What Has Prompted You From Moving On From Princess to (Premium/Luxury) Lines?

[kennicott]

Absolutely agree with you, I am looking for a line which doesn't have gyms on their ships, because I don't use the gym and don't see why I should pay for other people's use of it.

 

There is also the question of salad, I don't eat it and don't see why I should pay for other people who eat it.

 

And being bald I don't use the hair conditioner........ need I continue?

 

Spot on Griller-- I was gong to attempt to articulate a similar opinion but you did it for me better. I was going to headline mine with: "How in the world do you believe that the industry degenerated into the nickel and dime game it is now, without all the complaining from guests who wanted to pay for only what they wanted and did not want to subsidize someone else's different tastes or desires.???"

[muggo11]

Great thread. . Learning a lot.

 

I started with Carnival as a family and then as a single mom. And hit Platinum.

 

New hubby and I are now Elite on Princess. And we love the itineraries and service and food. BUT, the status match from MSC intrigued us. A week in the Mediterranean on MSC Meraviglia in the Yacht Club was amazing. Great food, great service (butler!). Beautiful ship.

 

Now, we are experimenting. After a 29 day cruise on Golden Princess (Singapore to Anchorage) in less than two weeks, and the Christmas SF/Hawaii cruise on Grand Princess, we are branching out. Queen Victoria SF to Sydney in 2019 and another MSC Yacht Club on Bellissima that fall. Norwegian and Royal Caribbean have never appealed to me. Celebrity looks interesting.

 

I just ordered brochures for Crystal, Oceania and Regent. Regent seems WAY out of our price range but Oceania seems splurgy but worth trying, especially when comparing what is included. We are quite content with interiors and cherish the occasional upgrades!

 

I try to keep our vacation budget—all in, e.g.food, liquor, excursions, airfare, etc—to about $400 per day so cruises are very doable. We are not big drinkers and rarely book excursions through the ship. We just seek out food, history and art wherever we go. We travel for pleasure around 60 days annually, including 2 cruises and weekend trips and budget about $25k annually to do so. It is a big chunk of our income and worth every penny.

 

We really liked the intimacy of Pacific Princess and would love to try a smaller ship again.

 

We are now focused on a world cruise in 2021 when I retire (hubby has been retired for six years now). Working on a spreadsheet to compare cruise lines. Princess is still leading the pack. But Cunard and MSC are also intriguing.

 

The lure of luxury—even for a shorter cruise—is powerful. As a child, my dad was so cheap, we camped and never stayed in hotels. Eating out? Forget about it. It is still a thrill to get aboard a ship, any ship.

 

I love this thread.

 

 

 

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[DaisyandSika]

If you like good to great food and a small ship experience, try Windstar. Depends on your tastes though... No 'Off-Off Broadway' musical, kids, flow riders etc. and just the one nightly venue with live music. No waiting for tenders or lining up for most things. The ships can visit places that others can't get to, so there are significantly less folks on the island than the big ships in the bigger ports.

 

We loved it.

 

Can you tell me a bit more about your Windstar experience? I checked out the website, and I'm interested. Not that we haven't enjoyed our Princess Cruises. We don't usually do the Theater shows, but enjoy the comedians and live music. We want to do Panama, and Windstar has some interesting itineraries. I see they are currently having a sale, do they also honour price drops?. I'm not one to embrace change usually :) but I'm intrigued.

[wishfulone]

My post isn't about moving to a luxury cruise line. It is more about leaving Princess. Our very first cruise was with Celebrity and we've cruised an average of 40-60 days every year since. After a while we fell into the Princess rhythm and advanced to Elite status. They offered destinations and ports we wanted, excellent meals and service, and value for money.

 

We've also experienced the stiffling heat of no air conditioning on the Diamond Princess but the crew were wonderful in their efforts to make our journey more comfortable. We even tolerated the dumbing down of the MDR menus and the dreadful impact of Curtis Stone. But what finally finished us was the rudeness of wait staff on two separate cruises out of Australia. Unfortunately the wonderful standard of their international crews and ships is not matched by cruises out of Australia.

 

We have sailed RCCL, Azamara and returned to Celebrity and find it difficult to fault the quality of service. The food is not necessarily any better but the crew, especially on Celebrity, go out of their way to help and be friendly something lacking in recent years on Princess. We currently have three future cruises booked, two with Celebrity and one with Azamara. While these are not luxury lines we currently consider them to be way ahead of Princess.

[EastBay Cruisers]

The digital meter showed the temperature to be 81 degrees and over the next 8 days never came below 80 when they checked. We were not the only people with this problem, which apparently couldn't be fixed (even though the hallway temperature was at least 10 degrees cooler and in the dining rooms my wife had to wear a sweater).

