In September 2024 (well, starting on the last day of August really, but mostly September) we hopped aboard Ventura for the third time to spend ten days visiting Spain and Portugal. As usual when we sail on a Grand-class ship we went for a deck 10 cabin. The balconies on this deck are twice the size of normal balconies – which are already very well-sized – and unlike the mini-suite category of cabins on the deck one down these balconies are half-covered to give you both privacy or shelter when needed and all the space you could want all the time.

There were a couple of surprises inside and outside our room once we’d got aboard at Southampton. In the cabin we had pin badges for advancing a P&O loyalty level, complete with a voucher for a glass of fizz. The additional percentage discount on spending is arguably the best part of the loyalty increase but the drink was appreciated too simply because we didn’t buy a drinks package. For this cruise, given P&O’s limited drinks range and pricing the drinks package just wasn’t cost-effective, although as of 2026 there’s a new drinks package in effect which alters the calculation somewhat. The second surprise was seeing a Border Force patrol vessel and seeing it apparently doing some training to take aboard and release a motorised dinghy.

We were out on our balcony to see Regal Princess set off a little further along the port area in Southampton ahead of us. On it were my wife’s parents and their friends, celebrating my mother-in-law’s birthday, and they were mostly following the same itinerary and on the same ship we’d cruised on just a few months earlier (see: Regal Princess British Isles cruise). We’d arranged for cake and canapés to be delivered to their room and had already received photos from them. They were very happy.

Drinks were consumed this first day. And every day. There was the free fizz, of course, and since we had this in the Glass House we followed that with a glass of wine.

We then discovered two odd and disappointing things.

Firstly, after chatting to a waiter just because we were interested to see what the food menu in the Glass House looked like we were told that they weren’t serving food there for this cruise, nor had they done so for the cruise before, and he didn’t know why, or when or even if it would return. It’s my understanding that this was temporary, and perhaps staffing-related. I hope so because we’ve had good meals in the Glass House before and we’d like to do so again one day.

The second disappointing thing is shown below. That’s what we got when my wife asked for a Bloody Mary. The waiter was very apologetic but said that it’s not a drink on the menu so they can’t make it, but they can sell the vodka and the tomato juice and give you some Worcestershire sauce to make your own. And no, you can’t pay for these things and have the barman make you one. If you’ve seen the TV adverts of relaxed, upscale cruising with P&O then the reality of them handing you a glass with a shot in it and a couple of bottles and telling you to make your own drink is quite the shock.

As this first evening started to darken and Ventura made her way along the English Channel we kept our fluid intake up ahead of dinner and noticed the arrival of “motion discomfort” bags on the stairwells. Veteran cruisers know that this means we’re expecting rocky seas and as the following day we’d be traversing the Bay of Biscay we were quite excited by this prospect as we’re fans of proper motion on the ocean.

We decided to try the Beach House for the first night’s meal. There’s a small upcharge and it takes place in an area of the buffet set aside in the evening. You can see the menu and food below. It’s not really our sort of food but we do persevere and try it when we can just to see if our tastes have altered or the menu has. My notes of the meal are that my starter was actually very nice but nothing else was. We would generally find the food overall on this particular cruise to be poor in terms of quality and variety. When you’re on a cruise with a line and/or ship you’ve cruised with before then you can wonder whether this is a sign of things to come or cost-cutting, but it also might just be one of those nights for the kitchen staff.

The next day was spent crossing the Bay of Biscay and, no, the rough seas failed to materialise. I’m sure most people were happy about this but we’re not most people. A more overcast start to the day soon gave way to warm sunshine as we headed south.

We decided to pay for the elevated Afternoon Tea and while the setting was nice and the presentation was lovely, the food itself was just okay. I know it sounds like I’m just moaning here but we’ve cruised enough to know when everything is just not as good as it could be or has been. Hey, we were on a cruise and we were still having a lovely time.

This first full sea day gave way to the first formal night on Ventura. We’d packed our posh clobber because we don’t mind doing one formal night on a cruise (just one) but we ended up not really being in the mood for it all when the time came around, hit the (very busy) buffet for dinner, weren’t massively impressed by that food either (surprise!), took a bottle of wine back to our room instead to watch a movie, then headed out onto the balcony for some stargazing. On the way out from the buffet and across the top deck of the ship I snapped a quite attractive view of the swimming pool lit up beautifully.

In the next post in this Iberian cruise series we’ll reach the first port of call in northern Spain, Santander, and we’ll head off on an excursion that starts with a visit to the town of Comillas.

On the evening that we departed Scotland our meal in the main dining room was as below:

We caught a little bit of some entertainment, although I can’t remember what it was exactly, only that it was amusing. Afterwards, though, we headed to Crooners and decided to splash some of our onboard spend on the special, double-size cocktails that include the glasses to take home as souvenirs. We still use them occasionally, but due to their size it’s only ever with something that has a lot of mixer in it. We like to drink, but you’ve got to be sensible sometimes.

We’d not had many sea days on this cruise and this was the last of them, heading south on the North Sea down the east coast of England. The weather had mostly been good on this cruise and that remained the case on this day.

