Carnival, RCI, vs Princess

[Bases5]

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First, I'm not asking for a debate, just opinion. We like RCI and Carnivals product but were thinking of a change just to try something different.

Vacation time is very limited for us and would hate to be disappointed, but spicing things up a little might be nice also.

We have sailed Princess but that was a port intensive cruise to Alaska so we didn't spend very much time on the ship.

For those that have cruised both lines, what's you take on Princess

[dfishner]

To me I thought Princess reminded me of RCL in some of the areas, we were on the Caribbean Princess and we really had a nice time and would do another Princess cruise again. I thought the food was better on Princess, entertainment is better on RCL. I find the activities more to my liking on Princess and the cabins are more lively on RCL. but for the total on board experience I like RCL more. Princess did impress us

[George C]

I like Princess in general, I thought food in MDR was a little better than RCCL, but after taking the Caribbean and Crown Princess I stopped sailing them, I found ships way to crowded could not get seats for most shows, even saw a fight on saving seats on Princess, never had this problem on RCCL.

[Pennstateman]

If you like noise, glitz, cruising with drunk middle aged people acting like teenagers , carnival is for you

[Cruising89143]

If you like noise, glitz, cruising with drunk middle aged people acting like teenagers , carnival is for you

 

If you read the OP's sig line you will see that they have cruised Carnival many times. They were asking about Princess.

[mistshar]

.

 

First, I'm not asking for a debate, just opinion. We like RCI and Carnivals product but were thinking of a change just to try something different.

Vacation time is very limited for us and would hate to be disappointed, but spicing things up a little might be nice also.

We have sailed Princess but that was a port intensive cruise to Alaska so we didn't spend very much time on the ship.

For those that have cruised both lines, what's you take on Princess

 

We have sailed on Carnival, RCI, NCL, and Princess. Maybe we were expecting too much but we were a bit disappointed in Princess. Before Princess, RCI was our favorite and it still is. Princess was o.k. but to us not better that RCI. We have another Princess cruise booked in 2015 out of the new Houston port. That is the only reason we are cruising Princess again. You will probably enjoy it. Just don't expect it to be way better than RCI.

 

If you like noise, glitz, cruising with drunk middle aged people acting like teenagers , carnival is for you

 

We have sailed Carnival several time and have never found this to be the case. We go to bed fairly early so maybe this goes on after we are asleep. Sorry you have had this experience.

[Rocket3D]

Did all 3 you mentioned.

 

Princess was OK but (3x - Crown and Emerald) seemed too

crowded everywhere. These ships had more rolling movement

than other ships we have sailed.

 

Prefer Royals larger ships. Stable ride and never seem

as crowded as Princess' did ... just our opinion.

Best live entertainment of the three.

 

We sailed some (3x) nice 8 day Carnival Eastern cruises...

nice ports...but they have cut back on entertainment

and changed itineraries so we will not use them again.

 

:D

[Pennstateman]

If you read the OP's sig line you will see that they have cruised Carnival many times. They were asking about Princess.

 

Who cares? This is an opinion

[Pennstateman]

We have sailed on Carnival, RCI, NCL, and Princess. Maybe we were expecting too much but we were a bit disappointed in Princess. Before Princess, RCI was our favorite and it still is. Princess was o.k. but to us not better that RCI. We have another Princess cruise booked in 2015 out of the new Houston port. That is the only reason we are cruising Princess again. You will probably enjoy it. Just don't expect it to be way better than RCI.

 

 

 

We have sailed Carnival several time and have never found this to be the case. We go to bed fairly early so maybe this goes on after we are asleep. Sorry you have had this experience.

 

Nothing to be sorry about....it's just the way it is and obviously some enjoy it

[39august]

We sailed on Princess 6 times and loved it. Then we tried RCI and have never gone back. RCI's ships are so much easier to navigate and less crowded. Also RCI's D balcony cabins are almost as large a Princess's mini-suites. Princess does offer some very nice itineraries.

