Princess compared to Celebrity

[Mike07]

On 12/11/2022 at 2:52 PM, iamaqt2 said:

The biggest and most glaring difference between Celebrity and Princess IMO is in the MDR.  Celebrity has dedicated wine stewards who quickly learn your favorite wine and rarely leave your glass empty. And their servers aren't harried by this task.  Princess expects your servers to take your wine or beverage order and bring it back all while trying to get food orders taken and delivered to multiple tables.  It might be 20-30 minutes before that glass of wine shows up. 

I find the quality of food on Celebrity to also be slightly better.  

 

 

 

Funny because my family and I were commenting on this exact point last night... It's brilliant for Celebrity to have a sommelier in every dining room as opposed to Princess's approach to having the wait staff deal with it.

[davekathy]

4 hours ago, Mike07 said:

 

 

Funny because my family and I were commenting on this exact point last night... It's brilliant for Celebrity to have a sommelier in every dining room as opposed to Princess's approach to having the wait staff deal with it.

Which makes for a lot better service. Disappointed to hear this about Princess. RC doesn't have sommeliers in the MDR either. 

[stevenr597]

My wife and I just completed a 7 day cruise on Celebrity Reflection.  This was our fifth cruise on Celebrity.

Beautiful ship but….

For the first time we were disappointed. 

Passengers were definitely on the old side.  

It appears to us that Celebrity is putting much if not most of their effort into the new Edge Class which friends of us have raved about. 

We, several months ago, completed a cruise on the new Discovery Princess.

Before these two cruises would have said it was a toss-up.  But now would give “edge” (no pun intended) to Princess. 

[Potstech]

On 12/12/2022 at 12:25 PM, Tedferg said:

This is not a Princess v Celebrity comment but more concerning Hawaii. We are fortunate to live in California and prefer to fly to Hawaii and spend more time in the islands and avoid five days at sea.

10 days - 5 days to and then 5 days back.  We did a 12 day 4 island tour for about the same price and got to see much more of Hawaii.

Edited December 26, 2022 by Potstech

[jagoffee]

23 hours ago, stevenr597 said:

My wife and I just completed a 7 day cruise on Celebrity Reflection.  This was our fifth cruise on Celebrity.

Beautiful ship but….

For the first time we were disappointed. 

Passengers were definitely on the old side.  

It appears to us that Celebrity is putting much if not most of their effort into the new Edge Class which friends of us have raved about. 

We, several months ago, completed a cruise on the new Discovery Princess.

Before these two cruises would have said it was a toss-up.  But now would give “edge” (no pun intended) to Princess. 

Slightly confused.  Have you cruised on any of the newer Edge Class Celebrity cruises?  Or are comparing the Reflection Experience to the Discovery experience.  It might be more appropriate to compare the Reflection to the Emerald, Crown, etc.  Celebrity’s Silhouette is my favorite S class ship.

[Lady Arwen]

21 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

Slightly confused.  Have you cruised on any of the newer Edge Class Celebrity cruises?  Or are comparing the Reflection Experience to the Discovery experience.  It might be more appropriate to compare the Reflection to the Emerald, Crown, etc.  Celebrity’s Silhouette is my favorite S class ship.

Exactly!  Comparing apples to oranges.  No Princess ship, including Royal class, can compare to Celebrity Edge class ships.  Silhouette is a very nice S class and is also one of our favourites.

 

[stevenr597]

5 hours ago, jagoffee said:

Slightly confused.  Have you cruised on any of the newer Edge Class Celebrity cruises?  Or are comparing the Reflection Experience to the Discovery experience.  It might be more appropriate to compare the Reflection to the Emerald, Crown, etc.  Celebrity’s Silhouette is my favorite S class ship.

You make a good point.  

We have not cruised on the Edge Class.  Talking with friends who have, as well as fellow cruisers on the Reflection who had previously sailed on the Edge Class, there is indeed a big difference between the ship classes.

It appears that Celebrity is trying to attract a younger more diverse crowd on the Edge Class, and making it a "step above" the Solstice Class. 

That should certainly be taken into account when sailing.

To further complicate any review, Princess is also trying to  "step up" with their new Sun Class Ships coming out next year.

All in all, I would go with Princess, but many of my friends do prefer Celebrity. 

[Plato123]

The Celebrity Reflection is our favorite ship so far and our last cruise on it in a RS was wonderful.  Our next cruise will be in an aft corner PS on the Royal and we are looking forward to it.  We had a Sky Suite on the Celebrity Edge and while the ship is amazing our suite did not meet our expectations, and have avoided Edge class ever since.  Hope our first Princess experience is good..

