LIVE from the Ruby Princess: April 2-9, 2023 Western Caribbean from Galveston

[startedwithamouse]

22 hours ago, talkorpi said:

I don’t want to alarm anyone but I have been seeing a lot of strings of sargassum ever since we started heading for Costa Maya

It's there every time we pass by in that part of the ocean. 

[startedwithamouse]

17 hours ago, talkorpi said:

I think the one weakness of Princess so far compared to my last cruises is entertainment. Not a lot to offer today and the evening headliner shows just aren’t super impressive. 

 

HOWEVER, I really love the game shows they have in the evenings. These are always really entertaining and often hilarious!
 

Liars Club is happening right now and is pretty funny. It’s like the definition round of Balderdash but for a crowd. I love that game so this is pretty entertaining. Our cruise director is really funny in this game show

This varies by ship. Emerald a couple months ago was subpar.  Discovery has by far the best entertainment. The magician on Emerald can't compare to the resident Illusions show on Discovery.

[satxdiver]

1 hour ago, telecheck said:

 

I just don't understand why they could not foresee the weather situation in advance. Missing two ports in a row is really rare. They have missed Roatan already, and they should have known that missing another port would make some passengers very angry. If they knew that they might not make Costa Maya also, they should have just sailed directly to Cozumel last night. At least today passengers can spend the whole day in Cozumel rather than another day at sea. With an extra full day in Cozumel, people can go to the mainland to visit some famous ruins such as Chichen Itza or to Cancun by ferry+bus.

Puerta Maya (Carnival piers) was full today with three Carnival ships in port (Vista, Dream and Paradise) using the piers.  Next door at the RCL piers was the Adventure and Jewel.  At the pier near the city was Serenade and Star Legenda.  There was no room for any more cruise ships today in Cozumel and tomorrow will probably be as busy.  This time of season the ports at Cozumel are all booked up.  We are now waiting for the Vista to clear the area and the other two ships who are welcoming passengers back in order to leave to allow us to land.  

 

We have been on over 30 Princess cruises and indeed have missed ports.  In all cases (two last year) we were given a small OBC as a token from Princess.  We have a large number of newbies on board and so far, Princess is convincing them not to go on Princess again.  If this were my first time, I would remember it all too well and look at other cruise lines out of Galveston.  We have a 26-day cruise booked for this fall so we will be back.  

[phatlad]

Just spoke with customer service and they said they have no plans of offering any sort of goodwill credit. He sounded so defeated when I spoke with him; I’m sure he’s just had to take verbal abuse his entire shift. 

[talkorpi]

4 minutes ago, phatlad said:

Just spoke with customer service and they said they have no plans of offering any sort of goodwill credit. He sounded so defeated when I spoke with him; I’m sure he’s just had to take verbal abuse his entire shift. 

The GS rep I talked to this afternoon told me that those types of decisions come straight from corporate. I think they want to do something to make things right. All pitchforks should be pointed at Santa Clarita

[talkorpi]

This was still not worth missing two ports over BUT we did have a spectacular entrance into Cozumel this evening. Very cool passing all the ships and having them back out while we pulled in. I bet all their passengers were really confused 😂

 

Here’s some stills I got but it doesn’t really capture how cool it was.

[snoozecrooze]

2 hours ago, talkorpi said:

Having the forecasts available and already knowing that we were gonna be pushing safe limits in both Roatan and Costa Maya, I would have personally changed course and routed towards...

Do you hear yourself?? The deployment gods are looking down on you right now! I swear it is your calling. And good call on the choices you would've made; this would've been a great alteration to your ill-fated itinerary.

[talkorpi]

1 minute ago, snoozecrooze said:

Do you hear yourself?? The deployment gods are looking down on you right now! I swear it is your calling. And good call on the choices you would've made; this would've been a great alteration to your ill-fated itinerary.

Haha, Princess, if you’re reading this, please call me! It would be my DREAM to work in deployment for a cruise line!!!

 

Right now I work in Economic Development and I really love it, but I still secretly yearn to make it in the industry some day 😊

[PescadoAmarillo]

13 minutes ago, talkorpi said:

All pitchforks should be pointed at Santa Clarita.

On this and many, many other issues. I’m sorry the weather affected your cruise so badly. I do know that your same captain made it into Costa Maya on two recent occasions when other cruise ships begged off. 

[BermudaBound2014]

4 hours ago, talkorpi said:

If I were the captain with total free control here is what I would realistically have done differently:

Having the forecasts available and already knowing that we were gonna be pushing safe limits in both Roatan and Costa Maya, I would have personally changed course and routed towards Grand Cayman on the morning of our second sea day when we had heard that the Caribbean Princess was unsuccessful in her docking attempts at Mahogany Bay. Our forecast was allegedly even worse than theirs so I feel like it would be pretty clear that docking would be difficult. This would’ve given plenty of time and kept it as a second sea day. I would have then spent the day in Grand Cayman and Jamaica on the days we were supposed to be in Mahogany Bay & Costa Maya. Continue on to Cozumel as normal. It would be a logistical headache but those ports did not have known weather issues and the ship could have realistically traveled that distance in that time.

 

Not sure how this would have worked but in my head that is what I would’ve done. I was secretly praying we would reroute to Grand Cayman and while I knew that wouldn’t happen, maybe that’s what got me through the extra sea days 😂

 

I am also biased because Grand Cayman is my favorite port but I feel like this would’ve made more sense. 
 

Hindsight is 20/20. 

