What’s inside

In my last posting I promised photographs of the public areas inside the Ruby Princess. This our cabin, on first impressions we thought it was smaller than similar Princess ships cabins.

On a positive note it had plenty of storage space, a standard bathroom, which included the shower, which was one of the best that I’ve experienced on a ship for water pressure. It was easy to control the hot / cold settings.

The balcony was one of the largest that we experienced, which contained a table, two sun lounger chairs and two foot-stools.

The view from our balcony on boarding.

and the view from the balcony rail.

A favourite area for a quiet afternoon at sea.

Crooners Bar, which was larger than the Crooners Bars on other Princess ships in which we sailed. The bar overlooked the atrium, which was smaller than the Majestic Princess (similar size vessel, but different configuration).

The atrium (called the Piazza) – note the shops  . . .

Most late afternoons it was very pleasant to sit in the Crooners Bar & hear the string duet – Anima String Duo

Other evenings after a show, we would listen to Marius Baetica

Our favourite place for a pre-dinner drink was the Wheelhouse Bar – we passed the model as we entered.

Food and all that . . . Horizon Restaurant, we used this restaurant for breakfast & lunch, it was a buffet style, so one had to be circumspect when filling one’s plate . . .eat as you would at home and you’ll not add the kilos.

During our exploring period we came across the Skywalkers Nightclub on deck 18. It was a very quiet area, because the bar didn’t open until 10.00 pm.

A perfect place to sit and read, with perhaps time to sit and consider where the ship was going. As you see it was not a particular popular place before 10.00 pm :- o)

The main dining-room that we used – Michelangelo Dining Room – we were anytime dining, but if we wanted to see a show at 7.30 pm we had to be the dining room for around 5.00 pm to eat before the show or after 8.30 pm to eat after the show.

5.00 pm may sound very early, but by the time you were seated, and drinks arranged, and you studied the menu it would be 5.30 pm going on to six PM. It was all very quiet and civilised, and nothing was rushed.

Another shot of the dining room. The head waiter (Stefan) was the perfect person for the job.
Maureen is a coeliac and all her food must be gluten free. Every evening Stefan would show the following day’s menu to Maureen and she would pick the items that she would like, and the items would be produced gluten free for the following day.

One evening we ate in a specialty restaurant and at the end of the meal Stefan arrived with the following day’s menu and his notebook. The specialty restaurant was on deck 16, and the Michelangelo Dining Room (where Stefan worked) was on deck 5. He was always busy, but he never failed to track Maureen down so that she could choose the following day’s meals.

Another shot of Michelangelo Dining Room.

During the meal on the final night of the trip the wait staff would enter carrying models of bake Alaska, and all the passengers would greet them by waving their napkins. I tried to take pictures of the waving napkins, but they came out blared.

The staff with their baked Alaska, all lit of course.

Maureen & I were given a gift of breakfast on the balcony, with Champagne. We picked the day (they staff required 24 hours’ notice) but the day for the breakfast turned out to be windy and not all that warm.
The waiter arrived and realised that it was too windy outside so he brought the outside table in and laid it for breakfast. Everything was just so  . . .

The whole occasion was very well done and we had plenty of food – in the end it was more than we would normally eat for breakfast.   :- o)

This was the ‘starter’, smoked salmon – followed by cereal, and eggs . . . it was an enjoyable experience, and of course we didn’t have to tidy up or wash-up!

Moving on to something else, overall there were fourteen bars, and we only managed to visit eight in fourteen days – my school teacher used to say that I should try harder . . .

The above is the ‘The Mix Bar’ near a pool –

 

and for my British readers they had Newcastle Brown on tap, as well as Carlsberg on tap, the only problem was that they ran out of Newcastle Brown before the end of the cruise, and The Mix Bar was the only bar that sold Newcastle Brown.
The cost was $12 (AUD or USD $8.12) for just over a British pint.
The average bottle of beer was AUD $8.75 ($5.92 USD), which included an 18% tip!

Overall the cruise was a very relaxing time and the food was better than we have experienced in some other Princess cruises.

I took a photograph of a sign on a market stall in Fiji, which summed up the cruise.