Time to Book a Cruise

Of course what vacation of ours would be complete without a cruise. 

Since this long vacation still had a few weeks left we searched for cruise itineraries that left from California (either San Francisco or LA).  We had a few options, Grand, Ruby, Star or Island.

Island was doing the Panama and it isn't our favorite ship and the dates didn't match up so that was easy to drop from our list.

Star was doing 15 day Hawaii and those dates didn't line up either.

The Grand was doing an itinerary we really wanted to do (10 day Sea of Cortez) and we had people we would love to reconnect with on board. But that would be only one 10 day cruise as after it was heading to Hawaii and we didn't have enough time (plus it was expensive) to add that on.  So that was dropped.

That left the Ruby.  The Ruby is doing 7 day Mexican Riviera cruises that stop in Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas.

We love Mexico so we knew we would be happy with that. The price sure was right. Probably some of the lowest we have seen in a long time, so that helped.  Deal for past Princess cruisers!

Wasn't crazy about 7 day itineraries as we would then have two turnaround days. But hey - what a silly thing to be a negative point.

So we booked!  Yup three legs on the Ruby. 

What is even better is it looks like we have many cruise friends that will jump on for one of the legs.  Price and itinerary and proximity were a big selling point.

But in order to do three legs we had to compromise and we booked an inside cabin for all three legs.  Even though the price of a balcony was very reasonable. Getting it for three legs added another $1,000 in total and we agreed that we could use that money elsewhere. 

I always say it is your holiday and you do what you have to do. 

People ask how we can do three legs, well being in an inside is one of the ways. But who knows if we get an upgrade or an upsell things could change.