EricW578

fYI My taxi from MIA to downtown Miami (just across the water from the port, staying at The Guild downtown) was $32 + tip at 3pm on a Tues in light traffic. I didn't reserve a shuttle for the return trip to MIA. I don't have a flight to catch, I'm just heading to the airport to rent a car. I'm touring Florida for a few weeks after this cruise, so I figured if I have to wait a few hours my rental car will still be there. Hopefully the ride shares and taxis will be past the big rush by the time I get off the ship (10:30am ish)

Yep, I searched on a much better search engine than google (qwant) and got similar results. Express shuttle was confusing as hell to book and only offered shuttles until 10am (I was going to roll off the boat at 10:30am), another company did shuttles until 11am but had a lot of spelling and other errors on their website that made me not want to trust them with my credit card for a reservation, and on and on... I got the impression that it would be better for me to just wait until the day of, and if there are any shuttles around when I get off the boat to just walk up to them and see if they have space. Otherwise I'll grab a rideshare, with any luck the wait for one won't be too bad. As an over-planner who likes to have things booked and not play things by ear, I'm trying to stay calm and roll with it. The youtube videos I found explaining how to get from the airport to the port were pretty complicated with a LOT of transferring. Apparently there is no direct bus or train between MIA and the Port of Miami. Bad Miami, do better! lol Not sure how accurate or out of date this is, but taxis between MIA and the port are $27, and rideshares are around $35 or more depending on how bad traffic is. brightline does not go to MIA, but would be a great option if I were going to a different airport or traveling north. All of this searching is disappointing when you compare the experience of searching for a shuttle, taxi, or public transit information at most other major ports. Add in that Virgin doesn't offer booking shuttles through them and it's just frustrating. Other lines at the same port allow you to easily book a transfer, imo Virgin should do the same instead of only offering a private car service for $175 when confused first time passengers like myself reach out. Not a huge deal.

I just went through this exact bs with VV support. Ridiculous that they don't have a shuttle service (in the $30-45 range pp) to offer people disembarking trying to get to any of the local airpots. Anyone have any tips for a shared shuttle service to MIA from the port of Miami? Info out there is surprising hard to find.

Ship: Ruby Princess Class: Crown Class Deck: 10 Caribe Cabin # C 749 - Curaçao Suite Category: Category S3 - Balcony Suite (Full Suite with Club Class privileges) Port/Starboard/Bow/Stern: Starboard Stern Connects With Cabin: No Accessible: ? Don't remember Quiet: Vibrations when docking/undocking, some gentle engine vibrations at sea. Not too bad Balcony Size: Large spacious balcony with one table and 4 chairs and 2 loungers + side table, plenty of space and a wooden rail along the back to lean on while looking aft of the ship. The balcony has a blue grid material on the deck, assuming because there might be sea spray? It wasn't comfortable bare foot. Our party also had a similar suite up on deck 12, Aloha 751 was very similar but their balcony had a wood deck that was much more comfortable. View: Great view of the wake behind the ship. Overhead is protected, there was always shade to be found. Privacy Issues: None Wind: Protected Soot: No issues with soot on my trip Problems: None Comments: We had a wonderful time in this cabin. It was quiet, and John our room steward did an amazing job. Enjoyed the club class dining, and the other perks that come with a full suite. Soaking in the jacuzzi tub was lovely, and I like how the shower/tub is a separate room from the sink/toilet. Someone could be showering or soaking and the other bathroom area was still usable for others. I highly recommend having breakfast on the balcony one day, in nice weather it is quite special to wake up and have a lovely breakfast neatly prepared out on the balcony. Just make sure to order it the night before. Overall enjoyed this spacious room, we played cards, ordered in a few times, and hung out on the balcony plenty. Highly recommend! This cabin has fresh carpet installed, they did it on one of the port days during our trip.

The last time I sailed with Princess and had a full suite I really enjoyed the concierge lounge. Was bummed to hear that the Ruby Princess doesn't have that. I'll be on that ship in a week and half, oh well I'll manage to survive somehow I hope there is a pamphlet or something in the room outlining all of the suite benefits, this will be a new ship for me and it has been a while since I cruised.

The medallion app was horrible, but after the last outage it is working a lot better for me. I hope whatever Princess did on the backend sticks, the app was almost usable. Although the scrolling is still very weird, as a former software dev I have no idea how they managed to screw that up so thoroughly, if you just let it be the system handles it flawlessly (I'm using the android app).