Love Celebrity - May Try Princess - Help?

My husband and I are Elite on Celebrity - we love the ships, the more-inclusive pricing, really just about everything. We are looking to take a short cruise mid-December but there's really only one option on Celebrity. RCCL (which we also enjoy) has limited choices. I ventured onto Princess' website and they have a perfect itinerary for us on the Crown Princess. I placed a hold on an aft cabin.

I was hoping that fellow Celebrity fans who have sailed Princess could tell me the good and bad about Princess vis a vis Celebrity. Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

We enjoy both cruise lines. Each has their flag wavers here on CC. If the route and price appeal to you I would book the cruise with no worries. Each cruise line has things they do better than the other.

I always enjoyed Princess..have not been on one in several years.....they have some great itineraries. I also like the ships that have multiple pools so you can pick the one that fits you best. Go for it!

Princess, HAL and Celebrity all have their boosters...you will find good things and bad things on whatever cruise you take...with whatever cruise line.

Choose the cruise that works for you....based on itinerary, timing and price....and don't worry about reported differences between cruise lines.

FWIW, we will be on the Crown Princess in August and we're elite + on celebrity. Princess has a far better itinerary for Norway.

We sail mostly on these two lines and do love Celebrity an awful lot. However, because of the itineraries on Princess, we have had twice as many cruises on this line and they offer a very nice product. I think you will like the Crown. She is in pretty decent shape (if you don't look at that mini-golf course on the top deck).

The service has always been good on Princess as the food is also very good. I do admit that I feel Celebrity offers a little more white glove service but you can certainly find some great experiences on Princess. The shorter itineraries might attract a few more of the youngsters but have not done any short itineraries on Celebrity, so that might just be an assumption on my part.

The prices for drinks and specialty dining is definitely more reasonable on Princess and they have opportunities at least twice a day to save on your drinks with their buy one, get one for $1 happy hours.

The Crown Grill is outstanding and only $29 pp instead of the $50 pp you will pay on Celebrity for the same type of meal.

Princess also allows you to bring all your own wine and champagne onboard, provided you pay corkage on any bottle beyond the 2 bottle limit. Crooners usually has some fun entertainment in the evenings.

The cabins are not quite as nice as those on the Solstice class ships but I do like the closets a lot better. The room stewards are good to awesome.

You can stack your free perks / obc on Princess as well. So, you can get military obc, past guest pricing, stock obc along with any other perk that is being offered at the time.

I've had better luck in Princess casinos than on Celebrity but that is always (I mean always) hit or miss.

Princess really does offer a very nice product, very similar to that of RCCL, but Celebrity is our absolute favorite. We are elite on both and will continue traveling on both.

We go back and forth between Princess and Celebrity and find the products to be very similar. Overall we prefer Celebrity because we like the Aqua Class option. Having made it to Elite Plus, we like the free laundry on Celebrity as well. However, Princess does have self-serve laundry rooms which are great to have.

Thank you for your input.

I guess the two products can't be meaningfully different then? For example, we sailed X last May to the Eastern Med and then RCCL Allure in December (after a long hiatus from RCCL). We were in a suite both sailings. When I compared the two, I thought X's Luminae blew away the suite dining on RCCL and I hated that RCCL made you sign the drink slips when we had the premium package for drinks (when X doesn't). But we love 150 Central Park versus Murano - little things like that make a difference.

So if the overall product was very different and the general philosophy to what's included / part of the ship culture, I'd like to know that as I would actually sacrifice itinerary since the ship time is important too. But maybe we should just give it a go and then I can post a comparison after we sail.

We're on the Reflection again this coming July/August and can't wait! All things being equal, I would always sail Celebrity.

Thanks CruiseRaider and 2theship! Your posts were exactly what I was looking for and came in while I was typing...

I read this thread with interest, because I am looking at a cruise on Holland, based on the itinerary. I love the idea of cruising New England and Canada in the summer, and they were the line that provided the trip I was looking for. Now that they have limited smoking, I am willing to try them even though I absolutely loved Aqua class on Celebrity. I think it depends on the experience you're looking for - As you can see, I'm also booked on Viking in November, because of the overnight stay in Cuba. Even if you have to leave the comfort zone of Celebrity, think positive, and enjoy something new and different.

We love Princess. It's our line of choice if they have the itinerary we want. One thing that is very different is that the Princess ships move a whole lot more in rough weather and creak a lot more too. Celebrity's ships "ride" really smoothly even in high swells and high wind. Princess...not so much. Go with a slightly aft cabin on the lowest possible deck.

The biggest difference is less cabin class segregation. The new mini Club Class is creating some of this now, but you won't see it as obviously as you do with Celebrity.

Service in the Horizon Court is awesome. The bakery items are so much better on Princess IMO. The banana bread, the croissants, muffins, etc. are just delicious, freshly baked and moist.

Cabin stewards are the best in the business IME.

Drink prices are much more reasonable.

Trivia is lots of fun and a challenge.

