We have just returned from an overall fabulous cruise aboard Ruby Princess, marking the first time aboard this particular ship and now the sixth Grand-class vessel operated by Princess Cruises we’ve cruised on. Of the seven remaining Grand-class ships in the Princess fleet (at time of writing this, November 2023), that just leaves the original, Grand Princess, and the only ship retaining its shopping trolley handle Skywalkers configuration, Caribbean Princess, and while we were on this cruise we went and booked a new one aboard Caribbean Princess for next year. Remember (or learn for the first time), you can always see our upcoming cruising plans on the Future Cruises page.

We flew Virgin Atlantic to and from America, with the flight out far better in terms of comfort but far worse in terms of it had those windows that can lighten or darken with buttons, and which can be controlled by the crew, so the lovely views over Greenland and Canada we’d had on the flight to Vancouver earlier this year were ruined by deep blue tinting. Not all of us want to (or can) sleep on a plane, thanks, and some of us like looking out, thanks. I’m not a fan of the tinted windows on planes.

We stayed one night in San Francisco ahead of the cruise, booked into the Riu Plaza Fisherman’s Wharf because of its walking distance proximity to the cruise pier. Getting to the hotel involved a weaving, slightly worrying, but ultimately fun ride in a taxi from right outside the airport. We weren’t entirely sure the taxi was legal as we stepped out to see a man say “Taxi?” then lead our bags towards his waiting car, but it all worked out, with running commentary of the city and sights along the way. The hotel was perfectly fine with the exception of the bar there which has to rank as the source of the second best cocktails we’ve ever drank (Hive Bar, Crawley, still holds top spot). Superb drinks. We only hit the bar (“for a nightcap”) after we’d had a short walk around the Fisherman’s Wharf area on the Saturday evening and ended up spending over a hundred dollars. We were on holiday. This part of San Francisco was lovely, had chill vibes, pleasant temperature, ridiculous number of sea lions, street entertainment, views towards the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. A nice base to spend a few days should we ever return.

The following morning we waited for a break in the rain (the locals apparently appreciated it as there’d been a bit of a drought) to walk our luggage the ten minutes to the dock. We didn’t quite make it before the heavens opened up again so we looked like drowned rats when we checked in, but arrival time at the dock to stepping into our room couldn’t have been more than another ten minutes.

Let’s mention those dry dock changes. This was Ruby Princess’s first cruise after a three-week dry dock and it had had some fairly hefty changes, plus some general sprucing up. Most of what I say here should be true based on what we were told after talking to some bar staff about what was new since the dry dock, but it’s possible that some of this was already in place. Again, this was our first time aboard Ruby Princess so we didn’t have anything concrete to compare against.

• Accessibility Improvements – People with disabilities were given a little love with the changes to improve accessibility. Most noticeably, a lot of the bars had lowered bar service areas for those in wheelchairs to get close and use. One of the exits onto the Promenade Deck was changed from a heavy, swinging door to one that slid open.
• Casino – By all accounts, all stripped out and replaced. It was certainly more open, clean, fresh-looking, hosting new carpets and new machines. What had previously been the smoking room was turned into a small arcade room (which we forgot to check out), but that meant that smoking was permitted in the casino itself. Only on the port side, and only cigarettes (no pipes or cigars), but the result was what you expect: it smells. Perhaps not as bad as we’ve found on other ships, but that’s possibly down to this being the first cruise after dry dock again. Smoking is vile, but the addictive personality that likes to smoke often likes to gamble away money too, and cruising is a money-making business. We were told that Princess are looking to scrap smoking inside completely but I have my doubts. At the very least, it would be a good move to only permit vaping. Vaping is still awful – I have no wish to breathe in exhaled water vapour from someone’s lungs just as I have no wish to breathe in tobacco smoke – but it could improve the overall feel there and reduce the stench for those wanting or needing to pass through.
• Skywalkers Nightclub – Brand new star-field carpeting and furniture giving it a more modern look. Around the dance floor there are stools and a small bar. Now, on other Princess ships, this bar is flat and ideal for putting your drinks on while you’re dancing or people-watching, but on Ruby this had a rounded top stopping that, and also making the point of the stools pointless. It’s possible this has always been like this on Ruby Princess, but if it’s new then it’s a bad move.
• Carpets and Furniture – Pretty much everywhere, as far as we could tell, the carpets had been replaced, and most venues appeared to have new seating too. The big exception was the Adagio lounge, but it’s likely so underused that it wasn’t worth it.
• Princess Links – This is the mini golf course that on all the other Princess ships we’ve been on has been some green carpet with a couple of holes in it. On Ruby, though, it was a proper miniature golf course. A very nice improvement, even if I’ve never managed to persuade Marie to play a game with me.
• Cabin – Other than the new carpet, the only thing we could see that was decidedly different from other Princess ships in this class was the lighting in the room. Side table lamps had no upgrade so, nope, no USB outlet near the bed. However, under one side table there was a narrow strip light with a motion sensor to switch it on. Mildly irritating, but you can stuff a pillow in there and stop that. Far more annoying, but probably part of the accessibility movement assuming it’s a new thing, was the closet light. It was almost impossible to go to the toilet during the night without triggering the light, and that light is bright. Really, really bright. Like “oh, has a lighthouse crept into my room while I’ve been snoozing” bright. I said “almost impossible” because my top tip here is make sure you’ve got some plasters and cover the sensor on the light for less-interrupted nights.

