Ruby Review - 3 Days LA-Vancouver

[ceilidh1]

Just off Ruby today so posting a quick review of our experiences!

 

Background: Sailing on this repositioning was myself, DD (turning 11 onboard) and DS (6). We are all experienced cruisers, with this one making number 18 on Princess!

 

PRE CRUISE: We live in Vancouver, so flew down to LA using Princess EZ Air the morning of departure - all smooth and no issues. I had pre-booked a private car from LAX to the port using Lansky (I have used them many times before as they are one of the few companies that provide booster seats). The driver was there to meet us as we headed out from the flight and it was an easy 30 minute drive to the boat for $110.

 

BOARDING: We were at the pier by 12:45 and had no bags to check so walked straight in to the port and filled out the health forms. It was pretty quiet and, as we are elite, we had priority check-in. We headed to security and were surprised to find that we are no longer allowed to carry on open bottles of liquid (is this new or just an LA thing?). I had to turn back and empty the kids' water bottles that I had just filled at the airport....Even with that minor delay, it was fast and we were onboard and heading to our room by 1:10pm!

 

ROOM: We were in a balcony cabin - A431. It's a standard balcony and nothing to report. It was clean and ready for us when we boarded, along with our complimentary mini bar, a drink voucher in lieu of Captain;s party, and an invite for the Grapevines Wine Tasting. Our steward was not the best we have had - never introduced himself or made us feel welcome but he did an ok job of tending to the room.

 

DAY 1: First stop after boarding was lunch, We like to hit up the dining room for embarkation day but we missed it as we had flown in that morning. Instead, we headed to Horizon Court and ate from the buffet. The food was ok - standard buffet fare. Not a huge choice but what was there was relatively good, if a little cold. My main complaint (which would continue throughout the cruise) was the drink service - or rather lack of! Not one person asked if we wanted drinks at any time we were in the buffet! I went to the bar to order every time!

 

Muster drill was in Explorers and was so nice as we didn't have to take life jackets! It was led by Anna from the cruise staff who was a breath of fresh air. Even the kids had a good time - and they usually hate this part of the cruise!

 

After muster, the kids wanted to hit the pool. The water was perfect for me - kind of bath temperature! As it was a warm, sunny day this was perfect! We spent sailaway in the pool and then headed back to the room to get changed for dinner.

 

I chose early seating as I find this works well with the kids. For the first time in 18 cruises we requested and were actually assigned a table for 4 - which meant we did not have to share! I am not anti-social and have no problem with sharing, but with two young kids no one really enjoys the experience! This had the potential to be really great...except that our waiter was inundated with a huge group of 24 on his other tables. They were pretty high maintenance in that they didn't speak English and were vegetarian (I heard all this as the group leader was pretty vocal) so every dish had to be "tailored". This really took away from our dining experience as the waiter spent most of his time at the other tables. He never once, in the 3 days, asked if our food was ok. He forgot some of the ordered items. The drink waiter only ever took one drink order and never came back to ask if we wanted another. While the food wad good, the overall service was not.

 

The first evening had the production show "Magic To Do". I had seen this before and it's my least favorite of all the shows, My little guy wanted to go to kid's club (which was fantastic as always) but my daughter wanted to see the show. After dropping off the little guy, we headed down to the theatre. We were early so got good seats and settled in to order a drink. No sign of a drink guy for about 15 minutes. When he finally came, I ordered a beer and my daughter ordered a mocktail. The drinks came about 2 seconds before the show started - I had almost given up on getting them! My daughter took one sip of hers and declared it "disgusting". I tried it and quickly discovered why it tasted so bad to her - they have given her the alcoholic version of her drink rather than the mocktail! Not good to supply an 11 year old with alcohol and, to make matters worse, they actually charged me for it as I had the drink package and it was classed as TWO alcoholic drinks! This was one of MANY trips to passenger services to have drinks removed from my bill! The show itself was as bad as the first time I saw it - just not my thing, which is a shame as I LOVE all the other production shows!

 

After the show, we headed up to pick up the little guy and called it a night. The beds are as wonderful as ever and we couldn't wait to snuggle in!

 

DAY 2: Weather was not great so we slept in and had a lazy breakfast at Horizon Court. I had ordered room service for 9am but when it arrived it was missing the food items. The guy apologised and offered to get them, but we decided to go the buffet instead. At 11am I had to attend a focus group onboard that I had been pre-selected for. This was really interesting - I was in the families group and they asked about our experiences and thoughts around kids programs and family offerings and what could be improved, etc. For the most part, all of our group had the same thoughts - more family oriented staterooms (couches Princess, please!), family pools, more family communication for those traveling with kids, etc. There was one outlier in our group that really took me by surprise in that she had obviously done zero research into the cruise and was quite put out by the fact that there was a casino onboard, there was a martini demonstration in the day, and smoking was allowed....hmmm. I quite enjoyed the discussion and hope my input was helpful - the kid programming on Princess has kept us coming back time and time again, We have tried RCL, Disney, and Carnival, and while they all had their good points none of them lived up to Princess in terms of kid activities!

