swjumbo

5 hours ago, WeBcruisingMN said:

I have skimmed the six pages of responses, so I apologize if some of this was covered… but thought I would chime in. My husband and I are 60 & 58, and have cruised Celebrity 20x, from 2012-2023. We love Celebrity, but when a good deal with the right itinerary came up on Black Friday 2022 with Princess, we bought in.

 

We just returned from the Princess cruise, Royal Princess, April 6-27, 2024 from Sydney to Tokyo…. And though we tried to just enjoy the cruise for “what it was”, we were constantly comparing to our beloved Celebrity cruise line. For the record, this was our second Princess cruise; the first was to Alaska in 2013. We have cruised Royal Caribbean 5x.

 

Here are some thoughts, and again- it may vary, ship-to-ship. 
With 21 days of mostly MDR dining (we did specialty dining 4x), we would have to award the trophy to Princess. Variety of food, serving temperature, and taste won out for Princess…especially in re the recent year or two of cutbacks, on Celebrity, but really- all of the lines.

 

Laundry: we loved being able to do our own laundry, though on a 21 night cruise- the laundry room was BUSY! One had to time your loads right. It was $3/load, either washing or drying…and I brought laundry detergent sheets (from our daughter’s house) instead of dealing with a liquid. The last two loads were wash-only, where we hung everything in our room to dry, because there was too much competition for the dryers.

 

Walking/Jogging Track: Royal Princess had a dedicated area on deck 18. We still needed to dodge other walkers, as we prefer speed walking, but on Celebrity- the track weaves through the upper pool deck area, so much more dodging is involved. Nod to Princess for this walking track layout . 
 

Free Pizza: Princess wins by a mile. The pizza on deck 16 was delicious and always hot. Celebrity tries, but slices are smaller, and sometimes tastes like it has been sitting around.

 

WiFi: goes to Princess. Fast, didn’t kick you out after a period of non-use…
 

Ship Layout: hands down to Celebrity. Princess seemed to be a maze, at least the Royal. One of the MDR’s (Allegro) is only accessible by the rear staircase coming down to deck 6, Allegro hosts both MDR breakfast and MDR lunch, so seemed we were constantly going up to 7, to then walk to the rear and go down to deck 6.
 

The Horizon buffet seemed really disjointed (the few times we had to eat early breakfast and use the buffet). It seemed like little rooms, and corridors, presenting so many blind corners to run into people. 
Especially the public bathrooms, both men’s and women’s were very small and laid-out poorly. Like the person would be drying their hands, but blocking the new person from entering. Small spaces to pass by other guests, just poor layouts in the bathrooms for most of them.

 

Speaking of the Princess bathrooms, I could not believe there were No Buttons for accessibility or automatic opening of the doors. Very un-ADA ….and even for a gal like me, I prefer to NOT touch the door handle when exiting the bathroom, but that was impossible. The doors are wooden and very heavy too. On Celebrity, I am constantly using the door open button, and hitting it with my hip. Also on Celebrity, the bathrooms are staffed more regularly with a helpful employee who directs guests to open toilets and cleans between each use (in the evening). 

 

The stateroom bathrooms were very small (we had a deluxe balcony). My husband is only 6feet tall and slim build, but he was struggling with the small size. The shower with curtain was a bummer, too…the curtain had some mold on the bottom (no wonder, it ‘hung’ in the water residue most times). Smallest cruise ship bathroom we’ve ever endured.
 

Service: on Celebrity, the crew greets you cheerily EVERY TIME. Plus, there are lots of crew out and about often, cleaning the stairways and everywhere on the ship. On Princess, we received a cordial Hello from crew most times, but it just didn’t have the same level of enthusiasm as on Celebrity. On Princess, we hardly noticed crew cleaning the stairways, and a noticeable ‘crumb’ would still be there several days later. 

