Just completed a cruise on Ruby Princess to Alaska for 7 nights from Vancouver

[Interestedcruisefan]

Just completed a cruise on Ruby Princess to Alaska for 7 nights from Vancouver

 

We've cruised RCL, P and O, and Carnival several times each before. Plus azamara once (by far the best quality but expensive).

 

My parents are top loyalty tier Princess so obviously rate very high

 

But this was our first cruise Princess

 

Our thoughts were as follows (in no particular order):

 

Cruise director - Mika (not sure how it's spelt) from Australia was great. Best we've had I would say.

 

MDR food better than average

 

Buffet food incredibly poor. Awful quality breakfast. Eggs always hard. Everything overcooked. Good job I like crispy bacon!! Poor quality pastries. 

 

Lunch and dinner in buffet - the roast was always dry and overcooked, bland veg. Potato choice for all 7 days was always the same. Fries, mash and roast potatoes (overcooked). Desserts really poor quality. No ice cream. 

 

Buffet a real low point and not what we expected from Princess. 

 

Entertainment average to good. Enjoyed the entertainment team shows the best.

 

Speciality - we could only book Sabatinis as Crown grill sold out all week. It was good but not great.

 

Cocktails not great. Not made with a lot of craft or love. 

 

Ice cream and pizza bar always long queues and disorganised queues as well. Could be way more efficiently managed

 

Coffee and cakes in the  piazza. Again long queues and not the best organised

 

Salty dogs gastro pub. Nice service but average food

 

Cabin steward. Nice guy hard working

 

Vines casual dining ok meat and cheese sharing plates 

 

Gym average

 

Embarkation in Vancouver. Worst of any cruise. We had to queue to drop cases, then queue to get medallions, then queue to get through security, then queue to get through customs. 2.5hrs plus of queueing

Great holiday but overall were not impressed with our first princess experience 

 

 

 

Also they don't use the medallions to the best extent. 

 

Too many physical queues for MDR when they could have virtual queues like on P and O where you join a queue on the app and then just wait to be called whilst you drink  in the bar etc

 

Medallions good in  other ways though. For finding shipmates and ordering drinks and food 

 

We cruised with our daughter and her boyfriend and despite the comments above actually had a really great time (We are from the UK). They are in a 3rd year of a working visa in Canada

 

We think the Alaska cruise from Vancouver might be a bad example of princess

 

But we certainly expected Princess to be a higher level. Buffet really was poor all week and it's an important way to judge and compare a cruise I think

 

 

 

 

Edited May 22 by Interestedcruisefan

[nini]

Thank you for taking the time to relay your thoughts. Princess is our "go to" cruise line. Sometimes it is the ship and its own unique "personality" which is how we feel about the Emerald.