Who has cruised......

[winncruiser]

Celebrity....and is it that much better than Princess?

[paul929207]

Keep in mind that "better" is subjective. Every line has it fans and its detractors.

[Pointkitten]

We have taken two Celebrity cruises and one Princess cruise. Our second Princess cruise is upcoming in Jan. We really like both lines and had great cruises. I think they both had some pros and cons, and would rate them about the same in terms of overall quality.:)

[Nomsayin]

We've had great cruises on both lines and find them quite comparable. IMHO, destination(s) should be the deciding factor in choosing between the two.

 

One thing I do like better about Princess is that pre-reserved shore excursions are not charged to your onboard account until taken, whereas X requires you to pay for them when booked.

[KruzPrincess]

I took my first Celebrity cruise last year. I've sailed Princess many times. I think they are more alike than different. I don't think Celebrity is better than Princess. Princess is still my favorite cruise line, but I wouldn't hesitate to sail with Celebrity again. Celebrity has some quirky rules like billing gratuities in advance for Select Dining (similar to Anytime Dining on Princess). The newer Celebrity ships are modern and very attractive. Service was very good. I don't think you'd be disappointed.

[robtulipe]

IMO both lines are comparable in ships, quality and service with only slight differences.

With Celebrity you can attain the top status, Elite, much quicker, with just 10 tier credits. Also you are able to get multiple credits (up to 3) on one cruise. You get one extra for a 12 night or longer cruise and another if in a suite. I feel the X Elite benefits are better especially the evening social period (Elite Lounge) with its no cost bar service which I like better than a single Complimentary Mini Bar Set Up Princess has in your cabin.

With Princess you need 15 cruises or 150 cruise days to be Elite. With the latter you need to average more than 10 days per cruise for it to be the better method to attain Elite status over the number of cruises method.

You can compare the two loyalty plans benefits at

https://book.princess.com/captaincircle/jsp/eliteMemberShipBenefits.jsp

and

http://www.celebritycruises.com/captainsclub/heroSingleTxtSub.do?pagename=elite_member_benefits

 

Also if you have X Elite status, you qualify or have the ability to enroll as a Royal Caribbean's Crown & Anchor Society Diamond member for Diamond status benefits when on RC ship even if you have never cruised with them prior. Likewise a RC Diamond member can do the same for on a X cruise.

[Trader Ron]

I believe Celebrity is superior to Princess. The Food and Entertainment are better I.M.O.

 

The Solstice Class Ships are terrific! However, they don't have enough pools for 2850 pax.

 

With that said, I'm leaving on the Crown Princess this coming Saturday. It will probably be

 

my last Princess Cruise. I'm a Princess Platinum member and I did not get a cabin upgrade.

 

I always get a cabin upgrade with Celebrity and HAL.

[Pam in CA]

One's personal experience makes a difference. I took my first (and probably last) Celebrity cruise last June. Their customer service was horrible: we had two adjoining cabins and both had non-working toilets for three days and the only reaction (literally) to this situation was, "You, too?"

 

My cabin, a 2C balcony, was tiny with poor storage. I measured the distance between the end of the bed and the wall: 11". No one I know is 11" wide, the length of a piece of paper. You could barely get past the bed to the desk. The service was good but the food was pretty bad. In the buffet, food had been left out so long it was hard as a rock; at our table for 8, most nights at least 5 people sent their entrees back as inedible. And the others were all Elite on Celebrity.

 

Given my experience, Celebrity doesn't offer anything that Princess or HAL don't do a lot better. Not itineraries, pricing, food, service, features, etc. so it's very doubtful I'd sail with them again. But that's my opinion and others may have different experiences.

[MV_Photon]

We have taken one (1) Celebrity cruise (Alaska cruise tour). Overall, we found the attitude of the Celebrity Millennium crew to be pompous & pretentious.

 

For example, one evening we dined in their surcharge restaurant. Although I was dressed smartly in chinos, a button-down shirt, & a dress sweater, I was informed that I would not be admitted w/o a dinner jacket (to maintain the dignity of their establishment); so, they loaned me a tuxedo jacket. The adjacent table featured an old-enough-to-know-better woman wearing skin-tight black pants & a black thong who (inexplicably) spent an hour standing hunkered over her table exhibiting far too much of her derriere. :eek: Classy....

 

Our young children were along on that trip. On one occasion, we were paying $6/hour for each of them to play in the under-staffed kids area, so that we could spend a few hours in the adults-only zone. Once we entered the adult hot-tub, we were joined by several rambunctious unescorted youths; unfortunately, no one from the crew was around to disperse them.

 

FWIW -- Our last few cruises have been on Celebrity's "small ship" brand, Azamara. Although their on-board entertainment is limited (not an issue on port-intensive cruises such as the Baltic), we found Azamara Journey's entire crew to be professional and friendly.