 

No real nightclub atmosphere, at least on the Royal. We enjoy dancing at night, like to 70s and 80s tunes…but every evening the dancing was held in the Piazza, which was 3 stories tall…. With full lighting, and a mostly normal looking setting, the same as during broad daylight- at 11:00pm - beyond. The lights weren’t dimmed at all, and it just seemed too big for evening dancing. It probably didn’t help that the “DJ” (assistant cruise director) was merely playing full songs, without any blending or mash up, and he would often emphasize line-dancing songs (which the assistant CD had made friends with a group of 10-12 ladies who were in to line dancing) or he would even take requests from ballroom dancing people, and would play their music from 11-12midn, even though the DJ was supposed to be ‘playing the hits’ (as per the daily program).  Dancing was a big disappointment, and the Assistant CD never seemed to notice the cues of reduced people on the dance floor, once he started playing this specialty music (line dancing or ballroom). 

Celebrity has great nighttime dancing, both in the Sky Lounge and in the Grand Foyer.

 

Pool layout: very hard to find available shade loungers. A lot of prime pool deck space is devoted to the table & chair seating for the pizza and burger grill restaurants, so not as many loungers. On our particular cruise, it seemed people were NOT the sun worshipping type, rather they were looking for shade. Celebrity has a lot of lounge chairs under the overhangs on decks.

 

Lighting in stateroom: Celebrity is better. In fact, the first night on Royal we awakened each  other with nighttime trips to the bathroom. There were automatic lights under each nightstand that were VERY bright, and an automatic light in the room near the bathroom entrance that lit-up by motion, as one approached the bathroom. We did NOT need this additional lighting during the dark of night, and did some ‘hacks’ to disable these features for nights 2 through 21. Not sure if these features are for safety, since we noticed the average age of this Princess cruise was quite old, maybe 75-80? Maybe this older demographic needs additional nighttime lighting?

 

Celebrity wins Theatre by a mile…. Their production shows encompass MANY advanced dance moves and even acrobatics….their theatre stage allows for that extra movement and spatial flexibility.
Princess stage, at least the Royal, seemed like our local high school stage, so the dancers seemed to do basic back & forth moves, most of the time…. And the shows were just limited. The Princess theatre seating seemed like a lesser situation: lower ceilings, smaller corridors for accessing the seating, and just a smaller scale experience. We love the theatre shows, so this was a big bummer. Plus, there is no drink service in the theatre, and it is almost like they expect you to NOT be having a drink in the theatre, so there are no cup holders or wine glass holders in the arm rests between the seats.

 

Not typical to have sommeliers in the Princess MDR: on Celebrity, there is a Sommelier dedicated to only drink service in the MDR. The first 3-4 nights in the Princess MDR, the assistant waiter was expected to take our wine order, and we were supposed to know that exactly which wine we wanted to order. We were very dissatisfied with this, and thankfully on Night 5, a sommelier (who was responsible for the entire MDR) approached us and asked how things were going. We were honest, including the feedback of the wine being provided in basic chunky wine glasses, and from nights 6-21, we had a very nice sommelier on Royal Princess, who provided us with good advice on wine and decent semi-fancy glasses, which matched the elegant atmosphere of the dining room itself. 
 

15-Drink Daily Limit on Princess: we never really came close, most we had was 9-10 per day on a couple of days, but it was ALWAYS on our mind and we were constantly having to check our individual accounts to see what our number was. This was due to bar tenders or waiters counting BOTH of our drinks to one of us, not one to each…so one person could get very close to 15, without much warning. Bar Service was also a little spotty on Princess, they wanted you to wait for wait service, but sometimes that took a while…and meanwhile we would watch other guests walk up to the bar and get served immediately. 
 

Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves on the Royal, and we had a fine vacation…but we will probably return to Celebrity. I think the clientele suits our style more, and the service aspect is just such a big part of our cruise experience.

 

These are our recent thoughts; it really depends on what is important to you.

Happy Cruising, Everyone! 😊🚢⚓️

 

 

 

 

We couldn’t have said it better. A perfect answer to the original question.

No thread drift (the OP didn’t ask about RCL, HAL, etc) and a real comparison of the two lines.

