Princess Cruises, Ruby Princess Review

Ruby Princess

We eventually embarked on the Ruby Princess, after standing in a car park for over 3 1/2 hrs, even though you are given your embarkation time to reduce delays.

Our toilet wouldn't flush for 2 day's and our bathroom flooded and we had to be moved to a higher level and at the back of the ship. The room was not expected to be used I don't think as there was no fridge, or table on the balcony. Of which, on sailing to Hawaii and back, we never faced South and had any sun there. Not to mention whenever we docked, we faced the cargo area and never the town.
The Pacific is rough with high winds and it was difficult to find any shelter to go out on deck. This also meant our new room at the back of the ship was moving so much that it became difficult to stand properly and made going to bed a sickly feeling.

The sailing time to the first destination was 4 day's and this was too long, especially as the journey was incredibly rough. Honolulu and Maui, our first 2 destinations were good as there was so much to do, but more time was needed. The final 2, there was nothing really to do and a long walk to get to any town. Some of the locals even said that they didn't know why cruise ships dock here.
The taxi's were few and far between and the queues were in excess of 2 hrs. People gave up waiting. Not only that, when you eventually got somewhere, you only had a handful of hours to do anything and get back to the ship before the next sailing. Everything felt rushed and unorganised.

After the 4 day's of the Islands, we then had another 4 day's at sea, followed by an evening spent in Mexico - Ensenada, again about 4 hrs. We then sailed for another day back to San Francisco before leaving for the airport.

The evening's food was definitely not 5* and paying the supplement for the more elaborate dining was not worth the money. In fact our BA food on our flight home was better!
Our son's gave us a 30th wedding anniversary gift by paying for the drinks package, but we felt so rough a lot of the time, that we could not take advantage of their generosity.

This is the first time I have ever had to complain about a cruise, but I would never do one like this again. It especially pains me after paying around £10,000 for the experience.