Onto the cruise from San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale via the Panama Canal then, and first, the itinerary.

We’d known at the time of booking that there were a fair few sea days. After we’d booked, that increased by one when a planned stop at Nicaragua was cancelled due to political unrest. On the cruise itself we then lost the stop at Panama too for the same reason. Panama, and the planned visit to see a native tribe, was what I’d most been looking forward to, so this was a big disappointment, but it happens. We still got to visit Mexico, Costa Rica, and Colombia.

Mexico – Cabo San Lucas was the stop here, and a first time at this particular Mexican port for us. It didn’t look like there was much to do in the port itself if you didn’t want to visit a beach or stroll around shops, so we took an excursion to the town of Todos Santos for a walking tour of it and lunch at the Hotel California. A really pretty town, the hotel was interesting and filled with gorgeous artwork, Marie got a free mini-margarita, we both tested some tequila before buying some. Very, very hot and humid.

Costa Rica – Our second time hitting the port of Puntarenas and this time we opted for a walk in the cloud forest tops. This involved a hike through trails with lots of downs followed by the inevitable ups interspersed with walks over suspension bridges that were supremely wobbly. If you don’t like heights then probably avoid this one. And if you don’t like snakes then avoid it too because we came across a viper curled up by the path at one point. And if you don’t like tarantulas then hope that you’re as lucky as us and that your guide can’t get one of them to crawl out of its hole for you. Actually, though, a great little trip, with lunch included, and despite the dripping, beetroot face of Marie thanks to the exertion of the climbing segments, we both enjoyed it and the re-visit to a souvenir shop we’d hit years before too. Very, very hot and humid.

Colombia – We opted for a highlights tour of Cartagena for our first visit to this country. After some hellish traffic jams partly from localised flooding that had occurred before we arrived, this included a visit to a fortress (some steep slopes brought on the sweating and panting once again), a shopping arcade in old walls, a walking tour of the absolutely beautiful old town, some free time in the town, a visit to the former home of the Inquisition, the cathedral, and a maritime museum, plus a short folklore show. Beautiful, as I’ve mentioned, but brace yourself for all the people trying to sell you tat every few metres, and practice your “No, gracias” before heading here. Great local beers, though, and had the joy of both seeing a drug deal take place and being offered some too. One other wonderful thing about this port is that there was an aviary at the port entrance containing loads of exotic birds, all free to access. Very, very hot and humid.

And, obviously, there was the transit of the Panama Canal too. A good experience to tick off the list, but not much else to say about it. After entering the canal in bright (and ferociously hot) sunshine and moving through the three locks, most of the transit took place in rain, with some parts in fog. Not quite as extreme as when we did the Suez Canal.

One of the best aspects of this cruise on Ruby Princess was that in many ways it felt like a return to the sort of cruising we did when we first fell in love with this form of travel. The ship’s staff were fabulous (with one massive exception (more on him in a bit)), and you could tell this was a happy crew. We had some of the best service we’ve had at sea on any line. We had the best cabin steward we’ve ever had.