The Red Hat Society were out in force and gathered in the piazza of Regal Princess for some last group photos because it was the final formal night on the ship too. They added a lovely burst of colour to the cruise.

We’re fond of trivia when we cruise but the port-heavy itinerary meant we’d not taken part as much as we’d normally have liked. However, the sea day presented several chances to give our brains some exercise and we pretty much cleaned up.

Because it was formal night we decided to hit the Elite Lounge for some pre-dinner nibbles and drinks in relative quiet, entertained by the house band.

Passing back through the piazza area on the way to dinner a little later we had to run the gauntlet of photographers but having my own camera to hand meant I was able to turn the tables on one of them. I do this quite often on ships.

So, finally, here’s the menu and photos of the food we ate for this gala night on Regal Princess.

In the next post in this series we hit the final port of the cruise and the only one that’s outside the British Isles: Le Havre, France.

This was from our very first cruise all the way back in 2008 aboard Diamond Princess in Asia for our honeymoon and it was taken on one of the last sea days of the fabulous experience. I didn’t really take very many photos of the ship at all which can be explained by a lack of mobile phones with good cameras on them and me only having a 50mm prime lens on my DSLR at the time with the photography hobby being very new. I did pick up a Tokina wide angle lens in Hong Kong during the cruise and this shot was using it and getting more of the ship in view. But because it was late in the cruise all the excitement and strangeness of being on a ship for the first time had eased away into wonderful relaxation aboard and things like photos and videos of ships just wasn’t a thing back then. Oh for a time machine.

The photo now is a lot brighter and sharper, with a lot of the noise colour noise removed and some brightening of the shadows to just pick out what’s going on under the covers. A pale wash to both lighten the yellows and make the water in the pool pop has been added and the curves have been stretched to bring out more contrast.

We therefore never considered a cruise to British ports until very recently but in May 2024 we headed down to Southampton and embarked Regal Princess for the start of twelve nights visiting Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and France. For me there would be no new countries to tick off the list but my wife had never been to Ireland before and she was keen to do so.

Embarkation was perfectly simple, the muster process was a breeze, it was nice to see new Princess Cruises tote bags in our room (we have quite the collection now), and the most important task of the first hour aboard was to head up onto the top deck and grab ourselves a 24K Margarita and a Dirty Banana. The staff are usually so busy delivering luggage or cleaning or dealing with confused passengers on embarkation day that it’s far easier to head to a bar rather than take advantage of the excellent room service through the Ocean Medallion system.

As Regal Princess left Southampton in the afternoon we saw a few very familiar sights. Hardly surprising given how often we do this.

First up was Steamship Shieldhall. We had a lovely time sailing on this 1950s vessel past all the cruise ships in port in Southampton back in 2022.

Further down the Solent and we got to admire the hovercraft on its Ryde to Portsmouth flight. That’s right, they’re called flights when you’re on a hovercraft. The ultimately useless, nineteenth century forts are also always a nice sight on these cruises out of our home county.

We don’t tend to do much on cruise ships – for us they’re for reading, listening to music, drinking, enjoying the sea views, and taking us in the most relaxing way possible to see sights around the world – so to conclude this first day aboard Regal Princess here are some photos of the food we had in the main dining room in case that’s of any interest, and some pictures of the Double Down Bar next to the casino, and the place where we’d end up most nights for the disco and cocktails. It was quiet there this first night but it did have its popular nights and with it being on the walking route from the theatre to the piazza – a stupid design decision – it did get briefly crowded whenever the shows finished and you’d have no chance getting a drink for about fifteen minutes.

The first full day on Regal Princess was a sea day, and one of only three on this cruise, and since it was so bright and sunny it was the perfect day to take a few photos around the upper decks after lunch. We had cruised on Regal Princess in 2021 just as we were coming out of the heaviest of the pandemic restrictions so photos of the ship had been taken before but that’s no reason not to take more.

Regal Princess is a Royal-class ship. Regal and her sister ship Royal Princess were the first two in this class and on this particular design their adults only pool has more exposed sides to the sea offering lovely views, little cabanas by the pool, and a far better pool design and depth than that of the later variants of the class. We ended up swimming in the pool and chatting with other cruisers for ages on this first sea day and my wife ended up sunburnt.

A perk of being Elite level with Princess Cruises, other than telling other people at every opportunity that you’re Elite level with Princess Cruises, is that you get a free wine-tasting on a sea day on cruises and that happened on this first day. These wine-tastings are pretty terrible but they’re entertainingly terrible if you’re sharing a table with other people who share your sense of humour and similar thoughts regarding what makes a wine nice and what causes you to screw up your face in horror, and that’s what happened.

We had noticed a few women aboard Regal Princess on embarkation day wearing red hats with other clothing in purple but hadn’t quite realised what the reasoning for this was nor quite how many of them were aboard until the afternoon on this sea day when, with it being formal night, a whole swathe of them (well over a hundred) suddenly swarmed the piazza where we were sitting down with a glass of decent wine now. They were all in 1920s themed clothing and had turned up for lots of group photos, and they looked fabulous. This was the Red Hat Society, as it turned out (not that unsurprisingly), and they’d prove to be entertaining both on the ship and off during this cruise.

