Is Princess cruise a premium cruise line?

[zltm089]

Doing some research about the premium cruise lines available.

 

Is Princess cruise in the same league as celebrity cruise and Holland and America line?

 

How do you guys rate the dining onboard?

 

Or are they just a mainstream cruise line trying to be premium light?

[skynight]

9 minutes ago, zltm089 said:

Doing some research about the premium cruise lines available.

 

Is Princess cruise in the same league as celebrity cruise and Holland and America line?

Very similar

How do you guys rate the dining onboard?

Lots of free dining options. DR serves higher quality banquet. Royal Class ships have a really large and nice buffet. Other class ships have a nice buffet, not as large and not as many selections. Royal class ships have Alfredo's. The International Cafe is really nice. Cocktails and other alcoholic drinks are not as high as some other lines. Dining experiences, surcharge applies, include chef's table, balcony dining, plus other specialty restaurants which vary by ship.

Or are they just a mainstream cruise line trying to be premium light?

They are a nice mainstream large ship cruise line. Not like Viking, Oceania, Crystal and some others.

 

[foodsvcmgr]

Princess, HAL, and Celebrity are often referred to as “premium mass market”.

We travel all three and are generally satisfied with most of their dining options and overall consider the three to be more similar than different.

I would suggest selecting by itinerary or pricing if choosing among them.

[RMMariner]

Princess, Holland America and Celebrity are roughly equivalent. More and more the emphasis is being placed on the mass market rather than the premium. Fine by me. The cost of sailing on these three lines has held basically steady for a long time, and is affordable to us average folks.

 

You want premium - Viking, Seaborne, Crystal.

 

I have been on Oceania a couple of times. I would place it in the middle. I like it, but prefer the value of Princess/Celebrity.

 

You get what you pay for. Something many people on these boards seem to forget. 

[zltm089]

Thank you all for the quick response.

 

I will  be looking at their Royal Class of ships and also their most recent ships.

 

 

[zltm089]

11 minutes ago, RMMariner said:

Princess, Holland America and Celebrity are roughly equivalent. More and more the emphasis is being placed on the mass market rather than the premium. Fine by me. The cost of sailing on these three lines has held basically steady for a long time, and is affordable to us average folks.

 

You want premium - Viking, Seaborne, Crystal.

 

I have been on Oceania a couple of times. I would place it in the middle. I like it, but prefer the value of Princess/Celebrity.

 

You get what you pay for. Something many people on these boards seem to forget. 

 

Based on what others have said, I would have placed seabourn, viking and crystal in the luxury segment.

 

To be clear, I'm not after or wouldn't be able to afford luxury cruises.

 

I just want something above mainstream with good food and modern ship.

[cruzsnooze]

I'd add Azamara as another premium line that I sailed on early this year. Princess, Hal, Celebrity are more similar then dissimilar. The premium lines are more inclusive.

[Tatka]

I like Princess overall one of the best.

 

As far as premium massmarket I would put lines like this

 

Premium massmarket

Celebrity

Holland

Cunard

 

Princess (almost up there with first three) but number of pax, room sizes ... aren’t really up there

 

Massmarket+

 

Royal Caribbean

 

Massmarket

 

NCL

MSC

Carnival

Costa

 

 

[dogs4fun]

42 minutes ago, RMMariner said:

Princess, Holland America and Celebrity are roughly equivalent. More and more the emphasis is being placed on the mass market rather than the premium.

This is our opinion as well - Princess, X & HAL are mass market cruise lines and, although they provide a perfectly fine cruise experience, we would not consider them premium.

We would rate Seabourn, Silversea, Crystal, Regent and Oceania as premium.

Edited December 8, 2019 by dogs4fun

[tip]

19 minutes ago, dogs4fun said:

This is our opinion as well - Princess, X & HAL are mass market cruise lines and, although they provide a perfectly fine cruise experience, we would not consider them premium...

I would agree with the above.  Having sailed all three, we would categorize them as mainstream.  Premium cruise lines do not nickel and dime you.  Then again, we can’t afford to sail the premium lines!

[JF - retired RRT]

20 minutes ago, tip said:

I would agree with the above.  Having sailed all three, we would categorize them as mainstream.  Premium cruise lines do not nickel and dime you.  Then again, we can’t afford to sail the premium lines!

