Princess vs Celebrity opinions wanted

[ChicagoCruisin]

Im sure this has been asked a million times, but any opinions are welcome:

DW and I are looking forward to our first Princess cruise on Royal in November. We have sailed with Celebrity 5 times and its our favorite line (HAL close 2nd). We have sworn off NCL and RCI, don't feel at home on those lines.

 

What do you all like on Princess, what makes it your favorite line? Any pro and cons vs Celebrity?

 

Thank you very much for your thoughts!! :)

[lola2013]

I love them both!!! After a multi-year layoff from cruising, I did three Princess cruises...then made the switch to Celebrity (itinerary dictated) for the next four cruises. I am going back to Princess next month...again itinerary dictated. Back to Celebrity for one of the EDGE preview cruises in November.

You might do a search on either this board or Celebrity's. There is a reviewer named Bimmer09 who did a great comparison between the two lines. It's a long comparison (I am only up to about 20 pages and the complete review is 50 pages). He compares everything from embarkation to excursions to bars, laundry (Princess gets my vote for that!) to restaurants...you get the idea! I am actually anxious to go back to Princess after a five-year absence.

Good luck...and greetings from Schaumburg!

Susan

[Cancruizer]

I really enjoy both Princess and Celebrity. Personally I find the atmosphere on Princess just a little warmer and a little more lively, and I like that. I do however think that Celebrity does a few small things really well that Princess could easily emulate, that just makes the cruise feel more upscale. For instance on Celebrity we were given ice cold towels and fruit infused water in glass carafes served in see through plastic cups (as we came back from shore), rather than on Princess a large metal or plastic keg of water and paper cups and towels in a cooler was provided, feeling more appropriate for a youth sports gathering. Food is subjective, but I would say dining room superior on Celebrity. Casual food perhaps better on Princess if I include salads and sandwiches at the International Cafe. Princess ships look a little more traditional although very classy and beautiful. Celebrity a bit more "modern" but equally nice. Service on both very good. Entertainment is subjective too, but I like that Princess has several things going on at night, so we always had something to do and people were always around. On Celebrity it seemed as if everyone was in a main show. The ship was very quiet even in bars. For a different way to spend an evening, Princess Movies Under the Stars is the best - popcorn provided and blankets and covered chairs. Finally, I think Princess does Anytime Dining better than any other cruise line. You can share a table (and they fill these up quickly so minimal waiting time), sit just the two of you, even reserve a time. Enjoy!

[Flo71]

We sailed on the Infinity with Celebrity and although enjoyed the cruise and felt the service and entertainment was good, the ship was not in the best condition and we found the selection of food in the buffet poor quality and variety. The MDR was ok but have had far better with other cruiselines. I much prefer Princess for service, quality of food and entertainment, although I have only sailed on Royal Princess.

 

At some time I might try Celebrity again on a newer ship but not while I can find the itinery and ship I want with Princess or even P&O.

[GUT2407]

We like them both, I often say there’s as much difference between two Celebrity ships and a Celebrity and Princess ship.

 

Last cruise was Celebrity, next is (currently) Princess.

 

Each has a few things we prefer. So we will go with whoever gives us the best deal on the itinerary we want. That is usually Princess as we’ve been sailing with them longer so have a bit of status which gives us a few freebies plus they have more options here in Australia than Celebrity.

[huskerdan25]

We like both though we have taken 10 Princess cruises to 2 Celebrity cruises. We find them more similar than different but here are a couple of things we like about one over the other:

 

1) Love the balcony cabins on Celebrity

I do need to qualify this because we have only been on the Reflection, a Solstice class ship. The balcony cabins are similar to the mini-suites on Princess ships. Love the bathroom on the Reflection (glass closed-in shower and larger in size) and the couch and extra tv in the cabin.

2) We love chocolate and Princess does chocolate great! Love the Norman Love creations (most anyways). On our Celebrity cruises, we couldn't find a chocolate dessert anywhere and in general found the desserts to be so-so. Especially love the Princess ice cream!

3) We really like Cafe Al Bacio with the selections of premium coffees and teas and desserts but the International Cafe is better in our opinion, providing many none dessert choices for breakfast and lunch. We give the IC a slightly bigger thumbs up.

4) We find pricing to be consistently better with Princess. One thing that keeps bringing us back is the loyalty perks and since both my wife and I are veterans, we really appreciate the on-board credit we get ($100 each for cruise under 14 days and $250 each for over 14 days). We got $500 total OBC for the Hawaii cruise we just completed over a week ago. That is a big perk as you can see. The military discounts that Celebrity provides don't really add up much because in many cases, the cost of the cruise is higher than Princess to begin with.

5) We personally like the Atriums on the Princess ships (on the newer ships like the Regal) better than the layout of the Reflection.

6) We find entertainment to be better and more varied on Princess. Seems like there was a lot more activities after dinner on our Princess cruises than on Celebrity. Celebrity seemed more sedate at night. Not a big deal but we like the many options available to us on Princess.

 

One area where we expected to find Celebrity at a higher level was food and while this is true in the specialty restaurants (which cost much more than Princess), the food in the dining room was just on par with Princess in our opinion. On our first Reflection cruise, service was so poor the first night that we never returned to the dining room and ate in the buffet or specialty restaurants the rest of the cruise. The second time the dining room was better but not the big upgrade that we were led to believe we would experience.

 

From our perspective, I don't think you will find the two lines all that different. Depends on what ships you have been on with Princess. Obviously, it is better to compare apples to apples as far as ships are concerned (don't compare a Millenium class ship to the Regal for example) but in our opinion, there are many more similarities than differences and would cruise either for the right itinerary and price. So far, Princess has been meeting our travel needs more than Celebrity.

 

Happy cruising!

[CU64]

Did 2 X ships to Europe, one Baltic & other Med, both 12 days. One Concierge Class, preferred, & one Aqua with Blu. Blu overrated & not worth money, in my opinion.

S Class. I have not cruised Princess Royal or Regal but would always choose X if similar itinerary.

[cruisestitch]

Celebrity has sommeliers in the dining room. The ships have proper libraries with a good mix of books in sufficient quantity to give everyone a choice. Celebrity has hot breakfast room service. Their stateroom bathrooms are bigger. The stateroom bathrooms have nightlight. The towels are consistently softer. Their public restrooms are large, well-lit and well-appointed, and often have attendants in them during peak times, keeping them spotless and well-maintained.

 

Princess has a better website. Well, nearly everyone has a better website. My fifth grade niece has a better website than Celebrity does.

[moki'smommy]

I have extensive cruise experience, but Celebrity and Princess are among my lesser traveled lines. My Celebrity experience is based on one cruise on the Infinity; Princess a total of 3 cruises on Caribbean and Diamond (20 night Japan).

 

The lines are more alike than different. We really liked some of the "around the ship" entertainment on Celebrity, but not the main stage shows. Cafe Baccio was excellent, The Almond croissants were superb. Our cabin was tiny but had more storage than was initially obvious. Not much "living space" though. Customer service was excellent. Specialty dining was expensive but very good. Normal food was OK. There was a very good ice cream bar, but it tended to close before the printed hours. The covered pools were nice in Alaska. The crowd was much older and we sort of got "stuck" at a table of elderly single women at dinner. One in particular was not all there mentally and it honestly felt like I was babysitting the nursing home crowd. On the one hand, I felt sorry for this woman, but on the other hand it was my vacation. Nice touches--when we came in from excursions, we were greeted with warm washclothes and then hot chocolate.

 

Princess is a bit more casual and in our experience the crowd was younger. Specialty dining was less fancy but also less expensive. International cafe was not as good as Caffe Baccio, but was good. MDR food was similar. Cabin was better on Princess, although our steward on Celebrity was superior. Overall atmosphere was better, as were adult entertainment offerings. Particularly on the Japan cruises, there were lots of cultural activities that I enjoyed.

