Moving from Princess

Hi, we are just about to book our first P&O cruise currently Elite with Princess with over 300 days sailed. Whilst I know our loyalty isn't transferable, my question is this.

What are the main differences we should expect between the two lines.

What hints and tips can you give us, especially re the upper and lower tier pricing ?

Thanks in advance for the help

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P&O is essentially British and aimed at the UK market. You will likely find 95% British people on board. Consequently the entertainment is aimed more at British people, singing and dancing is multi-national but comedians for example will make jokes that often only we understand. The staff are more Indians from Goa than Eastern European and Filipino which are more often found on Princess.

Service standards on P&O are a bit less than the Princess American can do attitude. On Princess in the buffet when busy often staff will show you a table, offer to get you a drink, not just sell you one but make you a tea of coffee. I think P&O are coming round to this service level slowly.

Princess have a huge range of games for sea days and filling in; often derived from US TV game shows and loosely replicated for afternoon and evening entertainment in a show bar. P&O have more traditional things like trivia quizzes, whist and bridge. They do have a unique game called Battle of the Sexes where all the women are in a team and the men in the other and do battle on a Computer Screen or Music sounds quiz on a communal basis.

The pricing structure on P&O is roughly two tier with other offers which sometimes get thrown in if a cruise is selling behind expectations. You need to look at the small print to see what's in and what's out for each price level. Top price will include you choosing a specific cabin number, having priority choice of dining selections, free port shuttle buses and there may also be OBC or port parking. This is also complicated by TA's offering different levels and permutations of incentives like pre-cruise hotel. So you need to study the small print carefully. Sometimes top price and budget price are not far apart!

Regards John

Thank you, with Princess we enjoy anytime dining I see from the website P&O do Freedom dining I assume that is their equivalent. We have made our mind up and are booking our first P&O cruise tomorrow.

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We thought the same thing last year. We were regular P & Oers from 1981 to 2002 when we got "fed up" with the limited itineraries and moved to Princess. Went on Azura in January. Flights and organisation were excellent. Sadly we then got on the ship. There was nothing we could our finger on in particular, just a whole accumulation of little things.

Thought Princess were money grabbing, but we felt P & O had it down to a fine art.

Wanted some Autumn sunshine, so thought we would give her another go. our impression in January proved sadly correct.

Needless to say our next cruises will be back with Princess. Would have to be the right cruise at a very good price to tempt us back to P & O.

We moved the opposite way having reached the dizzy heights of Baltic with P&O we became somewhat disillusioned and dissatisfied with P&O so moved to Princess and never looked back. We prefer the food on Princess and the service is better and much prefer the whole cruise experience and meeting people from different countries.

We moved the opposite way having reached the dizzy heights of Baltic with P&O we became somewhat disillusioned and dissatisfied with P&O so moved to Princess and never looked back. We prefer the food on Princess and the service is better and much prefer the whole cruise experience and meeting people from different countries.

Glad you like princess. The main winner is that P&O loyalty is transferable to princess.

We have tried P&O a few times but no loyalty transfer for us (elite on princess)

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The thing is with Princess is they tend to be more expensive on most itineraries. They have cheap deals in Europe but these tend to be late offers and if you are booking holidays from work it can be an issue. However Princess have probably got the most diverse world wide range of itineraries available.

An exciting late development with P&O is that the Renaissance class ship Adonia (ex-Ocean Princess) has come back to the P&O fleet with comparatively cheap 7, 14 and 16 day itineraries. I should certainly have a look at that for ports that the larger ships cannot access. Ship is approximately 30,000 tons and 750 passengers.

Freedom Dining on P&O where available is the same as Anytime Dining more or less, there are typically two restaurants allocated to Freedom with opening hours which you slot into as you want. They are open similar time to 1st sitting time to end of 2nd sitting time.

Regards John

I quite like the Morning Show on Princess which you don't get on P&O. The cruise director makes some jokes, does a prize draw question and goes through the patter all on your stateroom TV while having breakfast in bed. Its a nice bit of interaction that I find helps set the day up.

I didn't know who the cruise director/entertainment manager was on my last two P&O cruises, they didn't seem to get involved. RCI was also good with interaction, Joff Eaton (worked for P&O briefly) was excellent and seen all day long.

I think P&O are missing a trick here.

