What makes Princess different than other lines?

[bichonandon]

I've only been on a few cruises, and only on one other line. My spouse and I are excited to try Princess and we look forward to noticing differences between lines. So I was wondering what (if anything) those of you who have also sailed on other lines would say you like about Princess as compared to some others? We do not have loyalty points or platinum/diamond/ status anywhere, so I think I'm interesting in hearing the differences in experience of the average ticket holder who has no status to enjoy.

[moki'smommy]

Well, it depends on what other lines you are comparing. In reality, there is far more alike than different when comparing ships and lines, particularly when the ships were made in the same shipyard. I was surprised to find that my choices on Disney, Princess, and Celebrity were all made in the same shipyard!

 

Food quality and variety is subjective and has changed thru the years, but the food and dining experience on our April cruise was the best I've had on a ship in many years. Princess food quality has been improving recently while other lines have been decreasing or remaining static at best.

 

Princess entertainment is hit or miss. The production shows are "meh" on the ships we've done, but somehow we haven't chosen any ships that have the new shows. The variety performers can be quite good, as can some of the "around the ship" performers. We especially enjoyed some of the performers on our Japan cruises. Disney does better entertainment, Celebrity was worse.

 

Ship decor....everything on Princess is shades of beige or brown. They must think it is classy; I think it is boring. The regular Princess cabins are small, but you can ask, "compared to what?" Our cabin on Celebrity was smaller, the smallest cabin on Disney is much larger than Princess. A mini suite on Princess is roughly comparable to a standard cabin on DCL.

 

Kid programs--surprisingly, we like Princess best. It is not as crazy and disorganized as DCL. Another point, parents on Princess tend to look after their offspring when the children are not in the programming. There are far fewer kids running wild around the ship.

 

Price--you have to look at individual cruises, but Princess comes out on the low end on most cruises. Others claim that Celebrity is a better value, and that's where the individual cruises and cabin categories come into play.

 

Choice of itineraries--Princess wins. Alaska--Princess wins (can go places other lines can't).

 

Excursions--all lines have basically the same stuff available

 

Supposedly Princess has an older average clientele than Celebrity, but we found the opposite to be true. Again, it might be just the choice of cruises, but we found Princess to have a wide age range while everyone on Celebrity seemed to be 65+ except us!

 

You won't find climbing walls or water slides, but I don't want them. Princess does have more differences among individual ships than some other lines. You won't find people dressed as cartoon characters like DCL or wildlife (like Celebrity), but that's not why we cruise.

 

The library is a great place; the book selection could be improved. We often find the best reads in things left by other passengers.

 

Sometimes the organization on Princess could be improved--for example, if you could tell them ahead of time that you wanted to trade your mini-bar for coffee package, it could simplify their work and mine (this for suites and elite guests). If you could make specialty dining reservations for comped dining in advance, it would save effort and busy signals after boarding. But overall the system works reasonably. Princess embarkation and disembarkation HA assist could be improved. It tends to be disorganized and involve significant waiting. Other lines do better.

 

The Piazza area on Princess is really nice. The International Cafe is there for eating, there are tables and chairs to sit at and relax, sometimes entertainment, all in all, a good place to be and nicer than on some other lines.

Edited June 29, 2018 by moki'smommy

[OCruisers]

While we enjoy cruising on other mass market cruise lines (sleeping around :D ) from time to time, Princess remains our favorite. (y)

[Star24K]

We have enjoyed cruising on 5 different cruise lines but mainly cruise with Princess and Carnival. Simply put, Princess covers more of the globe than Carnival. This has become more important since we retired and have more time.

[Go-Bucks!]

I've found Princess and Celebrity to be similar in many ways, although I prefer Princess. These are mass market lines, but offer a nice experience....but I would enjoy less nickle and diming, no photographers or junky sale tables.

 

I've sailed on one premium line, Oceania, and it was quite different. Although their cruise fares can be higher than the mass market lines, it can be a better value when so many things are included that are extra-fee items on mass market lines. We enjoyed that cruise so much that we have their world cruise booked for 2019.

[JF - retired RRT]

One thing Princess does better than most other lines...you can "stack" your OBC.

If you qualify for military OBC and shareholder OBC and you used a Future Cruise Deposit (FCD) and your TA gives you some OBC and Princess gives you some OBC...you can have it ALL. Many (if not all) cruise lines limit which/how many OBCs you can have.

We've had more than $900 OBC on some of our cruises.(y)

[caribill]

Princess ships have self-serve laundromats ($3 wash, $3 dry) so you can have clean clothes without paying ship laundry rates.

[SteelMagnolia9]

I've only been on a few cruises, and only on one other line. My spouse and I are excited to try Princess and we look forward to noticing differences between lines. So I was wondering what (if anything) those of you who have also sailed on other lines would say you like about Princess as compared to some others? We do not have loyalty points or platinum/diamond/ status anywhere, so I think I'm interesting in hearing the differences in experience of the average ticket holder who has no status to enjoy.

 

I’m your average ticket holder...

 

I like the self service laundromats on board the ship as I prefer doing my own laundry.

 

Specialty dining options are limited.

 

Food in the Main dining room is comparable to Royal Caribbean and NCL (been on both lines).

 

Entertainment is good, not great. Royal Caribbean and NCL have better entertainment.

 

I was solo to Hawaii in 2017 and was very comfortable traveling solo with Princess. They have a wonderful Hawaii program onboard.

 

I didn’t feel I was treated differently because of lack of ‘status’ onboard. Didn’t hear anyone discussing their status onboard either.