On the first night, there’d been a little disappointment when the staff in Skywalkers didn’t pay enough attention to the few of us in there leading to me giving up waiting for someone to come over, refusing to walk to the bar in the nearly empty venue on principle, and ordering a drink on the app that was then delivered from the Lido deck bar. It all annoyed me enough to post a comment to Princess Cruises on an Instagram post of mine. After publishing and reading it, I decided that since it was the first night I was possibly just being tetchy for no reason so deleted it. That comment was visible for all of twenty seconds. But it was seen. A few days later we had a message on the phone from the general bar manager aboard wanting to talk to us. We didn’t know what the reason was and figured something had been left or appeared on a bill or something like that. No, apparently, Princess must have contacted him, worked out who we were based on our Instagram account, and asked him to make us happy. He took us to Crooners and bought us drinks and had a chat about what we’d experienced on the first night. We tried to wave it all off, saying we didn’t want to get anyone in trouble, one of those things, we didn’t want anything, really we didn’t want anything, no we didn’t want to dine at Crown Grill as we’d done it the night before, no we didn’t want to dine at Sabatini’s as we had it booked for the day after, seriously we didn’t want anything. We were then talking about general changes and about how we were sad to see that Belle Glos Pinot Noir was no longer in Vines, although it could be bought elsewhere. “Oh, you like Belle Glos?” he asked. When we got back to our cabin that evening there were two bottles waiting for us.

Seriously, we didn’t want anything. We’re not those sorts of cruise bloggers. But you bet we enjoyed the hell out of them. Thank you, Princess, and thank you, Prishant, who made a point of checking in on us numerous times on the cruise to make sure things were still okay and had improved. They had. Immensely. We never even had to ask for new drinks in Skywalkers after that as they knew what we liked; we even had new drinks arriving before we’d finished the old ones most of the time. Great service.

But, I feel it’s only fair to mention the blot on the landscape of this cruise ship (not counting the debacle of a debark tour that wasn’t really in Princess’s control), and that was that massive exception I mentioned earlier. The DJ. I won’t mention his name as a small courtesy (but when I post Princess Patter imagery in the full write-ups you can find it there if you’re really interested). I cannot think of a less-suitable-for-cruising person working in the cruise industry. He was young, so perhaps he can learn, but he also needs a complete personality overhaul. The music he played was okay, but he played it every night. A different order, maybe mixed a little differently, maybe with a different song every now and then, but ultimately, the same core of songs every single night. Every. Single. Night. There were no themes. You got a mixture of disco, pop, and bloody Latin. The same mixture. Every. Single. Night. So far, not great, but not the worst thing in the world. Ah, but let’s fast forward to about the fourth night of this when it was just me and Marie and maybe a couple of other people seated in the club.

“Hey, mate, as there’s nobody here and nobody dancing, any chance of some rock instead?”

“No.”

“But some other night, maybe, yes?”

Ignored me. Played around with mixing software.

“Do you have any Rob Zombie? Probably not, but thought I’d ask. AC/DC would be good, though. What have you got?”

Ignored me. Played around with mixing software.

“So any classic hip-hop? Late 80s, early 90s. You’ve got to have Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock, yeah?”

Ignored me. Played around with mixing software.

Yeah, I was not happy. The impression I got was that this was a DJ who thought he was headlining a massive club in Ibiza and I should be thankful just to be in his presence as he honed his skills, whereas I’d thought he was the DJ on a cruise ship whose purpose was to entertain guests and be an ambassador for the cruise line. I seethed, but said nothing.

A few days later, though, some new people turned up in the club late one night, and just as we were leaving we overheard the guy say to his wife “This music sucks. I wish he’d play some Led Zeppelin.” I couldn’t help myself, so I wandered over and said “We’re right there with you and the Led Zeppelin, but good luck getting this DJ to play it.” “Oh, watch me try,” he said, and wandered across the empty dance floor to the booth.

We didn’t hear what was said, but we stood there with his wife as the guy first talked, then threw his hands up in the air, then started gesticulating to the DJ. The next thing that happens is the music stops, the lights come up, and the DJ starts shouting “No, I will not be told what to do. That is it! It’s over!”

The guy walked past us, gesturing to his wife to come along, and told us “That DJ is a fucking asshole!” as he left. I decided to pop over to the DJ and said “Hey, I don’t know what was said to you by that guy, but if anything was said in anger then let me apologise on his behalf, it’s late, try to let it go, and try not to lose your cool.” I then got an angry explanation along the lines “No, people can’t tell me what to do. Somebody punched me yesterday and they’re getting kicked off the ship, so no, nobody tells me what to do.”

