Choices: Ruby b2b v. Crown at Christmas

[geoherb]

We're trying to decide between booking the Ruby for two 4-day cruises back to back at Christmas versus the Crown for one 7-day cruises.

 

The pluses, as I see them, for the Ruby would be our cruise would start one day later (Sunday v. Saturday), so we could take our time driving to Fort Lauderdale. We'd also get two credits, getting us just one cruise away from Elite status. It's also cheaper to book the 8 days on the Ruby than 7 on the Crown. We'd also have the turnaround day in Fort Lauderdale to restock on wine. The downside to the Ruby is that I'm afraid the short cruises during this time of the year will attract more unruly passengers. We've generally taken longer cruises (10-11 days) instead of short ones at Christmas.

 

The Ruby goes to Princess Cays on the first leg and Grand Cayman on the second. I'd love to go back to Princess Cays for a relaxing beach day. When we cruised to Grand Cayman last year (on a HAL ship) we ended up staying on board. It's another relaxing day.

 

The Crown goes to Aruba and Curacao. We've taken that itinerary twice, once on the Emerald and once on a HAL ship. I enjoy the relaxing days at sea.

 

So, can anyone come up with other pluses and minuses to these two options?

[OCruisers]

We'd go on Crown ... mainly to avoid that turnaround day in FFL after only 4 nights.

 

LuLu

~~~~

[rdsqrl]

The menus and shows would repeat. That may or may not be a minus to you; I personally don't enjoy the first night's or last night's menus enough that I'd want to see them twice in such a short time. On the other hand, you could go to the CG or Sab's instead on those nights.

 

[geoherb]

Thanks for the input. I talked to DH about the repeating menus. He said that would keep him from ordering two desserts each night since he could try the second one four nights later. We'll wait and see if he can keep that strategy.

 

We've never done a back-to-back so we've never experienced a turn-around day. We've sailed out of Fort Lauderdale so many times that we're familiar with everything around the port (including the walking distance from the pier to Total Wine). I'm thinking that the Ruby's crew should be good at handling turnaround day for b2b passengers since they probably have a lot of passengers doing them because of the short itineraries.

 

As for shows, I thought we could try seeing more of the specialty acts in the Vista Lounge and Explorers Cafe the second leg instead of the ones in the theater. Or we could just relax after dinner and skip going to a show.

[tobyt]

I don't love the Crown, I can not really say why but found it had a different vibe. It might have been the crew or the fact that the year we cruised Crown it had the noro-virus week after week that year. Ruby was wonderful and we truly enjoyed cruising on that ship!

[riclop]

The menus and shows would repeat. That may or may not be a minus to you; I personally don't enjoy the first night's or last night's menus enough that I'd want to see them twice in such a short time. On the other hand, you could go to the CG or Sab's instead on those nights.

 

Very good points.

[geoherb]

Thanks again for the thoughts. I booked us the b2b on the Ruby. We're not picky about the menus. DH always has the prime rib the first night. I'm sure he won't mind having it four nights apart.

 

The biggest consideration ended up being that the Ruby sailed on Sunday instead of Saturday. Paying less for 8 nights than we would have paid for 7 also played into our decision.