[capecodder2]

As you can see by the responses it is a subjective matter. Personally, I would only sail on Celebrity's Solstice Class ships even though they are larger than I prefer in general. Princess has a variety and I can't say there isn't one in particular I wouldn't cruise on. Oceania is my all-time favorite line, but sometimes we have to go for price rather than quality, especially if we are just looking for a warm weather getaway in the winter to the Caribbean.

[Trader Ron]

This is a Princess Board, so almost everyone on here will be partial to Princess.

[molly2kit]

I have taken 2 Celebrity cruises and 2 Princess cruises.

 

If you had asked this question before my Sept experience on the Golden Princess I would have said Celebrity - no question.

 

However, I had a wonderful experience on the Golden, the food was much improved over the previous Princess cruise - Only our cabin steward was a let down with no ice ever in the cabin and he was nowhere to be found after the first day.

 

So, I think at this point I would say they are pretty close in my opinion -

[recyclelady]

I've only taken one Celebrity cruise, but I found it to be very similar to Princess. I do remember that my OV cabin was extremely tiny, however.

[Pam in CA]

This is a Princess Board, so almost everyone on here will be partial to Princess.

Not necessarily. Many also cruise other lines and overall, I've found that people's answers tend to be relatively unbiased when asked about another cruiseline, unlike fans on other cruiseline-specific boards.

[winncruiser]

Thank you all so much...don't think the responses were biased at all...actually very frank.

 

Celebrity does like to present themselves as superior, don't they? Just glad to see that I'm probably not missing anything. Love Princess, their prices and their itineraries so will stay put.

[Pam in CA]

Celebrity tries to give you the impression that it's classier than Princess but from my observations, it's not. People at our table, regular and passionate Celebrity fans, wore casual clothing every night, including formal nights. There were people in the dining room in shorts every night, including formal nights. HAL is far dressier and classier than Celebrity.

 

The other thing I didn't like about Celebrity is that TAs aren't allowed to discount. We got a nice OBC that was about 10% of the cruise price but even taking that into consideration, I get much better discounts from my TA on Princess and HAL, making cruising on them a much better value.

[Love.II.Cruise]

Celebrity tries to give you the impression that it's classier than Princess but from my observations, it's not. People at our table, regular and passionate Celebrity fans, wore casual clothing every night, including formal nights. There were people in the dining room in shorts every night, including formal nights. \

 

I agree with this. Our last Celebrity cruise was a disappointment because the crew couldn't handle the passengers. It was a South American cruise with mostly Venezuelans on board. Many had big families with nannies. I've never seen so many anti-american people chanting Chavez. Nor have I ever seen more kids out of control and destroy a ship like they did. Imagine kids breaking the elevators and putting ice cream cones on all the railings of the stairs on each floor.

 

I'm not sure if another cruise line would have done better, but I can say Celebrity didn't have a clue what to do. I've never been so happy to have a balcony cabin to hide on.

[Trader Ron]

I agree with this. Our last Celebrity cruise was a disappointment because the crew couldn't handle the passengers. It was a South American cruise with mostly Venezuelans on board. Many had big families with nannies. I've never seen so many anti-american people chanting Chavez. Nor have I ever seen more kids out of control and destroy a ship like they did. Imagine kids breaking the elevators and putting ice cream cones on all the railings of the stairs on each floor.

 

I'm not sure if another cruise line would have done better, but I can say Celebrity didn't have a clue what to do. I've never been so happy to have a balcony cabin to hide on.

 

It takes "guts" to enforce the rules.

 

I will not cruise in certain parts of the world. South America being one of them. I also avoid taking cruises when schools are out on vacation.

[Love.II.Cruise]

It takes "guts" to enforce the rules.

 

I will not cruise in certain parts of the world. South America being one of them. I also avoid taking cruises when schools are out on vacation.

 

Yeah, live and learn. This was a Christmas/New Year's cruise. I guess it's hard to enforce rules when the majority breaks them. But at least I got to have fun with the penguins! :D

[Pam in CA]

I'm not sure if another cruise line would have done better, but I can say Celebrity didn't have a clue what to do. I've never been so happy to have a balcony cabin to hide on.

No, Princess wouldn't have handled it better. There have been posts about out-of-control (non-US) kids (with parents nearby) on a few cruises and Princess did nothing to control the situation. :( I was on a Princess cruise a few years ago and there were four US teenage boys across the hall in an inside cabin. They partied every night, all night, with friends coming and going constantly, slamming the door so hard my cabin shook. I asked them to please respect other passengers. One night, I called the PSD every half an hour from 1am on; they did nothing. The kids' mother was often in the hallway all night, drinking and telling the kids to keep their door open so everyone could party. Fortunately, these instances are rare and unusual.

