LIVE from Ruby Princess 16 December 2017

[cougaraz]

We are just departing from Mazatlán on the evening of day five and it is time for a big update. I will bring you up to speed on our day in Puerto Vallarta and up through our early evening here today in Mazatlán. Yesterday, we booked a tour with Princess to go with Vallarta Adventures to Las Caletas beach resort. As our reporting time for the tour wasn’t until 10AM, we headed to the dining room for breakfast at a leisurely pace and gentlemanly hour. I had the daily special of Huevos Rancheros which most of the mom and pop Mexican places in my hometown would not have recognized as such since it was basically just fried eggs on refried beans with a side of salsa and cheese. That being said, it was very tasty, but I had severe plate envy of my wife’s James Beard French Toast with its crispy exterior and ooey-gooey goodness on the inside (the James Beard French Toast wasn’t on the menu, but our waiter said he could make it available in part due to the fact that you could have shot a cannon through the dining room yesterday morning it was so empty.

 

 

Post breakfast we had plenty of time for a slathering of sunscreen, some Zika fighting bug spray and then off to the Princess theater where we waded into the masses. There was a sharp contrast between previous Princess tour experiences, yesterday’s and then today’s. Yesterdays was a substantial anomaly. Instead of having people arriving tagged with a colored sticker, seated by group, and then called together, they simply packed everyone into the Theater and as soon as everyone was seated, began emptying the theater row by row to walk ashore and find your tour group. Honestly, I saw very little utility in going to the theater at all as once we were on the pier we still had to wade through the chaos to find our group.

 

 

 

Having found our group, we proceeded to walk (probably ¼ to 1/3 of a mile) to our boat and board for the ride to Las Caletas. The two deck catamaran had an open bar with margaritas, rum punch, beer, bottled water and mocktails for the young folks and those choosing not to drink. We did this tour last year and there was one difference on the transit, last year on the way over we stopped to view some Blue-Footed Boobies, but this year we went straight to the resort. My recollection is a little fuzzy, but I do think we had a little more time at the resort last year than this year. On arrival, we proceeded directly to our lunch location, which was up the hill quite a bit (there are a smattering of eating spots all offering the same menu) around the resort. The food was AWESOME! I don’t have a Mexican grandma, but if I did I would hope she made delicious roasted Poblano peppers and onions, potato and cheese fried tacos, home made guacamole, amazing fried fish and then cinnamon sugar treats with Mexican coffee for dessert!

 

 

After lunch (which is all you care to enjoy and with all you care to drink), we made our way to the adults only area of the resort and set up shop on a couple of loungers while we waited for our massages. Of course, Salvador was there with a margarita in hand momentarily and the time with my book and my drink passed quickly. We hiked a short distance up the hill to the spa for our massages (simultaneous, but in different treatment rooms) and it was the deal of the cruise. A one hour massage was $44, that is about 25% of what it would cost on the ship and, as a veteran of many cruise spas, the massage was as good or better and my masseuse didn’t spend 15 minutes trying to sell me products! I walked out a little oily, a lot relaxed and in a very good state of mind! We waited a few minutes for our return boat ride and then were sailing back the pier. The bar stayed open on the return and the crew put on a good little lip synching show. A few of our fellow passengers had clearly over-indulged at the resort, continued to do so on the boat and made a not-so-flattering spectacle of themselves. The line between having a good time and being an attention-seeking annoyance isn’t that fine and it shouldn’t be too difficult to stay on the correct side.

 

 

We returned to the ship and enjoyed a nice hot shower and resultant oil slick in the tub before we headed down to dinner with our favorite service team. They were on their game again last night with starters of venison and duck terrine and twice baked goat cheese soufflé. One thing I love about cruising is getting to enjoy foods I would never get at home, I mean I don’t even know where I would go at home to get a venison and duck terrine! We asked our assistant waiter Max about why there weren’t any breadsticks on this cruise and low and behold, they appeared. Turns out that once in the basket they must be eaten or discarded and as so many were going to waste, they are now available on request. As with so many other things in cruising, being polite, asking questions and talking to people is almost always going to lead to a satisfactory solution. We then had a nice intermezzo of sorbet and then an off-menu entrée of scallops with tiny pasta, peas, pea puree, butternut squash puree and a berre blanc sauce. For dessert, my wife had coffee and some little cookies, while I opted for the trio of chocolate. There ended the adventure for the day.