[joanne2]

We love both, are elite with X and doing our 3rd Princess cruise in April. Celebrity has escargot on their every night menu (and DH orders it every night); have not seen it on Princess.

One very important difference is the web-sites. Princess is very user friendly, X is TERRIBLE

[neverbeenhere]

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2585619

[MCC retired]

With all of the Princess Sales combined with Shareholder and Military OBC , you can rack up a lot of OBC . Your TA can also Discount Princess's Best rates upfront , ( not permitted on X )

 

 

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[huskerdan25]

We love both, are elite with X and doing our 3rd Princess cruise in April. Celebrity has escargot on their every night menu (and DH orders it every night); have not seen it on Princess.

One very important difference is the web-sites. Princess is very user friendly, X is TERRIBLE

 

Escargot was one the menu one of the nights on our 15 night Hawaii cruise in the Grand but I have requested it other nights and gotten it no problem so even though it isn't on the menu most nights, you can still order it.

 

Totally agree about the websites!

[caribill]

After a number of cruises on Princess (75% of our cruises have been on Princess) we finally did 27 days B2B on a Celebrity Millennium class ship last year.

 

Overall, I would say the experience is essentially identical. Yes, some things we like about Princess did not exist on Celebrity and we found some things on Celebrity we liked that do not exist on Princess. Also, Celebrity did some things better and Princess did some other things better.

 

But both experiences provided a great cruise vacation and I would not hesitate to book another Celebrity cruise

[Jeremiah On a Cruise]

They are very similar in our experience. I'll highlight a few areas where they do differ in a meaningful way (in our opinion):

 

Princess has a better website. I'll rephrase: Celebrity has a crappy website.

 

Princess has better super-special dinning events like Chef's Table and UBD. Those are addons, but are enjoyable and seem somewhat unique to princess.

 

Celebrity gets the nod for higher end travelers. Aqua Class is better than Club Class Mini, and Celebrity Suites have more perks than Princess Suites.

 

Just my two cents.

[capriccio]

Not an answer to the OP's question but I want to thank everyone who dissed Celebrity's website. I thought it was just me! I was trying to use it for the first time this past weekend (we're considering a 2019 or 2020 Galapagos with Machu Picchu cruise) and gave up in frustration twice before finally finding a page that gave me some specific but inadequate (cabin availability for a 2019 cruise) information. That website is appalling and certainly doesn't reflect well on the Celebrity marketing department.

[ggprincess2004]

We are loyal Princess cruisers, but did one cruise on Celebrity. Our impression is they are more alike than different. Three things keep Princess as our preferred line. 1. Passenger laundries: even though at this point Princess does our laundry for free, there are some items I wash as delicates and air dry. Since we tend to cruise for a minimum of 2 weeks, and often longer, this is a deal breaker for us concerning Celebrity. 2. Informal dining food options, including pizza. For variety and quality, this is a win for Princess. 3. Stacking of OBC including shareholder, military, loyalty, and booking rewards. There were little touches we appreciated on Celebrity including the doorbell for the suite, sommelier who was extremely attentive, and our butler who brought us cappuccino en suite every morning. Under the right circumstances - such as a unique itinerary or a group of sailing companions - we would sail Celebrity again, but other than that, will stay with Princess.

[cruisequeen4ever]

Princess is our favorite cruise line for its feeling of home, wonderful crew, consistent quality, superior food, and beautiful ships. Last summer we tried Celebrity due to its offered itinerary, and it was a very mediocre experience. We had always heard Celebrity is the gourmet cuisine line, so we actually thought we’d like the food more than Princess, but it definitely wasn’t as good as Princess. The crew were hard working but weren’t very professional. We did like the showers being bigger. We were left very underwhelmed and don’t really care about cruising Celebrity again.

 

 

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