Question for Past Celebrity Cruisers

[caribill]

I prefer the symbols that Celebrity use on their menus.

 

I found on my Celebrity cruise last year that in the buffet many items that were vegetarian were not marked as such, so I do not trust items to be marked properly. For example, no dessert was marked as being vegetarian even though there is no meat in any of their desserts.

[Flo71]

We went on the Celebrity infinity and found the service to be very good and the entertainment ok, but the ship was in need of refurbishment and the food overall not great. The MDR was just ok and the buffet was poor in comparison to other lines. Now I do believe that other ships in the Celebrity fleet may be better, such as, Eclipse or Silhouette but it will take a very special offer to get us back with them. I have only cruised on the Royal Princess with Princess and am booked to go again on her and Princess beat Celebrity hands down across the board.

[neverbeenhere]

I found on my Celebrity cruise last year that in the buffet many items that were vegetarian were not marked as such, so I do not trust items to be marked properly. For example, no dessert was marked as being vegetarian even though there is no meat in any of their desserts.

 

Are you sure (did you ask?) there was no gelatin in the desserts?

[upwarduk]

We went on the Celebrity infinity and found the service to be very good and the entertainment ok, but the ship was in need of refurbishment and the food overall not great. The MDR was just ok and the buffet was poor in comparison to other lines. Now I do believe that other ships in the Celebrity fleet may be better, such as, Eclipse or Silhouette but it will take a very special offer to get us back with them. I have only cruised on the Royal Princess with Princess and am booked to go again on her and Princess beat Celebrity hands down across the board.

 

 

 

I think you have made a very good point, it really does depend how old the ship is. Infinity is in Millennium class, the Solstice class ships are newer.

Last year we sailed on Crown Princess and the buffet area was cramped in comparison to the lay out on the Solstice class. I did hear however that this area is due for an upgrade.

 

 

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[tompeter]

I will throw in my 2 1/2 cents...:D We have been traveling with both lines for approx. 17 years. I actually prefer Celebrity a bit more than Princess, though Princess has come a long way. My Partner likes Princess a tad more. The food on Princess has greatly improved over the years and the service has generally been very good to excellent. Princess does nickel and dime you a bit more than Celebrity.

 

We go back to the days of Chef Michel Roux on Celebrity and you had to pay $35 to join their loyalty program - best money we ever spent (years later they gave us a $50 credit when it became free to join). Celebrity is also a bit more generous in its loyalty program. Now that we made it to the top of Princess' loyalty program the benefits are better. Generally, for us itinerary and our schedule play the role in our booking of a trip. Both lines generally cater to the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's demographic. We have been on RCL 2x -food was average at best and too many kids; NCL 1x not to be discussed in our house again - not an option, we also stay away from MSC and Costa.

 

IMHO - Celebrity and Princess are as good as it gets for the mid-priced, mass-market lines before you make the jump to Oceania, Azamara, Crystal, etc...

 

Happy Sailing!!!:D

This sums up our thoughts as well.

[Hlitner]

We have never understood this attitude of "moving" or "loyalty." For us, its simply booking the cruise that meets our itinerary, price and timing needs....regardless of the cruise line. To date we have been on 14 lines (a 15th line is booked for this coming Nov). As very frequent cruisers (with many lines) we have learned over forty+ years that every line is always changing. What you get today is going to be different tomorrow. Being "loyal" is silly because you are loyal to a moving target. Sure, you will eventually earn a few perks (we have maximum perks with many lines) but we never see those perks as a reason to book an expensive cruise.

 

We are Elite Plus with Celebrity, but just returned from the Golden Princess (where we are Elite). Sure. we got our free mini-bar (which we traded for coffee cards) and free laundry. Both Celebrity and Princess are suffering from a "death by a thousand cut-backs" but that is the nature of the current cruising culture. As in the past, this will all change when one line decides to make real improvements and other lines follow to meet the competition. Why did we book the Golden Princess? Simply because of its amazing itinerary.

 

To answer the OP's specific question, we did not "MOVE" to Princess but simply booked a cruise on Princess. Our next two booked cruises are on MSC and HAL...and we do not view those as having "moved" to those lines. We simply book cruises :).

 

Hank

[geoherb]

I'd consider sailing on Celebrity again, but Princess has won most of our business because it has offered the itineraries we want at prices we can afford. We're going on a 15-day Princess cruise in September that costs considerably less than an 8-day Celebrity cruise at the same time.

 

Our last Celebrity cruise was also a disappointment in terms of food and service.

