Ruby Princess (Jan 13-18, 2014) Photo Review

My wife and I are just back from a 5-Day cruise on the Ruby Princess. Cruise dates were Jan 13 - Jan 18, 2014. Ports of call were Princess Cay and Grand Turk. We hadn't cruised for awhile, so we splurged on a Vista Suite - Emerald 733 to be exact, an aft-facing cabin infamous on these forums for its notorious balcony beam (but more on that later).

Overall, it was a terrific, albeit short, vacation cruise. When we originally booked it back in August, we were unaware of the special promotion that essentially applied all our cruise booking charges towards a credit for a future 2014 cruise. What a deal! Checking our email this morning, we can verify the substantial credit is sitting there now. Wow! What an incredible promotion, Princess! And judging from several conversations we had on the ship... many people had booked this cruise exclusively to take advantage of it.

Anyway, this won't be a very comprehensive review but it will include a bunch of pictures taken around the ship and at ports. And a few of those pictures will hopefully clear up some of the questions frequently asked about this ship and its services.

The Ruby Princess docked at the Cruise Center on Grand Turk along with the passport stamp we earned this cruise.

It being January, we chose to fly from NY to Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, two days before the cruise. Ironically, it was Saturday that became the travel nightmare day! Two cancelled flights (for fog of all things!), a mad dash to another NYC airport where we faced an even longer flight delay. Yada yada yada... 12 hours later we touched down at FLL. It was well after midnight but we had made it. Totally frustrating nightmare! But it's amazing how 5 days out on a cruise eradicates the bad memory.

Embarkment at Port Everglades on Monday went really well. We dropped a rental car (from Sixt - a German based company renting imports in Ft. Lauderdale had an AMAZING deal) off at their off-airport return facility and were quickly shuttled to the port. It was about noon... lots of traffic bottle-necking into the port, but once past the gate, it was a well run procedure.

We checked our luggage and I want to mention we used the laminate pouches folks have talked about here for our luggage tags - they worked great.

We've used the stapler method before, but these laminate pouches are simple to use and gave us more peace of mind.

We got onto a fast moving line through security. (Saw a sign for Bon Voyage participants, but as far as I know, there was no such program available for this sailing... we had looked into having some our Floridian family members come aboard for the afternoon but were told there was no BV option).

The security scanner saw the two bottles in our carry-on and told us to go to the desk to register it. As others have mentioned, you could easily bypass and no one would notice or care. We "registered" our bottle of wine and champagne no problem, then filled in the short health form and headed to the check-in station to get our boarding cards. It was a fast process and all of use were waved through the waiting area.... we were going directly on board! No waiting necessary. This, again, was just shortly after noon.

A look back at the entrance and security area... just before boarding.

We took our gang plank photo... and then they scanned our boarding cards and took our pictures with a hand-held device (no more bong-bong machine) and we were on! By passing a barrage of drink-package vendors and other shopping coupon peddlers, we headed up to our cabin... not to bad a hike since we were located on a low deck - deck 8, Emerald. All the way in the back! Great... we still had enough time to eat in the dining room for lunch, rather than the Horizon Court buffet. Good choice.

A montage of cabin shots from E-733 including our welcoming flowers and fruit basket.

So that's how it all began. (And how quickly it will all go by!)

I'll post some more later on...

Excellent pictures, looking forward to more as well as your review.

Thanks

We will be cruising on the Ruby Princess in February. Love seeing your pictures. It is very helpful to see what the port is like before we get there. Will be waiting for the rest of your pictures to see 1st hand what the Ruby looks like.

Where did you get the laminate pouches for your baggage tags? Would like to order some.

Welcome to CC,

Very nice!! :)

Very nice start. I like how you tweeked the photos. Good job.

Beautiful photos!

Looking forward to more :)

WinksCruises welcome to Cruise Critic and thanks for the great pictures.

We will be cruising on the Ruby in less than two weeks also in a Vista Suite D736. Interested to hear all about your cruise.

