Ok...so I just returned from my first Princess cruise.....

[roe2ship]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I enjoy reading other's comparisons when trying a different line for the first time. Sometimes it takes another cruise to judge the whole line.

 

I know Princess' theaters contain far fewer seats then the RC Voyager class, even though it carries as many people as the Voyager class.

While Princess' theaters may have fewer seats, the Voyager class theaters have several columns which block one's view........those seats basically become useless.

 

Sorry to disagree with you about the coffee on Princess. The coffee on RCCL (Seattle's Best) is really pretty good. The worst coffee I've ever had has been on Princess cruises!

I SO agree with you!

[browneyes7]

I've cruised both RC and Princess. I think both have beautiful ships. I am constantly hearing about the "Wow" factor on the RC ships. The Princess ships I have cruised on also have the "Wow" factor, as far as I'm concerned. I have loved my Princess cruises!:)

[kath00]

What's the smoking policy on balconies with RCCL? This is a biggie for us since I have asthma and I am very sensitive...

[PhoenixCruiser]

What's the smoking policy on balconies with RCCL? This is a biggie for us since I have asthma and I am very sensitive...

 

You can smoke on your balcony.

 

###

[Firefighterhoop]

I just got back from the Ruby Princess 2 weeks ago, and had the same problem getting into shows. The show lounges/theater are too small!!! If you are not seated 30-45mins before a show, you're out of luck :(

[CruisingWChrist]

You sailed on Carnival Liberty, and I think the person you quoted is going to sail on Liberty of the Seas - an RCI ship.

 

Correct, I will be sailing Liberty Of the Seas:D

[dirtgirl]

I completely agree with you.

In fact, I even tell myself that one individual's behavior shouldn't tarnish my opinion of Princess as a whole.

 

We had a great time on the Grand Princess.

 

What it comes down to is whether I feel that the Princess experience was better than the experiences I've had on other lines.

In my honest opinion... it's about the same as everyone else.

 

I've taken my kids on 5 Royal cruises, 2 Disney, 1 Princess, and 1 Carnival.

Prior to that, I've been cruising aboard Royal's ships since the Song of America, and we did 1 Celebrity aboard the Mercury on it's inaugural year.

 

I've never had the misfortune of meeting an unlikeable fellow cruiser on any other line except Princess. I know unpleasant people are out there... I guess I've been lucky.

 

I wasn't lucky on the Grand. It soured my opinion of... not the cruise line itself... but it's audience. Princess's passengers are a good 20 years older than us, on average. I imagine Holland America to be the same... and you would be hard pressed to find me cruising along the Panama Canal on ANY line, right now.

 

I'm considering Alaska... but only because Disney might be sending a ship up there soon... like 2011 or 2012.

 

edit:

We encountered the unpleasant individual aboard the Grand Princess about two years after our son was diagnosed with juvenile macular degeneration. His vision when he was diagnosed (at age 7) was 20/60... on the Princess cruise, his vision deteriorated (and has mostly stabilized) around 20/200-20/400. It was a rough two years.

Bad timing to meet up with the self-righteous old man.

 

 

The Disney Wonder will be sailing to Alaska out of Vancouver starting in May/11. Sailings are already selling out. She has been open for bookings for months, now.;)

[chopper825]

I took my family on a cruise aboard the Grand Princess 3 years ago... I found the cruise to be not unlike RCI's experience.

Food wasn't that much different than RCI, service wasn't that much different than RCI.

 

The one thing that stood out in my memory was the average age of the typical Princess passenger. The Princess crowd was a little bit older than RCI's crowd.

 

That being said, we did encounter a miserable human being on Princess.

Synopsis of what happened:

My eldest son is legally blind, juvenile macular degeneration.

We sat in the 2nd row of the juggling comedian show... and this one older guy made a comment about Princess's policy that children not sit in the first 6 rows of a show.

When my wife informed him that we had permission because our son is partially sighted with macular degeneration, he retorted with a lecture on how he had macular degeneration, and how we should teach our son to "deal with it" rather than teach him to break rules.

 

My wife was in tears.