Thank you!

22 minutes ago, Retired-N-Happy said:

Celebrity's is 24 pp per day higher just for drinks and you still have to pay gratuities.  Princess's is 20 pp per day higher for Premier and you have many more additions such as two specialty meals, unlimited casual dining etc.

There is truly no comparison.

As I said earlier, each to their own.

For a few extra bucks I enjoy the better glasses, unlimited drinks, not having to ask for ‘champagne not Prosecco’!

I agree the specialty dining is better value with Princess but….. and if money were no object…. I’d have Celebrity over Princess.

1 hour ago, Retired-N-Happy said:

Which drink packages are you comparing?  The basic on Celebrity has a 10.00 ceiling using bar level liquors and you can't even get a Blue Moon or even a Michelob Ultra since they charge 11.00 for them. The basic on Princess is 15.00 and you can get a plethora of beer choices, craft cocktails and espresso martinis.  If you need to upgrade to premium on Celebrity, it's 24.00 pp per day.  

I’m comparing premium drinks package on both.

We have very similar habits to you.

Never drunk nor abusive but do enjoy champagne in the morning with breakfast, mid morning and before luncheon.

No problem whatsoever getting champagne on the Celebrity drinks package but not so easy with Princess.

Again, each to their own!

10 hours ago, Retired-N-Happy said:

When's the last time you consumed 15 drinks on Princess?

Erm…. last few weeks….many times!!!

30 minutes ago, doghog said:

Of course Celebrity is being mentioned a lot. As it should be. OP is requesting comparisons between Celebrity and Princess. 😁

Please re read my post.

WE, my partner and I on our first Princess trip, mentioned Celebrity at least 20 times per hour!

We found the Royal class ship layout very confusing despite being 55 & 40 something.

Take 5, a Jazz venue is on deck 7! why?
Nowhere at the front of the ship to look out apart from The Sanctuary, which was lovely but you have to pay for access.

The elevators are confusing and one button only activates one or two elevators.

The Vista lounge has no view to talk of.

Theatre is small and not as opulent as any Celebrity ships.

No natural flow to the ship whatsoever.
 

I think we only mentioned the ‘C’ word (celebrity) around twenty times per hour! lol

We are similar to the OP.

Have done many cruises on Celebrity in all classes. Came off our first Princess cruise last week.

We always feel deflated leaving a Celebrity ship…. even in port and couldn’t wait to go back onboard.

Totally opposite with Princess. We spent as much time as we could in port without getting back on board and were quite happy to get off.

PS We have only done speciality dining on board each and never an inside cabin.

Perks are better with X!

PS We really wanted to like Princess too but we’ve got the Celebrity bug! It just ticks every box for us.

Ship    sky

Class    Royal

Deck   Marina (15)

Cabin #   410

Category  Mini Suite

Port/Starboard/Bow/Stern  Port Middle

Connects With Cabin # n/a

Accessible   no

Quiet  noise of chairs dragging at all hours upstairs

Balcony Size good. One of the larger ones

View 180

Privacy Issues no. The skywalk didn't affect us

Wind no

Soot no

Problems  no

Comments Bed was awful

If you have a drink package with Princess you don't sign for anything but you've got to check your bill daily as the extra few bucks here and these certainly mount up.

There aren't as many suite perks with Princess compared to Celebrity but there's a definite difference in price.

There appears to be a huge difference between their loyalty schemes and we feel the perks with Celebrity are much better.

Staff on both are amazing but it seems that the Princess crew get less time to themselves and therefore are a tad more tired. 

Having spoken to a few members of staff on Princess they are worked very had here compared to Celebrity.

To get a day off a crew member has to get medical approval. With Celebrity they merely ask their manager.

Long chat with a crew member today who’s first contract is here having been with Celebrity before and is finding it tough.

An example being in port he was given 30 minutes off. Some people downstairs never see daylight.

It appears that in port on Celebrity, if possible, they give as many of the staff time to get off the ship. On Princess they prefer their staff to remain onboard.