The thing is with Princess is they tend to be more expensive on most itineraries. They have cheap deals in Europe but these tend to be late offers and if you are booking holidays from work it can be an issue. However Princess have probably got the most diverse world wide range of itineraries available.

 

An exciting late development with P&O is that the Renaissance class ship Adonia (ex-Ocean Princess) has come back to the P&O fleet with comparatively cheap 7, 14 and 16 day itineraries. I should certainly have a look at that for ports that the larger ships cannot access. Ship is approximately 30,000 tons and 750 passengers.

 

Freedom Dining on P&O where available is the same as Anytime Dining more or less, there are typically two restaurants allocated to Freedom with opening hours which you slot into as you want. They are open similar time to 1st sitting time to end of 2nd sitting time.

 

Regards John

Do not know how you define "late" but we booked a 14nt cruise in January for a cruise in June to Midnight Sun cruise to Norway and only paid £999 for an inside cabin which is very good value for height of summer and the bonus with Princess is that you can still choose your cabin and dining sitting which P&O do not allow for late deals.

We moved the opposite way having reached the dizzy heights of Baltic with P&O we became somewhat disillusioned and dissatisfied with P&O so moved to Princess and never looked back. We prefer the food on Princess and the service is better and much prefer the whole cruise experience and meeting people from different countries.

Glad it's not just us. Totally agree about meeting people from different countries. Had some really enjoyable dinner companions. Going to Japan in May, now that should be interesting!!!

Glad it's not just us. Totally agree about meeting people from different countries. Had some really enjoyable dinner companions. Going to Japan in May, now that should be interesting!!!

We did the Diamond Princess repositioning cruise, Hong Kong to Yokohama and it was absolutely amazing. Diamond Princess was built in Japan and had not been back there since. When we went to Taiwan things were calm but when we arrived at Japanese ports two or three thousand people turned up to see the ship come in. When we left one port there was military bands, war drummers, and a thousand people waving us off in the dark. It was like the Beatles at JFK in 1964.

Regards John

We've moved from Princess to P&O purely on price, which is primarily due to the Brexit effect. Just hoping that the downgrade in standards won't be too noticeable.

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Hi, we are just about to book our first P&O cruise currently Elite with Princess with over 300 days sailed. Whilst I know our loyalty isn't transferable, my question is this.

What are the main differences we should expect between the two lines.

What hints and tips can you give us, especially re the upper and lower tier pricing ?

Thanks in advance for the help

 

 

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I think you will like P&O UK. We have done 17 cruises with Princess (400 odd days - Elite.) Been on most of the Princess ships, from small to large. However we have also done 4 cruises with P&O UK including 49 days on Arcadia - Sydney to Southampton, also been on Oriana, Aurora and Arcadia again. Next year doing a B2B on Adonia, total 35 days on board for those two.

Personally I thought the standards of service, food, entertainment on P&O UK and Princess differed little. Just that on P&O UK 95% of pax would be Brits, whilst on Princess, largely North Americans, but from Australia mostly Aussies/Kiwis.

Just my two bobs worth. :cool:

I think you will like P&O UK. We have done 17 cruises with Princess (400 odd days - Elite.) Been on most of the Princess ships, from small to large. However we have also done 4 cruises with P&O UK including 49 days on Arcadia - Sydney to Southampton, also been on Oriana, Aurora and Arcadia again. Next year doing a B2B on Adonia, total 35 days on board for those two.

Personally I thought the standards of service, food, entertainment on P&O UK and Princess differed little. Just that on P&O UK 95% of pax would be Brits, whilst on Princess, largely North Americans, but from Australia mostly Aussies/Kiwis.

Price wise, much the same when we book from Australia.

Just my two bobs worth. :cool:

**Sorry for double post, keys went mad.**

Done both lines and they are so similar you would hardly know which line you were on.

Princess food has an American slant, all day burger bar, free ice cream etc.

If on freedom dining you aren't allocated a restaurant, you use either one,

Princess was our first love for cruising and we did many enjoyable fly cruises with them. Now we need an accessible cabin and only sail from Southampton, so need to book early.

Recently Princess launch prices have been very high which is a big disincentive, however we found they price matched on our 2014 Emerald Princess cruise and we saved 40% on the initial price.

If we could guarantee they would always price match on later offers, then we would switch back to them in a flash.