Passenger Services did everything they could - opened a file with Corporate, checked with us daily, and then finally were able to move us to a cabin with air conditioning (it became available after a medical evacuation).

When we returned home we had to deal with Corporate for compensation. We were offered $600 future on board credit compensation on a 10K cruise. This was not acceptable to us - we clearly articulated that we were unable to be in/use our cabin for 8 days, that we had to go to the gym to shower since if we didn't we were immediately bathed in sweat as soon as you got out of the shower, and included not being able to get much sleep due to the heat.

Wow. That is terrible. The lack of air conditioning and trying to sleep in heat and high humidity would make for a very unpleasant, exhausting, and expensive vacation ( since you could not use the cabin for which you paid).

 

 

I'm sorry that Princess Corporate treated you so badly, especially since you had shown such loyalty to Princess in the past. :rolleyes: - EBC

[wishfulone]

Double post

[CRZR58]

Can you tell me a bit more about your Windstar experience? I checked out the website, and I'm interested. Not that we haven't enjoyed our Princess Cruises. We don't usually do the Theater shows, but enjoy the comedians and live music. We want to do Panama, and Windstar has some interesting itineraries. I see they are currently having a sale, do they also honour price drops?. I'm not one to embrace change usually :) but I'm intrigued.

 

We loved our Caribbean cruise. Small ship life is definitely different. Embarkation/Debarkation took 15 minutes each . Just dropped our baggage off, walked onboard and did the rest with a drink in our hands sitting at the bar.

 

Mostly stopped at smaller islands, but did one day where we were in town with 2 big ships, which is a completely different feeling. Shore excursions are the same as the big ships, but the numbers of people going are way smaller so they are more intimate. Going to a beach means 20 or so others there at the same time, not 2000-3000.

 

Only one venue with live music nightly and a couple of musicians at the aft bar on our ship... Windsurf. No comedian. Best food at sea by far for us. Celebrity is #2, but way back. Good wine upcharge was better than I expected. The two downsides of the ship were lack of varied entertainment at night and a hilariously small pool, but the water sports platform at the back of the ship meant we didn't use the pool anyway.

 

Some highlights were the 1 island where we had a BBQ picnic on shore for lunch on a beach where the ships passengers were the only folks. They brought everything ashore including lounge chairs. One night, the winds were right and they unfurled the sails and turned down the engines. Pretty special to be actually 'sailing' quietly.

 

Our cabin was small but really well done. Very comfortable beds with really nice Egyptian linens. Included bath products were L’Occitane.

 

Not sure if they honour price drops or not as we booked one of the specials.

[Go-Bucks!]

Absolutely agree with you, I am looking for a line which doesn't have gyms on their ships, because I don't use the gym and don't see why I should pay for other people's use of it.

 

There is also the question of salad, I don't eat it and don't see why I should pay for other people who eat it.

 

And being bald I don't use the hair conditioner........ need I continue?

Too bad you couldn't find anything better than a snarky comment to share. :rolleyes:

 

The inclusion of alcohol and/or shore excursions can really raise the cruise fare, so if someone doesn't want to utilize them then they're throwing their money away and would be better suited on a line that's not all-inclusive. Is that too hard to figure out??

 

And, of course, you didn't answer my question, which was: does Seabourn include alcohol in their cruise fare?

[Cruise Junky]

 

And, of course, you didn't answer my question, which was: does Seabourn include alcohol in their cruise fare?

Yes, they do.

[DrivesLikeMario]

Speaking of standing by Walmart with a sign.

 

A couple of months ago I was sitting in a coffee shop in Pismo Beach, CA. Sitting close by were two homeless folks. One of them, a lady in her late 50's, was telling the other about her recent cruise on Princess, and and that she was going to book another one. She then proceeded to tell the other that she had to go, to catch the bus to her normal spot near a Walmart.

Only in CA. :D

What has prompted us to try other lines like Oceania and Azamara:

size of the ships

better food

quieter atmosphere

[DrivesLikeMario]

Can you tell me a bit more about your Windstar experience? I checked out the website, and I'm interested. Not that we haven't enjoyed our Princess Cruises. We don't usually do the Theater shows, but enjoy the comedians and live music. We want to do Panama, and Windstar has some interesting itineraries. I see they are currently having a sale, do they also honour price drops?. I'm not one to embrace change usually :) but I'm intrigued.

