We were on the Ruby Princess this June. We were with our kids ages 15, 6 and 10. The ship was fine, clean, staff was mostly friendly, the dining staff was very quick and efficient every night. We did not do any pay restaurants. I have to say that we did really miss Disney. We really missed the small things like the music in the hallway, their dining rooms, all the family activities like towel folding, and having movies at night in the cabin. We had two mini suites and it was plenty of room for all of us. The kids clubs are really open hit or miss, our 6 year old who never goes into Disney, just too loud/busy for her, loved princess clubs! The staff was SO nice and there were probably 10 kids in there at the most. The room looked really fun. My 10 year old liked the club too and went most of the time. They are not open very much and even sometimes when it would say they'd open at 9:00, there would be a sign on the door saying they would open at 10:00 and then they are always shut down for lunch and supper, which to us was fine because like I said, we don't utilize Disney's clubs anyway. Would I sail on princess again, maybe some day, but not anytime soon. We'll pay Disney prices and stick with them. Its just our personal choice, the cost was significantly less than Disney and that is why we picked them but I do have to say, make sure you check Princess's times for Tracy's arm(if you go that route), there are some that start at like 5:00 in the morning and are done by 9:00, not my idea of a vacation to get up that early to sit out in the cold! Disney does have a really nice schedule for Tracy's arm! We entered, I believe, about 6:00 am!
For us, like I said, we will pay for Disney and if I could have a re-do for Alaska, I would pay the difference and go with Disney. This is just our family's choice and obviously everyone has a different opinion but we did miss everything about the Disney experience, it didn't help that we were docked right by the Wonder in one port- I wanted to go and ask them if they had an open cabin
One thing also why we would pick Disney would be to leave from Vancouver, it was very very rough the first sea day from Seattle when talking with people about it, they said its always very rough out of Seattle the first sea day- I am meaning, you couldn't walk straight down the hallway, it was that rocky. Anything on the shelves were falling off, the food on the tables would need to be held onto, ect, you get the picture. It was a rough sea day and the staff all said its always like that the first sea day.
Good luck with your choice! Its not an easy one, I went back and forth many times- you don't have to worry about Princess service or cleanliness, we were very impressed with how their dining staff was. Its more if you want "Disney" along with Alaska, we did miss having "Disney"
