Princess vs. Celebrity - Alaska

[cruiserw/kids]

Need some help. I want to do the Alaska Cruise during Summer 2005. For those of you who have cruised both Princess and Celebrity, which would you choose? Looking at Coral Princess or Celebrity Summit. Also what are the reasons for choosing a roundtrip vs. a one way itinerary? Will be cruising with other familes with children in early teens?

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Westfield Friends - July 4th Golden Princess

[Bruin Steve]

I've cruised both Princess and Celebrity (and Carnival and Norwegian and Royal Caribbean and Premier) but none in Alaska--yet...

We'll be going with Celebrity in July on the Summit...and taking our kids (18 and 20)...

Fairly obvious which line we would choose...Our experience with Celebrity has been head and shoulders above our experience with Princess--in every category across the board...

Princess afficianados will usually tell you that Princess' two big selling points vis-a-vis Alaska are:
1) The have a day at sea cruising Glacier Bay that Celebrity does not have...Glacier Bay is supposed to be really cool...Celebrity, instead, gives you an extra port stop in Icy Strait Point, Hoonah, Alaska...near the entrance to Glacier Bay...
2) That Princess has been doing Alaska cruises longer than anyone else and owns their own hotels for the land portion...Personally, I don't care how long they've been doing it--what counts is the one cruise I am on...and I don't care who owns the hotels as long as they're nice hotels...

What I like about Celebrity...and why we're going with them...is that I just believe it is a superior product...and the Summit is a fantastic ship...My parents and my sister and her family did a cruisetour on Princess and were less than thrilled...My brother and his family took the Suummit last year and came back raving about it...We were on its sister ship, the Millennium, last summer in the Mediterranean and it was the best cruise we've ever done...

As to the round trip versus one-way issue, basically, it's this:

If you want to do the cruise and the cruise only, the one way is usually cheaper, the airfare round trip from wherever you're from to Vancouver or Seattle is a lot cheaper than a split fare with one leg all the way to Anchorage...and you get to visit most of the same ports...

The attraction of the one-way is that you can tack on a land portion of anywhere from 3 to 7 nights (or more or less if you do it on your own)...and visit Fairbanks, Denali (Mt. McKinley), Talkeetna, Anchorage, Alyeska or other points in the interior of Alaska to which a ship simply can't get you...By the time you're done, you've spent considerably extra money, but you've seen a lot more of Alaska...

The cruise lines all package "Cruisetours" which include dome covered trains and/or buses to take you to these places, provide for hotels and more...Most folks seem to do these when going on a one-way...others just fly in early, rent a car or arrange train or bus travel and hotels on their own and meet the ship...but very few folks on the one-ways do the cruise only...

The other thing to consider with the one-way is Southbound or Northbound...Northbound, you start in Vancouver, do the cruise first, then do the land portion before flying home from Alaska....With a Southbound, you do the land tour first, then relax on the ship before flying home from Vancouver...

As for me, we're doing the Southbound Version...Get the tough part out of the way first...and we're doing a 13 night version, the longest Celebrity offers, then tacking on another two nights in Vancouver post-cruise...

Hope that helps...

Summit, July 3, 2004: Alaska: 13 night cruisetour

[CoasterBill]

We went on Summit last summer (north bound) and did a 5 day land tour. All I can say is that it was the best trip I have ever taken. If there is any way you can, you should do a cruise tour and not just the cruise. You miss so much but not going on the land part. If you are just doing the Cruise I would say with out question to take Celebrity. Some said to us that the Princess hotels were very nice but really the ones Celebrity booked were nice as well. I can't really say which land part is best but we sure enjoyed the one we took.

Seaward 11/97, Monarck of the Sea 11/98, Sea Princess 11/99, Century 12/00, Norway 2/02, Galaxy 7/02, Constellation 12/02, Summit 8/03, Norwegian Dawn 12/03, Voyager of the Seas 7/2/04.

[jglass]

We were on the Coral Princess Last summer for a southbound cruisetour. The land portion could not have been better, very efficiently handled and quite enjoyable. The cruise portion was not up to par-overcrowded, small cabins, food not up to Celebrity, service personnel overworked, etc. If I had it to do again, I'd go on Celebrity.

jglass