Observatons on Celebrity and Princess From A Newbie (kinda long)

Thank you for your informative comparison.

We have been loyal to Princess, and are trying Celebrity Silhouette in the Baltic.

We have always found the crew on Princess to be their greatest strength, and totally agree about the bar service and their amazing memories!!

We are trying Aqua for the first time, so it will be interesting.

About Us: My wife (semi-retired) and I (retired) just started cruising after 10+ years of no vacations due to the demands of a small business. In less than a year we have taken 3 cruises.

 

 

• · April ’17 Celebrity Reflection TA
  
• · Oct ’17 Celebrity Equinox southern Caribbean
  
• · Jan ’18 Coral Princess Panama Canal
  

Prior to that we did an Alaska cruise 15 years ago and I did a Caribbean cruise as a child in the early 60’s on Canard.

My main purpose in this post is to offer some observations on the differences we saw between Celebrity and Princess based on only a few cruises. I realize, and readers should keep in mind, that the Reflection and Equinox are larger ships than the Coral Princess. As a result, my observations don’t hold true across the entire fleets. After two Celebrity cruises, I was curious about how Princess would differ. I’ve tried to present my observations below. We are not loyal to any line - our next cruise is on Azamara and I keep watching for an affordable cruise on Oceania. I’ll start by briefly mentioning a few observations on Reflection and Equinox.

 

 

Reflection – Equinox Observations: These are sister ships, but there are a few differences.

 

 

• We much preferred the layout of the Sunset Bar on Reflection.
  
• We LOVED the Lawn Club Grill on Reflection and really missed it on the Equinox. I see that many people here like the glass show on Equinox (occupies the LCG space), but when I heard that the glass show was closed for renovation, I was hopeful that the Lawn Club Grill was coming to Equinox too. No such luck. The hot glass show just changed from a free demonstration to a paid hands-on experience.
  
• The Mast Grill on Equinox is more enjoyable because there is less wind due to design differences at the front of the deck.
  

• Cellar Masters on the Reflection is rarely used and the Gastro Pub on Equinox is a much better use of the space.
  
• Reflection has a small area on Deck 9 called Game On. It has several tables for card games, but what we really liked was that there were several gaming tables with large touch screens on the surface. These gaming tables had a variety of games that you could play. We liked a game that was pretty much like Word Search. The nice thing is that both people could play simultaneously. I looked for a home version of this kind of electronic gaming table but couldn’t find one. Seems to me like a good product opportunity for the video game industry. We were disappointed to find that Equinox lacks this feature.
  

Given a choice we prefer the Reflection over the Equinox.

 

Celebrity – Princess Observations: Admittedly based on a limited exposure to each.

 

· Embarkation: We arrived at the terminal at about 10:30am for each cruise. On both Celebrity and Princess we completed registration quickly and painlessly. On Celebrity we immediately boarded the ship, but the rooms were not ready until 1pm. On Princess we had to sit in a waiting area until about noon before we could board, however the rooms were ready when we boarded.

 

· Cabins: The big difference between Celebrity and Princess balcony cabins is the bathroom and the sitting area. We liked the bathroom on Celebrity much better – especially the shower size and shower door vs curtain. The sitting area on Celebrity had a love seat. On Princess you needed to book a mini-suite to get a love seat, otherwise there was just a single chair.

 

· Bars (getting to the really important stuff 😊): We really enjoyed the Marini and Sunset Bars on Celebrity and thought we would miss them on Princess. To our surprise we found the selection of bars on Princess to be superior. We also found the bartenders on Princess to be more personable. After a few days, many of the Princess bartenders didn’t even ask to see our cards as they told us “we know your number”. The bartenders on Princess seemed to really enjoy their jobs, on Celebrity – not so much. One disappointment on Princess is the mixes they use. Generally subpar. The worst is the pina colada mix. We drank a lot of pina coladas on Celebrity. On Princess it only took one to convince us to switch to something else. The margarita mix was OK, but not great. All-in-all we still preferred the bars on Princess – service goes a long way, we just had to be more selective about what we ordered.

 

· The Sanctuary: Not a comparison, because Celebrity has nothing like it. We had a lot of sea days on the Princess Panama Canal cruise and, having heard good things about the Sanctuary, we headed straight there upon boarding to book afternoons for every sea day. We loved it! I hate to rave about it because I like to keep “my favorite fishing hole” secret. The Sanctuary on the Coral is particularly nice because it has its own little pool.

 

· Main Dining Room: I know, I know, food is subjective so skip this section if you wish. Let me start by saying I am not one who expects fine dining on a mainstream cruise ship. When serving 1000’s of diners it’s unrealistic to expect much more than high end banquet food. In general, this is what both Celebrity and Princess accomplish. It’s fine. The menus are a bit boring, but I can always find something that sounds good. I do think Princess should be a bit embarrassed about replacing steak on the every day menu with a hamburger - but that’s just me. I’m always amazed at how both cruise line kitchens manage to serve properly cooked fish. It must be magic. I’d never order fish at a banquet hall. There were a couple fails on Princess. One was Beef Wellington where the pastry was totally soggy. The other was short rib that was so tough that it was hard to even cut. That aside, the MDR experience on Celebrity and Princess are pretty much comparable. We eat late (8-8:30pm) and anytime dining on both lines worked fine.

 

· Specialty Restaurants: On Celebrity we…… Love the Lawn Club Grill, quite enjoy Murano, were surprised by Sushi on Five, Sushi on a cruise ship? That can’t be fresh. But, it was actually much better than expected, Tuscan Grill is loved by many – but not us. On Princess the choices were more limited. Many people rave about Sabatini’s, but my wife didn’t care for the menu at all. Imagine…. An Italian restaurant where someone who loves Italian food hates the menu. The Coral also has the Bayou Café & Steakhouse. Ate there once. It was OK. We did miss the Crab Shack and the occasional pub lunches which people seem to really enjoy. The best thing the specialty restaurants have going for them on Princess is the price.

 

· Entertainment: Princess does a much better job of offering live entertainment at multiple venues throughout the ship. As a result, I’d say Princess is much livelier at night. As for the main showroom – I like the layout of the Celebrity showrooms better. Particularly the larger size. I didn’t like having to show up at the Princess showroom early in order to get a seat. That said, I heard that Princess has better shows. The first cast show proved that to be true. The singers were much better than those on Celebrity (Celebrity tended to have one decent male and female vocalist and the rest were mediocre). The Princess cast was clearly more talented however, the following two cast shows were not good fits for the cast. The Universe Lounge on Princess was a really strange design. We sat on the balcony level which has comfy chairs and sofas. The problem is that the floor is flat. You could either sit in the front row where you could see the stage (except for the annoying railing that ran at eye-level), or you could sit on a nice sofa in the second row and look at the back of the heads of the people in front of you - with absolutely no chance of seeing the stage which was too low and not in line-of-sight. Looking down on the main level, there were also comfy chairs and love seats, but again the floor was rather flat and the stage was only raised about a foot or so. It seemed likely that those sitting in the back would have a hard time seeing the performance. Just a really strange design.

 

· Casino: The casino on Princess was smaller, but this didn’t really prove to be too much of a disadvantage. I play blackjack and there were only two blackjack tables - a $10 table and a $25 table. I initially thought this would be a problem, but it really wasn’t. I rarely had trouble getting a seat at the $10 table. The casino staff were great on both lines. My wife liked the slot selection on Celebrity better. The larger size of the Celebrity casino is nice too. One real plus for the Princess casino is that you can charge casino play directly to your cabin account without any added service fee (Celebrity charges 5%). On Celebrity I carry cash for the casino – no need to on Princess.

 

Website: I just can’t pass up an opportunity to slam Celebrity for their unimaginably poor website. I’m sure more than a few new cruisers, after having experienced Celebrity’s website, quickly decided to move on to other cruise lines. It’s a real shame because the on-board experience is so much better than the pre-cruise.

 

So there you have it, some observations from a relatively new cruiser. All-in-all both Celebrity and Princess do a good job providing an enjoyable cruising experience. They could certainly learn some things from one another. Still, as many have said, they are more alike than different. I would gladly return to either line.

 

Ps I’ve posted to both Celebrity and Princess boards. I hope this isn’t against the rules.

As a long time Elite Celebrity cruiser and a first in a long time upcoming Princess cruise, thank you for your comments about both. We too will be taking a Panama Cruise but on the Island Princess.

After reading much about the differences between the two lines, the two most annoying things about Princess are the absence of a sofa in balcony cabins and the inability to make long term dinner reservations for Anytime Dining. Many of the criticisms about Princess are from cruisers who complain about long waits for Anytime Dining. It seems that Princess still hasn't figured out how to manage this aspect of their cruises. (I know, anytime dinning should not need reservations but we like to eat at 6:30 - 7:00 PM at a table for two every night, not at 5:30 PM or 8:30 PM every night at a table with 6 or eight other people we don't know. I can do that on Celebrity and it seems I can't do that on Princess.)

Really appreciate the comparison. Good words.

Nice review. Thanks for sharing.

Tony

The casino on the Coral is smaller than most because they chopped it down in size to make room for the International Cafe.

 

 

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The IC did not take much space from the casino. However the 13 oceanview cabins they added did take away major casino space.

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