Speciality dining is better here than on any Celebrity ship we have been on. We eat nearly every night in specialty dining and prefer them over Luminae.

The value for money here is amazing.
 

Third night on board and we have eaten in the steak, seafood and Italian restaurants and thoroughly enjoyed every meal. We have, on a few occasions in Tuscan, had to ask for more spinach or an extra teaspoon of mash potatoes. Not here. In fact, last night in the Italian we had to miss dessert and cheese despite our lovely waiter trying to force feed us.

Cover charge is around $30 in each restaurant and well worth it.

Sorry Celebrity fans but it’s 1- nil to Princess in this category!

Celebrity are missing a trick here.

During Covid we did a round the UK cruise and it was v popular.

Pity they didn’t do the same itineraries as Princess and I do wonder why??

Today we washed down our own balcony.

A few days at sea meant there was salt everywhere.

Thankfully, we had been to The Sanctuary and kept the towels to dry the water off.

Now we can see through the balcony glass and our clothes aren’t covered in salt.

We miss Celebrity.

2 hours ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

It appears, though, that OP thinks X doesn't have plastic glasses in the buffet...

Every morning on Celebrity I pop down to the OVC buffet for 2 mimosas for breakfast and take them back to the room.
 

Never served in a plastic glass.

I’ve attached a screenshot of my wine glass at rear of the buffet for lunch on Solstice last year.

Glass not plastic.

42 minutes ago, D. B. said:

My experience with Princess was the same and No Sky Lounge at the front of the ship.

that is my Favorite place on Celebrities S and M class ships.

The Sky Lounge isn’t just my favourite place on the ship, it’s seriously my favourite place ever.

So many happy memories on all the Solstice ships.

It’s the naughty place at the end of the night, the lovely place for Officer’s parties and just a nice place to chill.

Here bobbing around the Atlantic on the Sky Princess and we miss Celebrity.

Crew are good but lack the passion and enthusiasm of Celebrity.

Overall it’s clean but twice there has been no soap in the ladies’ loos and they smell (apparently). Paper towels too as opposed to cloth.

The Premium drinks package is confusing to say the least.

Plastic glasses and strange cutlery in the buffet.

Speciality dining is good.

The huge movie screen over the pool blares out noise constantly.

Glad we have Celebrity to look forward to in a few months as we probably won’t be back here.

Below is a pic of the plastic glass! Poolside absolutely but in the buffet?

Was any reason given why there was no hot tub on these amazing balconies?

We were considering one (special birthday treat) but the lack of a small hot tub was a deal breaker.

I assume stability but hoping some expert here could shed some light!

Forgot to add, you do need to show your passport when you check in and board but that’s to the airline staff.

Have a great trip.

v envious.

PS. If you enjoy a cheeky beer then the Heineken factory tour is fun!

Lots of experts here.

1230 departure is fine.

It is not a domestic flight.

The only passport control and customs is at Amsterdam.

Liquids are still a problem in your hand luggage at LHR.

Security (it’s not TSA) is a disgrace.

Public transport there (AMS) is amazing and reliable.

My Gold status with an airline is about to expire as I don’t use the airline as much as I used to which, I suppose, is fair.

Does Captain's Club need at least one or two cruises per year to remain current or do I keep my status forever? 

The OP is obviously easily scared!!

Why are people talking lawsuit?

It’s an accident.

They happen.

What next? The ship rolled and I fell over? Let’s sue the ocean.

Thank you for posting.

We are Celebrity fans and are about to try Princess. 
VV is on the horizon.

One question.

Same itinerary. Balcony cabin on both, similar cost (excluding drinks package) which would you go on?

Yay. Back on topic. The passport do’s and dont’s were getting too much for me.

Cruise with Ben and David’s you tube channel has the Sky on it. Paul and Carole love to travel have recently been in a mini suite and it does look nice.

We’ve cruised many times but our first on Princess in a few weeks. 
Very excited too.