Different cruises appeal to different people.
We love Princess, and we've taken the last two spring TA's on Ruby. We loved the whole cruise, and we found the food to be excellent. Sure, there are some nights when we didn't find anything that appealed to us, but there is an Always Available menu that is great. The salmon is always topnotch. We've not had problems with cold food in HC, but if we did we'd notify someone immediately. The International Cafe can't be beat.
We tried Celebrity Eclipse on the Oct. 31st TA, and we were very disappointed. We disliked the food most of all. We didn't think it had much taste, and some of the servings like the chicken cordon bleu were ridiculously small. We've had many Princess appetizers that were larger. And, yes, I know we could have ordered seconds. The desserts were the worst. The chocolate dessert the first 3 nights was the same thing with a different name--the only change was the crust on the top, on the bottom or in the middle.
We didn't like the design of the ship either. We really missed being able to walk all the way around the promenade deck, and we felt the decor was dark and oppressive.
We liked the bathroom better on Celebrity, and we love the smoking policy, but we'll definitely be going back to Princess. Celeb. offers a hot room service breakfast, but I ordered it three times and had cold food every time. The cheese in my omelet was a pre-packaged slice in its original shape in a cold omelet. We were in Concierge Class which offered an upgraded breakfast menu, but they cut it way back. The biggest bonus used to be smoothies, but they only offer two kinds. The banana one was served warm; I don't mean not cold or just room temperature, it was warm!
Two years ago I was on Princess again, and I must say, I too loved it. It may of been because it was an Alaskian cruise and IMHO, no one does Alaska better than Princess, Iwant to go yet again.
We haven't been on the Ruby in about 2 years but we found their food prep at the time to be outstanding and much above the other Princess ships (and we've been on all the larger ones). Why that ship had better food is puzziling but it could have been that the galley crew at the time were the picked from the best from all the other ships since the ship was new or maybe it was only coincidence.
We did the Transatlantic cruise from Venice, Italy to Ft. Lauderdale last Oct. and loved it.
The stateroom we had was the largest of any ship we had sailed on and had plenty of closet space.
The food was very good in the dining rooms but we did try the breakfast in the buffet twice and both times the food was cold. We decided to stick with the dining rooms breakfast and enjoyed all of them.
The entertainment was so so in the show room. The big show they promoted so much we thought was really boring.
Loved the comedians and singers in the lounge theater. They would also appear in the showroom a couple of times but their shows were so trimmed then.
We were on board for 17 days so had plenty of time to explore the whole ship.
Except for tinding our way around sometimes...the ship is arranged somewhat confusing.
But by the end of the cruise we had it all down flat!
We are doing the Baltic in May but on NCL and our previous NCL cruise was not our favorite except the entertainment was much better .
Still we think Holland America is the best cruise ships we have sailed on.
Tom Tom
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