[nbsjcruiser]

.

 

First, I'm not asking for a debate, just opinion. We like RCI and Carnivals product but were thinking of a change just to try something different.

Vacation time is very limited for us and would hate to be disappointed, but spicing things up a little might be nice also.

We have sailed Princess but that was a port intensive cruise to Alaska so we didn't spend very much time on the ship.

For those that have cruised both lines, what's you take on Princess

 

Have cruised on Carnival, NCL, Princess and RCI. Our favourite is RCI however, Princess has beautiful ships, well maintained and I felt the food on that one ship was THE BEST on any cruise ship I have ever been on. We found the entertainment on Princess not as good as RCI but the staff was as good. You would enjoy Princess I bet. The only reason we haven't gone back to Princess is the cost. Just a tad too expensive for my taste.

[Rogueperson]

Right now, I'm torn between Princess and Carnival as my favorite. But each of us experience cruises in a different way. My experience is that Princess is best for the elegant atmosphere. Royal Caribbean tries for that same elegance, but fails to achieve that. RCI, I have found to have inconsistent service. In some instance, service was spectacular. Other times I had to do a double take to make sure that we were not just insulted. Food between the three lines are very similar though. Surprisingly, Carnival has offered the most consistent service.

 

My glasses came apart on my Princess cruise. Without prompting, my room stewart broke out his tools and attempted to fix then for me. That was amazing. However, my mother felt her room Stewart was lacking.

[OCruisers]

Princess is our favorite of the three and we've been on all three.

 

Oasis/Allure are different from other RCCL ships and are worth doing and seeing for yourself at least once.

 

LuLu

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[Cruising89143]

By the way OP have you considered Celebrity? I look at Celebrity as RCI for adults. Very few children and announcements. The "S" class ships gave the RCI WOW factor. I suggest giving them some consideration.

[bigeagle12]

Love both Princess and RCI and would sail either in a heartbeat. Think the food is slightly better on Princess .. cabins nicer on RCI .. Princess has GREAT pizza .. entertainment equal .. Service excellent on both .. have loved every ship we have been on with RCI, Princess, and HAL.

[OCruisers]

If you read the OP's sig line you will see that they have cruised Carnival many times. They were asking about Princess.

 

Yes, as you said, they are very familiar with Carnival. Seems they want to know about Princess and Royal Caribbean and how these two lines compare to Carnival.

 

LuLu

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[Rogueperson]

I was on Celebrity twice. I loved them. My only real problem is I feel like I fell way under their average age. Maybe in about 10 or 15 years, they may become my favorite.

[BettyCruiser]

Unless you cruise during spring break I find Princess to have an older demographic, creating a more mellow atmosphere. I really liked the new Royal Princess and would recommend it or the new Regal.

[Desert Cruizers]

We have sailed both Princess & Royal and have had enjoyable cruises with Princess, but overall, prefer Royal. We have found the rooms on Princess are smaller when they figure the size including the balcony. Friends this past Sept had a JS and it was smaller then the D-1 one we had on the Radiance. I had a standard balcony and my room was wider then theirs.

Food equal, entertainment better on Royal, otherwise pretty close in comparison.

[Cushing985]

If you read the OP's sig line you will see that they have cruised Carnival many times. They were asking about Princess.

 

He didn't want to miss an opportunity to make the same old tired hits against Carnival.

[perkli25]

We have also sailed all three although only once each on carnival and princess. We have sailed RCI numerous times. We did Princess just to try something other than RCI. I found that Princess (we sailed on the Caribbean Princess) and RCI are rather comparable in the food and entertainment areas. I agree with another poster that Princess is a little more elegant than RCI. Since we had loyalty built up in RCI, we choose to cruise with only RCI for the time being. We are not huge fans of Carnival.

[jb008]

DW and I just finished a 7-day on Jewel OTS out of San Juan, and were on Ruby Princess 12/12. We enjoyed RCI but felt the experience felt a little more... "economy" than our experience on Ruby P'cess. I think we'll give Celebrity a try next time, since Princess doesn't sail out of SJU for the 2014/15 itineraries.