Before the cruise we’d pre-booked some speciality dining and it was Sabatini’s, the Italian trattoria on the ship, that we dined at on this evening. We will almost always dine here at least once on any Princess cruise because the food is always fantastic and you never feel like you’re not getting value for money from the experience.

In the next post in this Regal Princess British Isles cruise travelogue series we’ll arrive at the first of two ports in Ireland, Cobh.

“We’re going on an Aurora cruise!”

“Very nice! Remember to wrap up warm!”

“What? We’ll be in the Bahamas.”

“You’ll never see the Northern Lights at that latitude.”

We weren’t going to the Bahamas, but in March 2024 we were going to the quite possibly equally exotic destination of Rotterdam. This was our first (and so far, only) time on P&O’s old lady of the fleet (not an official designation), and a short cruise of effectively a long weekend. The time of year, rather common cruise destination, and short duration made this cruise quite affordable even with a balcony cabin on a small ship like Aurora. Typically, the smaller the ship then the more you’ll probably pay, and while we are keen to get value for money on cruises we also have no love for the newer, bigger ships, particularly in P&O’s fleet, and will often look at the older, less-promoted ships that cruise lines operate even if they cost a little more.

We drove down to Southampton, parked in the West Quay multi-storey car park, then walked our carry-on luggage down to the terminal. We’d decided we weren’t going to partake in the single, planned formal evening on the ship so didn’t need to be weighed down by my tuxedo or my wife’s heavier, more glamorous dress, and the short duration meant we didn’t qualify for free port parking despite paying for the higher fare in order to pick our cabin so we crammed what we needed into the smaller cases and got a little bit of exercise instead.

We had a late embarkation slot and arrived after that because we were in no hurry to board. We had no pressing need to get on with all the crowds and start drinking as early as possible, and much of that was because we no longer get the drinks package when sailing with P&O. I’m sure they suit some people’s drinking style but they certainly don’t work out to be good value for money for us, and you know how much I like value for money because I’ve already mentioned it. Plus, with no free port parking we did have additional on-board spend instead so we knew we could offset some drinking with that, although we had some food plans to take into account first.

The terminal was pretty empty when we arrived so five minutes after arriving we were on the ship, had visited our muster station, and were in our room with the safety video on while we unpacked and checked out the view from our cabin’s outside space. This was cabin C127 and there will be photos from inside it later in this series but for this first day all I did was snap a shot from the enclosed balcony.

A quick wander around the chilly top deck brought us to the Crow’s Nest at the front of Aurora and we grabbed a drink each before returning to our room for the sail away down the Solent.

Prior to the cruise we’d booked speciality dining for the first night aboard, and on Aurora that pretty much just means Sindhu, P&O’s Indian-inspired restaurant. This was located just off the top floor of the atrium with its very stylish design incorporating some lovely Art Deco lines and artwork.

We are not fans of Indian food. We’re not fans of what some people call “spice” but what we call “pain that overwhelms your senses”. Flavours are what we want from food. Flavours and textures. And maybe not all the same shade of brown. And definitely not something that tries to strip off a layer of skin inside your mouth and on the surface of your lips as you’re eating it. For these reasons we’re not fans of Indian food. But despite this, we do keep trying it out on ships. We still haven’t done it ashore as a couple, although I’ve been to a couple of restaurants on dry land for work-related reasons and not been massively impressed.

Below is the menu from our visit to Sindhu on Aurora, and after that all the dishes that ended up filling every space on the table. There were some okay bits, and even a few bits that strayed over the border into fairly nice territory, and certainly when comparing it to an experience on Iona years before it was a great improvement. It’s still not really our thing, though.

If you do like Indian food then absolutely consider booking your visit to Sindhu ahead of your cruise because it can be popular and you can save some money. We’d pre-booked for a discount, then received another discount on board because we’d booked for embarkation day.

The next day was spent at sea, slowly heading along the English Channel then up the coast of mainland Europe towards the Netherlands. A chance then for a bit of an explore around Aurora. After breakfast we stepped out onto the aft of the ship and it’s a very attractive aft indeed with those tiered, wraparound decks.

Staying outside, Aurora’s promenade deck was nice and wide.

In from the promenade deck we descended the attractive, gently spiralling staircase around the Glass House area down to the pub below and took part in morning trivia (which we won) before continuing on, through the art gallery (no Park West collaboration on P&O ships), then up the much-photographed atrium area to Anderson’s.

Anderson’s was a lovely, upmarket, homely-feeling lounge, reminiscent of the sort of thing you find in stately homes now converted to fancy hotels (not that we stay in them any longer as they are far too pricey for us these days). The big problem with Anderson’s was that it wasn’t big but it was popular across this cruise – understandably so – which made finding a seat in there in the evenings troublesome.

We don’t often visit theatres on cruise ships when there’s anything actually going on in them but we’ll often pop in for a look when they’re empty. What we did like about the Curzon Theatre on Aurora were the vintage posters on display in the entrance to the venue.