It kinda soured my opinion of Princess... I'm a pharmacist.. I sometimes have to deal with unhappy old folks... why would I want to go somewhere where I may have to deal with unhappy people on vacation?

 

That person could have been on any ship. I just got off the 1/14/10 Explorer and dealt with miserable older people for 10 days. I have never seen so many rude and obnoxious senior citizens in my life. So what happened was really horrible, but you can't blame Princess for that one.

[chopper825]

After doing several RC cruises, we also thought we would try princess once. Mostly because of itineray choice. So in December we went on the princess Ruby. Beautiful ship, but the layout is SO poor. Ever hear the saying: You can't get there from here"? No continuity to the ship at all. We were late for dinner the first 3 nights, because they had the dining room hidden!!

 

We also did not like the Big screen by the pool. I was trying to get away from that. We are not big TV watchers to begin and it was so loud. One thing we missed, even though there were 4 pools, was the solarium that RC has.

 

Even though we are around the 50 age, we were by far the youngest on the ship. There were a multitude of scooters, and the drivers didnt care who was in there way. We witnessed several people actually being hit by them.

 

So we are back to RC on the Jewel of the Seas in December.

 

 

You cannot blame Princess for the age of the passengers. That is not common. I just got off the 1/14/10 Explorer and there were 57 wheelchairs and scooters. There were so many older people I could not believe it. On both of my Princess cruises, we are in our mid 50's and were about the average age. I think it is more the time of year.

[klingoncruiser]

Pretty much spot on with my overall opinion of Princess as well. Ship design and food pretty much keep me away. However service and port calls are often better on Princess. Very nice review.

 

Good to sail other lines to know what is out there.

[Mack2]

That person could have been on any ship. I just got off the 1/14/10 Explorer and dealt with miserable older people for 10 days. I have never seen so many rude and obnoxious senior citizens in my life. So what happened was really horrible, but you can't blame Princess for that one.

 

I understand that I can't blame princess for it... because, like I mentioned in a previous post, unpleasant people can be found anywhere.

 

What I think sours me on Princess (and Panama, HAL, Alaska) right now is the "expectations" of the passengers.

 

Like I've said, I've tried a good number of lines. RCI, Celebrity, Princess, Disney, Carnival.

It seems there's a general expectation of what the average passenger expects from their chosen cruise and itinerary.

 

When we were on Disney... people were expecting Disney. When we're on Celebrity and Princess... people expected luxury service and relaxation. When we're on RCI, it's activities and adventure... Carnival, their brand of fun.

Same with itineraries... Western Carib, adventure.. Eastern Carib, fun... Southern Carib/Panama Canal... sights.

 

Right now, I feel that the level of service and the quality of the cruise aboard Princess isn't really much different than RCI. It's been over a decade since we've been aboard a Celebrity (although my parents just came off the Solstice and it looks GREAT)... but the expectations of the passengers is the deal breaker.

 

Sure, we're all game for ceramics, bingo, and ice carvings aboard Princess... and we're all for the rock climbing, bingo, and ice carvings aboard RCI... but I have it stuck in my mind that there might be more rude and unpleasant senior citizens on a Princess (or HAL) ship who don't expect to encounter too many families with 3 children. Furthermore, some of those rude and unpleasant seniors might expect that those children are not well behaved and a small number of THOSE people might take it upon themselves to pre-emptively admonish us because they expect bad behavior.

The expectation on an RCI ship is that there WILL be families... so, sure, someone might be unpleasant, but it's their own fault for expecting NOT to see families aboard RCI.

[PirateGal]

We also cruised on the Emerald Princess last year, after 2 cruises on RCL. Our thoughts are simillar to yours...Princess just didn't do it for us. We missed a lot of things from RCL (savory bites, cinnamon rolls, Promenade, Flowrider, ship layout, buffet layout, ect) and there just wasn't anything special about Princess that would woo us to come back. Our next cruise will be RCL or Carnival.

[mackpav]

I said on RCCL first then tried Princess. I don't think I would ever go back to Princess. Main reason - I found the staff to be lacking in the friendless factor. Some were down right rude. 2nd reason - RCCL food is 10 times better.