The club’s manager was behind me as I went to leave and asked what the problem was. “A passenger and your DJ had a difference of opinion, I’ve tried to pave over the cracks, but this may be more your job.”

So, yes. Worst cruise ship DJ ever. And while I could never condone violence against a rude, arrogant little shit like this DJ, I can at least guess what led to it.

But, the cruise itself. We loved it. It felt not just like the before-Covid times, but before even the before-Covid times in many ways. Friendly, helpful, professional staff who remembered your name and cabin number and drinks or dining preferences, and no long waits for drinks or food, with decent entertainment from a happy crew on a cruise with interesting sights and new ports of call and experiences. It’s what we wanted.

This first post will be brief – for me – and simply cover a few details of the hotels we stayed in each side of the Atlantic along with some photos from the plane window flying over America just to break up the imagery of beds and shower units. You might be surprised to learn that the number of people looking for nothing but pictures of beds and shower units on articles about travelling from London to San Francisco is actually quite small.

We flew out of Heathrow so we drove up the night before and booked into the Renaissance Hotel, conveniently close to the long stay parking we’d be making use of the day afterwards. Hotels are more-or-less the same the world over and this one was perfectly fine, with a large and clean bedroom and bathroom.

Another reason for booking this hotel was that it was close to a pub. We can and do eat or drink in hotels but if there is a nearby pub then we like to spread our spending a bit whenever we travel. This was The Three Magpies and we stayed for several.

It was nice to have a reasonably late flight – just after midday – because a lot of flights we take for some reason usually mean we have to set alarms for unearthly hours of the morning. We didn’t have breakfast in the hotel but simply parked our car in the long stay parking for terminals 2 and 3 then hopped on the shuttle bus to the airport. This took a while because there’d been an accident on the only road to the airport but we’d left in plenty of time so didn’t panic overly.

The check-in process took a long time at the airport too because it appeared everyone ahead of us in the queue had some issue or another. When we got to the counter the woman there scanned our passports, looked, checked again, then said “Oh, you’ve filled in everything you needed to do already. I wish everyone was like you.” The world would be a better place, that’s for sure.

We grabbed a breakfast and some pre-flight drinks after security in the airport because that’s travelling law.

Our flight from London to San Francisco was with Virgin. It was a comfortable flight – I did make notes that there were annoying people around us but I can’t remember the details of that – but the food was pretty dire and the windows were the sort that can be tinted dark blue by the crew. They duly did this for part of the flight, stuffing up some otherwise lovely views over Greenland and Canada, but they did return us to normality towards the final stretch of the trip.

There was quite a slow-moving queue at customs in San Francisco but the agent who dealt with us was very friendly. By the time we’d chatted with him and done all the usual security things like take fingerprints and photos we found our luggage already on the carousel at baggage claim.

We stepped out of the doors of the terminal with every intention of looking for signs to taxis but there was a man standing there who said “Taxi?” to us, grabbed our cases, and took them to his limousine. We had no idea how legal this was but the drive to our hotel was great and we enjoyed a long talk with the driver about the local area and his life, got tourist suggestions from him, talked about sport, etc. We were still concerned that the price of the taxi might be extortionate and we might need to engage the use of hotel staff at the destination to sort things out but it was about what we’d been led to expect from looking online so that was fine, and we were happy – well, happy enough given that this is America and expected for arcane worker-exploitation reasons – to tip on top of the job done.

Our day of long delays to get things done continued at the hotel. We walked into the Riu Plaza Fisherman’s Wharf while they were training a new member of staff to use the booking-in system and things didn’t go as planned. We genuinely didn’t mind this, though, because everyone’s got to learn sometimes. We were patient, we smiled, we encouraged, we told the new staff member not to panic and to take his time, and we got a room upgrade either as a result or just because.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll head off for a look around the Fisherman’s Wharf area of San Francisco in the evening and enjoy some very good drinks in the hotel bar.

In the previous post in this Ruby Princess cruise travelogue series I covered the largely uneventful flight to San Francisco and our taxi ride from the airport to the hotel we’d picked. We’d selected a hotel in the Fisherman’s Wharf area of San Francisco as it would be walkable from there to the cruise port in the morning.

After a lengthy check-in and after our long day of travelling already we made sure to shower first then head out to see what was nearby. Neither of us were hungry but we headed to a CVS store near the hotel to start with because my wife was on a mission for a particularly large bag of sweets she’d once brought back from another trip to the US. We could see the spot on the shelves where they should have been but they were out of stock so that wasn’t to be.