Great idea, but I don’t think it’s that simple :(. Like other destinations (Venice, key west, etc….), Grand Caymen is no longer welcoming unlimited cruise ships with open arms. That is why the government put a halt on building the pier. Sighting sustained tourism as the goal, Grand Cayman hopes to reduce the number of 2019 cruise ship visitors by 25-30%. 

[CC Rider 69]

2 hours ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

On this and many, many other issues. I’m sorry the weather affected your cruise so badly. I do know that your same captain made it into Costa Maya on two recent occasions when other cruise ships begged off. 

Yep, we were there in mid-January and saw a big MSC ship refuse to dock due to sea and wind conditions. So this time it must have been really bad. As they say, IT HAPPENS ...................

[talkorpi]

LAND HO!!! 
 

Never thought I’d see the day to set foot in port on this cruise 😅

[talkorpi]

Cozumel at night is magical! Such a rare and cool experience!

[talkorpi]

Back onboard for Hollywood Hiccups. Booked a last minute excursion for tomorrow. Beginning to feel like the cruise of Monday & Tuesday again!

[mbglib]

8 minutes ago, talkorpi said:

Back onboard for Hollywood Hiccups. Booked a last minute excursion for tomorrow. Beginning to feel like the cruise of Monday & Tuesday again!

Edited April 7, 2023 by mbglib

[mbglib]

10 minutes ago, talkorpi said:

Back onboard for Hollywood Hiccups. Booked a last minute excursion for tomorrow. Beginning to feel like the cruise of Monday & Tuesday again!

This is off-topic, but if you like chicken, try the chicken nuggets in the children's corner of the buffet at lunch or sometimes just near the carving station.  I ventured there last week and they were, to me, the best chicken nuggets I have ever had.  I think I ate them three or four of the seven days and I normally don't care for them!

 

Edited April 7, 2023 by mbglib
added info

[wrongwaywatson]

5 hours ago, talkorpi said:

If I were the captain with total free control here is what I would realistically have done differently:

Having the forecasts available and already knowing that we were gonna be pushing safe limits in both Roatan and Costa Maya, I would have personally changed course and routed towards Grand Cayman on the morning of our second sea day when we had heard that the Caribbean Princess was unsuccessful in her docking attempts at Mahogany Bay. Our forecast was allegedly even worse than theirs so I feel like it would be pretty clear that docking would be difficult. This would’ve given plenty of time and kept it as a second sea day. I would have then spent the day in Grand Cayman and Jamaica on the days we were supposed to be in Mahogany Bay & Costa Maya. Continue on to Cozumel as normal. It would be a logistical headache but those ports did not have known weather issues and the ship could have realistically traveled that distance in that time.

 

Not sure how this would have worked but in my head that is what I would’ve done. I was secretly praying we would reroute to Grand Cayman and while I knew that wouldn’t happen, maybe that’s what got me through the extra sea days 😂

 

I am also biased because Grand Cayman is my favorite port but I feel like this would’ve made more sense. 
 

Hindsight is 20/20. 

That would be wonderful, but unfortunately it doesn't work like that! LOL  They have to plan ahead where they are going, get approval from the countries and the port area to dock there.  There were probably other ships already there anyways.  I wish that they could, but they can't make changes on the fly like that.  It would be great if they could, though.

[talkorpi]

13 minutes ago, wrongwaywatson said:

That would be wonderful, but unfortunately it doesn't work like that! LOL  They have to plan ahead where they are going, get approval from the countries and the port area to dock there.  There were probably other ships already there anyways.  I wish that they could, but they can't make changes on the fly like that.  It would be great if they could, though.

Right - I figured - that’s why I said in a perfect world 😂 It’s okay, the past is past and now we are enjoying Cozumel! I’m too tired to be out ok the town super late but just getting to eat dinner at Pancho’s and see the port after dark was special in itself.

[talkorpi]

Hollywood Hiccups was HILARIOUS. My face hurts from laughing so much

[FrankieJayIII]

3 hours ago, talkorpi said:

This was still not worth missing two ports over BUT we did have a spectacular entrance into Cozumel this evening. Very cool passing all the ships and having them back out while we pulled in. I bet all their passengers were really confused 😂

 

Here’s some stills I got but it doesn’t really capture how cool it was.

[FrankieJayIII]

not trying to be tooooo nosy but what deck was this photo taken from?  it looks like deck 11?   just above Caribe with the larger balconies?

[wrongwaywatson]

32 minutes ago, talkorpi said:

Right - I figured - that’s why I said in a perfect world 😂 It’s okay, the past is past and now we are enjoying Cozumel! I’m too tired to be out ok the town super late but just getting to eat dinner at Pancho’s and see the port after dark was special in itself.

The pictures looked really pretty!  We were there once until around 8pm and it was pretty at sail away.  Have a great day there tomorrow, as we have another sea day, LOL!

[talkorpi]

22 minutes ago, FrankieJayIII said:

not trying to be tooooo nosy but what deck was this photo taken from?  it looks like deck 11?   just above Caribe with the larger balconies?

It’s from my balcony. I’m on deck 12, Aloha Deck

Edited April 7, 2023 by talkorpi

[FrankieJayIII]

Thanks!  We are in C734 coming up!  I think that's literally below you by 2 decks!

[talkorpi]

1 hour ago, mbglib said:

This is off-topic, but if you like chicken, try the chicken nuggets in the children's corner of the buffet at lunch or sometimes just near the carving station.  I ventured there last week and they were, to me, the best chicken nuggets I have ever had.  I think I ate them three or four of the seven days and I normally don't care for them!

 

I have grabbed a couple here and there a few times this week. They really are excellent! Very impressed with the food on Princess. Everything has been consistently high quality.

Edited April 7, 2023 by talkorpi