 

Yes, they do up until 120 days before your sail date. I have very good friends who love Windstar and won't sail on anything else. They just got back from their second fantastic Costa Rica/Panama cruise and loved it. Here you go:

 

WINDSTAR PRICE ASSURANCE POLICY

 

Terms & Conditions

 

Guests who purchase a cruise on Windstar will be eligible for reimbursement upon request if the fare published by Windstar for their specific departure and cabin class is reduced after they have made a booking and deposit, and if the request is received by Windstar at least 120 days prior to sailing. The reimbursement will be provided in the form of a shipboard credit, upgrade, fare reduction, or a future cruise credit. Windstar will determine the form of reimbursement, and the amount of reimbursement will be the difference between the fare actually paid by the guest and the published fare on WindstarCruises.com the day the request is received. Guests who select reimbursement will be eligible for any complimentary inclusive features (e.g., hotels, air, tours) associated with the new fare and will forfeit any complimentary inclusive features associated with the original fare. All requests for reimbursement must be made directly to Windstar Cruises at 1-866-350-1524 (during regular reservations hours) at least 120 days prior to sailing. Windstar’s new fare pricing assurance policy will take effect with new bookings made on or after November 8, 2017. Windstar reserves the right to modify or terminate this policy at any time for bookings not yet made. Policy does not apply to certain promotions or guests outside of the US or Canada.

Edited April 1, 2018 by DrivesLikeMario
added info

[Brisbane41]

That will not happen for me unless Princess really dumb down their product.

 

I can predict others may have done a defection based on pay for extra perks on Princess. Once people get a taste of pay for more like Club Class, beverage packages and all these elitist type things where you pay for all things in advance then I can see people who like that luxury are the ones most likely to defect to the high end lines where it is all inclusive.

 

As for me I do not pay for those extras on Princess. I see Princess as a cruise line that caters to the upper-middle/middle class of passenger and that is where I am happy to stay. I have never seen Princess as elite or luxury or even low-income demographics. The super rich would not be seen on a Princess ship, they would go to Crystal, Regent and the likes of those.

[Lanz]

Great thread...thank you

[getting older slowly]

I think Brisbane41 makes a good point, We go on princess because we feel comfortable on board, it suit our style... yes we have looked at more up market cruise line... and the cost it really up there...

 

But we differ as we are happy to pay extra, as we like our own space, so we go in a suite.

the bottom line is so why would we go in a cabin half the size for double the cost. to go to un up market cruise line..

 

If you wish to spend more . then go for it. and don't be like one of my relations whom only travel luxury cruise lines to be one up and what cabin they travelled in

 

Yes I know it is not all about the money... but you do have to be comfortable about the cost as well as in yourself

 

cheers Don

[Cruise Junky]

the bottom line is so why would we go in a cabin half the size for double the cost. to go to un up market cruise line..

 

 

cheers Don

Itinerary, itinerary, itinerary. I’m totally fine with service, food & accommodation on the mass market lines but they just can’t touch the small guys on itinerary

[mbglib]

I think Brisbane41 makes a good point, We go on princess because we feel comfortable on board, it suit our style... yes we have looked at more up market cruise line... and the cost it really up there...

 

But we differ as we are happy to pay extra, as we like our own space, so we go in a suite.

the bottom line is so why would we go in a cabin half the size for double the cost. to go to un up market cruise line..

 

If you wish to spend more . then go for it. and don't be like one of my relations whom only travel luxury cruise lines to be one up and what cabin they travelled in

 

Yes I know it is not all about the money... but you do have to be comfortable about the cost as well as in yourself

 

cheers Don

This post needs a like button. :-)

[Flatbush Flyer]

Very interesting thread.

 

 

 

I have enjoyed Princess, for the most part. Have always sailed in minisuites or full suites. Best suite was D726 on the Regal; loved that HUGE balcony! Prices are decent and food ok. I am getting tired of the crowds, especially when leaving the ship or at shows. Will be Elite after another cruise and will enjoy those perks.

 

 

 

I've wanted to try a premium or luxury line for quite awhile, though. When my friend and I decided to go to Cuba a few months ago, Princess didn't have any cruises there (seems weird....many lines go there now). We chose Oceania for it's value....yes, prices are higher than Princess but include many of the services or perks that need to be paid for separately on mass market lines like no charge for specialty restaurants, unlimited internet, shore excursions, obc, very good food (lobster tails everywhere, all the time), non-alcoholic drinks incl lattes, and excellent service. And their loyalty perks are fantastic....but are, sadly, being downgraded a bit in about 20 months.

 

 

 

We enjoyed it so much that we booked Oceania's world cruise in 2019. The Princess world cruise prices were cheaper, but after including the cost for all the things Oceania provides, it was nearly similar.

 

 

 

I'll definitely cruise on Princess again, especially since I'll be retired soon and may not have the funds to go on O, but am glad that I've tried a premium line.

