Will we be disappointed with Royal after Discovery Princess?

[rnr4thatsme]

Hi there!  We are looking at booking a cruise with a group of friends to Alaska 2025.  The friends we are travelling with much prefer a newer ship with lots of entertainment options, and want to leave out of Seattle.  I have recently travelled on Discovery Princess and thought it was wonderful, but I know that Royal Princess is quite a bit older.  Would we be disappointed with Royal Princess after being on Discovery Princess?  The two are priced similarly. I prefer the Royal itinerary, but if the ship is disappointing, I don't think it would be the ship for us (maybe consider a different line in that case).

[Outerdog]

Discovery is a Royal-class ship. The two ships have more in common than not.

[Cruise Raider]

The Royal is a fabulous ship!  She has all the bells and whistles that the Discovery has and even has Vines as well as a true nonsmoking section to her casino.  She's incredibly well maintained.  I don’t think she will will disappoint anyone that likes the newer ships.  

[Abercrombie2019]

We were on the Discovery in 2022, and then on the Regal in 2023.  I was also worried that I would be disappointed by the Regal because it was older.  I liked the Discovery, but I loved the Regal. That may have been because our stateroom was very close to Crooners!  🍸🍸

[Wishing on a star]

We love Regal. Sister Ship.  Prefer the Sanctuary on these ships, except no hot-tub inside.

Might be too cool to really enjoy the Sanctuary, unless you wanted to try to book for Glacier Bay, which is more of an 'experience'.

Royal and Regal, Maybe not as 'shiny'...  but just 'fits'!

Royal doesn't have the aft pool...  don't need that for Alaska.

 

If you are looking at an itinerary that offers the excursion to also see Tracy Arm Fjord, close up from a smaller vessel...  I would love to do that!!!  I think that is possible on some Royal itineraries.

You would get BOTH Glacier Bay and Tracy Arm Ford.

 

[Mud_Shark]

We were just on the Royal and enjoyed it, but it does show its age a bit.  Things are just a little worn here and there, but otherwise, there was no downgrade from the Enchanted or Discovery.  I did miss the aft pool but that was about it.

[like2cruise]

I sailed Discovery last January and Royal last April.  If all things were equal, I would choose the Discovery as she is newer and a bit more shiny, but not once while on the Royal did I wish I was on Discovery.  Crew wise...hands down, better bartenders on Royal and that made the cruise one of our best.  

[BlerkOne]

I sailed on Discovery last October and then did a b2b on Royal in November and not disappointed at all. The ship isn't the destination for me - the itinerary is.

[VersaliusPrimus]

I have sailed on the Royal Princess for a 10 day Eastern Caribbean cruise in Dec 2017 and the Sky Princess (closer to Discovery than Royal in both age and features) this past summer for a B2B Iceland and Norway trip.  While they are very similar ships, there are a couple differences you are likely to notice if your focus is onboard entertainment, which you specifically mention.

 

Princess Live on the Royal and Regal is much more enclosed with a regular-sized, single door serving as its only passenger entrance.  On the later ships, beginning with Sky Princess, this venue is opened up to the main walking path along the starboard side of the ship where passengers can walk from the Princess Theater all the way back to the Vista lounge (a "throughfare" if you will).  This allowed for more seating not only within the venue proper but also the passengers seated along the throughfare to also participate in any trivia or other activities conducted here.  I should note that on both Royal and Sky this venue completely filled up 20-30 minutes prior to popular activities, like the Abba trivia on Sky.  Still, the additional seating made a difference and made the setting feel more open (because it was).

 

The other major entertainment difference is the selection of production shows.  The Royal (and Regal when we sailed on her June 2022) had Bravo and one other show (the name escapes me at the moment) while Sky had Rock Opera and Five Skies.  We would judge both Bravo and Rock Opera to be comparable in style with the latter having a more contemporary song selection (at least two songs I recall from the soundtrack to The Greatest Showman).  Our enjoyment of these shows depended heavily on the matching of the vocalists' style and range to the song they were performing.  This ended up being rather hit-or-miss on both ships unfortunately, but overall we enjoyed both shows.  Five Skies, on the other hand, quickly became our favorite show out of all we've seen across the Princess fleet, so much so we went back to see both showtimes on the second cruise onboard Sky.  The technical advancements, storytelling, and vocal performances hit all the right notes for us.  

 

That all said, we enjoyed both of our cruises but definitely prefer the modified layout and newer production shows on the Sky/Enchanted/Discovery Princess.  Hope this helps!

[PATRLR]

On 1/19/2024 at 5:54 PM, Wishing on a star said:

If you are looking at an itinerary that offers the excursion to also see Tracy Arm Fjord, close up from a smaller vessel...  I would love to do that!!!  I think that is possible on some Royal itineraries.

I did this through NCL.  It's an Allen Marine boat with a capacity of about 150 people that goes much further up the Arm than the cruise ship goes.  It was worth every penny - if it's offered, do it! 🙂

[cheetosrevil]

To answer your question, who knows? You have your preferences so any input is secondary. Do you have any specific questions about the differences? Age vs newness? Something in particular?

Edited January 24 by cheetosrevil