[rsquirrel]

I think Princess does activities and laundry better.  Laundry machines were free to use.  If you pack your own detergent and sheets it costs nothing which is great on a longer trip.  They had lots of activities daily and the location of the movies was better on Princess.  As for evening shows I liked Celebrity better.

 

Food for me was better on Celebrity.  I can’t have wheat or dairy and finding food was not fun on Princess.  The buffet area was way smaller than Celebrity and did not have a Gluten Free area.  The desserts at dinner were great and better than Celebrity.  It’s too bad as Princess has a back section of the buffet that could be made a gluten free and dairy free area without much trouble.  Some mornings I could get a hard boiled egg and other days none were available.  It was the same for PB for the toast.  I had to eat it plain some mornings as they ran out of PB.  I did not have luck with the chef at the buffet, part way through the cruise I found out that gluten free muffins could be made.  Well I asked the next morning after she said she would have something for me tomorrow and nobody seemed to know but eventually I was given 4 little muffins.  They tasted great but at that point I was so sick of eating the same thing for breakfast.  Found out later there was something in them as I spent the rest of the day and evening burping.  It could have been worse but was not fun.  That was the last time I asked for anything special.  Celebrity also made mistakes and gave me regular milk when I ordered almond or soy milk.  They also gave me a delicious chocolate dessert a few times and I did question them as it was so hard to believe it was dairy free.  I found out at the end of the cruise that it had whipping cream in it when they gave me the recipe.  
 

 

[caribill]

1 hour ago, rsquirrel said:

I think Princess does activities and laundry better.  Laundry machines were free to use.  If you pack your own detergent and sheets it costs nothing which is great on a longer trip.

 

That is a rare circumstance.

 

Normally it is $3 wash and $3 dry.

[jeromep]

On 12/11/2022 at 12:29 PM, milolii said:

Aloha, The best cruise to visit Hawaii is actually the NCL Pride of America 7 day voyage.  It departs Honolulu on Oahu every Saturday and visits overnight on Maui, the Big Island (Hilo &  Kona) and overnight on Kauai.  NCL also offers a lava sail by if lava is visible during your cruise.  Most of the Princess cruises  depart from a California port and are 14 days with about 10 of them at sea. NCL POA- no sea days.  
 

NCL Pride of America is not one of the fleet’s big ships with all the bells and whistles.  The focus is the Islands, with most guests off ship all day. The food on Princess is better and there is usually Hawaii programs on board the Princess ships while at sea. The best NCL food is actually in its pay restaurants. 

 

NCL would require flights (probably more than one booking for you) to Honolulu, Princess would require a flight to San Diego, Los Angles or San Francisco, with many non stop flights available daily from LHR.

 

I haven’t sailed Celebrity, but thinking I might try it. 
 

Enjoy 

I actually really want to try this specific cruise, but haven't had the time or opportunity to do it.

 

However, like another poster commented, there are some negative comments about the itinerary and the ship floating about on the Internet.  I'd rather try it than just dis it.

 

I tend to be a ship rat, so I pay attention to what is going on in the world of new builds and ship classes.  The Pride of America is an oddball ship, a one off that was built for another cruise line that went bankrupt before they even finished the ship.  And so to sail RT Hawaii, a cruise line needed to find a ship which was built in the U.S. that could then be flagged in the U.S. with crew that have legal status to work in the U.S (so green card or citizenship).  All of this work to be legal for the PVSA.  NCL purchased the empty hulk of the ship from the domestic shipyard that laid the keel, then had it towed to Germany where a shipyard there finished it.  This meant that the ship was not fully constructed in the U.S. and technically couldn't be U.S. flagged (based upon the PVSA regulations), but they got Congress to write an exception for it, and slipped that into some appropriations bill, for sure.  Now the ship was U.S. flagged it could do RT Hawaii sailings.

 

I think what turns me off on NCL as a cruise line is the nickel and diming, or rather the prevalence of fee based food options and middling included food options.

[milolii]

We’ve sailed on NCL several times, although never on POA. The crew members, by law, are either US citizens or green card holders as you state. We always meant to take that cruise as we owned a vacation home on the Big Island for 10 years.   The food is definitely better on Princess, except for the NCL steakhouse Cagney’s. Anyway, we enjoy NCL and Princess, sailing both in 2022.  
 

Included dinning besides the buffet and poolside, consists of 2 or 3 dinning rooms, a diner/pub, and an Asian restaurant. You pay for Sushi or at a Sushi Bar.  The pay restaurants usually include Cagney’s, Italian, Brazilian and French.  Bigger ships - more options of both. Some specialty dinning is included in your fare, 1-2 nights, depending on the length of the cruise. You pay gratuities. 

 

There is so much to do in Hawaii, I think you would be off the ship most of the time.  It’s really about the destination.  My recommendation always is to take a land trip and visit at least two islands, over at least ten days.  But if you can’t do that, then POA. 