It was a lovely warm evening to be walking around down by the waterfront and there were plenty of other people milling about the area. The first thing we encountered was a group of street entertainers – the sort who dance and crack jokes – and we made sure to stand well back from the onlookers because we’re very familiar with these sorts of things and how soon the hat comes around for tips. We’re not against that, by any means, but our problem was not actually having any cash on us at this point, it all being back in our hotel room, and us not wanting to appear unappreciative of the entertainment being provided. We’d figured on just strolling to take photos and using our cards or phones to pay if we had to.

We enjoyed the sunset views and seeing such sights as Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge just minutes from our hotel, and we knew we’d see them both again because the pier from where our cruise ship would be leaving the next day was right in this area too. We were also pleased to see the famous sea lions that haul themselves onto Pier 39. One in particular was very vocal.

We stopped to buy some soap from a store that was open on a pier, but otherwise most of what was open at this time were either restaurants or bars, and we didn’t need the former and didn’t really want to battle the crowds for the latter, so we ended up making our way back to the hotel with a quick drop back into CVS to pick up some water.

We were a little tired, even though it wasn’t that late – but, of course, we’d been up for over twenty four hours at this point – and thought that an early night might be sensible, but we had to pass the hotel bar on the way through to reception and we decided to see what it was like. Well, it was fabulous. Or rather, the barman was. After our first couple of very nice themed drinks (it was nearing Halloween) I thought I’d see how he did with an Old Fashioned and my wife asked if he knew how to make a Kentucky Kiss. He did, and went off to hunt down a strawberry to garnish it, and it was enormous. The drinks were great – not the best Old Fashioned I’ve ever had; that honour belongs to a bar in Crawley; but top three easily – and so we had to stay for just one more as well with my wife having another of her cocktails with mutant strawberry once more while I tried a Vodka Martini. We were pleased to see three olives. The mark of a barman who knows what he’s doing. Despite being British and despising the American “tradition” and expectation regardless of service, we did the honours and tipped accordingly and willingly when paying.

In the next post in this series we’ll actually walk down to the pier again, only this time with bags in tow in order to board Ruby Princess and begin a new cruise.

The evening in Fisherman’s Wharf had been warm and dry and… absolutely nothing like the morning that greeted us. The hotel lobby was busy with people who were clearly looking to board the ship too given the luggage tags on their bags, but they were also all sitting around and waiting for taxis. It was a ten minute walk to the port so we didn’t want to waste money on calling a cab, but we also weren’t keen on getting soaked and the rain was persistent, if not too heavy. Decisions, decisions.

We ended up hanging around for perhaps half an hour, hoping for a break in the rain, and one eventually came so we risked it and started walking. Faster than we’d have liked, but not too fast as we had cases and this was America, where cars are king and pedestrians are an afterthought.

We were getting a little damp but it wasn’t too bad until suddenly it started to tip it down again. At this point we were walking along the waterfront but still a few minutes from the pier we needed. Fortunately, there was an overhang we could scoot under so we did and it was nice to at least take a breather from our quick pace. It wouldn’t do to twist an ankle right at the start of a cruise, after all. We saw that we weren’t the only idiots wheeling luggage around in the San Francisco rain so that made us feel slightly better.

The rain eased off again and we started walking. We’d been able to see the ship for a while – cruise ships are not small things – and now we could make out the pier entrance as there were coaches unloading passengers and taking cases down to be brought aboard.

As we got close to where cases needed to be handed over to the pier workers we saw one of those workers wheel a cart loaded with passengers’ cases from a bus towards the dock area. As it bumped over a bit of paving the top case came loose and dropped into a shallow puddle. I shouted and waved, another guy shouted. The worker stopped, looked back at the case, then turned around and carried on walking with his cart, leaving the bag there in the water. That was utterly shocking to us and it didn’t put us in a good frame of mind with the workers there.

Fortunately, when a worker came to take our bags and held out his hand for a tip only for me to say “Sorry, we aren’t carrying any cash” we got a look of disgust that evened things up a bit. I mean, it’s actually true; we weren’t carrying cash to tip someone just for doing their job because we live in a civilised part of the world that pays its employees properly so it’s simply not something we think of doing.