From what I've seen here and on reviewing the cruise line websites, most of the "included" items are things we would be paying for and not using.

Examples: included alcoholic beverages, butler service (on some lines), fancy schmancy meals/restaurants, etc.

[Coral]

5 minutes ago, JF - retired RRT said:

From what I've seen here and on reviewing the cruise line websites, most of the "included" items are things we would be paying for and not using.

Examples: included alcoholic beverages, butler service (on some lines), fancy schmancy meals/restaurants, etc.

Having sailed Crystal 2x - I can tell you that service and food is amazing. Beyond amazing. This doesn't factor in the "other included items". It is just so nice to not have to deal with lines all the time and being charged every minute for things. It seems my friends who started with Princess (or below), have all moved on to higher lines. They appreciate being treated with respect as a passenger.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Coral

[Cruiserkenn]

Sorry my mistake

Edited December 8, 2019 by Cruiserkenn
My mistake

[zltm089]

Sorry, I should have made it clear in my original post.

 

I'm after premium cruise lines and NOT luxury ones.

[Skai]

Purely from a quality perspective...Oceania and Azamara are deserving of the 'premium' tag.  Lines such as Seabourn, Crystal, Regent et. al. would be considered 'luxury' lines.  

 

As for mainstream...

 

Celebrity and HAL edge out Princess(in overall value) when only taking certain factors into consideration such as: ship size/#of pax, cabins and dining options. However, Princess may be the best rounded of the three. 

 

In other words, Celebrity and HAL do some things better than Princess, but as a whole package, Princess could be considered the most consistent of the three.  Where Celebrity and HAL shine, Princess is average.  Where Celebrity and HAL lack, Princess is average.

 

 

[nomadguy]

From the stuff I have read, there are various categories as mentioned above. Crystal IS NOT Premium - it is luxury which is one step above Premium. Please google the industry's standards for each as the posts above are not correct. I'm not positive about those in the Premium category but I "think" it is -

 

Mass Market

RCCL

NCL

Carnival

etc.

 

Premium

Celebrity

Princess

HAL

 

Luxury

Azamara

Viking

etc.

 

[npcl]

I would put the lines as follows both in nature of what is provided as well as an analysis of revenue per passenger.  This assumes one is looking at normal cabins and not ship within a ship concepts such as Haven

 

Mass market (revenue per passenger ratio < 1)

CCL

RCL

NCL 

MSC

 

Premium Mass Market (revenue per passenger ratio between 1 and 2

Celebrity

Princess

HAL

 

Cunard is kind of in between the Premium Mass Market and Premium Rev ration between 2 and 3)

 

Premium (Revenue ratio between 4 and 6)

Azmara

Oceania

Viking

 

Luxury (revenue ratio >6

Crystal

Seabourne

Regent

 

The revenue per passenger ratio is market % revenue share divided by market % passenger share as using  market watch reported industry data,

Edited December 8, 2019 by npcl

[voljeep]

13 minutes ago, npcl said:

I would put the lines as follows both in nature of what is provided as well as an analysis of revenue per passenger.  This assumes one is looking at normal cabins and not ship within a ship concepts such as Haven

 

Mass market (revenue per passenger ratio < 1)

CCL

RCL

NCL 

MSC

 

Premium Mass Market (revenue per passenger ratio between 1 and 2

Celebrity

Princess

HAL

 

Cunard is kind of in between the Premium Mass Market and Premium Rev ration between 2 and 3)

 

Premium (Revenue ratio between 4 and 6)

Azmara

Oceania

Viking

 

Luxury (revenue ratio >6

Crystal

Seabourne

Regent

 

The revenue per passenger ratio is market % revenue share divided by market % passenger share as using  market watch reported industry data,

so what category is "THE MOUSE" in ?

[Coral]

50 minutes ago, nomadguy said:

From the stuff I have read, there are various categories as mentioned above. Crystal IS NOT Premium - it is luxury which is one step above Premium.

 

Believe me I know this. My point was it has more to do than just including drinks and butlers. Everything is better (including food and service).