 

Because RCI has more youth and young adult oriented programs and features, you'll generally find more families on RCI, and the average age of the adult passengers will tend to be lower on RCI than Princess.

 

Based on our last two cruises, food on RCI was fine but wasn't quite as good as on Princess. Some reasons include:

• RCI buffets were repetitive (though of perfectly acceptable standards), except that they only offered smoked salmon on 1 morning (with unacceptable and completely inconsistent reasons why)
  
• MDR served a 3-course dinner (although I never had a problem getting a 2nd appetizer, delivery of 2nd small plate was inconsistent, sometimes with first app, sometimes between app and entree, and sometimes with entree)
  
• MDR menu was inconsistent with a few great nights at the end of the cruise and some really boring menus in the middle (highly subjective, but agreed upon between all 6 of us at our table, YMMV)
  
• Dessert menu selection was pretty weak - the standard items were a Baileys Banana Brulee, a Chocolate Sensation espresso sponge cake with chocolate & almond icing, or the royal cheese plate.
  
• Budget menu options were very weak. The burger "sliders" were TERRIBLE and the budget beef steak item was strongly advised against ordering.
  
• Nominal fee for late night room service
  

 

Entertainment shows on RCI were a little cooler than on Princess. RCI featured a live 12 piece band that was amazing and then had the standard singers and dancers. The onboard entertainment on Jewel skewed towards DJs and dance parties, but that may have been to cater to the large Puerto Rican contingent (probably 33% of the pax) and I don't know if that is fleet wide.

 

A few pet peeves after our RCI trip though, we noticed on our balcony furniture that everything was pitting and rusting on the chairs except where you'd normally rest your arm - nice that they took care of the one part that matters, but felt they were cutting corners on the rest of the maintenance. Our light in the bathroom was starting to fail (>15s to turn on, and often sputtered before illuminating) but was left until it completely failed. We had air leaks in the sliding door of our balcony from missing portions of the seal around the glass door, but this was just left after leaving a note for the room steward. Were any of these above things mission critical, absolutely not. However, we felt it represented a more endemic view of "good enough" rather than "well done".

 

A last annoyance had to do with beach towels on RCI. Beach towels are provided pool side and require a $25 deposit. You have to exchange dirty towels pool side, and need to turn in towels on the last evening in order to have the deposit refunded. On Princess, towels are provided in your stateroom, and dirty towels are deposited in a bin as you reboard at each port and fresh ones provided by your cabin steward. DW said no biggie, I felt it was an annoyance that made me do work that other lines deal with more gracefully.

 

Service on both lines is very good with well-trained staff that are eager and willing to go above and beyond to please, I'm sure you'll enjoy either RCI or Princess.

[The Big Booper]

Jewel is scheduled for a major refurbishment in a year or so. Total makeover of the ship plus several new restaurants. We're going in it July, before the redo.

[mr. godfredo]

I have cruised most of the major lines and I can tell you that I enjoy RCCL and Celebrity the most. My wife and I went on Princess (Sapphire) two years ago and found the cruise just OK.

Positives: Room Layout and comfort, great service in the MDR, Good upkeep of the ship, good price for a week cruise.

Negatives: Mediocre food in the MDR, Terrible food and layout of the Buffet area, movement of the ship, Odd design of the ship public areas, shows in the main theater were poor.

I would potentially give Princess another try on a different ship, but in the meantime I will be heading back to RCCL in March!:D

[Qcruise]

The only thing I don't like about Princess is that their cabins don't have a couch/sitting area that every other cruise line offers. A balcony cabin on Princess has a bed, desk/chair and one small barrell chair to sit. RCI cabins and Carnival include a couch/coffee table area as well as a desk/chair and the bed. In order to get that on Princess you need to pay for a junior suite......way more $$$.:mad: