started falling asleep LOL someone needed a margarita to wake her up (she never got one)

Next up: Sailaway Party, First Dinner, and the end to day one!

So excited and happy for you that you got to take your first cruise, and that your Grandmother came with you. I grew up watching "The Love Boat" and agree that your very first cruise will always be special. Can't wait to read more of your review.:D

Thank you! It was an amazing trip, and I'm already looking into the next one LOL! I love the Love Boat, I watch like 2 episodes a day on YouTube, amazing show! It was so nice to be aboard one of the Princess Love Boats. The cruise will always have a special spot in my heart because I had such a great time :D

Looking forward to hearing more about the cruise. I love your enthusiasm. It reminded me of when I was 16 and took my first coast to coast plane ride alone. I was so excited. Best wishes to Grammy.

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts and pictures.....:):):)

Bob

Alex- thanks for sharing!

Keep it coming....

Norris

Thank you for your review, so far. I was on the Ruby the week after you and have never had a nicer cruise. It is nice to relive it through your review :)

Hi Alex,

We were on the same time you were and agree it was outstanding cruise.

Made me wish our granddaughters were with us .

Great review so far.

The train is a great way to get into LA, too bad it is difficult to get to San Pedro using it.

We take the Metro Link and the colored lines of the Metro system to Long Beach to sail on Carnival. We drive to San Pedro.

Thank you everyone for your kind words! I'll be posting more today for you guys, it's so fun to share my vacation with you all and it helps me relieve that amazing week!

Thank you for your review, so far. I was on the Ruby the week after you and have never had a nicer cruise. It is nice to relive it through your review :)

No problem! I was so jealous of those who boarded the ship the week after me haha! Ruby is an amazing ship, and the crew was awesome, had the time of my life onboard! :D

Hi Alex,

We were on the same time you were and agree it was outstanding cruise.

Made me wish our granddaughters were with us .

It was an amazing cruise, glad you got to enjoy this wonderful cruise too! Mexico was beautiful, I loved it! Next time you should take your granddaughters with you, I'm sure they'll have a blast! Going on vacation with your grandparents is a wonderful thing and you get to spend time with one another on a wonderful vacation! :)

Great review so far.

 

 

 

The train is a great way to get into LA, too bad it is difficult to get to San Pedro using it.

 

 

 

We take the Metro Link and the colored lines of the Metro system to Long Beach to sail on Carnival. We drive to San Pedro.

Thank you Sadie! It's very convenient, just getting from LA-San Pedro was difficult and we were so lucky my aunt was able to pick us up and give us a ride, If not we would've had to have used Uber or get a Taxi!

Thank you everyone for your kind words! I'll be posting more today for you guys, it's so fun to share my vacation with you all and it helps me relieve that amazing week!

I can hardly wait to see more pictures and read your commentary. Your itinerary was the same as my first Princess cruise 25 years ago. I also took this same cruise again with my grandmother! I feel like I'm reliving my cruises through you.:)

The Fun Continues!

After our muster drill, I headed to the cabin to take back our life jackets and I told my grandma to wait for me in the Crooner's Lounge while I did that. As I arrived at the cabin, I saw our luggage finally arrived, my grandma was super worried that they were taking so long and I told her it's normal for it to take a while since there are thousands of suitcases to be delivered! She was even like "What if that lady we gave our suitcases to doesn't even work for Princess? Is she legit?? What if she stole our luggage!" She was all worried LOL and I told her to relax and that everything will be fine! So seeing our luggage was a huge relief for me, and I met our stateroom steward, Mongkon, and he helped me with the luggage! Whew now my grandma will be relieved! I return to her and all of a sudden she's chatting with a group of people and I'm like "Dang Grandma we haven't even sailed and you already got your little clique!" LOL! And I told her our luggage had arrived woo! So while she was chatting the night away, I headed out to the Promenade deck (which I would later discover that was one of my favorite places to be on the ship) to see if we were moving yet. I FaceTime'd my mom back at home to show her around the ship as much as I could before I lost reception for a whole week, and as I was doing that, the wonderful Crown Princess sails past us on her way to San Francisco on a 7-day California Coastal Cruise. I waved to all the folks aboard, it felt that like scene from the Love Boat when they would set sail, minus the confetti.

[/img] Let the eating begin!!

Next up: A Fun First Day at Sea

I can hardly wait to see more pictures and read your commentary. Your itinerary was the same as my first Princess cruise 25 years ago. I also took this same cruise again with my grandmother! I feel like I'm reliving my cruises through you.:)

Aww thank you! :) Glad you're enjoying my review!! I love sharing my trip with all of you! I want to do this cruise again, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat :D

Alex, I am so enjoying your review. You sound very mature and intelligent for your age, good for you! I was on the Ruby a few weeks after you with the same itinerary. Like you, I loved the Ruby!

How lucky for you to take your first cruise at 16 years of age. I was 22 when I took my first cruise and that was back in 1974! I fell in love with cruising then and have never stopped. When I think of it, my first cruise might have been on the big, white steamship that use to go to Catalina from San Pedro. My mom and I made that trip often when I was just a child in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.

I’m looking forward to more of your review and pictures. Grandma looks like a sweetheart!

I love your enthusiasm! I will never forget my first cruise. The Ruby is a beautiful ship and will never forget the 12 days on the Mediterranean we spent in 2012. I really look forward to the rest of your review as we will be on the Crown in December for the same cruise itinerary as yours. The Crown is a sister ship to the Ruby so we are really looking forward to it.

Thanks for taking the time to post this review

Dixon