Finally on this brief wander around the ship on this sea day, back up to the Crow’s Nest to see if there was anywhere to sit down and read our books and to also take a quick look at the library just next to it. A decent-sized library as it turned out.

This sea day was also formal night on P&O Aurora and it’s something that P&O are a bit fussy about, limiting some of the venues you’re allowed to hit if you’re not prepared to dress up, including the main dining room. I’ve already said that we’d decided not to lug our formal clothes with us on such a short cruise so we had the choice of the buffet or the Glass House for our evening meal and picked the latter.

The Glass House isn’t a speciality venue but it is an additional charge restaurant that you can’t book ahead of time. No matter, we thought, and wandered over to get a table. The maître d’ made every effort to dissuade us, first telling us it would be over an hour (“No worries. We’ll have a drink over there and wait!”) then telling us he couldn’t add us to any queue because the software wouldn’t allow him until it had cleared down and we’d simply have to come back later and try again. I don’t think so. We eventually persuaded him to put our names and cabin numbers down on paper, along with those of other people in a similar situation to us, and told him that as spaces turned up he could then add us to the queue in the order in which we’d arrived rather than just continually coming up to check. I mean, quite why I needed to explain to him how to manage a queue is beyond me.

We were eventually called forward – and in well under the hour – and proceeded to enjoy the meal immensely, sharing a selection of small dishes before a larger course each. We had enough room left to go for desserts too.

Carmen’s was where we ended the night, catching some Motown music by a singer called Nick James before the general disco.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll wake up in the Netherlands and head off to take a look at Rotterdam Zoo.

So we had another sea day effectively, and there had already been a fair few of them which doesn’t make for the most thrilling of updates here. What was new and exciting to share? Not a lot. There was an event right at the end of the night that raised eyebrows (and tempers) so scroll to the bottom for details of that, but otherwise prepare yourself mostly for some photos of the top deck of Ruby Princess.

The morning view from our balcony reminded us of departing Singapore on our very first cruise and being mesmerised by the huge numbers of oil and cargo containers just lined up at anchor. Here at the entrance to the Panama Canal (which we’d be heading through the following day) was a similar sight.

The day’s weather was one of intense periods of rain followed by searing heat that almost immediately dried everything out but surrounded the ship in an invisible cloud of dense humidity, none of which were things my wife wanted to be out in so I left her in the air conditioned interior of the cruise ship after breakfast while I took a quick look around the top deck.

The miniature golf course on Ruby Princess was a huge upgrade to the equivalent spaces we’d seen on other Princess Cruises ships over the years, with those areas more-or-less accurately described as green surfaces with holes in them. Here there were actual obstacles and proper layouts, and if it hadn’t been quite so hot and my wife had been there while I was shooting the photos then I might even have persuaded her to join me for a round.

The sports court area looked like it had also benefitted from the dry dock changes on Ruby Princess that had immediately preceded our cruise.

The afternoon was spent back in our cabin when we needed to cool down or out on the balcony when we wanted to brave the heat and humidity. We make it a point to always try to book these deck 10 balcony cabins on Grand-class ships because of these double-depth, half-covered balconies. The deck below has equally large balconies but the rooms are larger so the balconies there are fully exposed to the elements and have no privacy (not that that’s really an issue), whereas our deck’s balconies offer protection from the sun, rain, and anyone looking down from above (again, not an issue, and I pity anyone looking down on us) while also giving better night views of stars. If the people around turn their balcony lights off, that is. Many don’t. A big annoyance.

In the early evening Ruby Princess started to move away from her anchorage spot near Panama City to a more distant location and the reason for this was so limit the city’s exposure to any noise from the deck party that had suddenly been arranged to make up for the change in cruise plans.

The Ruby Princess deck party featured the resident party band belting out tracks people could sing along and dance to, the staff dancing and encouraging others to join them, everyone having a generally good time, and us loving the ambience but keeping out of the way of most it. It was wonderful to have it all take place in cooler evening temperatures and the almost exclusive use of blue and purple lighting gave the occasion a pleasing look to accompany the happy atmosphere.

For the rest of the evening on the ship it was mostly business as usual with some pre-dinner cocktails, then food in the main dining room – it was Italian Night on Ruby Princess and the dinner menu is below for you to look at – then a little lounge-hopping until hitting the nightclub.

In Skywalkers it was nice to see some of the ship’s officers make an appearance to dance for a few tracks. They were, of course, treated to the DJ’s standard, small selection of music, but as they’d not heard them every night of the cruise they seemed to enjoy themselves before leaving.

Now to that incident I mentioned at the start of this write-up.

A couple of people we’d not seen before were standing by the dance floor when we decided we’d had enough and were going to head off to bed. Just as we were passing them there was a lull in the music volume enough for me to hear the man tell his wife “I wish he’d play some Led Zeppelin.”

“Good luck with that,” I felt compelled to say to him. “He won’t play anything anyone asks for. We’ve tried.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that!” he said, and headed off to the booth. We stood there and spoke to his wife for a couple of minutes on the off-chance that he’d have some success where we hadn’t, then glanced back. What we could see was the man who’d gone to talk to the DJ leaning across and jabbing his finger towards the dick with the discs. The next second the music stopped, the lights came up, and the DJ shouted into his microphone “No, no that’s it! No more! Security!”