[junglejane]

Celebrity does like to present themselves as superior, don't they? Just glad to see that I'm probably not missing anything. Love Princess, their prices and their itineraries so will stay put.

 

Of course Celebrity presents itself as superior. It would be a pretty poor marketing campaign to say, "We're identical to the competition." If you are comfortable with Princess and don't have any desire to explore something new, then by all means stay put. But the Solstice-class ships are stunning. I'm looking forward to the debut of the new Royal Princess as well.

[Trader Ron]

No, Princess wouldn't have handled it better. There have been posts about out-of-control (non-US) kids (with parents nearby) on a few cruises and Princess did nothing to control the situation. :( I was on a Princess cruise a few years ago and there were four US teenage boys across the hall in an inside cabin. They partied every night, all night, with friends coming and going constantly, slamming the door so hard my cabin shook. I asked them to please respect other passengers. One night, I called the PSD every half an hour from 1am on; they did nothing. The kids' mother was often in the hallway all night, drinking and telling the kids to keep their door open so everyone could party. Fortunately, these instances are rare and unusual.

 

They should have been thrown off the Ship. I would have sent a letter to Arison. I'm sure

 

it would have found the "circular file". Again it takes "GUTS" and the CEO's don't have any!

[geoherb]

Princess, Celebrity, and HAL are my three favorite cruise lines. They're the ones I look at before booking. Princess usually wins because it has more ships (and most of them are larger), and thus the odds of an itinerary fitting our schedule is greater than the other two. Service, food, entertainment, and activities are about the same quality on all three. There are some things one does better than the other two, but then some things that same one won't do as well.

 

I like Princess's past passenger benefits program better. We've only taken three Celebrity cruises, so we have not qualified yet for X's "Select" category. We're about to take our 11th Princess cruise. The free Internet package is one of the things that has tipped the scale in favor of a Princess cruise over one on Celebrity or HAL the past few times we've sailed. And once we get to Elite on Princess, it really will be hard to book another cruise line unless we get a really great deal.

[2theship]

We sail both cruise lines regularly and find them very comparable.

 

One thing I do like better about Princess is that pre-reserved shore excursions are not charged to your onboard account until taken, whereas X requires you to pay for them when booked.

 

The advantage to Celebrity requiring payment is that people only book when they really mean it. We've gotten closed out of shore excursions on Princess because people book them knowing they don't have to pay ahead of time. Then we have to keep checking once we're onboard to see if anything's available.

 

No, Princess wouldn't have handled it better. There have been posts about out-of-control (non-US) kids (with parents nearby) on a few cruises and Princess did nothing to control the situation. :( I was on a Princess cruise a few years ago and there were four US teenage boys across the hall in an inside cabin. They partied every night, all night, with friends coming and going constantly, slamming the door so hard my cabin shook. I asked them to please respect other passengers. One night, I called the PSD every half an hour from 1am on; they did nothing. The kids' mother was often in the hallway all night, drinking and telling the kids to keep their door open so everyone could party. Fortunately, these instances are rare and unusual.

 

A few years ago, when our daughters were still in high school, there were staff members who wore yellow "Youth Patrol" tee shirts. I think they were primarily out at night to watch out for underage drinking. My girls said the patrol teams would stop and chat with their crowd then move on to look for troublemakers.

[A1A]

I have a little experience on both lines and my answer to the OP is that they are both great cruise lines, very similar and have more in common than you may think. I don't think we could give a fair representation of an entire cruise line by only sailing on one ship on that line, that's why we won't generalize about all Carnival cruises because of one trip on that line.

 

I really don't understand how Celebrity presents itself superior to Princess? I watch the same TV commercials (Princess doesn't budget much in my market) read the same magazines and get the same mailers!

 

We love that Celebrity doesn't have the loud booming Movies Under the Stars blaring ad naseum. We love that Celebrity has drink packages and their ships visit different ports from Princess. We love the Solstice class ships and are amazed by their dining choices. We love that Celebrity is not Princess.

 

Having said that, we love Princess for their wonderful dining, which we think is just a tiny notch better than Celebrity. We find than there is better use of deck space on Princess and enjoy the pools and view, especially the Terrace Pools on some Princess ships. We enjoy the entertainment better on Princess and would definitely vote Princess our favorite line. We love that Princess is not Celebrity.

 

As you can see by my signature line, it's fun to break it up now and then and we feel very lucky to have found two cruise lines we like. We really want to try HAL and are hoping we have three cruise line to choose from in the future!

 

To the OP, post this on the Celebrity boards and see what you get!

 

Just my personal opinion!

Ken :D