HAL mariner tries Majestic Princess, the pros and cons

[Greysandy]

We are 7 days from being 4 star mariner’s with HAL and are very satisfied with them, but tried the Majestic Princess last week because 4 friends were going with us and had chosen Princess. There are many similarities and differences between the two. Here are some of my comments on the positives and negatives of each.

Princess outshines HAL on these:

COFFEE!! It was so much easier to get good coffee. It was quickly and efficiently prepared at the International Café, even with a long line. Cappucino also available at the buffet, by walking into the bakery hallway. Several bars also have expresso or cappuccino available throughout the day. I have waited quite a while to get coffee at the Crow’s Nest, and waited for it to open in the morning.

Croissants are freshly baked each morning and throughout the mornings. The almond croissants were my favorite.

The ease of the Medallion, unlocking our room door as we approached, being able to track and locate anyone in your travel group at any time, being able to retrieve ship photos instantly and select the best ones, and being able to order drinks (or coffee) to your exact location was definitely a game changer.

Bars and food venues are open the full hours posted and don’t close early.

Allegro’s sit down no charge specialty pizza restaurant was fabulous.

Zumba class in the open air basketball court was a blast!

Fitness center was newer, cleaner and bigger (but it is a bigger and newer ship).

The production shows were higher quality with fabulous singers who did some amazing opera.

Since most people had the drink package, there was no hassle if one person ordered two drinks at one time and brought one to their partner.

The reasons we will still remain committed to HAL:

The wrap-around Promenade walking deck. This is an absolute must have for me. It felt so claustrophobic to be on such a large ship but not be able to do some nice walking each morning and evening. The small walking lap on the Sports deck on the Majestic Princess was tiny and only 3 ft wide in several sections.

BB King’s and all of the other live music on HAL is just more to my liking. I did not care for the multimedia technology offerings at the Princess pool.

The wine pairing (and beer pairing lunch we had on an Alaskan cruise) dinners are exceptional and rival high end tasting menu dinners we’ve had on land.

Many more craft cocktail offerings, cocktail classes. Several drinks that I now make at parties at our house were ones we tasted first on a HAL ship. Princess was limited to standard recipes except for Good Spirits at Sea, where a special menu was offered at that bar on some afternoons.

Things that were pretty much comparable:

The dining room food, buffet food, and Pinnacle/Crowne Grill steakhouse. I did not try Bistro Sur le Mer or Harmony on our recent cruise due to poor reviews from my friends. I do love Cannaletto and Rudi’s Sur le Mer on HAL. Our recent service on the Majestic Princess was better than prior dining room experiences on HAL, but my guess is that was due to the fact that the ship was fully staffed but only at 45% capacity. We are sailing on the Koningsdam in December and can compare then since it seems HAL has also moved away from the early and late seating and will have Dine your way.

Pools and hot tubs, as well as the thermal suite. Both cost $219/week per couple and had heated chairs and giant uncrowded hot tub with unique seats and jets.

Cooking shows, crew chats, game shows. Since none of these are all that interesting to me after doing many over the years, they seem fine for both lines.

The other evening entertainment such as comics, and featured musicians.

Major disappointment with Princess:

The Chef’s Table dining experience. For $115, we really expected different food than the regular dining room, but it was basically the same and even the same lukewarm temperature. No flavor, no interesting recipes, flavors or sauces. We were literally served the lobster risotto entrée from the night before. The main dish was just 4 proteins (filet mignon, lamb chop, shrimp and scallops) simply grilled and put on the plate with potato cubes and some carrots and beets cut into spheres. The service and experience was fun but the food was a complete let down other than the beautiful designs of the dessert in a ruby slipper, and the sorbet with a sugar swan.

Overall, we definitely enjoyed our Princess cruise, but we are still really looking forward to doing the same itinerary (for the 6^th time) on the Koningsdam in a month.

[canadianbear]

Thanks for your comparisons-appreciate your view points.   We are 4* on HAL and have only done one cruise on Princess & Celebrity.  We liked them but started out on HAL and just feel at home on their ships.  I have been disappointed  the last couple of times with the lack of stage entertainment on HAL-I used to love the shows.  
 

