Robin and I recently cruised for 10 days on the Ruby Princess to Jamaica, Cartegana, Colombia, Panama Canal, Lion, Costa Rica and Grand Cayman. We had wanted to do the Panama Canal for a long time. Jamaica we got off the ship and did some shopping and walked around Falmouth a bit before doing some more shopping. We went back to the ship for the rest of the day. In Cartegana we had a nice tour including the old town. We then went through the Panama Canal using the new locks which was fascinating. We got off in the lake in a tender to get our excursion to the old and new city of Panama City which is on the Pacific Coast. We then went back to the ship which was in Colon which is on the Caribbean side.
We then went to Costa Rica and took a Canal cruise into a jungle and saw some animals including monkeys. This was truly a lot of fun. We then went to Cayman Islands where we did some shopping and went back to the ship. I highly recommend doing a Panama Canal cruise. It is well worth it with many found memories.
As for our balcony cabin, I would suggest a balcony cabin on deck 11 or higher as the balcony cabins on deck 9 and 10 do not have full privacy as the higher decks can look over and see your balcony. The cabin was very comfortable with decent storage space.
The food was good. We ate all but two dinners in the main dining room. We did do the steak house which was very nice and Sabatini’s which was the Italian restaurant. In my opinion, this was the best meal on the entire cruise. The service was very nice and the staff could not be nicer. We had several shows and several comedy acts as well. That was the most entertaining for me. Having 4 sea days was very relaxing. We spent a lot of time on the balcony.