 

 

This morning we were up early and entered the dining room on the stroke of seven when it opened. We weren’t the only ones there, but I counted less than 20 passengers by the time we left and the service was thus quick and individual. We had a big day ahead, but I just couldn’t manage to go for the big English fry-up and then attempt a hike. I instead had scrambled eggs and fixings and my wife her beloved fried eggs. We both got English muffins and it is quite a luxury to enjoy a fresh baked bread with your breakfast served with a host of jams and jellies all on fine china and a table cloth.

This morning’s tour meeting was much more traditional, arrival in the theater, a nice Yellow #4 sticker, seating by group and then being called by group out to the pier. We opted for the El Faro lighthouse hike and our guide Cristobal was awesome. Hike is a nice term for what is basically a walk up a newly constructed (but yet somehow completed dilapidated) side walk and stairway to the light house at the top. It is a fairly aggressive walk, but even with the vertical elevation change it isn’t long to the top. At the top we had a cold drink and tour of the lighthouse, which was okay, but not spectacular.

 

 

I appreciate that a tour that involved actually sweating was offered as generally speaking a Princess tour that says strenuous means getting on and off the bus a couple of times and is likely to garner a lot of complaining. I would note that it was warm this morning and we were happy to have taken water. Cristobal is probably in great shape, because he was going again with another group, departing at 1200ish and that would have been a roasty walk up the hill.

We stopped in the port Mercado for a few essentials and to fulfil a few shopping requests before returning to the ship and a fabulous lunch on deck. We grabbed a pair of Dos Equis, a couple slices of pizza (one each), then a burger and washed it down with a cone from Scoops. I am very happy to report that reports of the demise of Princess pizza were either inaccurate, untimely or not fleet-wide. I had two slices today (one at lunch and one as an afternoon snack) and I can confirm that the pizza was fresh, delicious and no degradation in ingredient quality was noted. In fact, it was finger-licking good pizza and served with a smile. As a semi-independent check, my wife hasn’t followed any of the Cruise Critic discussion on pizza, nor did I mention it and she judged the pizza as delicious and consistent with the quality we have seen previously.

 

 

Well my friends, thanks for reading, time to get ready for a show and dinner.

 

 

 

Tomorrow we land in Cabo San Lucas!!

[Mike45LC]

Glad to hear that the pizza on the Ruby is still good. That discussion frightened me.

 

And I'm happy I won't have to smuggle in a couple of sticks of butter. I was imaging trying to explain that at the embarkation security gate. Maybe pretending that I'm Marlon Brando in Last Tango???

[Mike45LC]

It was a quick pause to smile for the camera, dropped our backpacks and down to deck six for dining room lunch. The food was excellent and set a great tone for things to come.

 

Which dining room was open for Embarkation lunch? Deck six means either Botticelli or DaVinci. My guess is Botticelli, because that is more out of the way, and they try to keep the fact that a dining room is open a secret.

[lovevacadays]

Thank you for your thread. I’m enjoying it. I can’t wait for my next Mexican Riviera cruise.

[laughing husky]

Great review, LOVE the menus....and you are making me hungry....My husband's cousin was the XO on the Nimetz.....he has since retired....

[cvpends]

I am enjoying retaking excursions I have previously done though your words. Fun fun fun! It is good they have made some improvements to the path up to the lighthouse. The week before I last took that excursion a cruise ship passenger broke her leg on that path. And yes, from your description, the Las Caletas excursion sounds shorter than usual. And the first time I took that tour (through HAL, if that makes a difference) they gave us yummy muffins and cafe de olla on the boat on the way over. Last time (through Carnival) they didn't, and it sounds as if you weren't offered those either when having booked through Princess. I loved the muffins and cafe de olla and was hoping that next time we take the excursion they would return. I don't know if that is a HAL vs Carnival vs. Princess difference, a time of day difference, or what. Also, that is good news about the Ruby pizza!!