The man returned to us. “That guy is a fucking prick!” he said, gestured to his wife, then left.

I headed to the DJ with the intention of smoothing things over. “Hey, I don’t know what was said and I hope you’re okay but I’m sure whatever was said was just in the heat of the moment,” I said. “I won’t take that from anyone,” the DJ said to me. “Someone else threatened me and yesterday someone punched me and they’re being kicked off the ship so I won’t be told what to do!”

I told the DJ I was sorry to hear that, explained what had happened to some bar staff who’d come across by now to see what was happening, then nodded to my wife and we left.

People who say that violence is never the answer haven’t paid attention to history where it’s been shown many times that it’s precisely the answer and is often very effective. No, I don’t advocate passengers hitting staff members, of course, but it was not difficult to guess what had probably led to someone else doing it given the experiences we’d had with this godawful DJ to this point too.

Who says sea days can’t be exciting!?

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series Ruby Princess, with us aboard, will make a full transit of the Panama Canal.

Halloween: a day for horrors. And the day started with one when the captain announced over the speakers that the following day’s stop at Panama City along with all its excursions had been cancelled as there was political unrest in the country that wasn’t considered to be dangerous to foreigners but would likely cause disruption that could have knock-on effects for our subsequent transit through the canal. This was the port of call we’d most been looking forward to as we’d not only booked a great trip to visit local tribespeople, we’d even had to get Yellow Fever vaccinations beforehand. Gutted, of course, but we understood the decision.

That meant we’d be getting another, unplanned sea day on the following day but for this one right now we got over the disappointment and decided to treat the day as we were going to anyway, only now we could stay up later and make more use of the drinks package. There’s always a small upside to these things.

To start with we headed off for a walk around the ship after breakfast and following is a selection of photos of some of the various Halloween decorations put up by passengers on their doors or by the cruise ship’s staff across the various venues.

At Crooner’s they’d prepared a display of Halloween-themed cocktails. By all accounts we were the first people to try some of them (because we’re nosey, and borderline functional alcoholics (well, we’re British, so the same thing)) because as soon as the first ones were delivered to our table the bar staff asked if they could take some photos of us for their corporate marketing or social media or something. People who know us know that we don’t like our photos being used or our faces shown (we have our reasons) but we said yes because the likelihood of anyone seeing the pictures should they be published anywhere or recognising us especially as we wouldn’t be named was ridiculously low.

As I was waiting for one of the drinks to be made I nipped along the deck from Crooner’s just to grab a few more photos of Halloween decorations we’d missed. At the photo centre the guys there switched on a skeleton with flashing eyes so I could take a shot of it, while in the entrance to Club Fusion a giant spider with motion detectors would rise sharply from the ground and let out a screaming roar much to everyone’s amusement.

To the main Halloween events on the Ruby Princess cruise ship then, and if you’re hoping to see photos of me and my wife in our Halloween costumes then you really, really don’t know us at all. However, I will let you see what we wore. I went with a monk’s robe and hood, adding a plague doctor-style mask to it. My wife wore an Alice in Wonderland Queen of Hearts costume. I really wish I’d taken up the hem of my outfit and had it altered to give more room to walk as it proved very awkward to do much more than shuffle, but both costumes proved very popular. On three occasions – one in a lift, which was the funniest – women passengers flinched when they saw me, and two crossed themselves afterwards. My wife, on the other hand, added to the day’s earlier unexpected photography session by the bar staff with additional poses between groups of Asian women on the cruise who wanted shots taken with this sort-of-Disney-queen look, I guess. This happened many times. Several Asian women bowed to her too.

There was some music taking place in the piazza as we passed by but our main source of entertainment to start the evening – and it features in most evenings on a cruise ship for us – was some Halloween trivia. It was one where you need to guess the Halloween-related music based on a small clip and we did pretty average on this.

Then it was back to the piazza for the Halloween Costume Parade. We observed but didn’t take part, primarily because my shuffling through the central hub of the ship while being stared at from three levels was too much for my introverted self to contemplate. I’d often take some photos here then look around to find my wife had been cornered by more Asian cruisers wanting a photo taken with her.

From the parade it was along to Club Fusion and the Halloween Disco, first with music from the resident band, then the DJ. As we tend to get along with and get to know the bar staff quite well when we cruise with Princess – it just happens – it was nice to bump into some here who were dressed up too and it was good to see their own reaction to our costumes.

Knowing we didn’t have to get up super-early any longer because of the Panamanian disruption ashore, we headed to Skywalkers for a bit afterwards and it was lovely to see the place with a few more people in it than normal, even if the absolutely bloody awful DJ was there playing the same old songs he always played without any concern for the passengers.

In the next post in this travelogue series we get another quiet, relaxing day aboard Ruby Princess before a deck party in the evening to make up for us not being able to go ashore in Panama.