There was a bit of a queue inside the building which gave us a little bit of time to dry to dry out but we were soon aboard and, because the ship had come straight from dry dock, the rooms were all ready for us already. We unpacked our hand luggage, freshened up a little, then did the first important thing: stepped onto the balcony to post a photo of the view and boast to those back home and on social media. Okay, the view was a bit grey but we were on a cruise ship, and a Grand-class cruise ship at that (the best class), and on the C deck (the one with the double-sized, half-covered balconies), so we were very, very happy.

It was nice to see Alcatraz from our balcony. We’d seen it the night before, but obviously it had been a little darker. That is the nature of night. Were we to do another cruise out of San Francisco in the future we might consider a day or two earlier to include some tourist activities including a visit to the island.

The first important thing had been to post photos from the cabin. The second important thing, after a quick side quest to complete our muster, was to go and get a drink and post another photo. As it was a bit muggy and we were still a little soggy and the ship’s interior was busy with people boarding we decided for a change to go and grab a drink from around the quiet pool area. A 24K Gold Margarita for me – it’s become one of my go-to drinks to start any Princess Cruises cruise – but my wife’s choice of a Dirty Banana would have to wait as they hadn’t loaded the bananas at this point. She suffered with a Prosecco.

Ruby Princess had just come out of dry dock and we were interested in seeing if there was anything obviously new about her, with the understanding that we hadn’t actually been on her before so this would all be a bit of guesswork. Or it would have been if we hadn’t started having a nice chat with the bar steward who told us all the things that had changed: lowered bar areas for wheelchair users was one, big revamp of the casino, new carpets and furnishings around much of the ship, and some other elements. There’s a little more detail on the post-cruise write-up of immediate thoughts I wrote at the conclusion of the cruise (see: Ruby Princess Dry Dock Changes) but we wanted to check out Skywalkers as we knew we’d be spending a lot of time there. The carpet was clearly new, an obvious big change, and markedly different from any other Skywalkers we’d been in.

Heading down we then popped into Adagio, expecting that to have been freshened up too. No would be the answer there. It was quite jarring how old it all looked in contrast with a lot of the rest of the ship. Then again, we would find out it was a very little-used venue. When we’d cruised on Crown Princess and had an aft balcony for our Baltic cruise in 2017 this had been a great spot in a convenient location to get a drink away from the main drag, especially before hitting the nightclub, but it felt very neglected on this cruise and that’s likely why no money was spent on revamping it.

Next door to Adagio was Sabatini’s Italian restaurant, looking very bright and clean. We would be visiting here on the cruise. We always do.

Time for the sail away and the balcony was the place to be for it. We also had our cases waiting for us by now so we could unpack properly and, of course, with the drinks packages that Princess offer and the ability to order drinks directly to our room that’s precisely what we did.

Are you a cruise line that doesn’t provide any way to order drink directly to a room for no additional charge? Sort that out, won’t you?

We were looking forward to passing a little closer to Alcatraz and we were looking forward to cruising under the Golden Gate Bridge – it’s always nice to cruise under a bridge on a cruise – but the most joy we actually had on the sail out was being accompanied by pelicans flying in formation just off our balcony. Whether they had learned that ships provide a handy updraught to make flying easier or whether they just thought that our ship was one giant pelican, who can say? It was, regardless, utterly fascinating to see us at the head of a line of birds sailing out of San Francisco Bay. An avian honour guard.

The evening aboard Ruby Princess was spent eating and drinking. Don’t believe me? Is this your first time here? Well then…

Naturally, we had to hit Skywalkers once it started up.

First nights are always a bit quiet – not that Skywalkers ever gets that busy anyway – so it was easy to see a few people come in and sit down but not get noticed by the bar staff. In fact, because they weren’t noticed they then left after about ten minutes.

I decided to post on Instagram with a little “Hey, Princess, maybe tell your staff to be a bit more alert in the nightclub!” type of rant. If these were first-time cruisers with Princess then it wasn’t setting a good impression. I was being helpful. Sort of.

Now, the thing about posting messages on Instagram in a dark club, at the end of a long day, with a fair bit of drinking, on your phone, and with an app with a terrible single-line input box is that typos are possible. I published the post, read it back, saw a typo immediately, got annoyed with myself, also realised it was perhaps a bit unfair and maybe a smidge too ranty as this was the first night, so deleted it. That post was visible to the public for less than ten seconds, but I had tagged Princess’s media team in it. This is important. And the reasons I’m mentioning all this is that this event will be making a reappearance in a later post in this cruise travelogue series.

