Did we make a mistake?

[rockraiders]

We have cruised many times. Most recently our cruise line of choice has been Celebrity. We have also cruised Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Cunard, and Viking river cruise. We wanted to try Princess so we booked an Alaskan cruise tour.  We are pretty low maintenance but I have been reading some reviews on Royal Princess and they are not good at all. Is Royal Princess that bad?

[cr8tiv1]

Unless embarkation port is important, I would choose to do Alaska on a smaller ship:  Coral/Sapphire/Grand or GEM class ship.  

 

Not sure if the Royal is leaving from Vancouver.  But if it is, she will have to do an outside passage and departure is dependent on tides.  Plus she has less outside viewing areas.  

Edited February 11 by cr8tiv1

[EDVM96]

4 minutes ago, rockraiders said:

We have cruised many times. Most recently our cruise line of choice has been Celebrity. We have also cruised Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Cunard, and Viking river cruise. We wanted to try Princess so we booked an Alaskan cruise tour.  We are pretty low maintenance but I have been reading some reviews on Royal Princess and they are not good at all. Is Royal Princess that bad?

Hm, there are also many "not good at all" reviews on Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Cunard, and Viking, so what are you worrying about? You will love the Royal Princess.

[karatemom2]

Royal Princess is a beautiful ship and Princess does a fabulous job on Alaska cruises and tours. You will have a wonderful trip. 

[azbirdmom]

We've been on the Royal Princess a few times most recently last December.  We've never had a bad cruise on her although things are never perfect on any ship.  What specifically are people complaining about?

[charliedalrymple]

I think Princess is the best line for Alaska cruises. 

[startedwithamouse]

28 minutes ago, rockraiders said:

We have cruised many times. Most recently our cruise line of choice has been Celebrity. We have also cruised Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Cunard, and Viking river cruise. We wanted to try Princess so we booked an Alaskan cruise tour.  We are pretty low maintenance but I have been reading some reviews on Royal Princess and they are not good at all. Is Royal Princess that bad?

You have people who are miserable, and run to the internet to stick it to the cruise line with the worst reviews. Most who have a great time, enjoy their vacation, don't bother to talk about it. 

[rockraiders]

We are doing land first and cruising from Anchorage to Vancouver. 
 

There were complaints about pretty much everything. 
 

Thanks for your responses. I’m feeling much better now and looking forward to trying Princess. 

[BamaVol]

Everyone has opinions and not all agree.  The key is in the details.  Food? Usually pretty subjective.  Shows?  None exist that please all.  Uncomfortable beds?  Plumbing problems?  Noisy neighbors? Missed ports? Usually a one off.  
 

Is there something missing that you must have?  What are folks complaining about?  Something important to you?

[Thrak]

We've sailed Alaska multiple times. The last time was on Royal Princess - our first cruise on that class of ship. We had an excellent cruise and the crew was wonderful. We didn't care for the setup of Princess Live but it certainly didn't cause us any issues on the cruise. I prefer the layout of the older ships but then again - they are older. I wouldn't worry about somebody who whined about their cruise on Royal Princess. There will always be people who complain while the vast majority of passengers on the same cruise had a wonderful time.

[azbirdmom]

5 minutes ago, rockraiders said:

We are doing land first and cruising from Anchorage to Vancouver. 
 

There were complaints about pretty much everything. 
 

Thanks for your responses. I’m feeling much better now and looking forward to trying Princess. 

 

We've done their land tours too, always before sailing.  It's nice to relax on the ship after all of the activity on the land tour.  If you're taking the train to Whittier from Denali that is really special too.  And earlier flight options are available from Vancouver so more flexibility than from Anchorage.  Princess really does do Alaska right.

[memoak]

We have done Alaska on Princess multiple times, many different ships, different embarkation ports over 30 years and have never been disappointed 

[rockraiders]

That pretty much sums up all the complaints. All aspects of cruising is pretty subjective but I was surprised to see mostly negative comments. Like I said we are pretty low maintenance and go with the flow kind of folks. 

[Rick&Jeannie]

Princess is considered the "de facto" standard and golden ruler for Alaskan cruises.  Concentrate on the trip and scenery and don't worry about what other people think of the ship.  We have sailed on the Royal once before...nothing of note sticks out in my mind as being an issue.  I was focused on the scenery...didn't even realize that I had a whale breaching until after I was reviewing the pics!

 

[waltd]

We were on the Royal in December.   We had a great time.  Royal Class ships are bigger and have more bells and whistles.  Only complaint that keeps popping up is that the ships are getting too big.

Princess and Alaska are great. 

[cruise_critical]

I was on Royal princess 13 night cruise just 2 months ago. Was our first time on Princess (we only cruised RCCL before this) and wife & Ioved it so we booked another later this year. Heck, even my 2 teens said it was much better than previous RCCL (Ovation of the Seas) cruises. Not sure if it would be like that for everyone but for wife & I (not very active lol) it was definitely a better fit.  (premier package was a big part of it as well) Would love to do an Alaska cruise on Princess one day.