Mike:)

This is amazing thank you so much! We are cruising on the Ruby for our first cruise on Feb 1 so this is so helpful! I look forward to hearing more.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Beautiful pictures. We are on Ruby, same itin as you, a week from tomorrow, keep the pictures coming!

Awesome! looking forward to the rest.

WinksCruises - great job on the pictures. Thanks for posting this. I'm on the Ruby (4 day) next month. Looking at these pics and hearing about your cruise is a nice way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Thanks again!

Tess

We are on the ruby princess right now. She is a great ship! Nice review too

Thanks for all your kind comments. Happy to share some of our experiences. Fact is, I'd spent weeks before this cruise reading up on all the recent reviews of the Ruby here on CC and found all that information invaluable... so hopefully some of you can glean something from this one.

So... to continue: We ran down to the dining room and enjoyed having a served lunch rather than dealing with the usual embarkment day zoo scene at the buffet... although, after all is said and done, the ship rarely felt crowded. Any lines we did encounter tended to move relatively quickly.

After lunch, it was back up to the suite to unpack and meet our cabin steward.

Here are some shots of the suite layout starting with the bathroom. I find the separate bath / shower a waste of space... but my wife took advantage of the jacuzzi tub several times. The toilet and vanity are in a separate room from the bath... and you can enter the facilities from the bedroom area or right as you come in the main door. Strange, but functional. I've enjoyed the layouts of other suite bathrooms more (dual sinks, combined tub/showers, and most notably more storage options - this bathroom had no real shelving for personal toiletry items!)

Another strange layout feature was the "walk in" closet. While yes, you could technically walk into it, it was oddly designed, with storage tucked into corners and up into crannies. In the end, functional, but it wasn't always easy getting dressed - say on formal night when both my wife and I were running in to grab an accessory. The room safe is located in one of the hutch spaces here, but the safe isn't all that large. Large enough for passport and a camera, but not for tablets or laptops.

Some people have mentioned the new soap / shampoo dispensers that have replaced getting daily individual bottles. Here's a picture so you can see it. There's shampoo/conditioner dispenser and body wash dispenser. In addition, in the suites, you get bath salts for use with the tub.

Best Princess suite perk? Free laundry and dry cleaning. Nice! This is a useful service... even though Princess already also offers guests use of laundry room with machines and irons.

The free mini-bar set-up is a little bizarre. Unless you're entertaining, who needs the variety of shot bottles? And this time I noticed, there was no 375ml wine included. No wine in a bar set-up? So instead of taking home little bottles of shampoo and body lotion, we're now taking home little bottles of scotch and gin...which is great at home when a guest wants a drink of something you wouldn't stock a bottle of!

Anyway, for those who have asked about the mini-bar set-up, here's a picture of the refill card - which shows you everything you get in your initial set-up.

On a side note, some people have said the aft cabins suffer from excessuve noise and vibration, but we only found this to be true when the ship was pushing off, laterally, from the pier. Yes, then the whole cabin shakes! But it only lasts a few minutes and is kind of funny actually. If you've slept in, you definitely know when you're docking! But during the main journey, it was all smooth and quiet.

Our steward, Renato, stopped by to introduce himself and drop off two mini champagnes for our sail off. He was an excellent steward.... keeping the ice bucket filled, supplying the additional blanket we requested and always greeting us in the hall with a smile and hello.

My DW and Renato our steward

Before we knew it, it was time for Muster. We headed down the back emergency exit (right down the hall from our cabin door) to the Club Fusion lounge just beneath us. (Again, no noise issues from being located above this night club). Sat through the usual drill, tried on our life jackets and then headed back up.

We then popped the champagne, broke open the tray of chocolate covered strawberries and sat back as the Ruby slipped out of Port Everglades, with the Celebrity Constellation (a ship we'd been on in 2013) and a gorgeous sunset hot on our heels.

Sail Away

More later - including our first port of call, Princess Cay.

If you are inclined in the future you may exchange the mini bar setup for all of one brand that you like or exchange the whole thing for one bottle of wine.

