Another Review of the Ruby Princess Grand Mediterranean Cruise May 6 - May 18

[caribill]

Murano is lovely for lunch. I find it less expensive. Some glass factories will take you on a private "water taxi" to see a glass blowing demo. Then they take you to their showroom, no obligation to buy.

 

Beware if you do buy something and you ship it to the US it will be subject to duty. They packaged my purchase and I hand carried it through customs and avoided duty.

 

Not true for glass that can be considered a work of art. On two seperate trips we have had glass shipped to the USA and no duty was charged.

[lovevacadays]

Thank you for your review. Very interesting to read. The more of these reviews I read the more excited I get for my cruise next year on the Royal.

 

Nice to hear you had Ron Goodman as your cruise director. He has been my favorite so far.!

 

You mentioned you did the hop on and off bus in Barcelona. Were there any particular points of interest you enjoyed more than others?

[PathfinderEss]

Great review, thanks for posting it.

[IDsailor]

What was your impression of this hotel. We have it booked for 4 days in September pre-cruise.

[ShajSneaka]

nice I will be on the this trip from Venice in 3 days.

[UT-Volsfan]

What was your impression of this hotel. We have it booked for 4 days in September pre-cruise.

 

We thought this was a good value for the price. The rooms, like you expect to find in Europe, are smaller than the rooms you'll find in the U.S. The hotel is in a very good location. The pink theme colors mentioned in the online rooms isn't bad and you do get used to it - it's not as overpowering as you might think.

 

We had an interior room when we checked in that overlooked the small courtyard inside the hotel. One thing you may need to check on when you get there is whether your room has air conditioning or not. When we got in our room, we found a panel beside the door labeled with controls for the various room features, including air conditioning. However, there was a blank panel plate where the AC controls were supposed to be. We went to the front desk and switched to another room that had AC (no difference in price). You may want to check in early, that way if you don't like your room you have a better chance of switching.

 

The breakfast/snack area is off of the lobby. The food is nothing fancy but decent for breakfast. You may have noticed they advertise you can get free wine and beer as well as sodas there. The sodas and coffee were OK and we took advantage of those. The wine was nothing I'd recommend drinking and we didn't try the beer (I don't remember what was on tap).

 

There is a small elevator in the hotel that we used to bring our bags in/out. Other than that we used the stairs.

 

A taxi stand is located just outside of the hotel. There are several restaurants and other activities to visit within a short walking distance. We picked up some bottles of wine for the first couple of days of the cruise within a block of the hotel.

 

Hop on/Hop off bus service is located within 5 minutes of the hotel, across the street from the Hard Rock Cafe.

[homeinboca]

What a great review! Thanks for posting. We are booked to do this cruise next summer on the Royal and really looking forward to this great itinerary.