Ruby Princess
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Ruby Princess
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Cruises availables
The Ruby Princess is a Princess Cruises ship offering itineraries in Alaska, the Caribbean, and Europe. It provides an all-inclusive cruise experience oriented toward luxury, families, and couples, featuring onboard gastronomy, spa facilities, entertainment, and organized shore excursions. The ship offers a range of cabin categories and ocean cruise vacations. Onboard experiences include open-air cinema and leisure activities within an international cruise setting. This ship is well suited for travelers seeking a balanced cruise experience combining diverse destinations, onboard relaxation, and entertainment in a large modern cruise environment.
Itineraries of the Ruby Princess
Price and Availability Notice
Prices displayed are provided for informational purposes only. They reflect the rates in effect at the time of their most recent update and are shown in Canadian dollars, per person, based on double occupancy, unless otherwise specified.
Supplier rates, exchange rates, taxes and fees, room or cabin categories, and promotions are subject to change at any time. The applicable price is the one confirmed by a travel advisor at the time of booking, subject to availability. Only the confirmed price shall be considered valid.
It is the traveler's responsibility to confirm the price, inclusions, and applicable terms and conditions before making a reservation. While every effort is made to keep our content up to date, transmission, display, or pricing errors may occur. In such cases, the correct price will be communicated to the traveler before any booking is confirmed. Certain terms, restrictions, and exclusions may apply.
decks plans
Deck - 19
Star
Deck - 18
Sky
Deck - 17
Sports
Deck - 16
Sun
Deck - 15
Lido
Deck - 14
Riviera
Deck - 12
Aloha
Deck - 11
Baja
Deck - 10
Caribe
Deck - 9
Dolphin
Deck - 8
Emerald
Deck - 7
Promenade
Deck - 6
Fiesta
Deck - 5
Plaza
Deck - 4
Gala
Ship's attributes
Services And Amenities
- Elevators
- Self-service laundry room
- Casino
- Jacuzzi
- Pool
- Beauty salon
- Spa & body care
Specific needs
- Wheelchair accessible staterooms
Technical specifications
- Classe: Caribbean Class
- Tonnage: 113561
- Speed: 23.0 knots
- Passengers: 3080
- Decks: 18
- Length: 290 m
- Width: 48 m
- Height: 59 m
History
- 2008: Année de construction
- 8 novembre 2008: Croisière inaugurale
- 2018: Modernisation
- 2018: Année de rénovation
Frequently Asked Questions
113,561 gross tons, 288.6 metres long, 36 metres wide, 15 passenger decks, 1,530 staterooms across 33 categories and a crew of 1,200. It carries 3,060 guests at double occupancy and up to 3,672 with every upper berth in use. It is the ninth and final Grand-class ship built, delivered on 23 October 2008, which makes it the youngest of the five hulls Princess still operates in the class. It remained the largest ship in the Princess fleet until Royal Princess arrived in 2013.
Yes, it is the same ship. It left Sydney on 8 March 2020 for a 13-night New Zealand cruise, cut the voyage short from Napier on 15 March and returned to Sydney on 19 March, where 2,700 guests disembarked around three in the morning. The outbreak that followed was linked to more than ten per cent of Australia's early COVID-19 cases, with roughly 900 infections and 28 deaths recorded by August 2020. Two public inquiries followed: the Special Commission led by barrister Bret Walker, reporting on 14 August 2020, and the Inspector-General of Biosecurity's review of 29 April 2021, which made more than forty recommendations. The ship itself was not the problem; disembarkation and testing protocols were, and they have since been rewritten.
Its homeport and its build date. It is the last of the Grand class, delivered in 2008, and the only one of the four based year-round in San Francisco, which gives it a distinctive itinerary profile: Alaska in 10 and 11 days rather than 7, plus the Mexican Riviera, Hawaii and the California coast the rest of the year. Like Emerald, it lost Sabatini's in December 2015 to Curtis Stone's Share and gained the Salty Dog Gastropub in the Wheelhouse Bar along with the Club Class Mini-Suite category. The October 2018 drydock added the Slice pizzeria and the Salty Dog Grill. Its Skywalkers Disco sits forward of the funnel, as on Crown and Emerald, rather than cantilevered over the stern as Grand Princess's was until 2011.
Out of San Francisco, exclusively. From July to mid-November it runs 8-, 10-, 11- and 17-day Alaska round trips from San Francisco, calling at Ketchikan, Sitka, Skagway, Tracy Arm and Prince Rupert in British Columbia. On 24 November it switches to a 6-day California coastal loop, then moves to Mexican Riviera and Hawaii sailings of 12 and 17 days for the winter, including a 26 December departure. The key point: sailing to Alaska from San Francisco rather than Vancouver adds two sea days at each end, which is why the itineraries run 10 and 11 days.
Same pattern, same port: San Francisco all year. Hawaii and the Mexican Riviera on 17-day loops from January to early April, Alaska from 17 April to 18 September in 8- to 11-day formats, then back to 17-day Hawaii and Mexico runs from 25 September. For a Montreal client this is the simplest of the four ships: one airport to remember, San Francisco, nonstop from Montreal-Trudeau in about six and a half hours, with no seasonal homeport switch to track. Do plan the night before on site all the same: the time difference is three hours and the Pier 27 cruise terminal is about thirty minutes from the airport depending on traffic.
A balcony, and the deck depends on what you are after. Deck 10 Caribe has the deepest balconies on the ship, half covered, because the hull is stepped and the deck above is set back — which is also why those balconies are visible from deck 11 Baja. Decks 11 Baja and 12 Aloha are fully covered and unoverlooked, at the cost of a smaller balcony. Mini-suites sit on decks 8 Emerald and 9 Dolphin, and the Club Class Mini-Suite category, introduced here in 2015, adds a reserved dining room section with no queue. On an 11-day Alaska loop from San Francisco with two sea days outbound, a balcony pays for itself quickly.