 

After the focus group, the kids wanted to swim again so we headed up to the pools. The ocean was quite rough so one of the pools had just been closed so we went to the other one, which was also sloshing back and forth. My older kid hopped in but the little guy and I opted for the hot tub, which was the perfect temperature. There were about 6 kids in the pool having a good time with the "waves" but after about 15 minutes it started to get even more choppy and the pool attendants came to assess. They gave it another 10 minutes or so before deciding to close it. The kids were disappointed but understood that it was for safety reasons. We headed aft to the small, round pool on deck 17. The water there was calm but freezing! The hot tub was bath-tub warm so we killed another hour there before heading to lunch at Horizon Court. No drinks offered again....booo

 

After lunch, the little guy headed to kids club and the older one asked to play Bingo. No luck for us, but one lucky winner called the jackpot game in less than 53 numbers and walked away with $1000. We did notice that every winner had one of the tablets rather than the regular paper cards....

 

Dinner service was the same as the previous night except that it was my daughter's birthday so she got a cake for dessert and the staff sang Happy Birthday to her. This was a nice touch and made her night!

 

That evening there was a comedian, Phil Tagg, in the theatre so we went to check him out. He was really good and we had a great time. We had planned on going to the balloon drop later that night but we were so tired that we headed back to the room and crashed!

 

DAY 3: Horizon Court for breakfast and then down to shorex to change the disembarkation time we had been given. They did not ask of disembarkation plans for this cruise and just seemed to randomly assign people with walk off groups. We had walk off 24, which was to disembark at 9:50am. I live in Vancouver, but I had to be at work at 9am so needed to get off early. Luckily, this was an easy switch and we were given group 6. While I was there, the kids signed up for the egg drop challenge and then dragged me to the paper plane competition. While our planes crashed and burned, the egg drop was a success! My daughter designed and made a great device for keeping her egg safe using her birthday wrappings, balloons, and pool toy. It was quite impressive and the egg survived the drop! She was so proud, and we later received her prize in the room - Stanley Bear (we now have 3 of them!)

 

We hit up the pizza bar for lunch and then little guy headed to kids club while the girl and I did trivia. We did ok by our standards but not even close to the winning teams! It was fun, though! Same routine for dinner and then we went to see the magician from the Magic To Do show as an act in Explorers. He was very entertaining and actually impressed me with his tricks (in case you hadn't guessed, I'm not a big fan of magic). The kids thought he was amazing - so much so that they insisted on watching his second show as well! We also watched the Liars Club game show, which was so funny. The cruise staff really make or break this show and this one was right on the money, Star of the show was Cesar from Columbia - hilarious! We also really enjoyed seeing the cruise director, PJ, again - he came on to our holiday cruise on Star for a few days to visit!

 

We hit the lovely beds for the last time and slept like babies! Disembarkation was a breeze - though as we headed to club fusion for the elite lounge I asked what group they were on to see if it was worth going there. I was told they had just started 5 (we were 6) and it would be 15-20 minutes so we should go. We got to Club Fusion and the host was telling everyone "If you are walk off, just go at anytime" so we headed back to the gangway. At the gangway we were told, "Only group 5". Thankfully, a few others that had been at Club Fusion were quite vocal in saying that they were told they could disembark, so we were all allowed to leave!

 

Overall, an enjoyable 3 day getaway. Service was not quite what I am used to - maybe because it was only 3 days? The biggest point of frustration was that, despite having the drink package, I was randomly charged for drinks. This meant several trips to the front desk to get them removed. The front desk was great and were obviously as frustrated as I was (I think I was not the only one to have this problem) but I shouldn't have had to keep doing this. Their suggestion was to mention to the bartender each time that I had the drink package - though why I should need to do this is a mystery!

 

Any questions, I would be happy to answer...

[sewgood]

Glad to hear that you had a good break from the day to day routine.

Interesting about not being asked about drinks in the buffet. This is what makes Princess different to the other lines I have cruised on. I hope it was only because they were busy on the day. Maybe a few staff had left the ship to fly home.

 

Thanks for reporting on your getaway. :)

[ceilidh1]

Glad to hear that you had a good break from the day to day routine.

Interesting about not being asked about drinks in the buffet. This is what makes Princess different to the other lines I have cruised on. I hope it was only because they were busy on the day. Maybe a few staff had left the ship to fly home.

 

Thanks for reporting on your getaway. :)

 

This was the first cruise it had been noticeable - no drinks offered at any time we were in the buffet over the 3 days. The bar service in all areas was lacking to be honest, The ship was far from busy, so not sure what the deal was! No big deal - just meant I got a little more exercise going to the bar!

 

I did wonder if it was because so many passengers seemed to have the drink package on this sailing....

[jled]

Thanks for the review. I'm getting on the Ruby this afternoon on Seattle. My first cruise with Princess. I mostly sail Royal and Celebrity I have the drink package so I'll let you know if I keep getting Charged!

[JF - retired RRT]

We headed to security and were surprised to find that we are no longer allowed to carry on open bottles of liquid (is this new or just an LA thing?).

We've mainly used the LA port for most of our cruises the last 2 years and the empty water bottle rule started about a year ago (?). Don't know about the other ports.

[beckntom]

I very much enjoyed your review. I cannot believe Princess tried to serve your 11-year-old daughter an alcoholic drink! How appalling.

 

I remember you well from a Seattle to Vancouver Roll Call for September 30th last year. You helped me so much with my post-cruise plans in Vancouver. Thanks again.