[zltm089]

54 minutes ago, npcl said:

I would put the lines as follows both in nature of what is provided as well as an analysis of revenue per passenger.  This assumes one is looking at normal cabins and not ship within a ship concepts such as Haven

 

Mass market (revenue per passenger ratio < 1)

CCL

RCL

NCL 

MSC

 

Premium Mass Market (revenue per passenger ratio between 1 and 2

Celebrity

Princess

HAL

 

Cunard is kind of in between the Premium Mass Market and Premium Rev ration between 2 and 3)

 

Premium (Revenue ratio between 4 and 6)

Azmara

Oceania

Viking

 

Luxury (revenue ratio >6

Crystal

Seabourne

Regent

 

The revenue per passenger ratio is market % revenue share divided by market % passenger share as using  market watch reported industry data,

 

 

Thank you.

 

This was my understanding too.

 

I'm mostly after the mass market premium lines and possibly premium.

 

I'm currently looking at Viking, Princess and Oceania. I've done Celebrity and will be doing a HAL next year.

 

I've heard about Azamara, but their ships are a bit dated imo.

[pris993]

5 hours ago, zltm089 said:

Doing some research about the premium cruise lines available.

 

Is Princess cruise in the same league as celebrity cruise and Holland and America line?

 

How do you guys rate the dining onboard?

 

Or are they just a mainstream cruise line trying to be premium light?

I have cruised them all, Princess, Celebrity, HAL, Cunard and NCL recently, plus Crystal, Royal, RCCL and a few no longer in business... basically they are all the same today except NCL.  All just mainstream cruise lines...if you have been cruising a long time you can make your cruise experience better by dining in the speciality dining rooms... otherwise the buffet is just as good.  

[memoak]

4 hours ago, tip said:

I would agree with the above.  Having sailed all three, we would categorize them as mainstream.  Premium cruise lines do not nickel and dime you.  Then again, we can’t afford to sail the premium lines!

Because the premium lines are already nickeling and dimming you with the fare

[Ken the cruiser]

We are in our mid 60s and enjoy laughing and having fun on a cruise and going to lectures and evening shows in the main theater.  We like booking balcony cabins and going on cruises between 3-5 weeks in length on cool itineraries.

 

On Princess, our #1 goto line as of late, we like booking mini-suites, and sometimes club class mini-suites and full suites when they have a great deal. The main reason  we like Princess is because they have some great 3-5 week itineraries and usually have 5-6 assistant CDs which equates to a lot of variety when it comes to fun things to do on sea days. 
 

On Celebrity as we are now Elite, we usually book either a sunset veranda or sky suite (when the cost is under $350 pp/day). But since they don’t offer long itineraries we usually book a TA, as they usually offer great deals as well as a lot of fun things to do on sea days.
 

HAL has just gotten too relaxing for us unless we find a cruise on the Maasdam where they have their In-depth EXC program in place where they have 5-6 lectures a day on sea days. 
 

Oceania is also a more relaxing cruise line, but they have some great food and free specialty restaurants as well as some unique itineraries. However, we can usually book a Princess or Celebrity suite for the same as a balcony on Oceania.

 

But that’s just us. We also like Crystal when we can find a balcony for under $350 pp/day. 

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Ken the cruiser

[RMMariner]

2 hours ago, Coral said:

Believe me I know this. My point was it has more to do than just including drinks and butlers. Everything is better (including food and service).

 

I agree with you. Oceania was better than Princess in many ways, but it was twice as expensive.

 

I am not totally familiar with Crystal, but my impression is that it may well be twice expensive as Oceania. I would expect everything to be much, much better.

 

Since my other type of travel is basically adventure traveling (camping, biking, hiking etc.) I already feel pretty spoiled when I go cruising. I find Princess/Celebrity etc. totally fine for me. I can see why others (with more money) might want to move up.

[npcl]

3 hours ago, voljeep said:

so what category is "THE MOUSE" in ?

Disney is kind of unique in that it commands premium pricing for the first two in a cabin, however it is set up for families and heavily discounts additional passengers.  It is also a pretty small cruise line with 2.2% market share.  The reported ratio would put it in premium mass market, but is slanted by the number of children.  Would be interesting to see the occupancy rate for one of their ships compared to the 2 per cabin capacity.  Unfortunately cannot find those numbers in any public source.

 

Basically its offerings are somewhat unique because what one is paying for is the Disney brand first and the cruise second. From a customer service aspect Disney tends to do things very well and would expect the cruise line to be similar.

 

It is the most expensive of the family focused lines with its competition being mostly the mass market lines of RCL, CCL and NCL.

Edited December 9, 2019 by npcl