If you’ve ever wondered just what there is to do on a cruise ship for four sea days then I hope you’re sitting down and are fully braced for disappointment. What you’ve got to remember is that sea day activities may contain some core elements that you can usually count upon – trivia, dance class, some attempt to persuade you that a good foot massage will reverse the signs of ageing – but they can also spring some surprises so while you could look at what’s presented here and think either “Huh? Is that all?” or “Oh! So that’s what to expect!”, in both cases you’d be wrong. Basically, anything could happen.

Your staff aboard will do their best to entertain the largest amount of people possible, but there’s an added complication in that I’m recounting this cruise on Ruby Princess from my and my wife’s perspectives only. There are things we like to do on relaxing sea days and they don’t often include many scheduled activities. They’re also not that thing if that’s what you’re thinking, you dirty person. We’ve been together way too long now.

We tend to eat, drink, read, take part in quizzes, and swim, although not in that order because our mums always used to warn us about not going swimming after eating and drinking. Photos of books or our blubbery masses floating in the water are not going to appeal to anyone (well, not strictly true, but perverts need to contact me separately for those images), everyone thinks you’re cheating if you use your phone during a quiz, and so that largely just leaves food and drink to make up the bulk of this post; and if you have found this page because you want to see photos of main dining room food on a Princess Cruises ship then you should be adequately satisfied. But we did see and do some things.

On the first day at sea Ruby Princess had angled her course so that our balcony got an awful lot of sunshine on it which we thought would be nice to sit out on, read, and take in the sea views for a while. That wasn’t the case because it was furiously hot there and we’re delicate little flowers. We didn’t last very long before taking ourselves off for an hour in the pool, then after lunch happening upon the end of some artistic fruit-carving that was on display in the Piazza.

In the early part of the evening we watched some more American Football on the movie screen on the top deck, seeing the Bills and Buccaneers compete, with a surprisingly high number of fans of the former team proudly showing their support.

We’d booked Sabatini’s, the Italian speciality restaurant on Princess Cruises ships, and were pleased that despite it being a new menu with all the worry that entails, everything was still very good. We’ve still not forgiven them for getting rid of the superb Grana Padano Fondue, though.

An Italian meal requires a Limoncello shot and so we picked up some of the customary shot glasses that you get to keep when you pay the small charge for this (payable whether you’re on a drinks package or not). We have loads of these glasses already anyway, but we decided it would be nice to see if we could complete the collection of coloured ones we were missing. A great idea if we could have remembered what colours we didn’t already have.

Speciality dining on a Princess ship really fills you up so we made the sensible decision to have a relatively early night for us and spotted some early signs of Halloween decorations appearing outside cabins as we made our way to ours. This cruise took place at the end of October and into the beginning of November.

The outside air temperature was thirty degrees on the second sea day which actually meant it was cooler than the day before and without the direct searing sunshine that had kept us off our balcony then. A chance then for more reading in our own little private sanctuary on the cruise which we also enjoyed with one of the free bottles of wine we’d received (see the previous post about what happened when we got back on board the ship at Cabo if you don’t know why that was) and the sight of some dolphins occasionally keeping the ship company.

During the evening trivia on board Ruby Princess we ended up with a haul of prizes in the form of a bottle of “ship champagne”, Princess-branded notebook, and the much coveted ship-specific coasters. Since this cruise and prior to this write-up the company that manufactured those prizes for Princess went out of business so our quest to get coasters from all the ships has now come to a disappointing end, but we’ve got a few of them and that’s probably more than most people.

The third sea day hit rockier waters, which we like for the feeling but which we don’t like because the ship invariably ends up closing off pools, and particularly the more shallow ones such as the one we tend to use. So no swimming for us on this day.

After a morning trivia win we ended up on fizz for a large part of the day as it was one of the gala nights on the ship. Early in the evening there was the Captain’s Circle event for returning guests, during which one of the bridge officers received a promotion, making it slightly different from usual. More typical, though, was that because we’d become well-known with the bar staff at the nightclub and many of them were on duty for the Captain’s Circle event we got looked after well and ended up with a few of our regular late evening drinks appearing out of nowhere in addition to the general freebies they tend to make up and hand around.

Later in the evening, after dinner, we headed to the top deck for some night views of the largely empty space following a bit of a rain shower. The swimming pools always sparkle at night. Coming back inside we happened upon some music and dancing with many of the entertainments staff in the Piazza.

The evening finished on a bit of a sour note in Skywalkers when I asked the DJ to play some music for us and was simply told “No.” No apology for not having it, no offer of something else, just a no and then he ignored me. And he continued to ignore me when I asked what he had; absolutely blanked me and refused to even acknowledge I was there. And he continued to play his own music which was the same set of tracks he’d played every night to this point, concentrating on mixing tracks and not giving any concern to anyone in the club. This was a shock to be treated like this and it wouldn’t be the last or even worst interaction with this incredibly rude member of staff on this cruise.

The last of the four sea days was the quietest one yet, but there was another NFL game to watch, we caught a movie too, the day featured a swim, there was the usual bit of reading, and another trivia win in the evening. We won quite a few on this cruise.

During dinner we added to our collection of shot glasses, managing to acquire one of each available colour on board through some chatting and swapping with staff members.

In the next post in this Ruby Princess cruise travelogue series we dock at Puntarenas, Costa Rica where we head off on an excursion into the rainforest.

