Ruby Princess 2013: Day 1 – Embarking

Last week I took an Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Ruby Princess. I took hundreds of breathtaking photos of the trip as well as journalized each day, so I will share my trip with you in a series of posts.

On February 24th (my Birthday) we flew from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale airport. There we took a taxi to Port Everglades, Florida where we boarded our ship. Here are a couple of photos of the port that leads into the Atlantic ocean. Aligning the port are wealthy mansions and fancy resorts (which I will come back to later).

The Ruby Princess itself was a huge ship with 16 decks. We lived on Deck 10 otherwise known as Caribe. There were plenty of swimming pools and various other amenities on board.

 
This is the center Piazza where there was often entertainers performing for people who passed by on the various floors or sat down for coffee.

 
This is me and dad’s reflection. I realized after I took this picture that the other side was a gym. That would have been pretty awkward if someone was on the other side working out thinking I was taking a photo of them.

 
This is mom having a coffee at Horizon Court, otherwise known as THE PLACE WHERE YOU CAN KEEP EATING BUFFETS.

 
We had most of our breakfasts and some lunches at the Horizon Court, but for dinner what excited us was the more formal dining room. The service here was exquisite. Our waiters Arnaldo, Gerry and Emmanuel always welcomed us warmly and were full of jokes and great recommendations on the menu. I wanted to eat everything so most days I had multiple appetizers with my main course. I also opted for the more adventurous options.

On my first day I tried this Mojito Red Snapper Ceviche. In it was fish, bacardi and mango with mint and lime. It was kind of strange at first but the flavour combinations were pretty amazing.

I also had this chilled Pina Colada soup (complete with rum) which was more alcoholic drink than soup.

For my main course I had Crawfish (which is kind of like a mini lobster) in Louisiana hot sauce served with a bed of rice. It was my first time having crawfish and this one had some heat I didn’t feel until I ate the whole dish!

The dessert I chose was a Passion Fruit Souffle with passion fruit cream. It was moist and soft in the middle. Very light for dessert.

We ended our first night with the night’s production show which was an introduction of things to come. It included the Ruby Princess Dancers as well as comedian Michael Wilson who did a stunning impression of a Louis Armstrong song.

You can check out my full gallery of Day 1 of my cruise on Flickr!