The lack of vanity shelving is the only drawback that we have with vista suites as the PH suites have multiple shelves on either side of the sink.

Great pictures, keep them coming!

Mike:)

We will be cruising on the Ruby Princess in February. Love seeing your pictures. It is very helpful to see what the port is like before we get there. Will be waiting for the rest of your pictures to see 1st hand what the Ruby looks like.

 

Where did you get the laminate pouches for your baggage tags? Would like to order some.

They are called "cruise tags" or "cruisetags". There are a number of online outlets for them, including amazon. They are very useful, though I lost one to the airline (someone advised putting luggage tags for the cruise on before I left home in case the bags were delayed).

Thanks for the info, Wehwalt. Think we will order some.

we were on this cruise and enjoyed ourselves, thanks for the photos

Where did you get those laminate pouches?? Love them!

Where did you get those laminate pouches?? Love them!

Oops nevermind my question... I got so excited when I saw that photo, I didn't read the rest of the posts!

Anyways, thanks for the photo review! I'm very seriously considering a suite later this year.

We had opted for Anytime Dining and since we generally eat late anyway, getting seated after 8:30pm was never an issue - - but we did see lines (and beepers) greeting those who chose to dine earlier. Dinner selections were good… some days better than others, but except for the painfully delicious desserts, none of the entrees was exceptional enough to write home about. Dining room service was good.

The next morning, we were anchored off Princess Cays. It was a pretty windy day and there was some talk that we might not be able to tender to the resort safely… but eventually we were given the go ahead, with an advisement to those inclined for motion sickness to utilize appropriate remedies.

The lifeboat tender ride was in fact pretty rough - with some true roller coaster worthy dips and dives. Several passengers did vomit once on shore. All I know is I’d hate to be in one of these vessels in high seas!

We splurged and reserved a private bungalow. In the end, I don’t think it was worth the hefty price tag. It was a small shack with just a table and air conditioning, but not much more. Sadly, because the bungalows are located on a main foot traffic artery, we spent a lot of time just keeping an eye on it - as a unending stream of curious passerby’s kept trying to sneak-a-peak inside or mistakenly thought the bungalows were some sort of shop or other public amenity. So that got a little annoying. And is probably why, for even more money, you can rent a Sanctuary bungalow... located within what's effectively the gated community of Princess Cays.

Princess Cays "Private" Bungalows

Lunch was a crowded affair. Food was okay for barbecue. There was a nice fresh fruit selection to counter the cookie and brownie dessert station. In the end, it was nice to have the bungalow just to have a place to sit and eat because the rest of the picnic area was very busy. It was one of the few times I got that “people are animals” feelings on the cruise.

Lunch facilities

Overall, Princess Cays is great place to spend the day. There are suitably varied activities to keep everyone occupied and the area’s general layout works reasonably well. Clouds were rolling in by mid afternoon and we actually thought we might get caught in a squall on the return tender.

Random Views of Princess Cays

Return tender trip to the ship

Tomorrow, I’ll post about our day at sea and show more pictures of the ship and the Elite Lounge.

Thank you for this wonderful review! I'm considering the Ruby Princess for a future cruise - can't wait for more!

Thanks for the review. I am loving it so far and can't wait to read more. I will be on the Ruby next month.

Great post... want to see more of the ship if you have

Thanks all... more to come!

Thank you for this wonderful review! I'm considering the Ruby Princess for a future cruise - can't wait for more!

Truth be told, pulling out the wide angle lens and taking time to get shots around the ship with a CC review in mind was TOTALLY inspired by reading your exceptional photo blog detailing your recent cruise on the Royal Princess. Thanks for reminding us all how it can and should be done!

Thanks all... more to come!

 

Truth be told, pulling out the wide angle lens and taking time to get shots around the ship with a CC review in mind was TOTALLY inspired by reading your exceptional photo blog detailing your recent cruise on the Royal Princess. Thanks for reminding us all how it can and should be done!

Aww, thank you! And perfect time on starting your review - I'm going to need another "cruise fix" since I just finished my own. :D