For this first visit to this Mexican port we’d woken to glorious sunshine, vibrant colours, sights of the famous rock formations in the area, and a couple of other ships visiting. Cabo is a tender port – the cruise ships anchor off shore – so the calm, deep blue water was humming with shuttle boat activity.

The excursion we had booked for our day in Cabo San Lucas was one that took us to Todos Santos for a guided tour of some cultural and historical highlights, then to the Hotel California for some lunch and a chance to admire some fabulous local artwork, and if you’ve not already read those travelogue accounts and it sounds of interest then you can do so by clicking on the links above. That’s right: I’m explaining how websites and links work to you, a person using the internet.

I don’t often take photos from buses when we’re on excursions because bumpy roads and tinted glass and reflections annoy me immensely – it doesn’t take a lot to annoy me immensely – but the landscape of Mexico was worthy of a few shots. Mountain ridges and cacti all over the place in the Baja California peninsula!

We arrived back at Cabo to be greeted by a long queue of people waiting for a tender boat back to Ruby Princess; long enough for us to have to trek some way between bars and shops just to find its end. The bars held some appeal (well, we are us, after all) but given the length of the day’s excursion and the fast-approaching point of all aboard time we decided to simply shuffle along and get the first boat back we could. In fairness, the line moved fairly swiftly.

A very fun encounter with a local at Cabo then took place as we neared the boarding area.

“Are you a professional photographer?” came a loud voice from one side. It was a young woman outside a shop a dozen or so metres away, and the comment was directed at me because I had my equipment out. Camera equipment, you filthy-minded person, you. I’m an introvert so I simply smiled, shook my head, and mouthed “No” at her, and that would have been the end of it except that about twenty seconds later I heard “Well, you can take my picture anyway.” She’d crossed through the queue to the other side of us and adopted a pose right next to me. I didn’t need a second invitation, snapped a quick shot, and thanked her. I don’t know who she was but she gave me a fabulous memory to attach to the end of a lovely day in this port in Mexico and it was especially fun to hear a few men in the queue around jealously muttering about what I’d done to deserve that special attention. I have an ineffable quality.

More luck was on our side as we reached the front of the queue for the tender boat as a new one had just arrived. This gave us the chance to sit up top and allow for some great views heading back to the ship plus some fresh air to take the sting out of the heat of the day. The dry, rocky landscape and some sheltered beaches were quite nice to see from the water but we particularly enjoyed watching a fishing boat heading out with an entourage of frigatebirds overhead and a pelican sat on its aft.

You can get some spectacular photos of cruise ships if you’re sat up top on a tender boat. However, the pirate-style vessel to the right in the photo below is far away. Cruise ships are big, but they’re not that big. Feel free to imagine Ted explaining this to Dougal in your head right now.

Back on board we enjoyed a little bit of the early evening sunshine from our balcony and looking at not only the two other cruise ships in the port – Navigator of the Seas and Celebrity Eclipse – but listening to the party music from tour boats taking in close views of El Arco (the famous arch formation) as sunset approached.

And then the second interesting encounter with someone of the day took place.

We’d been out on the balcony so had missed a phone call to the cabin. A message had been left and we could play it back but couldn’t make it out clearly enough. All we knew was that it was a manager on the ship and he wanted to speak to us and could we contact him. We couldn’t because we couldn’t work out which manager he was or how to contact him, and we couldn’t work out how to replay the message either.

We headed down to guest services and explained that a manager had left a call for us but we didn’t know who or how to play the message again. The person helping us checked a few things on the computer then made a phone call. “Yes, they’re here at reception now,” we heard her say on the phone before hanging up. “If you’ll just wait, the manager is on his way to see you now.”

I won’t lie: this was not exactly the most comfortable thing to hear because we still had no idea what this was about. Within seconds we saw a member of staff come quickly down the stairs and head straight to us. A quick handshake and introduction – Prishant – helped put our minds at ease a little and he then looked around and dragged us along to the nearby bar to have a seat. Seeing his manager there, a waiter came scurrying over and orders were taken (with no need to check our medallions, of course) with a little small talk to settle things down. Then…

“Is everything fine with the ship?” he asked.

“Everything’s lovely,” we assured him.

“No problems?” he asked.

“No, we’re having a lovely time.”

“And you do go to Skywalkers in the evening? No problems there?”

“We love Skywalkers.”

“But did you post a message about it online?”

Ah.

Finally, we’d reached the point of this meeting. If you’ve read the account of our first night aboard Ruby Princess then you might know that for rather less than twenty seconds I had posted on Instagram a “Do a better job, Princess Cruises!” mini-rant because while we’d been okay we’d seen some other passengers get overlooked in the nightclub as the staff were clustered around the bar and not circling enough. Less than twenty seconds. I deleted it once I saw a typo and couldn’t remember how to edit the post quickly enough.

What had clearly happened was that someone at Princess – and I’d tagged their main account and media team – had been able to still see the message (or more likely get a copy of it prior to deletion through some forwarding system) and had got in touch with the ship where it had made its way to one of the managers in charge of this area.