Three main dining rooms — Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Botticelli — with Anytime Dining in two of them and fixed seatings in the third. Extra-charge tables are Crown Grill and Curtis Stone's Share; the buffet splits between Horizon Court and Café Caribe, and quick service covers Slice, the Salty Dog Grill, Trident Grill and Prego. The Piazza gathers the round-the-clock International Café, the Vines wine bar, Crooners and Bar Piazza; elsewhere you find Adagio, Explorers Lounge, the Speakeasy, Outrigger, Tradewinds and the Salty Dog Gastropub in the Wheelhouse Bar. Beyond that: the Princess Theatre, Club Fusion, Skywalkers Disco, the Calypso Reef and Neptune's Reef pools, Movies Under the Stars, the adults-only Sanctuary by paid reservation, the Lotus Spa, Gatsby's Casino, the Escapes Travel Café and the Hearts & Minds chapel.
Its interiors are the least recently refreshed of the four. The last hotel work was October 2018, and the 24 September to 22 October 2023 drydock at the Vigor yard in Portland was a full technical overhaul, not a refurbishment of the public rooms. Stateroom bathrooms are small, carpets and soft furnishings have seen service, and there are not enough outlets for a family charging four devices. The Alaska routing from San Francisco imposes two sea days at each end, which delights some guests and frustrates others, and the run out through the Golden Gate is frequently rough. Finally, like its sisters it has no SeaWalk, no glass dome and no Alfredo's pizzeria, and its lower-deck balconies are tiered, hence visible from above.
The base fare covers your stateroom, the Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Botticelli dining rooms, the Horizon Court and Café Caribe buffets, Trident Grill and Prego, Princess Theatre shows, the pools, the gym and the self-service launderettes. Extra: alcohol and specialty coffees, Wi-Fi, the daily service charge, shore excursions, The Sanctuary, the Lotus Spa, Crown Grill and Share. Princess sells two bundles, Princess Plus and Princess Premier, which pull drinks, connectivity and the service charge into a single line. On an 11-day Alaska loop from San Francisco these add up differently than on a 6-day California coastal sailing: 1-866-628-6241.
No. Princess automatically applies a daily charge called Crew Appreciation to your onboard account, calculated per person and by the stateroom category you occupy. The Princess Plus and Princess Premier bundles include it from the outset. A service amount is also added to every drink served at Crooners, the Salty Dog Gastropub or Tradewinds, and to every Lotus Spa treatment. On an 11-day Alaska loop from San Francisco, that charge runs for eleven days for each person listed in the stateroom, children included.
You cannot buy it on its own: Princess builds it into the Princess Plus and Princess Premier bundles. Plus allows fifteen drinks a day under a per-drink ceiling and also covers specialty coffees, juices, soft drinks and bottled water; Premier lifts the daily cap and raises the ceiling. Both include Wi-Fi and the service charge. Your service points on board will be Vines and Crooners in the Piazza, the Salty Dog Gastropub in the Wheelhouse Bar, Explorers Lounge and Tradewinds beside the Neptune's Reef pool. The bundle applies to the whole cruise and to every adult in the same stateroom: 1-866-628-6241.
Ruby Princess is MedallionClass. The Medallion is a contactless disc the size of a quarter, worn on the wrist, around the neck or carried in a pocket: it unlocks the stateroom as you approach, works as your payment method, replaces the boarding pass at the Pier 27 terminal and lets you order a drink delivered anywhere on board. Because it is located, it also shows your travel companions on a deck plan, which helps on a 15-deck ship when you agree to meet somewhere; sharing your position with other guests stays optional. What annoys: everything depends on the Princess app, which must be installed and filled in before departure with a photo and documents, and it is slow; bracelets and pendants are sold separately; and on a 2008 hull with no hotel refit since 2018, door readers can be temperamental. MedallionNet Wi-Fi, on the other hand, holds up for video calls even two sea days from shore: one device on Princess Plus, four priority devices on Princess Premier.
Adequate, no more, and the atmosphere is adult. The ship has a Youth Center with a paddling pool and outdoor play areas, a Teen Center and an arcade, supervised by age group and free during the day. There are no slides, no water park and no family entertainment programme comparable to the mainstream American lines. On a 10- or 11-day Alaska loop from San Francisco during summer holidays you will see families; on a 17-day Hawaii sailing in February the average age on board climbs sharply. The daily service charge applies to children listed in the stateroom as well.
It pays off especially well on this ship, because its itineraries are long. Tiers are Gold on your first cruise, Ruby at three cruises or thirty cumulative days, Platinum at five cruises or fifty days, Elite at fifteen cruises or 150 days, whichever count is more favourable. Ruby opens a Wi-Fi reduction; Platinum adds complimentary laundry, priority embarkation and disembarkation and a shore excursion reduction; Elite adds dry cleaning, a mini-bar setup and a Lotus Spa treatment. Status is individual and does not transfer to a spouse. Two 17-day Hawaii loops are enough to clear the fifty-day threshold in just two cruises.
This is the one of the four where the question genuinely deserves asking. Leaving San Francisco means crossing the bar at the mouth of the bay and reaching open Pacific within the first hours, often the roughest stretch of the whole cruise; the Alaska itineraries from San Francisco include two sea days before you reach the sheltered water of the Inside Passage. The 113,561 tons and the stabilizers damp things well, but they do not remove the long North Pacific swell. If you are sensitive, book midship on deck 8 Emerald or 9 Dolphin, take your medication before departure rather than once you are offshore, and remember that from Ketchikan onward the sea settles markedly.
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