Mr Bear & I have been on the Koningsdam a few times & really like the ship.  Hope you have a wonderful cruise on her. 

[portofrome]

Thank you for your comparisons.

[ski ww]

Thanks for posting your views on the comparisons of the two cruise lines.

[puppycanducruise]

Thanks for posting your comments.

[outdoorphoto]

Thanks for taking the time to write the thoughtful and informative comparison. We've branched out to a couple of Celebrity cruises and enjoyed them and consider Princess each time we book, but haven't tried it yet. We're back to HAL for our Alaska cruise September '22.

 

I fully agree with Mrs. Canadianbear regarding the lack of production shows on HAL.

 

[rodndonna]

Thanks for this posting. 😀

 

We will be new to HAL and Princess, trying 2 HAL and 1 Princess cruise in the next 12 months.  My 'impressions' before actually sailing with either are very much in line with your comments. Two things we  really  think we will like about HAL are the Music Walk (because we love live music) and the Promenade deck (which we have thoroughly enjoyed in prior cruises and used quite a bit and every day).

 

We have HAL, Princess and Celebrity booked this year - i "expect" we will enjoy them all, but anticipate an edge for HAL based on our priorities.  (Prior cruises are NCL, Marella, and Carnival all of which we enjoy but not a good comparison)

 

We look forward to starting our 'research" in  just 7 days 😎

[PACD_JG]

Thanks for the post.  I'm a first time cruiser who initially booked my Alaska cruise on the Sapphire Princess, only to have it changed to the Royal Princess.  I was so disappointed with the change that I switched to the Koningsdam.  Even though we are younger than the average Mariner, we're generally anti-social and hate crowds so hoping HAL is the right choice.

[Greysandy]

2 hours ago, PACD_JG said:

Thanks for the post.  I'm a first time cruiser who initially booked my Alaska cruise on the Sapphire Princess, only to have it changed to the Royal Princess.  I was so disappointed with the change that I switched to the Koningsdam.  Even though we are younger than the average Mariner, we're generally anti-social and hate crowds so hoping HAL is the right choice.

We are 52 and enjoy the quieter and older HAL fellow cruisers. We are teachers and wanted time away from screaming children on our breaks. 

[XBGuy]

@Greysandy, I am a regular Princess Cruiser, and your comments about the Chef's Table are really surprising.  I have done the Chef's Table twice, and while there are things about it that I do not particularly enjoy, I have to say that the meals that I had were outstanding.  In no way were they compariable to any dining room meals that I have had on Princess.  (The fact of the matter is that Mrs. XBGuy and I only rarely visit the dining rooms.)  However, I am not disagreeing with your experience.  Your report is disappointing, but I certainly can not dispute your evaluation.  If you ever venture back to Princess, one of the best dinner events that I have ever experienced on a Princess ship was a "Super Tuscan Dinner" on the Royal Princess in 2019.  As the name implies the various courses of the meal were paired with different Italian wines--three of which were, in fact, Super Tuscans.  Much more enjoyable than the Chef's Dinner.

 

25 minutes ago, Greysandy said:

We are 52 and enjoy the quieter and older HAL fellow cruisers. We are teachers and wanted time away from screaming children on our breaks. 

'

Oh, you youngsters are so cute.  🤣

[canadianbear]

2 hours ago, Greysandy said:

We are 52 and enjoy the quieter and older HAL fellow cruisers. We are teachers and wanted time away from screaming children on our breaks. 

I took my adult daughter, who is also teacher,  a few years ago on a partial Panama cruise on HAL.  No kids (she teaches elementary) and nice & quiet.  She found others her age so really enjoyed the cruise.  
 

At that time HAL had very good stage entertainment and that is what I miss the most these days.  

[Greysandy]

4 hours ago, XBGuy said:

@Greysandy, I am a regular Princess Cruiser, and your comments about the Chef's Table are really surprising.  I have done the Chef's Table twice, and while there are things about it that I do not particularly enjoy, I have to say that the meals that I had were outstanding. 