[chopper825]

I guess everyone has different experiences based on what is important to them. Because I do not travel with children and have no interest in a flow rider or wall climbing, we are better suited to Princess. I expected to find a lot more children on the Explorer, but we cruised in January. So what we got is lots of rude older people from New York and New Jersey and I can count the number of families on board on one hand.

 

They are really more similar than different.

[chopper825]

I said on RCCL first then tried Princess. I don't think I would ever go back to Princess. Main reason - I found the staff to be lacking in the friendless factor. Some were down right rude. 2nd reason - RCCL food is 10 times better.

 

I found staff of both lines to be excellent and very friendly. I thought food was about the same.

[Older Party]

Thanks for reminding me of the entertainment! We thought the shows and entertainment were excellent! They had a few comedians onboard who performed different acts during the week. They had three different production shows performed during the week as well. We did have difficulty getting into one of the shows even 45 minutes prior to it starting because the seating was already full. There was a piano bar, a nightclub, an Irish pub and a couple other places where you could see karoake, etc. The Piazza (a scaled down version of RCL's Centrum) had acts/musicians playing for most of the afternoon/evening....pianists, string quartets, a brass band, magicians, etc.

 

I have to say...out of all the cruises we've taken, for nightly entertainment I would have to give the edge to Carnival. When we sailed on the Inspiration, each night they had different music playing in all their bars/clubs....LIVE entertainment....they had many venues and one place might have jazz while others had blues or rock & roll or swing and then there was a piano bar as well. You never were at a loss for something that you could enjoy!

 

One other thing I forgot to mention in regard to Princess is they have a program called Scholarship @ Sea...they have guest lecturers onboard and had discussions on the history of the islands we were visiting as well as art history and a discussion about pirates in the Caribbean. They also had book club and film club meetings onboard as well.

 

I think entertainment is one of the biggest things that RCL needs to pay attention to....mostly their games. I've been cruising with them for over a decade and yet you see the SAME games now that they had over a decade ago. :confused: I can't believe they aren't innovative enough in that regard.....that was one of the reasons we wanted to try another line...the boredom with the same activities was starting to set in. :rolleyes:

I worked for Princess many years ago and one of the highlights of my time with them was when Jacques Cousteau came onboard for a lecture. We always had someone of interest on every cruise. The Love Boat used to film on board as well which was always fun for the passengers. I remember once when Ernest Borgnine was on, his wife Tova gave facials and makeups lessons, free of charge, to the ladies during the day while he was filming. I also watched Esther Williams swimming laps in the morning when Ricardo was on filming. I always thought Princess had the best entertainment. I am on the Sapphire in March and can't wait. This will be my first time on a Princess ship since 1997 so loved reading all your comments here. Thanks!

[dommer573]

Thanks for the review. One of the things I want to do, is try many different cruise lines. Its nice to have many different opinions.;)

[KAWS]

We've sailed on Carnival, Princess and RCCL. Our first was on Carnival Miracle and even though it was rather hmm bright and "cheery" shall we say, we absolutely loved everything about that cruise and from that point we thought that was the cruise to compare to.

 

Next we went on Princess (Crown) and while it was a gorgeous ship we felt we just didn't have as much fun on it and weren't sad when it was over. Happily we tried Princess again to go to Alaska this last summer and this time we were totally in love with the Golden and have another booked for next year on the Ruby. One thing you CANNOT beat on Princess is the fresh water pools. I wish all the other cruise lines would adopt this!

 

We tried Carnival again to go to the Southern Caribbean and frankly went on it just for the price. We had a port every day and so hardly saw the ship. Good thing because it was the Victory and it wasn't that pleasing looking to us.

 

I've sailed RCL twice now (Radiance and Enchantment) and both were fabulous. We had a great time on both. Both were similar and so easy to find our way around. Next month we'll sail on the Mariner which I believe is a lot larger than what we're used to with RCL but I'm sure it's going to be wonderful too.

