talkorpi

WOW! That was the easiest embarkation EVER! It took maybe 15 minutes from walking up to the terminal to being onboard. The Ruby is absolutely beautiful and looks so much grander in person than online. Very, VERY impressed with Princess so far! I’ll get back to answer questions once we are all settled in.

Good morning, Ruby!

Wonderful driving weather today…

Day 1: And we’re off! Getting gas and then we’ll hit the road. In just a few hours we’ll be in Galveston! It’s a three ship turnaround day AND the final four is going on in Houston, so even though we are leaving rather early, I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time. See y’all soon!

Well, hello, Princess forum! I figured since this will be my first Princess cruise, I might as well try out my first LIVE review, too! In a little under 48 hours, we will be sailing out of Galveston Bay on the Ruby Princess for Roatan, Costa Maya, and Cozumel. I've always wanted to do a live thread and since Princess brags about having the "best wifi at sea" then I figured I would give it a try! 😉 A little about me - I am a recent college graduate who has always LOVED everything about the cruise industry. My dream was to work for either Carnival or Princess in their deployment or newbuild departments, but unfortunately, I was never able to get any industry experience or internships (COVID shutdowns during my Sophomore through Senior college years = no opportunities) and so now that ship has sailed. Oh well, I guess I will have to enjoy myself as a passenger instead of an employee! It will be me and mom on this cruise. We travel together quite a bit so I'm excited. I've always wanted to try Princess, but unfortunately, it has always been a little outside of our price range. However, now that I graduated and have a stable income I decided to take the plunge and try it out (the super attractive fares that Princess had to try to lure people to Galveston in their first year back helped quite a bit with that). We are already off to a great start - after we booked an obstructed oceanview, I placed a minimum bid for a balcony. Not only was it accepted - we got put in one of those angled extended balcony cabins at the very back of the ship. Not too bad! I've been to all of these ports before and we honestly just plan on taking it pretty easy. I probably won't be as active as other live threads in the past as I have never really done this before but I will try to answer as many questions as I can and be thorough. (Im)patiently waiting until Sunday morning when we start the drive to Galveston! 🛳️

Ugh. Very disappointed at the Galveston offerings. One of Princess’s niches is unique itineraries - the same 7 day ports over and over gets old. I wish they would at least mix it up and throw in some calls at Grand Cayman / Jamaica / Key West (the other lines do!), or do longer itineraries to ABC islands / etc. Guess I will have to fly to Ft. Lauderdale to escape Cozumel and Belize

Thanks. I checked on one of said search engines and did not find anything. I meant a round-trip sailing calling on Bermuda alone, like Celebrity or NCL do. I am definitely not on the market for one of those long cruises - 7 days is my max for both work and budget purposes. I guess I will have to look at Celebrity for those types of itineraries. Bummer.

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone knows if Princess sails to Bermuda? Wasn't able to find much online. I see they did in the past but it doesn't seem like it anymore - anyone know when/why they might not anymore? Seems like a big missed opportunity if they don't.

Hi, I did this excursion on Carnival last year. I highly recommend it. You only need to purchase ONE ticket for every two people using it. They will give you (the person who bought the excursion) either two wristbands onboard or your ticket which you then take to the chairlift and beach hut in Mahogany Bay - they will give you two wristbands there. In short - if you are a couple, only have ONE person buy it as they will give you two wristbands when you get to the beach! Hope this clears up any confusion!

Hi y'all, we are going to Mahogany Bay next week. I've been here a couple of times and really love this port, and part of the reason I picked this specific itinerary was for Mahogany Beach. However, I heard that it has been really windy the last few days and some ships have had to cancel due to wind conditions. Can anyone verify this? Never had a port cancellation and I will be pretty bummed if this turns out to be true and happens to us next week! Bonus points if anyone can explain why it has been so windy 😉

Sounds about right for NCL these days 😞

Hi cadreamer, The medallions will come with a plastic case and a small thin white lanyard as seen here:

I did the Hornblower harbor tour while I was in San Diego last year (not on a cruise though). The cruise dock is a couple piers away so it is really that close. I would make sure you knew which tour you were doing - there are three different Hornblower harbor tours - North Bay, South Bay, and Full Tour. The Full Tour just means you board for one of them and stay on for the other. The North Bay tour goes toward the ocean. This has a view of Coronado Island aircraft carriers, Point Loma sumbarine base, and the Sea Lion dock. The South Bay tour passes under the Coronado Bridge and sails down the Naval Base, giving you a look at the ships docked while the capitan explains what the purpose is of each class of ship you see. I really enjoyed this experience - we did the full tour and it was worth every penny. It was also the highlight of my time in SD and I much preferred doing this to my day spent at the Zoo. Based on my quick glance at the Princess website it looks like the excursion they offer is for the two hour cruise which is the best deal. I think you should book it - you will have a fabulous time! Another tip - I'm not sure how long you may have being docked in SD, but if you really want to cram in as much as possible, you might be able to save money using a Go City Citypass. For example, you can bundle the Hornblower Tour with the Old Town Trolley hop on/hop off, the Maritime Museum, the USS Midway, or other attractions, and it is $90 for both tickets which can save you a lot of money. Of course YMMV and you may not have time for multiple attractions if you are docked for just a few hours, but if you want to check it out, I think it would be a good option: https://gocity.com/san-diego/en-us/products/explorer

Well I posted this five days ago and it somehow just got approved. Anyways, thought this was an interesting development - wondering what they will do with the space when these are removed

Hi Tom, This is basically a replacement for the lanyard. The little hoop thing is actually a keyring that we just took off. At the bottom of the "pendant" there is a metal clip just like the cheap lanyards that are included with the medallion. We just popped the medallion into the little plastic holder they sent and then clipped it onto the bottom of the pendant lanyard. It looks nice and makes a great option if you still wanted a lanyard-style holder but wanted something a little more discrete without paying the $50 for a pendant on the ship!

@Host Kat Thank you for the quick explanation! Methinks that the particular website I linked for the news must be considered "spam." Oh well - I just wasn't sure if I did something wrong since this has never happened to me before! Thank you for explaining again!

I recently tried to post some cruise news in the Royal Caribbean forum. My post is red, has a red triangle caution sign, and says "pending approval." It has been like this for 30 minutes with no change. I've been on CC for ten years now and never had this happen. Is this a new feature that someone can explain to me?

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2023/03/22/royal-caribbean-getting-rid-of-the-sky-pad-all-of-its-ships Just saw this and thought it was interesting. Seems like a very sudden change.

this is heresy 💀

Oh great. I’m going to Costa Maya and Cozumel in a week and a half. Didn’t even think about this

Emma Cruises (one of the best Cruise YouTubers) recently did a video on the Emerald and she had one of the aft-facing cabins. Might be worth your time to take a look at the video, it's pretty comprehensive.

Wait WHAT?!??! Oh my goodness, this came out of nowhere. Two of my favorite brands pairing up... wish they would tell us what this meant!

Good riddance! FDR took what was my #1 cruise line I always wanted to try and made it my #1 cruise line to avoid. A shame. Hopefully NCL can improve under his successor.

I will be in one of those cabins in two weeks on the Ruby. I plan on doing a live Review (Internet permitting) so hopefully that will be useful for you

First time Princess cruiser here. I received my medallion today for my upcoming cruise. Unfortunately, when I opened up the package, they shipped the wrong medallion accessory. I ordered a large blue sport band and a small black sport band was shipped instead. Does anyone know if I will be able to swap it out once onboard? Aside from being the wrong color, I would also prefer one that fits more comfortably…