Edited December 21, 2017 by cvpends

[MJSailors]

Following your live review as my DH and I are considering an Alaskan cruise on the Ruby in 2019.

This would be a return cruise of sorts for us as we sailed on the Sapphire Princess to Alaska in 2004.

We have also enjoyed several cruises on the Crown Princess which, I believe is a sister ship of the Ruby.

Will you be posting photos of the Ruby and your cabin in addition to the food photos and menus that you have been posting ?

It would be interesting for us to see the public areas of the ship as well as your cabin.

We were in a Dolphin deck mini suite for our Alaskan cruise and we would like to see how the mini suites may have changed now that the Medallion Class has been instituted on the ships.

Our last cruise was on the Regal Princess, mini suite accommodation, in the Fall of 2016, before the start of the Ocean Medallion program.

TYIA for some photos of the Ruby !

[triple7tahoe]

Which dining room was open for Embarkation lunch? Deck six means either Botticelli or DaVinci. My guess is Botticelli, because that is more out of the way, and they try to keep the fact that a dining room is open a secret.

the forward one was open and it was not a secret:D

[cougaraz]

Breakfast and Patter.

 

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[cougaraz]

Puerto Vallarta and dinner.

 

 

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[cougaraz]

Dinner continued.

 

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[cougaraz]

Sunrise, breakfast and view from El Faro lighthouse.

 

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[cougaraz]

Lunch and Patter.

 

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[cougaraz]

El Faro as we departed and dinner.

 

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[cougaraz]

Dinner part two.

 

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[culvercitycruiser]

What cabin deck and location are in?We have a Baja balcony in January

[cougaraz]

We are in a starboard side, mid-ship, Dolphin deck minisuite.

 

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[Montanagirlalways]

We are in a starboard side, mid-ship, Dolphin deck minisuite.

 

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How do u like your cabin? We r on emerald deck Mini suite in March.

[cougaraz]

Hello Ruby Princess Live Followers,

 

This is the dear wife doing the guest blog today afterprying the laptop away from my sleeping husband. It’s been an active morningbetween exploring Cabo San Lucas (Cabo Wabo specifically) and joining in thesail-away activities at the Horizon Court Buffett at lunchtime that it’s nosurprise that the husband is sound asleep. Rest assured, the dear husbandshould be “rested” enough to be back at the helm tomorrow morning.

 

Hard to believe that this is Day 6 and our Mexican cruise israpidly coming to a close! So far, ourcruise has been phenomenal. Honestly, it is hard to complain about a 7-daycruise aboard the Ruby Princess. Princess does so many things right. Overall, theentire cruise experience has been extremely enjoyable, especially the peanutbutter cookies that get rolled out at the buffet every afternoon.

 

Our exciting news of Day 6 is we woke up to discover that weare WINNERS! Yes, dear readers, after faithfully answering the daily Wake Showquestion each morning, we finally won the drawing of the day! We are now the proud owners of a beautifulPrincess Wine Bottle Stopper. All because the dear husband knew the differentsounds the elevators make when going up compared to going down and I waspersistent enough to ensure we entered the answer! Who hoo! Victory is Sweet!

 

The biggest takeaway we learned on this cruise is when indoubt…. ask! Since we last cruised ayear ago, it feels that Princess has implemented a few changes. For instance,butter is now dished out by the waiters versus being left on a container on atable and bread-sticks have disappeared from the bread-basket! However, we have found that by asking, we havehad no problem getting enough butter or bread-sticks delivered to our table.

 

Dinner last night was a lot of fun. We decided to go todinner a touch later, so we could watch Paul Baker (a West End singer) performat 7 pm. Frankly, we were absolutely blown away by his performance. The man cansing! His version of the “Music of theNight” in the Phantom of the Opera was the best I have ever heard (and that issaying something). Put goosebumps on my arms. Definitely one of the bettermusical shows I have heard aboard Princess (and jai-ho was never said once).

