LidoLiz

Yes! And you can order off of both menus.

Yes, Botticelli. Janice at the front desk has been very accommodating. The friends we are travelling with have now also switched to there.

We have had the same experience. After two nights of long lines and lacklustre service, we switched dining rooms and now have reserved the same table and servers….So. Much. Better! We still are fans of these older ships. I too found the Royal too big, too loud and while it has a great buffet, I missed the wraparound Promenade deck and quiet Lotus Pool.

Tonight’s vegan menu…. The “starter” was the open-faced cauliflower taco, which was enormous and delicious. I was able to finish about half. The beet and pear slaw was interesting and colourful…. … and I can’t believe I ate almost the entire main pasta dish, as I normally ask for a half portion. The farfalle was al dente with plenty of pine nuts. The evening finished off with a warm Drambuie and a stroll up to see the beautiful Lotus pool, which is currently overflowing into the indoor spa area as we battle some strong winds down to Barbados.

We followed a similar path….off the ship to tour around (briefly) in the port. Being Remembrance Day/Veteran’s Day, we paid our respects at the Martinique war memorial, which actually looked like it has been vandalized with red paint. The memorial listed all those from Martinique who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the Great War, the Second World War, Indochina, etc. Onboard, the ship observed a minute of silence at 11 am. The Piazza actually fell quiet while people stopped to bow their heads. (Other than the one oblivious woman who continued to yak on her cellphone). After we returned to the ship, I tried the vegetarian sweet potato tacos at the Salty Dog grill. They actually looked much nicer than the burgers (to a vegetarian, at least!) and the corn shell was crispy.

This is the Captain that had the unfortunate dock “bumping” incident recently in San Francisco, so I’m sure he is being extra cautious! Those with private excursions are now busily working their phones to cancel and/or rebook, but who knows where we will end up?

Goodbye, Martinique and sorry we didn’t get to know you!

UPDATE….The Captain has just announced we will miss Martinique “with a heavy heart” due to 25-35 knot winds. We are currently puttering offshore of Fort de France…and the pilot has disembarked. It’s definitely breezy out there, but calm seas, hardly a whitecap. Ah well, the adventures of cruising! We will spend the day at sea.

And for the veg-heads, last night’s vegan menu. The mushroom dish was THE BEST main entree that I have had so far….

A few more photos from my afternoon walkabout. The refurbished Ruby is looking pretty good. I went into the area off the Lotus Spa on Deck 16 to check out what was formerly the free sauna and steam room. Just like on the Emerald, these features are gone…but the new showers in the locker room look pretty nice and there is absolutely no signs indicating you have to be a paying Lotus spa patron to use them. So I may try them after tomorrow’s gym time. I’ve added a couple more gym photos …I was able to use the spinner bike, just had to roll it away from the wall. Also visited the new arcade but it is closed like the casino while in port…. The sports deck is also very tidy and the mini golf is now fun! (Sorry that I haven’t figured out how to separate my photos yet…or why the mini golf is upside down!!)

Good morning, Guadeloupe! We had our first experience at the Salty Dog gastropub last night. Both the food and the service were absolutely top notch.

At the Outrigger bar, right above the aft Terrace Pool. The Juice Bar menu sign seems to be out only in the mornings…I was there just after 7 am and was able to get them. It’s included in the Plus/Premium packages.

Oh, and the gym and new cycle/stretching area are great! Nice and quiet on a port day, as were the pools. They were doing some repairs on the Lotus Pool, which hasn’t been opened yet, but it was refilled today, so fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Lots of available deck chairs on the Promenade deck, which wraps all the way around on the Ruby. We’re tied up today next to our sister ship, Emerald Princess! There’s also a Celebrity ship here in St. Kitts, so the shopping area at the port was busy. I tried another couple of selections at the aft Juice Bar this morning…the carrot, ginger and turmeric one is certainly a waker-upper!

We decided to abandon the Michelangelo dining room tonight and switched to Botticelli….OMG what a difference. The lineup to get in was still a bit long (we had a 7 pm reservation and were seated at 7:15 pm) but the level of service was like night and day. Not to disrespect the hardworking Michelangelo servers, but the coordination just wasn’t there and for the last two nights, the dinner service took over two hours. So we switched, and are now Botticelli loyalists with a standing reservation. And the vegan Buddha bowl was fantastic.

The PES lounge is being held in Club Fusion….when did they move it away from Skywalkers? (Sigh)

We are also aboard this cruise and so far, I’m really enjoying the vegan menu. Last night was French potato salad with dijon, eggless tomato pasta (not sure who Norma is), and a curried cabbage that didn’t look that attractive but was outstanding!

Curious as to whether they have removed the free sauna and steam rooms on the Ruby, like they did on the Emerald?

Hopefully we will get some reviews of the new vegan menus soon. I don’t see where to sign up on the Personalizer, but there is a dietary preference button in the app.

Not sure if this has been posted before, but this is a useful website to see recent photos, videos, data, etc. of Caribbean beaches that are being negatively affected by seaweed this year. Some of the photos are pretty sobering. https://sargassummonitoring.com On our westbound TA last November, I did see some pretty large sargassum mats west of the Azores, and I’m not sure what direction they were moving!

I phoned the main Princess number, told them it was a cheque issue and asked to be transferred to the credit department.

If it’s true, hopefully it will be similar to sister ship Emerald’s drydock last fall before we sailed her across the Atlantic in November. We enjoyed new carpets, pool tiling and a hull paint job, and up at the Sports Court, a much nicer putting green/bocce ball surface, as well as new equipment (basketballs, etc). Unfortunately, we lost the free cedar sauna and steam rooms. 😢

Thanks, LouCoop….I also just contacted the credit department at Princess….but they said it will take 6-8 weeks for a new cheque to be issued. They are obviously giving out different information …I hope for your sake that you see your cheque within the week!

I just opened our mail (we are also in Canada) and found the same thing. I was able to get through to the Princess credit department almost immediately 😮 just now and the very nice gal told me this is the second report she’s had today of this. She provided the number to call Bottomline Technologies, and told me to give them the check number to re-issue. The phone # is 1-877-443-6944. I will be calling first thing tomorrow! Good Luck!

I just posted a note about a similar experience on the main DMW thread. Yesterday, I changed our 6:20 p.m. ‘shared’ table for four people to a 7 p.m. ‘private’ table for four. Today, I received a similarly worded response — except they sent me 14 separate emails, one for every night of our upcoming cruise — to confirm my changed times! I have never received an email, let alone 14, about my dining times before. So they are being a bit more responsive.