Inside/OV on Princess or balcony on HAL?

[Loreni]

Now that HAL has banned balcony smoking, we are considering them. We have been looking at other cruise lines as well. The main reason is Princess' decision to replace the balcony furniture with uncomfortable furniture.

 

If we cruise Princess, we will now book OV or insides. This has been fine and a good bargain, but sometimes we do miss the balcony. HAL appears to have nice balcony furniture and we are being tempted.

 

Still we have just earned our black card on Princess and DH wants to sail with them at least once with this status which we will do in a few weeks. We are very familiar with the Princess product and we like it overall. We are unsure about HAL.

 

Some other possible benefits of HAL are the itineraries both short and long:

 

- Bermuda with three nights in Hamilton

- halfmoon key is said to be nicer than Princess key

- round trip CA to Tahiti with more stops than Princess similar itinerary

- round trip Ft. Lauderdale to Europe

- round trip from Miami around South America.

- round trip to Japan from CA, I believe

 

Yet, I assume there may be some downsides as well. What do you think, say, for a Caribbean cruise: Inside/OV on Princess or Balcony on HAL.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Loreni

[f-mattox]

I would take a balcony over an inside or OV, even on Princess with there uncomfortable furniture. But I would definitely take a balcony on HAL; we love HAL.