Just off Princess Regal...differences from RCCL

We are just off of a 7 day cruise on the Regal Princess. This is our second Princess cruise. It was a very enjoyable experience.

We are loyal Royal cruisers and will be cruising with family next month on the Allure. Thought I would share some of the differences we experienced.

Rationale for cruising Princess: We wanted to cruise on Princess' largest class of ship. Liked the itinerary, so we booked. $400 OBC didn't hurt either. :) We were in an obscured balcony room. Our view was obscured by looking at the top of an orange life boat. Had no problem still seeing the water beyond the boat.

Differences:

1. Required to carry the life jacket to muster. Required to put it on when directed. Have gotten accustomed to not having to carry the life vest to muster, so this was something I wasn't too fond of.

2. Balcony was super small! Barely enough room for the two chairs and table. Did like that the chairs were adjustable to recline. The view of the life boat did not keep us from enjoying our balcony. We could look beyond it and see the water.

3. Buffet hours are much more extended than on Royal. It's open until 11:00 P.M. nightly. Windjammers on Royal's ship barely stay open until 9:00, and even start removing items as much as 30 minutes prior to closing time. On disembarkation day, the buffet opened at 5:00 A.M. Didn't recall Royal's ships to open that early.

4. Great complimentary sit down pizza restaurant that also included some delicious appetizer and pasta options. It was really good!! Again long extended hours.

5. Variation in their Any Time dining option for the evening meal. One dining room is dedicated to Any Time. Another dining room has an early seating and then becomes an Any Time dining room.

6. Can purchase a coffee card. Have seen this offered recently on Royal's ship also. Since we didn't have the Diamond Lounge available, I purchased one. Allows for the lattes I enjoy when cruising. Nice option is being able to use a punch in their Gelatto shop for a three scoop gelatto of various flavors or a sundae. The Gelatto shop isn't available on all of Princess' ships.

7. Offer Movies Under the Stars nightly which includes complimentary blankets to check out since it can get a bit chilly at night. Placed pillows that fit over the top of the loungers outside making them comfy. Free popcorn was also offered. If you watch a movie at the Aqua Theater or even the indoor theater on Royal's ship, you pay for the popcorn.

8. Have two outside options for food close to pools. One is pizza (different from one in # 4) and the other is a grill offering burgers, bbq, hotdogs, and fries. These are great for those around the pools. Again, the hours are fairly extended.

9. International Cafe like Promenade Cafe on Royal's ships offers sandwiches, various types of salads, pastries, and cookies. Options were always available. On our recent Oasis cruise, the cases were near empty. Very few sandwiches and had cookies only in a jar on the counter. One night we went by to grab a cookie and jar was empty. Asked staff about getting one, and told not tonight; they were out. :(

These are the various aspects of our cruise that I think are different from Royal's cruise experience. I know food is very subjective. In our experience, the buffet on this ship was head and shoulders above Royal's Windjammer on any ship. The choices were very upscale. Dining room was very good also. We do think overall, the food was definitely better.

One glaring difference totally appreciated was the lack of hounding we experienced from trying to book spa offerings, wine tastings, drink packages, or specialty restaurants. We saw the spa employees stationed around the ship and never once were we approached or called out to come over and listen to a spiel on their services. They waited for those interested to approach.

On the first day, while eating in the complimentary pizza restaurant for lunch, we were approached for a wine tasting. We declined and the gentleman was polite, thanked us for our time, and quickly moved on. When we were on the Oasis in January, we became very weary of the hawking of the specialty restaurants. Those guys were everywhere! LOL. We really feel this aspect of upselling of various options on the last few cruises we've experienced on Royal's ships is not a move in a positive direction.

Thanks for reading this long post. Honestly, we feel the mainline cruise companies are pretty similar in many ways. All are trying to offer a good experience. We will continue to cruise Royal since we like their product.

Thanks for posting. Nice to see the differences between the companies.

Funny, the reason I left Princess after 5 cruises was due to the aggressive sales. Maybe I'll give them another try.

Although on my Oasis cruise last week I was only approached twice and both times they politely moved off right away when I said no thanks.

Thanks for the report. We have only sailed Royal and Celebrity. Maybe one day we will try Princess

We cruised several times on Princess , main reason for leaving was we felt ship was too crowded could not get seats for shows , saw a fight once on saving seats. Never was not able to see a show on RCCL, did like lunch options and pizza

Funny, the reason I left Princess after 5 cruises was due to the aggressive sales. Maybe I'll give them another try.

 

Although on my Oasis cruise last week I was only approached twice and both times they politely moved off right away when I said no thanks.

Your post made me smile. :) So funny how things kind of ebb and flow from cruise to cruise. Wonder if the aggressive sales approaches depend on who is at top management at the time.

I agree about the food. everything food related was much better on regal than royal.

I'm not sure if they still have this problem (was on regal in late 2014 if I remember correctly) but the room keys get demagnetized very easily. I think I needed to get a new card 3x during the week because I kept accidentally putting my key card in the same pocket with my phone. User error but there's nothing worse than running back to the room cuz you need to hit the head and then realizing that the key doesn't work.

I've been on NCL (several times), Celebrity, DCL and most recently the Royal Princess (sister ship of Regal). I couldn't believe how good the buffet food was after my experiences on all the other lines.

I've been on NCL (several times), Celebrity, DCL and most recently the Royal Princess (sister ship of Regal). I couldn't believe how good the buffet food was after my experiences on all the other lines.

Totally agree , RCCL WJ is just bad. compared to all lines , Hal also is pretty bad

Your post made me smile. :) So funny how things kind of ebb and flow from cruise to cruise. Wonder if the aggressive sales approaches depend on who is at top management at the time.

I agree.. :) funny how you prefer somethings on one cruise line that another does differently. BUT.. on all of our cruises (perhaps we were lucky) on either RCL or another, we've never been hounded, just politely asked with a warm smile ' If we'd be interested in..' and we'd always just shake a no thanks and they'd step back. Most, would only approach us if we stopped to look at their table. I've never used the spa, so have often wondered if it is a rip off, I can't judge because while the prices do seem high (to me, having seen a pricelist) to those who like facials, massages, and the like it may be well worth it.

My wife and I are NOT 'foodies' OR 'food snobs'. We are just simple people. She ate out, at the most, one time a year,most of her adult life before we met. In her previous relationships she was EXPECTED to do all the cooking and cleanup without any help whatsoever and, work a full ten hour work day. So, to say she was THRILLED to have others do everything and took great satisfaction that she liked their food and cleaning, was what endeared her to cruising, and the travel was a big plus. Now,on the last full cruise day, she'll mournfully say, 'I just WIS H we could cruise forever !!!'. I'll quietly add, ' I know, me too'. As I'm sure a lot of us wish also.

Mac

Thanks for posting. We are thinking about doing an Alaskan cruise in 2019. This has helped me out a lot. I will also consider Princess.

Thanks for the comparisons. It was an interesting read.

Hi folks. I've cruised on RCCL 7 times (4 classes) and on Princess 4 times (1class). The one thing that draws me to Princess over RCCL is the greater availability of food (and edible pizza). That's one of the areas where RCCL has cut back the most, and late night snacks are important to me. Still tho, for me nothing beats Royal's southern routes out of SJ, and Princess bailed on SJ after 2012, regrettably.

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We have always been curious about Princess, thanks for the comparison!

I agree with all your comparisons.

The buffet was so good, I only ate dinner in the dining room once. And the service on the Regal was unbelievable.:)

Hubby said after our Allure cruise, back to Princess. Either the Regal or Royal. I'll stick with Princess newer ships for now.

I too love Princess. They are always my #1 choice. I hate the way RCI nickels & dimes you!

The C&A benefits aren't nearly as good as Princess' either. We get 180 free internet minutes between the 2 of us on a 7 day cruise, all the dry cleaning and laundry we want for free, priority boarding, priority disembarkation, priority tenders, free bar set up, can bring on as much water and soda as we want, more OBC and more combinable OBC including stockholders', and no hawking (or at least very minimal). I would've gladly cruised Princess this month but they were sold out on every ship I tried. No so with RCI.

Thanks for the comparison. We got bored with Princess after 4 cruises and went back to Royal. Things change so it's probably time to give them another try.

Thanks so much for posting this. Probably the biggest thing I dislike about Royal is the food - both the poor quality and the lack of availability - it should never be difficult to find tasty food on a cruise ship! I've been considering trying Princess and this is a helpful comparison

Do Princess charge for room service?

Thanks for the comparison. I've been on a few Princess cruises, mainly their Golden Princess. I do have to agree with the dining experience and food quality you've described. They are in the upper scale. The movie under the star experience was awesome. Blanket, food, smell of fresh burgers and pizza behind you...lol...

We are just off of a 7 day cruise on the Regal Princess. This is our second Princess cruise. It was a very enjoyable experience.

 

We are loyal Royal cruisers and will be cruising with family next month on the Allure. Thought I would share some of the differences we experienced.

 

Rationale for cruising Princess: We wanted to cruise on Princess' largest class of ship. Liked the itinerary, so we booked. $400 OBC didn't hurt either. :) We were in an obscured balcony room. Our view was obscured by looking at the top of an orange life boat. Had no problem still seeing the water beyond the boat.

 

Differences:

1. Required to carry the life jacket to muster. Required to put it on when directed. Have gotten accustomed to not having to carry the life vest to muster, so this was something I wasn't too fond of.

2. Balcony was super small! Barely enough room for the two chairs and table. Did like that the chairs were adjustable to recline. The view of the life boat did not keep us from enjoying our balcony. We could look beyond it and see the water.

3. Buffet hours are much more extended than on Royal. It's open until 11:00 P.M. nightly. Windjammers on Royal's ship barely stay open until 9:00, and even start removing items as much as 30 minutes prior to closing time. On disembarkation day, the buffet opened at 5:00 A.M. Didn't recall Royal's ships to open that early.

4. Great complimentary sit down pizza restaurant that also included some delicious appetizer and pasta options. It was really good!! Again long extended hours.

5. Variation in their Any Time dining option for the evening meal. One dining room is dedicated to Any Time. Another dining room has an early seating and then becomes an Any Time dining room.

6. Can purchase a coffee card. Have seen this offered recently on Royal's ship also. Since we didn't have the Diamond Lounge available, I purchased one. Allows for the lattes I enjoy when cruising. Nice option is being able to use a punch in their Gelatto shop for a three scoop gelatto of various flavors or a sundae. The Gelatto shop isn't available on all of Princess' ships.

7. Offer Movies Under the Stars nightly which includes complimentary blankets to check out since it can get a bit chilly at night. Placed pillows that fit over the top of the loungers outside making them comfy. Free popcorn was also offered. If you watch a movie at the Aqua Theater or even the indoor theater on Royal's ship, you pay for the popcorn.

8. Have two outside options for food close to pools. One is pizza (different from one in # 4) and the other is a grill offering burgers, bbq, hotdogs, and fries. These are great for those around the pools. Again, the hours are fairly extended.

9. International Cafe like Promenade Cafe on Royal's ships offers sandwiches, various types of salads, pastries, and cookies. Options were always available. On our recent Oasis cruise, the cases were near empty. Very few sandwiches and had cookies only in a jar on the counter. One night we went by to grab a cookie and jar was empty. Asked staff about getting one, and told not tonight; they were out. :(

 

These are the various aspects of our cruise that I think are different from Royal's cruise experience. I know food is very subjective. In our experience, the buffet on this ship was head and shoulders above Royal's Windjammer on any ship. The choices were very upscale. Dining room was very good also. We do think overall, the food was definitely better.

 

One glaring difference totally appreciated was the lack of hounding we experienced from trying to book spa offerings, wine tastings, drink packages, or specialty restaurants. We saw the spa employees stationed around the ship and never once were we approached or called out to come over and listen to a spiel on their services. They waited for those interested to approach.

 

On the first day, while eating in the complimentary pizza restaurant for lunch, we were approached for a wine tasting. We declined and the gentleman was polite, thanked us for our time, and quickly moved on. When we were on the Oasis in January, we became very weary of the hawking of the specialty restaurants. Those guys were everywhere! LOL. We really feel this aspect of upselling of various options on the last few cruises we've experienced on Royal's ships is not a move in a positive direction.

 

Thanks for reading this long post. Honestly, we feel the mainline cruise companies are pretty similar in many ways. All are trying to offer a good experience. We will continue to cruise Royal since we like their product.

Do Princess charge for room service?

I don't recall do. We had in one of our trip non stop breakfast room service. Two people in a room, order as if there were 4 ahahah.

Evening a few times as well.

Thanks for this, I find the comparisons very interesting.

Royal has the worst food of the three cruise lines I've tried so far. That's just my opinion. I never go hungry though. But there is nothing I look forward to.

It's worth mentioning that Princess let's you stack / combine any offers you can find. Amex offers, stockholder, military OBC, travel agent OBC, sales, etc. If you can find it, you can combine it. Their onboard prices are much more reasonable than many competitor lines; daily BOGO happy hours (twice a day), reasonable pricing on photo packages and specialty dining. Alfredo's is specialty dining quality without any additional charge and International Cafe puts RCI Cafe Promenade to absolute shame. RCI should send a few execs on Princess just to copy that. They'd be embarassed, frankly.

Great info and pretty spot on with my own experience on Regal. However, I put my Regal cruise at about #5 on my favs list mostly because of the design of the ship. The balconies, as mentioned, are small though this is a relative term, they are indeed noticeably "cramped" compared to all others I've had. My worst beef was trying to get to the dining room as you cannot access certain dining rooms from the level they are on unless you use the aft stairs. In other words, you can't stroll through the atrium and then continue to the dining room--you have to go up, cross to the very aft staircase then go down. Yeah kinda petty, but after all of the Royal Caribbean ships I've been on, this to me was very annoying. Alfredo's pizza definitely did rock!