Opinions from those who have traveled on Caribbean Princess and RCCL's Freedom?

[skarletohara]

I thought it might be fun to go to the Caribbean again later this year.

We welcome anyone's thoughts on the size of these two ships.

I'm actually looking for a good comparison of the CP with any Voyager

class ship.

 

I've only been on one RCCL cruise. I know the Freedom carries like

4,000 people, so that seems like too many.

 

We've been on the Grand class ships a few times as well as the Sapphire

which seem like good sizes.

[drpack]

We've been on the Caribbean Princess (CB) 3 times and have 2 more booked. We were on the RCCL Explorer Of The Seas (Voyager Class) last spring. We like both vessels so I'll try to list some of what we liked better on each.

 

We love personal choice dinning on the CB. We like that the pools are all fresh water and they have two adult only pools. There was no comparison between the Horizon Court/Cafe Caribe on the CB and the Windjammer on RCCL. We felt the Windjammer was like eating at a cafeteria and it was impossible to find a seat during lunch time. We did like the Johnny Rockets on RCCL, but you had to wait in line because there aren’t many seats. The Ice skating show on RCCL is probably the best show I’ve ever seen at sea. The Caribbean show on the CB has been the same since the ship was launched nearly 3 years ago and it’s not really that good. We like comedians and it seemed like the CB had more of them with more shows. There were things we never really got to do on RCCL because of the fixed (Traditional) dinning schedule. We loved the Royal Promenade on RCCL. The Atrium area on the CB is small for such a large ship and doesn’t seem to offer much compared to the RCCL Promenade. RCCL is larger and fells larger than Princess. The sports areas on RCCL are outstanding from inline skating to ice skating, rock climbing wall and much more.

 

We started off with a promenade cabin on RCCL and for the price of an inside cabin it was pretty neat. The 2nd day on RCCL my DW won an upgrade to a Grand Suite at bingo. What can I say, it was great. It had a full size granite bar and a bath about the size of our other cabin. Was surprised that the cabin steward was the worse we ever had and we had more problems with that room than all others combined. Went through 6 key cards and still had trouble getting the door open most of the time. Several time we had to wait for someone to come and open it with a master key. Maybe the room just felt we didn’t deserve it. Wasn’t sure if it was just a suite perk, but it was great ordering a hot breakfast. It was nice to try once, but I could never justify paying nearly $5,000 for a stateroom. We have had an aft cabin on Princess the past several cruises and they have been great. The balconies on these cabins were better than the Grand Suite balcony on RCCL. Well I could go on but the most important difference is it seems that Princess’s prices are always much better than RCCL. We have been getting aft balconies on Princess for the price of an inside promenade on RCCL.

[Kerry&LuAnn]

drpack has described the differences well. Before sailing on the Caribbean Princess, we sailed on RCCL's Voyager of the Seas and Majesty of the Seas (Voyager class ships). We loved them all. The flexibility of Anytime Dining is what is bringing us back to Princess. And, we agree with drpack, that the Horizon Buffet/Cafe Caribe is a step up from RCCL's Windjammer. The Caribbean Princess says it offers big ship ammenities with a small ship feel, and we would agree. It is broken up into so many smaller public spaces, there was always some place fun to go and we never felt crowded.