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.

We started by heading east where the maps indicated there was a public park space. In fact this was a very narrow strip of paved areas, the odd sculpture here and there, and some twisting concrete structures that resembled mounted spines of leviathans (assuming leviathans are actually a thing and that they’re vertebrates). Coupled with the flotsam of seaweed and thin tree trunks washed up along the water’s edge and the churned-up dark sand discolouring the sea this gave the area an oddly desolate feel with just enough peace from the gentle cooling of the evening and the white noise of the small rollers breaking nearby to temper the overall bleakness.

We headed back past the pier and the queue of passengers being checked by security before they headed for the ship, making our way westwards along the shore of Puntarenas where there seemed to be more signs of civilisation. There were certainly a few interesting architectural pieces. A large concrete building that was part of the National Technical University had some clear Art Deco styling to it, and while there’s no information online that could be easily found I did see a date on it of 1930 which ties in with the right period. Opposite that, nearer the sea, there was a more modern public space comprising a stage shielded by giant leaves with amphitheatre-style seating opposite it. We like spotting amphitheatres when we travel and while this one isn’t the historic sort we typically go out of our way to look around, we’re still counting it.

Around the outside of the cultural public space there was artwork in a street art style but all themed for the general environment, touching on local people, customs, and the sea. The large open space beside it included one of those popular city signs for the tourists that it’s often impossible to take a clear photo of, although at this time of the day we were very nearly the only people there.

Finally, as we approached the pier we passed by Antigua Capitanía de Puntarenas, a preserved landmark building with some cannons mounted nearby, all dedicated to the maritime history of the city and region. This would be the sort of place we’d very likely visit on a return to Costa Rica but there was no indication that it was open at this particular moment and we were now keen to head back to the ship as we don’t like leaving it to the very last minute.

Our walk along the long pier to where Ruby Princess was docked was interrupted several times for photos out across the water, and near the gangway and security checkpoint for the ship there was some local entertainment provided in the form of carnival characters which, like all carnival characters, felt vaguely threatening.

The all aboard time came and went and we sat out on our balcony with some drinks and snacks waiting for the sail away from Costa Rica. The light faded from the sky, searchlights from the ship danced across the water, and two hours passed before Ruby Princess finally left. We never did find out the reason for the delay but we suspect that an organised excursion returned to the port late and, because it was an organised excursion, the ship waited.

In the next post in this Ruby Princess cruise travelogue series we’ll experience Halloween on a cruise ship before we arrive at Panama for an excursion we were really looking forward to and for which we’d had to get yellow fever vaccinations for ahead of time to do it. Oh boy, I hope nothing happens to spoil those plans!

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.