Very few announcements - usually just the captain at noon and the CD at some point in the day (noon or 4pm-ish).

The one thing you may miss is having a sofa in regular balcony cabins. The Crown is a nice ship and we really enjoyed our cruise on her.

We sailed the Crown Princess back when she sailed from Brooklyn. What was bothersome to me was that it seemed to feel crowded. Often times we found no space in the Martini bar or the show lounges. That had a comedy show any nights but you could never get in if you had late seating. Elevators always had a wait and not just when the shows were ending.

Food is equally god. They have a wonderful Caesar salad and Fettuccine Alfredo served in a Parmesan cheese shell but this may have been stopped since it wasn't available on the Caribbean Princess a few years later. Specialty restaurants are on par. I hated the Horizon Court. Food was OK but the space is very closed in and got very crowded and disorganized. Celebrity has the edge there.

What I liked about Princess were the mini-suites. The cabins were spacious and there was a separate sitting area with a full sofa divided from the bedroom area by a curtain so my wife could get up early and read without bothering me. This was before Club Class. The crew was very friendly and helpful.

I would definitely give Princess a try. More similar than different.

Thanks CruiseRaider and 2theship! Your posts were exactly what I was looking for and came in while I was typing...

Always glad to be of any help to my fellow cruisers. Whatever you choose, hope you enjoy.

We love Princess. It's our line of choice if they have the itinerary we want. ... Service in the Horizon Court is awesome. The bakery items are so much better on Princess IMO. The banana bread, the croissants, muffins, etc. are just delicious, freshly baked and moist.

 

Cabin stewards are the best in the business IME.

Drink prices are much more reasonable.

Trivia is lots of fun and a challenge.

Very few announcements - usually just the captain at noon and the CD at some point in the day (noon or 4pm-ish).

The one thing you may miss is having a sofa in regular balcony cabins.QUOTE]

 

Like DLM we like Princess. We're newcomers to Celebrity(just our 2nd cruise, but have another booked for April '17), and we do like the product. We only book minisuites on Princess so we always have a couch and prefer that cabin and balcony layout. We, too, felt the cabin stewards were a tad bit better on Princess, but that's something hard to quantify when both are good. Our cabin steward on the Reflection was just awesome. It's my impression, and I have nothing to back it up, that the "hello sirs," and "good mornings," from the crew are just a bit more natural on Princess. It's as if they've been doing it longer. Again, I have no complaints at all about Celebrity. I may be pulling things out of thin air just trying to find differences between the lines.

 

I agree about the service in the Horizon Court on Princess. On multiple occasions we've had servers take our food trays and walk us to a table (and we're able-bodied :) ). The Horizon Court food layout is the pits, however. Just does not flow well on the older ships. The Royal and Regal are light years ahead of the older ships with much more room and food stations.

 

Where I do think Princess has the upper hand is flowing entertainment through the Atrium. The Princess design is much more open with more room to dance or just watch. We couldn't even get to the dance floor on the Reflection.

 

Now that I've waxed eloquently about Princess, my next cruise will be aboard Celebrity and we have a tentative booking for November. Obviously we like the product and find the sum of the parts make for a fantastic whole.

 

As for us, we like trying different lines just to see how they differ. Keeps cruising from getting boring. We may even give HAL another try, but only on a new ship.

 

Jim

The Emerald, Crown, and Ruby are nice ships. I don't like Princesses new ships. If you like the itineraries, give it a shot.

Don't like the balconies on the Royal and Regal -- too small.

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Don't like the balconies on the Royal and Regal -- too small.

 

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Princess went against everything that they do well when they made those two ships. Some people like them. I don't get it. The Ruby/Emerald/Crown are much better ships.

Thanks, everyone! I think we'll give it a whirl. I've tentatively booked E735 which is an aft balcony stateroom. The price is really inexpensive for the 5 nights and the ship goes to Grand Turk and Amber Cove. I'll post a comparison review (I'm guessing the Crown Princess will be comparable to the M Class).

Really appreciate all the comments.

What I liked about Princess were the mini-suites. The cabins were spacious and there was a separate sitting area with a full sofa divided from the bedroom area by a curtain so my wife could get up early and read without bothering me. This was before Club Class. The crew was very friendly and helpful.

 

I would definitely give Princess a try. More similar than different.

We haven't done that many cruises, but most of our recent experience is on Princess (just got off the Caribbean Princess last weekend and had a fantastic cruise). We have the opposite dilemma - we are interested in giving Celebrity a try and don't know much about it! We also love the Princess mini-suites, and I definitely agree about the crew. Both times, our cabin steward was outstanding. Staff is overall very friendly.

We are huge fans of the Crown Grill ($29 per person specialty dining). Had a wonderful filet mignon last week!

We haven't done that many cruises, but most of our recent experience is on Princess (just got off the Caribbean Princess last weekend and had a fantastic cruise).!

Caribbean Princess used to sail from the Port of Houston. Glad you liked that ship. :)