Comparison

[Lady C]

How does Emerald Princess compare to Caribbean Princess, good points and bad points for both?

 

Many thanks for your help

 

:) Lady C

[caribill]

Main items:

 

o Both have an International Cafe, but the one on the Caribbean was added later on and does not have the case with the gelato ($1.50 for 3 scoops).

 

o On the Emerald, Sabatini's is on an upper deck in the aft section instead of on deck 7. Also, the Emerald has a relaxinmg lounge, the Adagio, next to Sabatini's.

 

o The Caribbean has some window suites on deck 6, added during a retrofit when the casino was relocated to deck 7. The Emerald still has the casino on deck 6.

 

o Crown Grill is on deck 6 on the Caribbeanm, deck 7 on the Emerald.

 

o The Caribbean no longer has a jogging track. The Emerald has a small one on top of Skywalkers.

 

There are a bunch of other minor location differences.

 

Both ships have about the same number of passengers capacity.

[fishywood]

The Caribbean Princess is simply a Grand-class ship with an additional deck of cabins. No different from the Grand/Golden/Star Princess other than the deletion of the covered pool area to allow seating for MUTS. The subsequent builds (Crown, Emerald and Ruby Princess) did take the higher number of passengers into consideration and have higher capacity in the lounges, specialty restaurants, spa, kids/teen clubs and open deck areas. Despite being a newer design, Caribbean Princess repeated two of the most significant flaws of the older ships: the travellator-stlye entrance to Skywalkers, and the ridiculous bank of aft elevators where only two of the four go to all decks--a real problem if you have traditional seating dining on Deck 6 aft.

 

In a major refit when Caribbean was only a couple years old, one of the ways Princess tried to improve the traffic flow was to move the Casino from Deck 6 to 7, adding a new Crown Grill and the window suites to Deck 6. The relocated casino (also done on Golden Princess) received such negative feedback that plans to make that move on the Star Princess were cancelled.

 

I'm not sure if your query is to decide between the two ships, or if you have already sailed on one and wish to know about the other. If the former, Emerald trumps Caribbean without question; if the latter and you have already cruised on Caribbean, once you try the newer ships you will not go back.

[spyro1952]

I've sailed on both numerous times and much prefer the Emerald. The new casino on the CB just doesn't compare to the original which was huge.

Also, I don't think the retro fit on the CB was the best decision. to me it just ruined the flow of the original design.

[dg33]

Done Emerald twice, CB once.

Definitely Emerald! CB had issues with cabins and other areas being too warm.