 

So with all that said, I like all three lines for different reasons. Price does come into play sometimes, but in the end I think we'll wind up either going Princess or Royal for now, and perhaps Princess will be the front runner in the next few years for us when we really want that quiet but don't quite want to do Holland America.

[QTBabyNurse]

Sorry to disagree with you about the coffee on Princess. The coffee on RCCL (Seattle's Best) is really pretty good. The worst coffee I've ever had has been on Princess cruises!

 

Coffee is such a personal choice...I tend to lean more towards the Dunkin Donuts kind of coffee, that's why the Princess coffee tasted good to me. I don't care for the stronger coffees such as Starbucks, etc...so RCL's coffee is horrible in my opinion! Just a personal preference! ;)

[nubble88]

I'm a Royal Caribbean fan myself. Having took one Princess cruise I did notice some differences. I liked the food better on Princess, but the entertainment doesn't compare to Royal Caribbean.

 

I also think Royal Caribbean keeps its guests more informed on the daily activities.

 

Another feature about Princess that was better than Royal is it has fresh water swimming pools. If I am in a pool, I prefer it to be fresh water. I found a fresh water pool when we were on the Sapphire, and that was the cruise I swam the most. However, we were just on Freedom of The Seas this past Thanksgiving week and the pool in the solarium was fresh water too. I was very happy about that, but the water was soooooo cold, that we only swam once.

 

I have been and will remain loyal to Royal, at least over Princess. Princess was too, a very good cruise line, but Royal is in my opinion, better.

[Michael Kays]

Its nice to see so many different opinions for cruise lines. As the saying goes, "different strokes for different folks".

Some factors I've noticed that consistantly skew the overall cruising atmosphere are time of year, length of cruise, and itinerary. Service or quality of food should never be a factor in any of these scenarios.

Most families with children are pretty much tied to the school year calendar. Obviously a longer cruise will cost more. IMHO we found far fewer families cruising to Alaska, Panama Canal, and Europe.

Smoking is always an issue for non smokers ( us included). We pretty much sail aft cabins exclusively. No matter what balcony smokers are on, the smoke always goes aft. We understand this and it is one of those issues we deal with having made the selection to sail on aft balconies.

We did have an experience in St Thomas this passed January when we were in port the same day as the Oasis of the Seas. RCCL's biggest ship. They had to dock at another site, the old USN Submarine base which had to be modified to fit the ship! The additional 6,000 passenger ship's presence was quite obvious while in downtown St. Thomas, which isn't that large. We are booked on the Oasis for this October, but the logistics are scaring me to cancel the cruise.

Im sure the wow factor is incredible, but I can't imagine getting on and off a ship that big each port, not to mention dining logistics. I know there are a ton of restuarants on board, but from what I've read from other CC'ers the majority charge additional $$$.

[chico 94]

With all the recent discussions about how RCL has changed and how people feel that the service, food, etc has declined some...hubby and I decided to try Princess Cruises for the first time and I thought I'd share my opinions with fellow Royal Caribbean cruisers who might be thinking of doing the same thing. As you can see from my signature below, we have sailed Royal Caribbean more than any other line but we were ready to given Princess a try. We disembarked today from the Emerald Princess and this is a short synopsis on what we discovered. Keep in mind this is a comparision review...as you read this, don't think for a second that I didn't have a good time, because I did and remember....this is just MY OPINION....so accept it as such, please!

 

First of all (and this has nothing to do with Princess or RCL) but am I the only person that just despises sailing out of Port Everglades (Fort Lauderdale)??? The whole port area is so disorganized...from the baggage unloading area all the way into the terminal. UGH! :eek:

 

The first thing I noticed is how small our cabin was compared to RCL's inside cabins....the bathroom was incredibly tiny and by the end of the week, the shower curtain and I became intimately aquainted...ick! I did like the safe however, that you programmed with a 4 digit code instead of using a magnetic card as in previous cabins. The beds/linens/comforter was very comfortable and our cabin steward took incredible pride in keeping us neat and tidy for the week. There was a mini fridge stocked with some water and soft drinks which we kindly asked him to remove as we brought our own bottled waters onboard that we wanted to keep in there. The room temp was easy to control and we were always very comfortable in that regard.

