Europe - HAL Rotterdam or Star Princess

[SuzCruise]

My husband and I are torn between a cruise of the med. on the Rotterdam or a Northern Eurpoean cruise on the Star Princess both departing in mid May of 05 (yep - next month). We have sailed HAL before to Alaska and last year did the RSSC on the Paul Gaugain - but we know very little about Princess. Looking for a little advice from you seasoned cruisers.

 

Our concerns are the size of the ships and the quality of the service. Will we be waiting in lines on either of these ships to disembark at ports? Will we be waiting in lines for lunch? And if so - is the food worth the wait?

 

How do the staterooms compare? We are looking at the lowest category of balcony cabin available on both. We've always done verandah suites in the past and to save money we'll give up a little on the cabin size - but gotta have that balcony.

 

What will our fellow cruisers be like? Lots of kids? We don't have any and really prefer not to be surrounded by them on a romantic vacation. Mostly an older crowd? We are in our mid 30s and like to have a little company in the casino and the disco at night. When we were in Alaska HAL realled geared the cruise to an older cruiser which made the ship shut down pretty early. Was that just Alaska or is that HAL?

 

Specific questions - our last cruise on RSSC included pretty much everything (and at that price - it should). Are we going to be nickled and dimed to death for sodas and wine with dinner? Are mixed drinks pricey? Can we bring on a bottle of our own alcohol for drinks in the room while we dress for dinner? We could on our last HAL cruise and RSSC set us up with a bar in our room.

 

Any and all advice and all comments and opinions would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks!

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[oskidunker]

Soups and Deserts especially bad. Go Princess.

[CruisinD]

As far as lowest category balcony cabin:

 

On HAL Rotterdam this is a mini-suite type set up - with separate sitting area with sofa, etc. Balcony is large enough (and long enough) for a lounge chair to fit comfortably as well as small table and chair, etc. On Princess, the cabin has no sitting area and is much smaller than the HAL cabin. The balcony is maybe a third of the size of the HAL balcony - only room for two chairs and a small table.

 

We cruise a decent amount and tend to choose both HAL and Princess as our favorite lines. We choose each cruise for different reasons. But cabin and balcony wise, no comparison at lowest cat balcony level. You'd have to actually go up to a mini-suite category on Princess in order to compare size of cabin and balcony for any type of similarity.

 

Denise

[SuzCruise]

Thanks for your reply and info! Cabins aside - how would you compare these two ships? Have you done these two itineraries? Sounds like you have done both HAL and Princess a lot - so I am hoping you can give me some first hand advice.

 

Thanks!