What Has Prompted You From Moving On From Princess to (Premium/Luxury) Lines?

[need2cruisesoon]

Just curious, I'm sure many Platinum/Elites have thought or have moved on from Princess to other lines (Regent, Seabourne, Viking), but why?

 

I guess for price of a suite on Princess you can enjoy the luxury and small ship experience on other lines.

 

But maybe their are other reasons prey tell.

[Skai]

Better food. Less herding. And most of all, less 'nickle and diming'(and everything that term encompasses on mainstream lines like Princess).

 

When looking at the cost differential, less cabin real estate in trade for a much nicer, more intimate sailing experience is a win-win.

[Griller]

Since Princess jacked up their prices there is less difference in overall cost now between them and considerably better cruise lines. We have tried a few different lines recently so can compare.

 

Princess have gone downhill in some ways, mainly dining related. Food quality and menu choice is way down.

 

You really feel like you are being scammed in many ways on Princess now, many things overpriced, drinks for example.

 

Too much nickle and diming on Princess

 

Princess promise but don't deliver, and then won't put it right.

 

The staff often try hard but there just are not enough of them for the work that has to be done these days so service suffers, and the crew don't seem as happy as they used to seem.

 

It just feels like you are on a big money making machine, it doesn't get to me too much but it does affect enjoyment of the cruise.

[aknursemom]

What an interesting thread! I'll be following.

[neverbeenhere]

We have more money than God :halo: (Oh Ya, God doesn’t carry cash) so we have tried a number of cruises on “higher end” cruise lines. We found the experience to be very good. But, since we are planning on cruising for another 40 years, we determined that the experience on Princess and other middle of the road lines was fine enough. We will mix in a “high end” cruise every so often to see if our opinion changes over the years. :evilsmile:

[Smokeyham]

Thanks for starting this thread...... I will be interested to hear what others have to say. I am following two blogs for Round the World Cruisers. One is on Oceania's Insignia, and one is on Pacific Princess. Since these are sister ships (both former Renaissance ships) it would be interesting to compare the two experiences. If I can find out more, I will post back here.

Edited March 29, 2018 by Smokeyham

[caribill]

Many of the upscale line's ships are significantly smaller than the 3500+ passenger ships that Princess is intent on building now.

 

This significantly affects the itineraries as the larger ships cannot go to many of the ports that the smaller ships (like the Pacific Princess) can go to. Sometimes this is due to an inability for the larger ships to get into a port. Sometimes this is due to the inability of the tourist infrastructure to handle 3500+ passengers while there is no problem with a ship having less than 1000 passengers.

 

For example, Viking offers New England/Canada cruises that go to Montreal. Princess never goes there.

 

Viking also offers cruises that go up the Amazon River to Manaus, an itinerary that Princess used to offer on its smaller ships such as the old Royal Princess.

[Al54]

Single supplement : luxury/premium cruiselines often have lower single supplement on some cruises. I cruised on Silversea with a 10% single supplement and Azamara 25%, compared to Princess or Celebrity 98%/100%, my cruises on Silversea and Azamara were actually less expensive with much more perks!

 

 

Envoyé de mon iPad en utilisant Forums

[tv24]

We move around, looking for the best itinerary to meet our needs, mostly for crossings. We've sailed on luxury (Seabourn, Crystal) and on luxury-wannabes (Azamara, Oceania), and truly appreciate the totally different experience compared to the mass market lines. But now we are returning to a big suite on the Royal Princess, and will be in a Neptune Suite on HAL returning from Europe in June. Comfortable real estate in the form of a large suite is attractive. But I must admit that Princess is a good buy, all things considered. But then we are returning to Seabourn for a long South American cruise in November...and that, BTW turns out to be a good buy as well. On Princess I will love the big suite, Club Class dining, and the very good fitness center. I will hate the tacky bars and art auctions and the very crowded ship. Focus on the good stuff. Focus on the good stuff. But nothing compares to all the wonderful little things that work so well on the more luxurious lines.

[tiggerrr]

We moved to Azamara and Crystal after becoming platinum with Princess, just to try the experience and see what we thought.

 

We really enjoyed what I can only describe as a more peaceful feeling on board. There is a better space ratio, particularly on Crystal. We came to love smaller ships. We would see the same people around the ship and have conversations. When you get into port, less waiting in line and General chaos that we saw on Princess ships. The crew got to know you, especially your drink order. There were lots of quiet places and enough on board activities. And I loved being able to find a place for the evening show only a few minutes before showtime.

 

But mostly, we started to really like not pulling out the cruise card, not being approached by anyone to buy something, the constant junk mail in the slot, retail "sales" in the Piazza, watching your internet minutes, et . Just felt more peaceful. It's not that we have trouble saying no, it's just what it feels like a constant interruption on Princess. (Unlimited free internet was great on our last Crystal cruise)

 

It's still more expensive overall on a luxury ship for us, as we drink only one or two a day, but it has been worth it for the true "vacation mode" that we can put ourselves in and stay in. We've been much happier with the food on both Azamara and Crystal.

 

That having been said, we are back on Princess for a California Coastal this fall. We like the itinerary and the price was very attractive. Its on the Island Princess, so not a huge ship (but still not a good space ratio). It's port intensive, so it will be a very active trip, with ports we know and can explore on our own. So, we're coming back to Princess to basically try to figure out what kinds of trips we're happy to do on mass market (cheaper) versus what types for more upscale/luxury (peaceful).

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[diane.in.ny]

Interesting thread.

 

The only high end I have sailed on is Silversea and I didn't like the experience. The food was not appealing and the ship, overall, needed a refurbishment.

 

Our most recent small ship sailing was Windstar Star Breeze which holds about 200 pax. We did a b2b and the first sailing had 140 pax and the second sailing 210. What a difference that made! At 210 the ship felt crowded!

 

In general, we like the 800 to 1000 pax ships but recently sailed the Royal, with apprehension ahead of time but we loved the itinerary. Well, we came to love the ship and will be sailing on the Regal next year.

 

Yes, Princess can nickel and dime you to death, but that's only if you allow it. We are not drinkers. We don't buy photographs or go to the art auction. I'll browse the shops but rarely buy. We often do our own private excursions.

 

We get our mini-suite for a lot less on Princess than on the higher end. We love our private real estate and enjoy our time relaxing in the cabin and on the balcony. And we enjoy the long list of daily activities which is possible because of the large number of people on board.

[Cruise Junky]

I haven't sailed a high end line yet, just booked one but it was mainly due to Itineraries. Switching to Celebrity was due to a preference in ships.

[junglejane]

I wouldn't say we've "moved on," but after finally reaching Elite on Princess after 13 years, the first thing we did was book a river cruise. Partly it was just for the itinerary and to try something new. But there's also no question that the concept of a much smaller ship and all inclusive pricing attracted us. We loved the ports on our recent Pacific Coastal on the Ruby, but do feel that the food in the dining room is declining. The last cruise where we were really impressed by the food was our 2015 Baltic on the Crown Princess.

 

Our daughters practically grew up on Princess and now that they're young adults, I'm sure we'll do more extended family cruises with them and choose Princess for those cruises. (Our daughters are themselves closing in on Elite.) We haven't had a chance to try a Royal-class ship yet. Plus there are itineraries on our bucket list that we haven't done yet like the Panama Canal and Norwegian Fjords. But when it's just the two of us, we're ready to consider other options as well and the idea of a much smaller ship sounds very appealing.

[Griller]

Interesting thread.

 

 

 

Our most recent small ship sailing was Windstar Star Breeze which holds about 200 pax. We did a b2b and the first sailing had 140 pax and the second sailing 210. What a difference that made! At 210 the ship felt crowded!

.

 

We just had 2 x 7 day B2B on a nice ship and discovered something about higher end lines.

 

Our first 7 days had very nice chatty interesting passengers on board. Very civilized.

The second 7 days had mostly new passengers. A different type of passenger altogether.

 

We discovered that the second week had not been selling well and it had been very heavily discounted, thus attracting a different clientele. There was a large group who didn't mix. There were some loud drunks. There were some teenagers running a little bit wild.

It was still OK though, but just not like the first week.

 

So I guess the moral of the story is that if you want to travel on a high end line and meet nicer passengers don't book a cheapie. Or a cruise which will eventually be sold as a cheapie. That's kind of hard to avoid.

[4x4bob]

Being Retired and living in the State of High Taxation, we hardly noticed the Princess nickle and dimeing us the passengers, we barely are able to eke out two Princess cruises a year.

 

This year we will go out in June and Sept. The Sept cruise will be the number 15, which has been a hard up hill fight, but the end is in sight.

 

Then next year we will take a Viking River Cruise which the Wife is already in the planning stage.

 

Me, I already have my sign made with which I will stand out on a street corner by Walmart. Sign will say I need money for a cruise. :D:D

 

Bob

[RDC1]

Being Retired and living in the State of High Taxation, we hardly noticed the Princess nickle and dimeing us the passengers, we barely are able to eke out two Princess cruises a year.

 

This year we will go out in June and Sept. The Sept cruise will be the number 15, which has been a hard up hill fight, but the end is in sight.

 

Then next year we will take a Viking River Cruise which the Wife is already in the planning stage.

 

Me, I already have my sign made with which I will stand out on a street corner by Walmart. Sign will say I need money for a cruise. :D:D

 

Bob

 

Speaking of standing by Walmart with a sign.

 

A couple of months ago I was sitting in a coffee shop in Pismo Beach, CA. Sitting close by were two homeless folks. One of them, a lady in her late 50's, was telling the other about her recent cruise on Princess, and and that she was going to book another one. She then proceeded to tell the other that she had to go, to catch the bus to her normal spot near a Walmart.

[Bimmer09]

Just curious, I'm sure many Platinum/Elites have thought or have moved on from Princess to other lines (Regent, Seabourne, Viking), but why?

 

I guess for price of a suite on Princess you can enjoy the luxury and small ship experience on other lines.

 

But maybe their are other reasons prey tell.

 

Ron, I have thought about the "luxury" lines but not for long as I am pretty content with Princess even though I could never say their mini suites and below are in any way luxurious. Threadbare towels and sheets aren't my idea of luxury nor are tiny plastic bathrooms formed in a mould. I enjoy the 2000 to 3500 pax ships they have with all that room to roam and the multiple bars, lounges and pools. I have sailed a small ship-Ocean Princess- and enjoyed the cruise. I adapted easily to the size of the ship and lack of big ship amenities but don't care about seeing the same people everyday. I sailed the Ocean for the itinerary it offered which is always the first consideration. I will sail on the same ship-build but owned by Azamara but I don't look upon that ship as luxury either as the rooms are small. Space is luxury to me so a Princess suite is a step towards luxury and we have enjoyed many of those over the years. They don't come with the pampering (a luxurious trait no doubt) of a suite on Celebrity. On X we have had our drinks, tips, internet and a boatload of OBC included so I guess that is our closest brush with luxury to date. I didn't feel I was missing anything.

I don't yearn for a ship without a casino, nor without photographers, nor without rummage sales of cheap tee shirts, gold by the inch or watches as those retail things don't (a) interest me or (b) bother me. This is America and everyone has the right to make a buck. My wallet stays in my pocket if I want it to. So "nickel and dimeing" isn't an issue with me. When we stay in hotels we pay a delivery fee for room service at inflated prices but get it gratis on our cruises unless we order pizza (which we never do on a ship but I believe there is a $3 charge ?)

I get emails weekly from Oceania, Azamara, Cunard, Seabourn, Costa (what the hell are they thinking? Just not going to happen). I can only cruise twice a year now while I am working and don't crave anything "better" than the lines I have booked. I don't need a waiter to remember what I like to drink as I make that known on my first day and usually drink the same thing over and over. I most often just drink at one bar with the same waiters on duty. I am not a cocktail guy. I can always say Guinness if they don't remember. Do I want to be on a ship where I can only enjoy a Specialty restaurant once or twice in a week? No- I want to go as often as I like and pay the fee. Drinks included usually means that you pay for them in your fare and ditto shore excursions.

All I really need from the mainstream lines is to change out the sheets when they are worn through-cheap 300 thread counts don't stand up to a lot of washing and some decent towels but as long as we send a towel to the laundry everytime it gets wet the towels will fall apart in no time and need replacing.

There may be better food on some cruise lines but I have never gone hungry and only a couple of times didn't lick the plate in 11 Princess cruises. Really good food I can get on land where they are not cooking for 800-3,000 people over two sittings, using a massive kitchen.

So, in short, I am not an ideal target for the mass "Luxury Line" e mails and don't believe the hyperbole of "Six star service", "White glove service" and so on.

Cheers Ron -and stay thirsty!

Norris

[USNUZULOOSE]

I am not partial to any one line. I would love to try them all. But even right now we can't afford to vacation.

[nhsails]

Value for codt. Plus we left Princess in late '90's. Had bags broken into on 2 out if 3 cruises. Never looked back. Do Celebrity, Azamara and Viking now.

[need2cruisesoon]

Value for codt. Plus we left Princess in late '90's. Had bags broken into on 2 out if 3 cruises. Never looked back. Do Celebrity, Azamara and Viking now.

 

Yeah, Viking is our next cruise for sure.

 

We've also done X and AZ.

[PrincessLuver]

We have more money than God :halo: (Oh Ya, God doesn’t carry cash) so we have tried a number of cruises on “higher end” cruise lines. We found the experience to be very good. But, since we are planning on cruising for another 40 years, we determined that the experience on Princess and other middle of the road lines was fine enough. We will mix in a “high end” cruise every so often to see if our opinion changes over the years. :evilsmile:

 

Agree....the ocean is not always bluer on another cruise line....you read the other cruise line boards on CC and there is always someone complaining. We love Princess itineraries, ships, generous OBC's that you can stack, perks that come with the loyalty program, pricing, eateries and the way we and others are treated on board. We do not feel nickeled and dimed either or course we do not worry about money. No need to jump ship from what I have seen and experienced with other cruise lines.....everyone is different and that is what makes the world go around...:)

[kennicott]

Agree....the ocean is not always bluer on another cruise line....you read the other cruise line boards on CC and there is always someone complaining. We love Princess itineraries, ships, generous OBC's that you can stack, perks that come with the loyalty program, pricing, eateries and the way we and others are treated on board. We do not feel nickeled and dimed either or course we do not worry about money. No need to jump ship from what I have seen and experienced with other cruise lines.....everyone is different and that is what makes the world go around...:)

 

Good advice PrincessLuver----

We did go with the upscale line, but haven't abandoned Princess either. We have about 300 days sailing on Princess, 200 days on HAL and 120 on Regent. Most of our recent cruises have been on Princess. We were finding the MDR on Princess ships to be getting pretty bad, so we began eating dinner only in the specialties or the buffet. That is until we got on the Pacific Princess, here is what I said in a review after about two months total on this ship: "We really like the ship and the crew, from the Captain on down. The main dining room (MDR) folks are exceptional. The high point for us is that the main dining room service and cuisine has restored our faith in the MDRs, at least on this vessel".

 

 

About three years ago it seemed that FDR (Frank Del Rio) CEO of Regent suddenly learned how to charge Even when cranking in all the extra charges on Princess we could, like mostly specialty meals, business class air, equivalent mini-suite cabin, shore excursions, etc. in order to make Princess product commensurate with Regent's, on an equivalent length cruise with similar ports, Regent became almost three times as expensive as Princess. Don't kid yourself, these so called "luxury/lines" are great but not all that great or better than the mass markets. Lately we have looked again at Regent and its cheaper sister line Oceania. We just got off the Pacific Princess where we had originally booked two segments, 49 days, of a world cruise, that price was approximately $57,000. We would like to try the Regent Seven Seas Explorer, so I was comparing pricing again, FDR hasn't changed much. 48 similar days on the Explorer would be $112,000. for us. Oceania has four of the eight R ships of the defunct Renaissance Cruises, the Pacific Princess is R-3, one of the sisters. Deck 8 on those ships have the "mini-suites", we love those cabins. Oceania wants you to pay for a butler in order to get one on their vessels----not.

 

 

Some, don't hold loyalty perks in high esteem. Not my wife. Just tell her she is going to have to do and pay for laundry again, and I have come to really appreciate other perks, like all the free internet I get. Meaning, it is hard to give that up by trying a new line, particularly when many of my friends using Celebrity, Cunard, NCL, RCI tell me the rest of the industry is undergoing similar degenerations. As far as Regent and Oceania, it appears they both started taking a dump about the time NCL bought them, around three plus years ago. We know HAL is on a downward spiral, that is why we quit booking them four years ago.

 

 

We have found that the service levels and cuisine quality depend heavily on the particular ship and the type of voyage it is on at a given time, as well as the cruise line's reputation. For instance, on a 4 week overseas cruise versus a short term booze type Caribbean cruise on the same ship, guests are likely to experience a significant escalation of overhaul quality on the voyage of longer duration.

 

 

We also find that the Berlitz ranking of the nine major cruise line cuisine overall food scores has generally been a fair representation. Currently MSC has jumped to the number one position. I.e. Princess is rated # 3 (6.9) and HAL # 4 (6.2) while MSC is # 1 (7.1) and Celebrity # 2 (7.0). (Carnival is # 5 at 6.05, RCI and NCL are tied for # 6 @ 6.1, AIDA is # 7 at 5.73, COSTA is # 8 @ 5.7)

[Alicomp]

We are elite on Princess. We tried Viking Ocean and prefer it for the following reasons - no formal nights, no photographers, 900 passengers, lots of quiet places to sit, unlimited free internet. Having said that we will be on a Princess Alaska cruise this summer.

[pris993]

I am sure we would enjoy the high end cruise if our budget allowed it. We are retired now. . We have cruised on many of the main stream lines including Princess, Celebrity, HAL, Cunard, Royal, and NCL over the years. Did Crystal once many years in the Eastern Mediterranean... did not see a lot of difference then, except in the space and more quiet atmosphere, food was about the same, Price was a lot more. For us, Princess is just fine.... we have cruised on it so long that we know how to get the best bang for our buck... we get a mini suite, for the space, go the Crown Grill many nights, use Room Service and the buffet and often skip the MDR. We create our own high end experience - we are very independent... LOL.. We do not follow the crowds. It is possible even on Princess.

[Go-Bucks!]

Very interesting thread.

 

I have enjoyed Princess, for the most part. Have always sailed in minisuites or full suites. Best suite was D726 on the Regal; loved that HUGE balcony! Prices are decent and food ok. I am getting tired of the crowds, especially when leaving the ship or at shows. Will be Elite after another cruise and will enjoy those perks.

 

I've wanted to try a premium or luxury line for quite awhile, though. When my friend and I decided to go to Cuba a few months ago, Princess didn't have any cruises there (seems weird....many lines go there now). We chose Oceania for it's value....yes, prices are higher than Princess but include many of the services or perks that need to be paid for separately on mass market lines like no charge for specialty restaurants, unlimited internet, shore excursions, obc, very good food (lobster tails everywhere, all the time), non-alcoholic drinks incl lattes, and excellent service. And their loyalty perks are fantastic....but are, sadly, being downgraded a bit in about 20 months.

 

We enjoyed it so much that we booked Oceania's world cruise in 2019. The Princess world cruise prices were cheaper, but after including the cost for all the things Oceania provides, it was nearly similar.

 

I'll definitely cruise on Princess again, especially since I'll be retired soon and may not have the funds to go on O, but am glad that I've tried a premium line.