 

If you have children or grandchildren, I would recommend Royal Caribbean over Princess as their market is families with many onboard activities for that demographic.

 

$6.90 for a 12 bottled water package on Princess!

 

The service on Princess is excellent, somewhat above Royal Caribbean and NCL.

[MCC retired]

One thing Princess does better than most other lines...you can "stack" your OBC.

 

If you qualify for military OBC and shareholder OBC and you used a Future Cruise Deposit (FCD) and your TA gives you some OBC and Princess gives you some OBC...you can have it ALL. Many (if not all) cruise lines limit which/how many OBCs you can have.

 

We've had more than $900 OBC on some of our cruises.(y)

 

 

 

This is great benefit that Princess has over other non-Carnival Corp cruise lines . [emoji3]

 

 

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[mediator]

I just got off the Oasis of the Seas with 3 grandchildren and 2 adults.We have over 400 nights on RCL, so at one time it was our favorite. Of late, Princess has become our favorite. It is much more subdued. The movie and tv programs we love. We like the fact you have access to a washing machine and iron, even though we are elite.

 

 

We now go on RCL when we have the kids. They like the “stuff”. They like the merry go round, flow rider, ice skating etc.

 

 

-Food is subjective.

-Absent on RCL is decent TV... in room demand movie and tv shows. You are stuck with a couple of channels and infomercials. The kids on downtime had the same cartoons for 7 days. And adults nothing per se.

-Movie rental was $11.99 . Princess is hands down the best in that regard.

-Food is subjective and all lines have good and bad days

-Absent on Princess is the belly flop and hairy leg contest.

- We do enjoy the concierge lounge on RCL, but not enough to book w/o

grandkids.

So, I guess by ourselves we love Princess, with grandchildren we do RCL.

[PrincessLuver]

One thing Princess does better than most other lines...you can "stack" your OBC.

If you qualify for military OBC and shareholder OBC and you used a Future Cruise Deposit (FCD) and your TA gives you some OBC and Princess gives you some OBC...you can have it ALL. Many (if not all) cruise lines limit which/how many OBCs you can have.

We've had more than $900 OBC on some of our cruises.(y)

 

This is a major reason plus itineraries that keep us coming back to Princess.....they are very generous and give a wide variety of OBC's which really can help to cut down the cost of travel! :D

[Itchy&Scratchy]

1) For us personally Princess offers much better pricing. Our first three cruises were on RCCL and we got very nice rates. In the last few years RCCL prices have become rather unreasonable, while we caught $99 kid sale or even a $1 kid sale on Princess. Plus, the prices themselves are reasonable.

2) On Regal and Royal the free on-demand movies rocks. Totally indispensable when you have a 7 yo kid who will not attend the kid's program.

3) the best kid's program according to our friends with 2 kids.

4) Regal and Royal Princess offer a fantastic buffet including desserts. Caribbean Princess - just an average buffet. MDR food all three is fantastic and much better than RCCL. Actually the main reason we switched from RCCL to Princess was better food. I am a food addict.

 

Cons for us personally: it's a more subdued relaxed atmosphere geared towards relaxing adults. RCCL offers a lot more physically engaging activities like skating rinks, flowrider, rockclimbing, minigolf, etc. Aside from a terrific kid's program (which my kid will not attend) and pooltime, there is very little to do on the Princess ship with the kid, especially if it's a rainy sea day. Literally NOTHING to do, but watch TV.

But that doesn't stop us from sailing with Princess. Especially, since the food is great and the prices are acceptable.

 

ETA on another con: we are limited to school breaks now, and I found that Princess offers abysmal itinerary choices during school breaks, so we are sort of forced to go to the same destinations, some of which we don't like.

[moki'smommy]

Point 2 above--Caribbean Princess now has the on demand movie feature as well. For OP, this is a free feature, but you can start the movies at your convenience, come back later and re-start where you left off, etc. It is gradually being expanded fleet-wide.

[loving goldens]

I find this thread very helpful just booked our very first Princess cruise ... we are looking forward to a change... we only have sailed on Celebrity ( which we liked) but just wanting a change.... this will be our 6 th cruise and we are empty nesters so we are not interested in water slides and things... :) thx u for all the info....

[derdejoh]

We (well, my DW, if we're being honest) likes the live music and dancing opportunities around Princess ships. We sailed RCCL one time and ran into another couple sitting outside a bar with no music -- they commented that they normally sail Princess too and were disappointed by the lack of live music on RCCL.

[Ofmyheart]

IMO...Sweet and simple...OBC, Laundromats & itinerary.

[phred119s]

We are more used to Royal as that’s the majority of our sailings (prefer the ship layout - like the buffet being all the way aft typically), Princess is solid! They are definitely beating Royal on price overall. Like a PP mentioned, Royal’s pricing games have gotten ridiculous. We will go on Carnival based on price and itinerary, but much prefer one of the other two mentioned. Generally speaking, many things are very similar line to line in our experience. The crew seems happier on Princess, then Royal, then Carnival in my opinion. After sailing with Royal and Princess to Alaska, Princess dominates hands down!

[phred119s]

Itchy&Scratchy - I forgot to mention... have you tried calling the school? I ask because we pulled our daughter out to go to Alaska a month ago. I was dreading letting the school know. Surprisingly, when I spoke to them they said it was more educational for her to see Alaska and all was excused. They went on to tell me to just let them know ahead of time and prove the educational side of things in the future. I was shocked.

[floridalover5623]

-Movie rental was $11.99 .

That's a pretty stiff price for a movie rental. I'm assuming they were recently new movies & not something that has just come out on DVD?