[leck57]

5 hours ago, rockraiders said:

We have cruised many times. Most recently our cruise line of choice has been Celebrity. We have also cruised Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Cunard, and Viking river cruise. We wanted to try Princess so we booked an Alaskan cruise tour.  We are pretty low maintenance but I have been reading some reviews on Royal Princess and they are not good at all. Is Royal Princess that bad?

 

Nup, you haven't made a mistake. We did Alaska on Royal Princess and it was first class. 

[mevs904]

We had a fine experience on a previous Royal cruise however, we do prefer ships with a full promenade deck, especially for Alaska.

[Cruise Raider]

The Royal is a wonderful ship .. one of my favorites!  I love that Princess has a lot of Alaska themed events such as a totem pole carver, Puppies in the Piazza, Libby Riddles, games centered around Alaska, etc.  They will also have a naturalist onboard to give lectures and will be out on the deck to point out wildlife and geological points of interest, etc while out on the deck when in the fjord leading up to the glacier. They even have special menu items on these cruises.  
I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed with an Alaskan cruise on Princess, yet, I am sure you will always find some that don’t appreciate anything.  
 

Of note, many of the Princess ships left in the fleet do not have an indoor pool.  There is some shelter available out on the deck, though.  

[Coral]

The reason why individuals on the Alaskan board do not recommend Royal Princess is because the ship has less outdoor viewing areas compared to ships such as Sapphire, Grand, Coral Princess (lack of promenade deck), because the ship doesn't have an indoor pool (more so an area to spread out if in climate weather exists) and also because the Royal Princess can not sail the inside passage and must sail West of Vancouver Island due to the size.

 

For this size - I agree with those who say they would pick a different ship for Alaska than Royal Princess.

 

In Alaska, the smaller is often better.

 

I personally would choose a different ship. I do think Princess does Alaska well.

Edited February 11 by Coral

[trin880]

Sailing and seeing Alaska with Royal Princess - no problems, Alaska was great. Now that I am able to compare Royal Princess to Ruby Princess (sailing partial transit Panama canal), my first negative opinion would go to entertainment team on Royal. I did not expect to see such a huge difference. Ruby was much, much better. But two production shows are still nay...rest are awesome. Food quality is pretty much the same between two ships in MDR, but buffett is smaller on Ruby. Did not experience other significant differences. 

[Stosh68]

21 hours ago, rockraiders said:

We are doing land first and cruising from Anchorage to Vancouver. 
 

There were complaints about pretty much everything. 
 

Thanks for your responses. I’m feeling much better now and looking forward to trying Princess. 

 

I was just on a Princess cruise, and somebody at a nearby table was complaining that they switched the square pats of butter with round pats of butter.  There are always those people who can't enjoy themselves without finding fault or criticizing every little thing.  

 

I've lost count of the number of times I've overheard passengers describe a situation or event that I had personally attended that made me question if I was even there.   Some people just live an altered version of reality from most others.

Edited February 11 by Stosh68

[JLC0912]

We are going on the Royal Princess for an AU/ NZ cruise.  I have given a lot of thought to the entertainment and nearly switched to Celebrity.  From the videos I saw on Youtube of the productions shows, I would agree with @trin880 that they could use some improvement. But there were so many positives for Royal Princess compared to Celebrity, I decided to stay with Princess. We have only taken a few cruises on RC before, and I must say their Oasis ships have outstanding entertainment. IMO, I don't think Celebrity or Princess will equal theirs. 

We plan on doing a Princess cruise for Alaska, so this is all good info.:)

[kitkat343]

We did a cruise to Alaska on the Coral princess many years ago and it was quite lovely.  If the complaints are about the cruise tour please note that we did that independently and it went quite well.  If you think you might prefer and independent cruise tour, that's something to consider.  We were on the same railcar as the cruise ships and stayed at the HAL hotel.

[wolfie11]

On 2/11/2024 at 12:03 PM, Coral said:

The reason why individuals on the Alaskan board do not recommend Royal Princess is because the ship has less outdoor viewing areas compared to ships such as Sapphire, Grand, Coral Princess (lack of promenade deck), because the ship doesn't have an indoor pool (more so an area to spread out if in climate weather exists) and also because the Royal Princess can not sail the inside passage and must sail West of Vancouver Island due to the size.

 

For this size - I agree with those who say they would pick a different ship for Alaska than Royal Princess.

 

In Alaska, the smaller is often better.

 

I personally would choose a different ship. I do think Princess does Alaska well.

Exactly.  I would never do Alaska on a Royal class ship because of the propulsion/steering issues.  They have too much leeway with the wind on their beam and handle poorly.  The BC pilots won’t allow them to transit Seymour Narrows so they miss one of the most scenic parts of the cruise and go outside Vancouver Island.  They also miss ports more frequently in unfavorable wind conditions.  If you have to tender it takes 3-4 hours to get all 4000 passengers off the ship, and a couple of hours in Sitka to get everyone on the shuttle buses to town.