In the next post from this Ruby Princess cruise series I’ll cover a couple of sea days as we head south towards Mexico with some speciality dining and sea activities to describe amongst some photos from around the cruise ship too.

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.

Our excursion at Cabo San Lucas took us about seventy kilometres north to the town of Todos Santos and because you’re the sort of person who can read titles on websites and comprehend the meaning conveyed this won’t be news to you. You possibly even searched for details of the cruise excursion that includes a visit to this town in Mexico and its famous tourist attraction, Hotel California. In this first post about our single day on this cruise anchored off Mexico I’ll go through some of the elements of the town we saw on a guided walking tour.

Our tour began at the Professor Néstor Agúndez Martínez Cultural House.

The professor was a poet, choreographer, composer, and theatre director, and this building was inaugurated in the late 1970s to preserve and promote local art, history, and traditions of Todos Santos. Our guide took us through the large, spacious gallery rooms, pointing out some of the more noteworthy pieces of art, and I particularly liked the old photographs and portraits of local men and women. The building was well-designed with its high spaces and thick walls to feel cool too, despite the high heat outside.

Anyone who’s read other travelogues on this website may know that I’ve a thing for architecture so the next part of the tour that walked us past some typical houses for the area was a delight. None of these buildings were significant in any way but there were touches of Art Deco lines and colours in places and a lovely familiarity that comes from seeing buildings like this on television and in movies. It didn’t hurt that the sky was a cloudless, deep, vibrant blue that just made every other colour just pop.

Our guide was keen to point out the local flora for those unfamiliar with cacti in particular. It actually was interesting for us to see plants like on pavements beside parked cars rather than somewhere out in a more desert-type landscape.

Our short walk from the cultural centre brought our group to the Plaza del Pueblo, beside another small square, the Plaza del Beso. Both were charming little public spaces with some nice public artwork and I was particularly impressed by the colourful sculptures made from junk. These were pieces by a local sculptor called Juan Sotomayor and we would end up seeing an awful lot more of his art pieces a little later in the day here in Todos Santos.

The purpose of the visit to these town squares was to visit the Misión Santa Rosa de las Palmas (it’s known by a few names). The mission church was the first European settlement in Todos Santos, founded in 1733 by Jesuits. Native people were the mission’s congregation and attempts to convert them to Christianity and turn them into farm workers was constantly upset by European diseases decimating the local population and some of the local tribes deciding that coerced conversion and disease-driven eradication and the kidnapping of natives’ children as hostages required a violent response. Seems fair to me too.

Unlike the cultural centre which had been delightfully cool, the church was stifling so I spent most of it outside, waiting for the guide to finish talking about the building’s history and admiring the vivid colours around the area instead.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll move onto the next part of our day’s excursion in Todos Santos which sees us paying a visit to the Hotel California for some lunch and a lot more artwork.

Do you like very vibrant, abstract art? Well, if you do then you’ll like Todos Santos.

A short walk from the mission church brought us to the final stop of this cruise excursion where we’d be having lunch and this took us past some street art on the way. Not the best quality street art, admittedly, but a distinctive style that didn’t believe in subtlety of colour; a prevalent theme in the artwork in the town.

We would be having lunch in Hotel California and much was made of its connection to the song of the same name, even though there was no connection. The hotel’s original name was Hotel California which it changed, then changed back after the song’s popularity. The song was not about this hotel. Any of the half-dozen times you hear Hotel California by The Eagles playing while you’re there is purely coincidental.

It’s likely that nothing requiring courts getting involved about this situation would have happened had the hotel then not tried to trademark the name’s use in America which led to The Eagles suing to prevent this under the persuasive argument that it was heavily associated with their band by common usage. The settlement details of the case have never been made public but the hotel stopped trying to get a trademark in America although retains use of the name today in Mexico.

Because I’d been behind the main part of our tour group to take photos of the street art after everyone had passed it by and allowed clear shots, we were the last ones entering the bar and dining area where place settings had been arranged for us all to have lunch. This just left us seats at the bar rather than at tables, which we were fine with, then exceedingly happy with since the barman, having just made a margarita for a paying customer, had some left over that he put into a small shot glass and handed to my wife for free. Would it surprise you to learn that this was the absolute best margarita we’ve ever had? It was outstanding. There is something about drinking tequila in Mexico that elevates it out of sight of any competition elsewhere in the world. If we’d had more time to spend here before we needed to leave then we’d have ordered more for ourselves.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time once we’d finished our food so we made the most of it by popping into the courtyard area attached to the hotel and to the gallery of artwork there too.