What then took place was about fifteen minutes of “I want to make it up to you” from Prishant and lots of “There’s nothing to make up. We weren’t affected. The service has been superb ever since then. It was just a first night thing. It happens. We don’t want anyone to get in trouble over this. You don’t have to do anything for us. There’s nothing we need or want. We’re very happy on Ruby Princess” from us.

“Can I buy you dinner at Crown Grill?”

“We ate there yesterday.

“What about Sabatini’s?”

“We’re eating there tomorrow.”

“And you’re already on the top drinks package?”

“Yes. Please, we’re absolutely fine. If it helps you can just go back to your bosses and say you’re resolved the situation. You don’t need to do anything, we swear.”

He seemed to relent and we had a little more general chat before he said goodbye. It was interesting to see some of the other stewards and staff paying attention to the scene of this manager sitting with us, drinking in a public bar (cocktails for us, he was on water as he was working, just to clarify), then lots of smiles and shaking of hands. That would work in our favour quite a lot for the rest of the cruise too. We would also bump into Prishant numerous times from this point on as we’d walk around the ship with many “Any issues? Everything fine?” from him and more handshakes and more crew members wondering just who we were to be getting this attention. Possibly.

Some photos of food from the main dining room now. We’d eat, listen to some music, and head to Skywalkers as usual to conclude this very enjoyable and very memorable day ashore at Cabo San Lucas and aboard Ruby Princess.

Well, almost conclude the day.

During our general chit-chat with the manager we’d asked about the dry dock changes to Ruby Princess and he’d been happy to tell us about some of it, and he’d also asked if there were any changes we didn’t like.

“Well,” said my wife, “the only disappointment is that you can’t get Belle Glos by the glass in Vines any longer. That was our favourite wine to drink in there. But otherwise, it’s all good.”

A throwaway comment, but one the manager retained because we got back to our room to find two bottles of Belle Glos waiting for us. How good was that service from Prishant and Princess Cruises? You cannot help but be impressed by that.

We hadn’t asked for the wine and hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

“He probably needs to go back and explain what he’s done to make us happy,” said my wife.

“You’re right,” I replied. “We’d be doing him a favour by accepting this and drinking it.”

So we did. Not right there and then, of course. We’re fond of a drink but come on!

In the next post in this Ruby Princess cruise travelogue series I’ll cover some of the highlights (and one lowlight) of four relaxing sea days on the ship as we make our way towards Costa Rica.

Sea days on cruise ships for us follow a fairly standardised pattern now which involves getting up, taking reading material and camera with us, grabbing some breakfast, then making ourselves comfortable somewhere to give our cabin steward enough time to get our room cleaned. I might head off to take some photos and we might take a peek at any activities going on if they’re nearby and sound sufficiently entertaining. We’ll hit all the trivia quizzes if we can, we’ll swim if the conditions are good enough, and we’ll probably start drinking by mid-afternoon.

One thing that Princess Cruises do on sea days is hold an afternoon tea. It’s free – not the more fancy, paid-for event you can get on other ships – but the variety of savoury and sweet snacks is good and the tea itself is a marked improvement on most of the other hot beverage options on the ship. On this sea day aboard Ruby Princess we were seated at a table of eight with a group of American women.

Something we had been looking forward to on this cruise was getting to watch some American Football games on the main deck. This isn’t something we’d been able to do before as all our other cruises prior to this sailed in the wrong time zone or at the wrong time of the year to enjoy this experience. What was even better on this occasion was that my wife’s team, the Vikings, was taking on San Francisco, of whom there were a lot of fans aboard. And what was even better than that was that the Vikings won.

We decided on this first sea day to treat ourselves to a meal at the Salty Dog gastropub. There was nothing wrong with anything we ate or drank but neither of us were blown away with the food.

To the second sea day now and a source of general entertainment was provided by way of the egg drop challenge in the piazza. The goal of this, if you’re unfamiliar with the event, is to construct an apparatus that will allow an egg to survive a drop from the upper tier of the atrium space, and to get as close as possible to a target below. Some people go for cushioning systems and others try to float the egg down by way of a parachute, and you can usually count on a few disasters.

A general rule on Princess ships is that when you reach Elite status (fifteen cruises or one hundred and fifty days at sea) you must mention that you’re Elite at every opportunity. We’re Elite – see – and one of the perks – if it can really be called that – is a free wine-tasting event on one of the sea days. This took place on this second sea day on Ruby and while these things have wines that vary in quality from terrible to just about sippable, they are often fun if you can sit by people similarly criticising the wine, and that was the case here.

It was formal night on Princess – they’re not a cruise line that clamps down on you and shoves you out of venues if you don’t dress formally (cough, P&O, cough) – so that meant an obligatory Vodka Martini for me, and I did actually don the tuxedo for the night. We’d also booked the Crown Grill for dinner and they never disappoint although this meal was memorable for the clouds of smoke that came billowing into the restaurant towards the end necessitating some windows getting opened to let it all escape outside. Something burning somewhere but none of the staff seemed too concerned so we weren’t either.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll arrive at the first port of call and a new one for us, Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, where we head off on an excursion to Todos Santos.