 

I enjoyed your background information on POA.  She initially sunk at her hull at the Lloyd Werft shipyard in Germany in 2004 durning a storm.  The Pride of Aloha(NCL Sky) was brought over to start the runs and NCL acquired the Spirit to replace the Sky.  The Spirit is known within the company as a ship that helped saved NCL at a precarious time in their history.  This is what the Spirit’s Captain told us while we were onboard a few years ago. 

Enjoy your vacation whatever your decision. 

 

[TenneSea]

I can't get past the lack of balconies on the new Celebrity ships.  That's a deal breaker for us.  What was Celebrity thinking ?  People cruise to sit on their balcony and soak up the sunshine.

[Cruise Junky]

6 hours ago, TenneSea said:

I can't get past the lack of balconies on the new Celebrity ships.  That's a deal breaker for us.  What was Celebrity thinking ?  People cruise to sit on their balcony and soak up the sunshine.

Not an issue for Hawaii. Book an S class instead of edge.  For Hawaii celebrity would win hands down because of being 1 way.  Princess has a one way and the itinerary is crap.  

[Lady Arwen]

13 hours ago, TenneSea said:

I can't get past the lack of balconies on the new Celebrity ships.  That's a deal breaker for us.  What was Celebrity thinking ?  People cruise to sit on their balcony and soak up the sunshine.

You’re right about that, although some people love the Infinity balconies because you can close the top portion and use the balcony as part of your stateroom.  I was hesitant at first, but quickly got used to it.  We also like the standard balconies, but much fewer than the Infinity ones.  It certainly has not hurt Celebrity at all.  Ships are sailing full and everyone wants to be sailing with Captain Kate, currently the Master of Celebrity Beyond.

[KeepCalmBearOn]

20 hours ago, Cruise Junky said:

Not an issue for Hawaii. Book an S class instead of edge. For Hawaii celebrity would win hands down because of being 1 way.

 

That is fine if you live in Vancouver, but if you live in California, it is much easier to use a CA port.

 

If I was doing a one way from BC, I'd choose the Disney Wonder or RCL Ovation of the Seas.

[Hlitner]

For us, this is somewhat simple and based on value.  The cost of a small SkySuite on Celebrity is more than twice the cost of a mini-suite on Princess.  Princess also has Alfredos and the International Cafe (both personal favorites).  

 

By the way, we do not have an issue with wine service in the Princess MDRs.  When the waiter comes, we order our wine and tell the waiter we will order food once we get our wine :).  Works every time.

 

Hank

[ericosmith]

6 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

Princess also has Alfredos

Only for one night on our recent 10 day.

[KeepCalmBearOn]

18 minutes ago, ericosmith said:

Only for one night on our recent 10 day.

 

Which ship?

[ericosmith]

1 minute ago, scottca075 said:

 

Which ship?

Enchanted

[KeepCalmBearOn]

27 minutes ago, ericosmith said:

Enchanted

 

Yes, Princess is very, very confusing with the pizza places. Sometimes Alfredo's is a standalone venue, sometimes it is inside another venue and sometimes, it disappears altogether.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, ericosmith said:

Only for one night on our recent 10 day.

What is Alfredo's on some ships is Gigi's on enchanted.

 

It should be operating every day on deck 7.

 

Early in the restart, back when ships were sailing with half occupancy or less, I had seen some ships where it was not staffed.  However for the last 6 months with occupancy getting back to normal it is normally running every day.

Edited February 19, 2023 by ldtr

[memoak]

22 hours ago, Cruise Junky said:

Not an issue for Hawaii. Book an S class instead of edge.  For Hawaii celebrity would win hands down because of being 1 way.  Princess has a one way and the itinerary is crap.  

Why would you want a 1 way. We always take the Princess 2 way. Can’t beat all the sea days especially round trip Seattle  Tired of the fights between P and C go with what floats your boat and don’t slam the other lines

 

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by memoak

[Cruise Junky]

2 hours ago, memoak said:

Why would you want a 1 way. We always take the Princess 2 way. Can’t beat all the sea days especially round trip Seattle  Tired of the fights between P and C go with what floats your boat and don’t slam the other lines

 

 

 

 

Well given a choice I’d rather be in Hawaii than in the Pacific with dicey weather, but that’s just me 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Cruise Junky]

4 hours ago, scottca075 said:

 

That is fine if you live in Vancouver, but if you live in California, it is much easier to use a CA port.

 

If I was doing a one way from BC, I'd choose the Disney Wonder or RCL Ovation of the Seas.

Why?  Disney is 2x the price and Ovation might be a good ship but the itinerary is garbage.