 

 

 

If one wants to see a true comparison, take a look at what the $40 million Oceania overhaul of the Ocean Princess (now cruising as Sirena) produced.

Next, do the bottom line match including all required /anticipated costs (e.g., airfare/air credit et al. included on Oceania. Finally, among numerous other differences, look at the quality comparison including Oceania's served buffet with items like steak and lobster prepared "a la minute" and included specialty restaurant dining, unlimited internet, etc.

 

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Edited April 1, 2018 by Flatbush Flyer

[Bizmark'sMom]

The photographers clogging every port you come to. The people interrupting meals to sell stuff. The vast amount of junk advertising coming into the cabin. I'm tired of it. Cruising in a suite would not mean no dodging the photographers every time I want to get off of the ship and into a port. (I *hate* that.) Formal night for food and ambiance that does not warrant dressing up.

 

I love Lindblad's ship size and onboard experience. I will continue to use them for more off beat itineraries. I'm excited to head to Windstar next year.

[Go-Bucks!]

Yes, they do.

Thank you. :D

[kingsfull1@gmail.com]

I do agree. However, I'm a bit picky , even curmudgeonly, about the food. Doesn't sound too good on Princess.

 

I think Brisbane41 makes a good point, We go on princess because we feel comfortable on board, it suit our style... yes we have looked at more up market cruise line... and the cost it really up there...

 

But we differ as we are happy to pay extra, as we like our own space, so we go in a suite.

the bottom line is so why would we go in a cabin half the size for double the cost. to go to un up market cruise line..

 

If you wish to spend more . then go for it. and don't be like one of my relations whom only travel luxury cruise lines to be one up and what cabin they travelled in

 

Yes I know it is not all about the money... but you do have to be comfortable about the cost as well as in yourself

 

cheers Don

[Go-Bucks!]

If one wants to see a true comparison, take a look at what the $40 million Oceania overhaul of the Ocean Princess (now cruising as Sirena) produced.

Next, do the bottom line match including all required /anticipated costs (e.g., airfare/air credit et al. included on Oceania. Finally, among numerous other differences, look at the quality comparison including Oceania's served buffet with items like steak and lobster prepared "a la minute" and included specialty restaurant dining, unlimited internet, etc.

Your're preaching to the choir! Why would you give me the "Oceania is the best value cruiseline" when I've been booked on the 2019 Oceania world cruise for over a year??!! It's ok that you're one of the O cheerleaders, but I don't have to be convinced.

 

But just because I enjoy Oceania doesn't mean I can't enjoy a mass market line too. Princess has given me many wonderful vacations, as well as Carnival and Celebrity. Fun is what you make it. ;)

[getting older slowly]

To Kingfull1

Love the meaning of curmudgeonly. ( could apply to myself )

Food is very personal thing, since I do all the cooking at home, I do enjoy the food on princess, yes a know it not 5 star... have been to very high end land based place, the food was amazing, but one could eat like that for more than five days. then is something basic ( but still with a glass of red wine )

 

Cheers Don

[Flatbush Flyer]

Your're preaching to the choir! Why would you give me the "Oceania is the best value cruiseline" when I've been booked on the 2019 Oceania world cruise for over a year??!! It's ok that you're one of the O cheerleaders, but I don't have to be convinced.

 

But just because I enjoy Oceania doesn't mean I can't enjoy a mass market line too. Princess has given me many wonderful vacations, as well as Carnival and Celebrity. Fun is what you make it. ;)

 

 

 

Wasn't directed at you specifically. I use the CC app and it's just easier to reply with "quote."

In any case, I do agree "Go Buckeyes." (PhD '73)

 

 

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[diane.in.ny]

Food is very personal thing, since I do all the cooking at home, I do enjoy the food on princess, yes a know it not 5 star...

 

And I'm the opposite. I hate to cook and as long as I have something tasty (doesn't have to be gourmet) put in front of me that I didn't cook, I'm happy. :D

[MrMan]

I cruise all lines. Where the ship is going is number one reason to go. Quite frankly I would not want to be tied down with elite, as Benefits don’t outweigh the cost of trying different products. I like Princess if I am stressed with work and just want to sit, be it inside or balcony. The ships are well appointed and consistent (almost to a fault). When I do suite, it’s NCL Haven product which beats Princess hands down. If I am in a foody mood, then RCL as they have a large assortment of Specialty dining options. One gets tired of the same ol Sabatinis or Steak House on every Princess ship. If I am looking for entertainment, then RCL or NCL with the Broadway productions win. Casino is NCL as they have better casino program. HAL is too old folks home with entertainment shutting down at 10pm.

 

When I pay premium I would go NCL Haven with butler and private dining over others. You get best of both worlds, mainline activities with Premium line luxuries.

 

 

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