Celebrity Summit vs Caribbean Princes

[MerrylandCruiser]

Southern Caribbean, March 2012. Any thoughts? Differences in food, entertainment, nightlife, other? Caribbean Princess is newer, larger ship, but also more expensive. Is it worth it? Summit will have just been refurbished.

[spny84]

Did CB two years ago, just after the update and did Summit just a little over a month ago. Sorry no flow, just kept typing the thoughts as they came.

 

Food is basically the same on both cruises (good convention food). Loved International Cafe on CB, Cafe Bacio (sp?) on Summit not as good - no fresh warm cookies, the sandwiches are really tiny more like finger food so would have to grab a lot to even get a nice light lunch. We would frequently hit the IC on the way back from an excursion and take it back to our balcony. The Summit currently doesn't have any dinner options other than the main dining room and the one specialty restaurant. The buffet is really not very good (IMO). After the update, there is suppose to be other options. Breakfast room service on both was good. The Summit does have "free" dinner room service but you it seems you can only have it at 7:30 pm. Didn't like the way Summit does their grill and pizza, food sits too often, CB everything was fresher. We saw the pizza on the Summit ready and under the heat lamps but the buffet didn't open for another 30 minutes and the staff refused to give us a slice early. We do Anytime-type dining, was better run on CB but they have since changed it so not sure if it's still as good (they took part of the dining room away for Traditional so less seats now between 5:30-7:30 pm which is when we eat. On CB, formal night you can wear a long sleeve shirt and nice slacks, on Summit you must have a jacket (minimum).

 

Entertainment: CB had better overall entertainment, again IMO, but the venues are extremely tight. Summit had good production shows and the theater has great sightlines but their other entertainment was in awkward venues (best acapella group with a following was in a tiny venue so people couldn't enjoy them.) Summit had better entertainment on the sea day. Loved the Q/A with the officers.

 

Sorry we are early to bed, early to rise people so nightlife is limited other than the Comedians, shows and music.

 

Never felt crowded on either ship. On CB just need to find the closed section of the buffet and sit over there when the buffet is busy. And if you like to sit by the pool it is definitely an issue but they always have other places to sit in sun or not in sun. Summit does not have a true Promenade Deck which we missed, and felt sorry for the runners who had to dodge all the people in chairs on their deck. On CB the pool is a regular pool but no cover, on Summit it is salt water, also not covered but they have a T-pool which is covered and people love (we weren't impressed with it). Summit is more formal all over the ship, more "maaming" :D, not a problem but a little unusual. Other than that service was great on both.

 

Have a great trip, no matter what you decide.

[jimandtoni]

Southern Caribbean, March 2012. Any thoughts? Differences in food, entertainment, nightlife, other? Caribbean Princess is newer, larger ship, but also more expensive. Is it worth it? Summit will have just been refurbished.

As a long time Princess fan, I would have to reccomend the Summit. Just got off her a few weeks ago. We were VERY impressed!!

[floridacruisers]

If you are a smoker, go with Princess. If not, go with Celebrity. Big difference there. Much more restricted smoking on Celebrity. Not allowed in cabins and verandas or in many of the public venues such as the casino.

Phil

[kitkat9438]

Carribean Princess was our first cruise and we fell in love with cruising, but after sailing on the Summit, we fell in love with Celebrity and the Summit. After the refurbishment, the Summit will be more like the S class ships which are wonderful and now my favorite. We prefer Celebrity now, so I recommend the Summit.

 

We found the CB to be more crowded and it was hard to find a seat at the shows unless you got there really early. That's never been a problem on Celebrity ships. We find the food and service also much better on Celebrity. The layout of the buffet area is much better on the Summit as well.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

[barbels]

I've cruised on both ships. I definitely prefer the Summit, although we had a fine cruise on the carribean Princess last year. The Princess ships are crowded. We ended up eating in the dining room for most meals because we didn't like circling the buffet searching for a place to sit any time we went there.

Our latest cruise on the Milly, a summit sister ship, was superb. I'd book the Summit even if it cost slightly more. At a lower price it's definitely the ship to sail on.

[Denny01]

We've cruised 11 times on Celebrity and twice on Princess with another Pricness coming in Aug. We always look to Celebrity as our starting point, and have gone to Princess for itinerary or to join friends. So I am biased and would select Celebrity especially if there is a lower price.

 

Why:

Smoking: Agree smoking is a big decider. Heck, people complain about wiffing smoke on a Celebrity balcony when someone cheats and lights up. Smoking is allowed on Princss balconies And in the SR...their thread tries to play it down, but it is an issue. Our last cruise, our SR had to be heavy-cleaned twice and we aren't allergetic or hardover anti-smoke.

 

Space ratio: Although the data indicates Princess and Celebrity have about the same space-to-passenger ratio, I found Celebrity to be more open and no choke points. Better seating and loung availablitly. Especially the Theater. The Princess theaters are smaller and some have poor sight-lines for offline seating. People were going to the Princess theater an 1hr early to get good seats and if you went in 15min before as we do on Celebrity, you couldn't find two seats together for the popular shows.

 

Dining: Found both fine. Princess buffet is open 24hrs and has more of a choice for dinner in the buffet, but I found Celebrity to be a better choice and rotation of differing choices. The MDR's were both good and excellent service.

 

SR: The standard Princess SR does not have a seating area for socializing while the Celebrity standard ones (Inside, Oceanview and Balcony) had coaches and extra seats. Went to a mini-suite on Princess and it was very nice, but even more expensive, so we compare Princess Mini's to Celebrity Standard balcony for pricing.

 

Pools and open areas. Liked Princess with their pools open later. Both had nice pools.

 

Misc: enjoyed Princess coffee card a good deal. Cheap ($20) for I think 20 special coffess that I could share. Loved it. All cruise line try to sell stuff, but thought Princess had more of a hard sell going on. Many times when I ordered a glass of wine I was asked if I wanted to buy a ticket to the next wine tasting. And they had a 'How to Pack' lecture so went to it for tips - it was an infomercial for their vacuum pack system and Nothing else. Was bothered by that.

 

Oveall, just thought Celebrity was a cut above, a bit. A bit bettef service, nicer SR's, not as crowded. Loved the nonsmoking Casino, only one public announcement per day, and more of a laidback atmosphere.

 

But (Big But...) Loved our Princess Hawaii cruise and looking forward to the Around the UK Princess cruise. Suggestion: I'd go over to the Princess thread and ask the same question.

 

Den

[seacruise9]

Hi,

 

I have cruised on both of these ships to the Southern Caribbean fairly recently (Caribbean Princess in April 2009 and Celebrity Summit in November 2011). I would choose the Celebrity Summit. I think it is more spacious and offers better food and service. The only negative is that the Summit's entertainment is not as good as the entertainment on the Caribbean Princess. I especially recommend the Summit since your cruise would be following the major refurbishment. The ship should be in great shape for your cruise (with new dining choices and refurbished public areas and staterooms).

 

Chuck

[schmoopie17]

I know you didn't ask, but we recently were on the Adventure of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) to the Southern Caribbean and the ship was great...the food was great...the service was great. Everything was, well, great! Just thought I'd make your choice harder :D

 

For what it's worth, we had narrowed our choices to the Summit and the AOS and ended up going with the AOS. I'm sure they're both good choices.