 

The design of the Princess ship is a bit unusual as on many decks you cannot walk from bow to stern without having to walk up or down decks and then come back around again because there were areas you couldn't get around. I didn't like that at all. I always felt disoriented! There were very few seating areas near windows in which you could just sit and gaze outside or read a book. I usually have no trouble on RCL ships finding such little nooks and crannies. I missed that alot!

 

The food in the dining room was pretty comparable on Princess and RCL...the edge for steaks would go to Princess....but the edge for everything else I would give to RCL. Desserts were pretty equal on both lines. Princess definitely has better coffee than Royal Caribbean however...and I was very grateful for that! RCL beats out Princess hands down with their buffet design....it's nice and open and easy to get around....with Princess it is small, confined and you are always bumping into people....there is no organization.....and there were also never enough tables to sit at. On the upside, there was plenty of variety for the lunch and dinner buffet on Princess....their breakfast buffet was not very tasty in my opinion though. The french toast was deep fried and when you took a bite of it, you could taste the oil seeping out....yuck! :eek:

 

I did notice that on Princess the passengers tend to dress a bit more formally for dinner than on RCL...more tuxes, more long gowns.....and on formal night I actually saw people get turned away from entering the dining room....never saw that happen before.

 

We tried "anytime dining" for the first time and it is nice to not have to rush for dinner if you happen to be on an excursion or sitting out by the pool....I really missed traditional dining and would probably go back to that option next cruise. We had to wait one night for a table for one hour, but other nights we were seated pretty much right away.....we also always chose to share a large table with others which helps to get a table sooner. I didn't think the dining room service was as good as RCL, but I attribute that to the "anytime dining" situation...they cannot get to know you and your preferences and they have passengers coming and going in their area all evening instead of the 2 seating times for traditional dining. The dining always seemed disorganized and lasted way longer than it should have because it would take 30 minutes sometimes from the time you would sit down til you ordered your meal. :confused:

 

Princess has an International Cafe which is similar to the Promenade Cafe on RCL. The pastries and other offerings on Princess were very tasty. They even offer gelato ($1.50) but you get ALOT and it was incredible!! What is missing is the coffee, tea, hot chocolate station that RCL has inside the Promenade Cafe. So while you are sitting at the Princess cafe, there's no coffee or tea to enjoy with your pastries....:confused:

 

The cruise director and staff on Princess were excellent! The games were fun and there was plenty to do. It was nice to experience different activities for a change since RCL seems to recycle the same games/activities with all their ships and they are all starting to get old. All the staff on Princess from the officers to the maintenance folks were all very friendly and hardly ever did you pass a staff member that they didn't wish you a great day...that was very nice! They love their job and it shows!

 

Princess offers the large screen pool area with Movies Under the Stars.....we didn't like it at all. All day long they show something on the big screen from concerts to sports to movies....it is very loud and takes away from the serenity that many of us look forward to when we cruise. The blaring speakers is horribly annoying! :( Thankfully there are other pool areas to lay out and enjoy some peace and quiet! Don't people get enough TV at home???

 

I'm not sure if I've forgotten anything...if you have specific questions, I'll try to answer them the best I can. All in all, we think that we'll return to RCL for our next cruise. We've accumulated many perks with our Platinum status on RCL and we thought the Princess experience would make up for what we would be giving up in perks, but it really didn't. Even though it sounds like I'm griping, I'm not, just comparing....we really had a wonderful time! :)

 

Hope my review will be able to assist those of you with similar ideas!

 

Sorry was this the emerald princess you were on? What were the prices for alcoholic beverages like. Do they have any special drinks of the day and do they have alocoholic beverage cards to purchase? sorry for so many questions, we leave on the 14th of march.

[cruiser07]

I find this very interesting. We just got off the AOS and haved sailed the Car. Princess. We thought overall Princess had better food and was cleaner. We were very disoriented on the AOS compared to Princess. We would sail either line again, but give Princess a little edge.