The courtyard was a source of more Juan Sotomayor sculptures (we’d seen some in the plaza beforehand) and the metal elements formed into humanoid and animalistic forms with their bold, metallic paint finishes was something we really liked. Nature meets steampunk.

The art gallery was lovely and cool with some refreshing, calming colours dominating largely abstract paintings and sculptural pieces.

We bought a bottle of Hotel California-branded tequila largely because the bottle shape and stopper were fabulous. The tequila itself was okay, but absolutely not a patch on the stuff we tasted and bought years before in Puerto Vallarta that we still have some left of because we sip it only infrequently to keep the memories lasting longer.

In the next post in this Ruby Princess cruise travelogue series we’ll return to Cabo San Lucas for a fun encounter with one of the locals, and a lovely sail away from Mexico with another very interesting encounter aboard.

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.

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.

It was actually a cloud forest that we visited and this one was part of the San Luis park, north of San Ramon, not quite equidistant between the cruise port of Puntarenas and the capital city, San José. The drive there took a little while around winding roads in the deeply-forested land and with numerous signs of small fires in the hills, but by the time we reached our destination there was a slight dampness to the air. For many people this meant jackets and waterproof coverings, but for us the heat and humidity was enough that we stuck to t-shirts and shorts. A jacket wouldn’t have stopped our t-shirts from getting wet; they’d simply get wet from the inside out.

A short walk brought us to the hummingbird feeders and yes, hummingbirds are blindingly fast. I kept going for faster and faster shutter shots and still didn’t really get anything sharp, but the experience of seeing these frantic little things zip in, out, around, and all over was lovely.

It wasn’t very clear from the excursion blurb provided by the cruise line ahead of this trip but we’d got it into our heads that the trip would mostly involve walking through the canopy on bridges. That was not the case. There were hanging bridges but they were fairly well spaced apart and some were low to the ground, crossing streams or small gullies, while a few were higher up the trails. When things are low down and high up then you know you’re in for more climbing than you’d anticipated and with my wife having a track record of falling nearly every time there’s a set of steps or slope somewhere we were a smidge concerned, especially given the moist conditions everywhere. I’m happy to report that there were no incidents.

In terms of plant life in the Costa Rican cloud forest, if you liked green things – leaves and moss – then you were in for a treat. Actually, we did and do like those things so that was okay, but there were a few splashes of colour from flowers along the twisting, turning, zig-zagging, ascending, and descending trail we followed, including some nice orchids.

At around the lowest point of this walk we were tracking alongside a narrow, shallow stream of water when our guide stopped us and pointed out a viper curled up by a log barely half a metre from where we could all pass in front of it. There was also a small path behind the log that people could walk instead and many in our group did but we’re not bothered by snakes and generally they’re not too bothered by us so this was a great opportunity to get up close to something like this in its natural environment.

From the lowest point then it was pretty much all up on the way back and there was one brief stop on the way which was good in that it gave us a chance for a breather – why do these sorts of things always pause a lot to point things out on the way down and not so much on the way up? – but it was less good in that the reason for this was to point out a lot of cobwebs.

“Tarantulas live in these holes,” smiled our guide. “I’ll just see if I can see if any are occupied and whether I can coax any out.”

I am incredibly pleased to say that our guide was unsuccessful here. We are not spider people.

Back at the entrance to the trail we had a chance to get some food and fruit juices and to fend off questions from fellow tourists and our guide asking if my wife was alright. She flushes easily in the heat and she was in danger of being elected queen of the tomato people (yes, it’s a democratically-chosen position) on account of the general warmth and that last bit of steady upness to the end of the day’s activity.

After a short break there we hopped on our blissfully air-conditioned bus and headed back towards Puntarenas but we stopped on the way at El Jardin for some tourist shopping. As soon as we arrived we realised that we’d stopped here before at the conclusion of our excursion in San José so it was nice to see the same artwork up and to pick up a few items to take back with us once again.

El Jardin gets its name from the beautiful gardens at its rear and we’d have liked to have seen them but the weather had other things in mind. There’s a reason why this part of the world is so green.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll have some time to take a bit of a walk around Puntarenas before the ship leaves, something we didn’t do the first time there.