 

We arrived after the show to Italian Night in the diningroom. The husband enjoyed his eggplantparmesan and the seafood antipasto for his starters followed by the breadedchicken breast with mushrooms and melted fontina cheese for dinner. I enjoyedmy minestrone soup and prosciutto with melon for starters followed by thespecial arrabiatta pasta for my main. All courses were divine, but the arrabiatta pasta was exceptionallyphenomenal. In fact, it was so good that two senior officers from food andbeverage, came over to our section of the dining room, cooked themselves upsome arrabiatta pasta for themselves, and then proceeded to eat it at the tablenext to us while making moans of pleasure as they ate it. Yes, it was thatgood!!

 

We stumbled into the dining room this morning at 7:30 am thismorning only to find it completely empty as most of our fellow passengers disembarkedthe ship early to get into Cabo. At one point, I counted 12 wait staff juststanding around waiting for anyone to walk into the dining room. We had a lovely breakfast and my coffee cupnever got below ¾ full before it was refilled. I had Eggs Benedict while myhusband was able to special order some James Beard French Toast.

 

We tendered into Cabo today around 8 am. The total wait timewas less than 15 minutes from the time we got our tender ticket to the time wewere on the tender into Cabo. Frankly, “5” minutes of that could have been avoided if less people had decidedto not get into line before their entire party was assembled versus trying tonegotiate with the tender ticket staff hoping to score an extra ticket.

 

Ashore we knocked out a little required shopping and stoppedin a Cabo Wabo for some 2-for-1 happy hour drinks and a little snack. It might seem a little cliché, but the truthis that the drinks are affordable, strong and tasty, the food is great and theservice is awesome. After all its yearsin business this is a great little watering hole that has good tunes on earlyin the morning and always pours a great drink.

 

Well it’s formal night again tonight. Always nice to seepeople get dressed up looking their best! We are going to do our best tonightto stay awake late tonight to catch the Christmas Show at 10:30 pm in thePrincess Theater… so going to hit “Submit” on this review so I can head down tothe International Café and score a Latte to get appropriately caffeinated.

 

 

 

.

[cvpends]

Thank you for reminding me of those peanut butter cookies! They alone are a good reason to sail Princess :)

[culvercitycruiser]

I am really missing the daily updates about the cruise.

We will be on her in 12 days

Merry Christmas!

[satxdiver]

I love the peanut butter cookies and am always on the prowl for them when on the ship. In Cabo we always wait to leave the ship until the herd has gone ashore and then it is off to Cabo Wabo for drinks and a snack plus they have free WiFi. I love the live music for entertainment. We were on the same cruise last month. Thanks for the posts.

[cougaraz]

Hello everyone, sorry we went silent. Will get this live wrapped up and some final thoughts together shortly. I will also get a YouTube video of the cabin edited and posted.

 

Until then, we had a great cruise and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

 

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[cougaraz]

Back again to wrap up this "almost" live from our Ruby Princess adventure. The final formal night in the dining room was another fantastic meal. However, I cannot prove that photographically, because alas I didn't take my phone to dinner and that means no pictures. The challenge is that my formal jacket is severely lacking in pocket space and the phone is just a bridge too far. We started our evening at the Captain's Circle cocktail party at 7PM. Really, it isn't that good of a deal since the drinks are very watered down. I was very surprised when my wife crushed a gin and tonic and then ordered another, given that she isn't much of a drinker. Well, I took a sip and it was a tonic on ice that had probably passed a bottle of gin on its was to the lime wedge. Still, it is always fun to see the most cruised passengers and hear the statistics. Under 200 elites on this particular cruise, probably due to the large number of kids and families traveling for the holidays. I always enjoy hearing who the most cruised passengers are as it gives me something to shoot for. You have to set goals! On this cruise the top three started at 500 days cruised.

