For anyone who’s read one of these blog category posts before on this site or who subscribes to the newsletter (which is just most of these blog posts but via the power of email!) then you know the format this one is going to take. These posts summarise the actual travel content that’s recently been posted on the site which, by a process of elimination, are not blog posts. I mean, they are, but I categorise them differently and they won’t be sent via email to anyone because I sometimes go on mad-writing sprees and you could end up with a dozen posts in a fortnight in your email inbox. And then you might miss an exciting offer from one of the four dozen travel agencies and cruise lines for which you’ve ended up on the subscribers list. And then you’d blame me. And, admittedly, that wouldn’t bother me at all because I don’t know you and we’ll likely never meet, but let’s not add to the woes of the world.
Where was I?
Yes, this blog/newsletter is going to summarise recently-added travel content – which I’ve already explained for any first-time readers of the site (traffic is still on the rise for some reason (and it would be nice to think it’s not all web-scraping crap trying to suck what little joy there is left on the internet)) – and there was going to be a slight deviation from other posts of this type where I’d go all old-school blogging on you and have a Bit of a Moan™ about some elements of cruise blogging in general. But I’ve changed my mind about that and that will be explained below, so the usual cruising news and plans will follow instead.
First, though, what’s new on the site?
Five travelogues have been published covering the start of the cruise we took in late 2023 aboard Ruby Princess.
We started with the actual boarding of Ruby Princess in San Francisco, in the rain, not without some unwelcome luggage incident at dockside, and, following sail way under the Golden Gate Bridge and accompanied by pelicans (really), a late-night event in Skywalkers that forms the start of a short customer service story arc.
This cruise would feature a fair number of sea days and the first two are briefly covered next in Speciality Dining And Sea Days On Ruby Princess. As you can guess, we did hit one of the speciality dining venues on the ship at this point and if you are super-keen to see pictures of food, some views of the sea, and a couple of the activities we actually caught then that’s where you need to click through to.
Our first port of call on this cruise was Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, and we’d not been there before so we decided to mostly ignore it completely and head off on an excursion to a town further up the coast. That’s so us. The first part of this tour takes a look at the art, history, and culture of the vibrant town of Todos Santos. Absolutely gorgeous place.
This tour included lunch at the Hotel California which definitely isn’t that Hotel California you’re thinking of but you just try escaping the song playing. A lovely lunch and a wonderful barman who gave my wife a free drink. That’s a woman who likes margarita! he probably thought. But she doesn’t. Although she did. Because it was that good.
The last of the Ruby Princess cruise travelogues that have made their way from my mind onto the world wide web covers some events in and around Cabo San Lucas as we returned to the ship and after boarding. This post also concludes that small Princess Cruises customer service story arc I mentioned that started on embarkation day.
We always have memorable times in Mexico, and that’s handy since we’ve got five port stops planned there for next year, including a return to Cabo. Next on the Ruby Princess series will be more sea days then Costa Rica.
There’s been one other post put up on the site, not travel-related, but one of my dips back into days of photography from yonder years. Or something. It’s actually some pictures from a Pride march held in our home city back in 2015. At the time of writing this there will be Pride 2025 taking place in the city tomorrow and we’ll be heading down again. Always a riot of positivity and even nature might be supplying some rainbows (unfortunately) if the weather forecast is accurate (it could happen).
The title of this post mentions cruise irritations and I was going to post them here but it started to expand in length (as these things do when I’m involved) and I felt it warranted its own special place on the site instead. I also didn’t think most newsletter subscribers would really want to read it. It’s very negative ranting, after all, although enjoyable for me. I’m still mentioning it here just in case a page about activities of some cruise lines and some past interactions with cruise bloggers (who are named) is of interest. I’m not even linking to it from this post because the main point is to have a record of it for myself, but it’s there to be easily found on the site if you know how to use menus.
One small irritation I will mention is that in the last blog/newsletter I said that we were looking to book a cruise in July to meet up with someone but that just when we were going to do that all the cabins we were interested in became unavailable. After some thought – that thought was “Well, bollocks, we have to book something to get away!” – we went ahead and booked something else instead and yes, we are looking forward to that, but it would’ve been nicer to have done what we wanted to do. And imagine my irritation when I checked again about a week or so later to find some of the cabins on that other cruise had become available again. But we’ve paid for the other cruise now (as it’s short notice) so, yeah, that’s done.
We aren’t cruising with Cunard, in case you’re wondering. You weren’t. They’re not a line that appealed anyway (although some Mediterranean fly-cruise prices were very good value and nearly tempting) but it was interesting to see two recently-published videos by different cruise bloggers that mentioned how good the complimentary room service was and then see the news that not only had Cunard done away with that but they’d implemented per-item charging for maximum guest-fleecing. I’d have thought that some shareholders of cruise lines bought those shares because of the line’s branding but clearly it all comes down to dividends at the end of the day and they all seem to delight in having CEOs who are making all the lines indistinguishable with no worries about loyalty and reputation if it increases what they receive in the bank even as it removes what they get aboard.
“What sets your cruise line apart from from your rivals?”
“Well, our logo is black and red. Their logo is blue and white.”
“Outstanding! I can see why people choose to cruise with you!”
“Actually, they just seem to more often choosing randomly these days or go with the cheapest for some reason. Despite our black and red logo.”
“How very puzzling.”