Kimberly S wrote a review 12 Mar

2 contributions22 helpful votes

This was my first cruise with Princess cruiselines. The Ruby Princess seemed rusty and in need of updates. The rooms were nice, but also looked dated. The average age of cruisers seemed over 70 years old. I was relieved that I had not brought my teens with me on this cruiseline. At 45, I often felt there were no activities and little entertainment. The activities and entertainment were very geared to up charging (casino, art, bingo, etc). Many of the shows were very cringeworthy. My 71 year old mother and I wished frequently that we were seated at the back so that we could have escaped without being noticed or disruptive from multiple shows. The worst part of the cruise was the food. The soft serve ice cream machine broke early in the cruise. They tried to use their stores of frozen ice cream, but quickly ran out and had undesirable flavors and sugar free options. Personally, I could not eat the pizza. We missed being seated at the same time and same table nightly in the main dining room. The crew did their best to accommodate this, but the standard has changed and you dont get the same table nightly. The water onboard the ship was especially atrocious in the dining room. One of my biggest complaints was the coffee. Yucky, instant coffee from spigots. The milk products onboard this ship.came out of plastic beef broth like containers and needed no refrigeration and tested awful. I drank my instant coffee black the entire week. It was so bad, I finally switched to green tea a day or two into the trip. I tried the paid for coffee option, and it wasnt any better. While that option is a brewed coffee, it is still made with the terrible "no refrigeration milk products". If you like the no refrigeration half and half pods, you will probably be happy. Personally, I despise them. Overall, most of the food was either adequate or awful. From rare hamburgers to shoe leather steak (overcooked, even when ordered medium). The buffet food was often the same as the main dining room. Strangely, we preferred the buffet as there were more options. Honestly, I didnt eat anything this cruise that was memorable as being wonderful. The 2 star rating was given because of the staff (it would have been 1 otherwise). We had a wonderful cabin steward. The crew worked very hard and were attentive. We also really loved roatan. We had trouble actually finding each other on the ship with the medallion. It wasn't that accurate. While I appreciated a free chat option in the app, it didnt make any noise notification and therefore wasnt very useful. We struggled with the app and had to even visit tech services to get it to be functional, and I am fairly tech savvy. I did room service several times. It was ok. Big critique was other than breakfast (via the paper method), you cant order ANY free drinks. Through the app, you cant order free coffee, tea, ice water, etc with your meal. So, not very practical to order room service when you have to head to a restaurant to get a drink anyway.…