I was really surprised also after hearing fabulous things about it from our friends who are elite members and reading the reviews on this site. My only guess is that maybe the chef had to use up some of the high priced cuts of meat since the ships have not been full to capacity since returning to cruising. We are open minded and will definitely try other events in the future.

[Greysandy]

Another definite positive for Princess was that all of the house wines included in the beverage package were decent. The ones on HAL in the past have not been, so I ended up drinking a lot more hard alcohol.

[foodsvcmgr]

Good review, we sail both lines and agree there are not many substantive differences but lots of little things we grade a bit higher or lower on each.

Your point about HAL also dropping traditional fixed dining is concerning.

Has this actually happened yet?

[conifercruiser]

Thanks for the great comparison info!
 

We’re “Elite” with Princess (comparable to 5* Mariners, still getting used to the HAL lingo) and will be taking our first cruise with HAL on the Rotterdam TA in April 2022 (God and COVID variants willing). Definitely looking forward to the Music Walk. I’m vegetarian and it sounds like the options in the MDR are better than what Princess offers.

 

I’ll definitely miss the self-service laundries that Princess has (even though we get our laundry done for free as Elites, I still like having a laundromat on every floor to throw stuff in once in a while when we have all those sea days on a TA). And I’ll seriously miss being able to do Zumba for free on sea days - Zumba’s probably my absolute favorite thing about Princess, especially if they have a fun Latin staff member to lead it! 🙂

 

Hoping the Rotterdam has some sort of exercise program, just can’t get excited about going to the gym and fighting for time on a treadmill. Good to know we can always walk the Promenade Deck!

[510picker]

Thanks for the comparison. My wife and I always talk about trying different cruise lines, but the price we get to continue booking with HAL is typically cheaper by 50% or more. We have cruised with Royal Caribbean (twice), Carnival (twice) and HAL (fourteen). It’s hard for us to pay 2x’s as much to cruise when we know we enjoy HAL. 

[atexsix]

Wonderful post because we have often thought about trying out Princess even though the ginormous atrium isn't really for us.  But we've heard good things about the always available pastries and coffee.  The crow's nest used to have free pastries but that disappeared along with a million other things, but like you we feel attached to HAL, no other cruise line has chamber music every night or the promenade as you pointed out.  So we keep coming back, despite the changes (MDR upsell anybody?)

[Greysandy]

2 hours ago, foodsvcmgr said:

Good review, we sail both lines and agree there are not many substantive differences but lots of little things we grade a bit higher or lower on each.

Your point about HAL also dropping traditional fixed dining is concerning.

Has this actually happened yet?

I will comment on it after my upcoming cruise, but my boarding docs say "open seating" instead of the early seating I requested (and I have been with my travel agent for 12 years and she is awesome, getting my free upgrades in rooms about 50% of the time).

[jimdee3636]

I'm four-star with HAL and have been on three fairly short Princess cruises. My quick summary of the differences is:

 

!. The MDRs on HAL are way better than the Princess MDRs, in service, food quality, and overall ambiance.

2. The specialty restaurants on Princess are head-and-shoulders above the Princess MDRs, and probably better than the HAL specialties.

3. The 24-hour International Cafe' on Princess is, bar none, the best early morning coffee/pastry/ breakfast sandwich venue on any cruise line, and---for early risers like myself---almost the only reason you need to book Princess.

4. The "basic" wine package on Princess is better than the basic one on HAL, and at least as good as HAL's upgraded one..

 

Bottom line: You can't really go wrong with either line, but if you book Princess splurge on the specialty restaurants and be sure to get the wine/spirits package.

[KAKcruiser]

Greysandy, you might want to check with your travel agent about the dining times.  Usually open seating is indicated when fixed dining is full.  If this is the case, you could be put on a wait list for early dining.

[OlsSalt]

Open dining: I recall once a very large charter group onboard caused a change in dining times for the regular diners, since that group wanted to all dine together and have their dining time work with their onboard meeting schedules.

 

Caused a lot of unhappiness among regular booked passengers who suddenly had their own preferred dining times changed.  Don't blame them. Check to see if there are any charters on the dates of your sailing.

[cruisequeen4ever]

It was fun to hear your comparison.