Very Good Staff But Loooooong Lines!

Comparing this cruise to a similar one we took on Crown Princess in Sept. 2014, I have to say that the staff (dining room, buffet, front desk) on Ruby Princess was nearly flawless, but somehow the Ruby Princess acquired looooong lines for everything, particularly for meals.  We had "Anytime" dining, but they don't tell you that only 20% of the dining room seats are available for reservation, and those few are gone (at  least for the 5:30 dining time) between 8-9:15 a.m.. If you don't have a reservation,  the queues for 5:30 admission start forming up at 4:45 !  There is even something of a (shorter) line for those who DO have reservations! And we were completely unable to get into the Afternoon Tea that is supposed to run from 3:30-4:30.  We arrived at 3:40 and the line was so long and so slow-moving that 45 min. later, we'd only advanced a few feet and gave up.  On the Plus side, we were really happy that there were many more ballroom dance opportunities this time, and even ballroom dance classes!  May ballroom dancing long continue on Princess!  The stage shows were quite good, especially the Magic Musical on the final night:  an excellent production with very, very high-energy performers.  Since the weather was cold outside, we were very glad to have a good assortment of movies available on our stateroom TV (most of the other daytime activities were either sales talks or games like bingo or trivia). Would have appreciated some craft classes or real lectures that were not selling something.   However, on balance, this cruise was a good value for a short break.