 

Teenapat and Max were on their game yet again, this time we enjoyed the cold seafood appetizer, the escargots (which is really just a phenomenal way to get amazing garlic butter for your roll dipping pleasure), I had the Beef Wellington and my wife opted for the lobster tail and prawns. Dessert was Cherries Jubilee made by our head waiter Franz and it was fantastic! I love dessert that has some contrast and textural notes. I get bored of dessert that is all sweet, all sticky and all creamy. The cherries had a bit of chew, a touch of tart, the sauce had some tang and it was warm which was perfectly balanced against the sweet, cold, creamy vanilla ice cream.

 

For our final sea day, we were very much into a family do nothing day. We sought maximum relaxation and enjoyed every minute. We started again with breakfast in the dining room and loved it. The luxury of having someone serve breakfast to me remains a great pleasure in life. The menu offers lots of choices and I find that generally they are doing it up right. We then opted for a late morning option of the cooking demonstration and galley tour. The demonstrations in the past have been a little blah, but this one was really good because the executive chef and maitre'd had great chemistry and were very entertaining. The cooked for almost an hour and then we had a quick tour of the galley. Many folks are impressed by the scale of the galley, but not me. For me it is all about the IMMACULATE cleanliness and the design functionality that makes the entire space easy to inspect and easy to clean.

 

Of course, after you tour the galley, you need some lunch. As our morning hadn't been too energetic, three courses seemed the right number. We both had the wagon wheel pasta as an appetizer and then I went with the spanakopita and my wife had the muffuletta sandwich. The pasta and spanakopita were great, but the sandwich was a miss. It had too much lettuce, too much bread and really didn't hit that New Orleans note of flavors and spices. Still, wrapping it up with some trifle, pistachio ice cream and chocolate pecan pie, we were very happy customers.

 

After a relaxing afternoon and a nap, we headed over to the Wheelhouse bar for a pre-dinner cocktail and Igor was playing the piano, which made for a great atmosphere. In the past, we have often gone to the Wheelhouse for a drink and music before dinner, but the timing just didn't align well other nights on this cruise. The drinks were well made and I still think not over-priced (but I live in San Diego where everything is expensive all of the time).

 

Our final dinner was a HUGE hit! The cold seafood was one of my favorites as the flavors were great and the individual items cooked perfectly. I also had the sweetbreads and loved every bite. On my first cruise with Princess, almost 25 years ago, I saw the sweetbreads on the menu and asked my mom what they were. She said she would tell me after I ordered it and tried them. So, I did and discovered they were amazingly delicious. Since then, they are a staple for me on every cruise! The biggest food dud of the cruise came as my wife ordered the chilled pumpkin curry soup, one bit for her and one for me and it was confirmed as the one dish of the cruise that was tasted and discarded. Fearing that we might starve or fade away, T and Max proceeded to crush our table with portions of fettuccine alfredo, clam linguine and the meatloaf all but overwhelming the capacity of a two top. I have to say, the meatloaf was a surprise hit with great flavors and a wonderful texture. Our final dessert was a very tangy pineapple flambe and ice cream, which hit a great final note. We also enjoyed a bottle of carmenere which was really flavorful and perfect compliment to the meal.

 

The final morning, much dreaded and always coming too soon was an absolute breeze. We crushed some breakfast, because who doesn't need apple wedges, James Beard French Toast, bacon, a hash brown and one last homemade English muffin before hitting the road!?!? After breakfast, we collected our bags from the room and headed to the PES disembarkation lounge where we found a seat, pulled out our phones and were immediately called to leave. Seriously, we were there for less than 90 seconds. We were Cream 1, which was early independent arrangements. Things after that went very smoothly. In fact, a little more efficiency from the US Government employees and we could have had an even smoother run, that said, it was easy. From the moment we were called in Club Fusion until we were in the car driving away was less than 15 minutes. We paid our parking, waved good-bye to the Ruby Princess and returned to real life.

 

I will post a complete review and summary after Christmas and get a YouTube video of the room put together. Thanks for reading and I will answer any questions!

[cougaraz]

Breakfast and 2 for 1 in Cabo Wabo.

 

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