Caribbean Princess or Celebrity Summit

[loriantimt]

We are trying to determine which ship to cruise with next March from San Juan. We just finished our first Celebrity cruise and loved it, but the Millennium left a lot to be desired as a ship. I know the Summit is the sister ship, and I'm a little tentative about having the same engine issues. I've also read that the Caribbean Princess is not as great as it used to be, and we like the Summit itinerary better. Any advice?

[wwinfl91]

We haven't been on the Summitt. Our only Celebrity cruise was on the Zenith. We have been on the Caribbean Princess as well as several other Princess ships. We did our first Princess cruise on the Golden Princess which is very very similar to the Caribbean except on the Caribbean they added a whole extra deck of cabins without increasing the public space. This meant that the Caribbean with 3120 passengers felt a lot more crowded than the Golden with 2600 did. Other than that the Caribbean provided a typical Princess cruise experience with good service, good food and a good value for the money. Just expect all the public areas to be more crowded than you would like them to be.

 

I will be honest and say we actually enjoy the smaller cruise ships a lot more than the mega ships that seem to be what the cruise lines all want to build. With that bias in mind I would take a good hard look at the Celebrity cruise but if the itinerary of the Caribbean is one that is more interesting to you then go that direction.

 

Have a great next cruise.

[JanineM]

We did the transAtlantic on Summit last April (2008), and are doing the 7-nighter on her in January. She was drydocked immediately after our sailing in April '08.

 

I thought the ship was in very good shape prior to the dry dock. There were a few worn spots of course, but generally the ship looked very good to me. The small things I noticed included damage to the lining of the balcony drape (had clearly been caught in the door locks a few times) and wear on the handrails on the decks - but they were working on that while we sailed.

 

You may want to read the reviews here at CC to get some other opinions on both ships before you make your decision. Good luck!