 

Holland America is now our second-place cruise line. I like that we get our Carnival Corp. shareholder benefit on HAL like we do on Princess. It would be nice if all of the Carnival cruise lines offered reciprocal loyalty level benefits like Royal Caribbean/Celebrity/Azamara do.

[diane.in.ny]

These posts are all great and very insightful. Thank you to all who took the time to post.

 

We too have sailed mostly Princess because of price and itinerary. As others have said, that hasn't stopped us from sailing other lines also. We've sailed riverboats on the Amazon and through Europe, Hurtigruten to the Antarctic, a freighter in French Polynesia, and HAL to Norway and Mexico.

 

I guess I was just kind of wondering if was there a reason we should give Celebrity a try. Looks like all things being equal, no reason to move over.

[PescadoAmarillo]

Our first cruise was on Royal Caribbean and so we stayed with them for a few cruises until they brought out the Explorer Class of ships which we felt was too large and too inwardly focused for our liking. We just happened to do a Celebrity cruise about that time and loved it, so we kind of stayed with Celebrity for several years. But then we finally wanted to do some cruises in the Caribbean (all of our other cruises were Alaska or exotics) and booked our first Princess cruises (on the Sun Princess) at the last minute because they had some great B2B itineraries. We did NOT like Princess compared to Celebrity and so kept cruising Celebrity, but, while on the Sun Princess we saw Princess’ transpacific itineraries and ended up doing two of those 18 months apart (and those cruises, on the brand new Sapphire and Diamond Princesses, were wonderful).

 

By that time we were already Platinum on Princess and were getting the free (unlimited) internet, and, since we cruised at least three weeks at a time while we were still working, appreciated the passenger laundries and (at that time) great soda sticker price. We haven’t done a Celebrity cruise since 2007 and I would love to return but friends who have a similar cruising history to us just did, and really missed Princess, saying Celebrity was not the same cruise line they remember. Frankly, none of them are, but, for us, Princess is still providing a good cruise experience.

 

However, we feel Princess is making some of the same design decisions (too large, inwardly focused) that first caused us to leave Royal Caribbean and so, when when it gets difficult to find Grand Class ship itineraries we enjoy, may end up changing our primary cruise line again. I think we will consider Holland America, especially their older, smaller ships, as our most likely Princess alternative when that happens. We’ve done 4 or 5 HAL cruises and enjoyed them, and their itineraries are reall fantastic.

[neilrr]

We left Celebrity because they and Royal Caribbean have pretty much abandoned the west coast - Princess serves us very well, but we still give an edge to Celebrity.

 

We have sailed many lines -- Princess and Holland are a close 2nd to us and we're happy to sail either line, (We still also enjoy Carnival) -- We have yet to have a bad cruise :D

 

CRUZBUDS - Hi there!!! Just want to comment as a RCL former shareholder (Now I own Carnival, as they let you combine promotions with stockholder credit which RCL does not) -- Celebrity (and other lines) has tried numerous times out of the west coast. The problem was they could never fill the ships like the east coast. They had to have bargain basement prices to lure people and it was a losing proposition. They were also limited in their itineraries with Mexico. Then Mexico had problems with tourists being accosted. It was just not worth it.

 

We live in FLL and on weekends during season Port Everglades has 15-20 ships leaving as does MIA (pretty much sold out). People also have a lot of different itinerary options. We find many people come from the west cost and go out of FLL and MIA. Come join us sometime.. All of NY'ers, Ex NY'ers, Washingtonians and Bostonians are party people...We will most likely be on a S. Caribbean next March for 10 Days on Reflection... See you there!!! LOL

 

P.S. We will be on the Crown Princess this summer in the Med and the Aegean Seas.. We just love Italy and Greece...:) Come join us!!!

 

This sums up our thoughts as well.

 

tompeter - Thank you for agreeing with me...:cool: Us NY'ers need to stick together...LOL:D

[RDC1]

Started out on Celebrity, this year doing 4 cruises on 4 different lines, including one on Celebrity. At one time we would do 4 Celebrity for each one on another line. Now we do 4 to 5 on Princess for each Celebrity. Primary reason is as Celebrity has changed their focus to adding services for suites we noticed decline in quality for other passengers. MDR and buffets quality dropped, CD staff chopped along with activities, things such as zumba that used to be free are now for a fee.

 

When they shifted to upfront drink package sales their individual drink prices went up to levels higher than Princess.

 

Combine that with the stock benefit becoming pretty useless, we have decided Princess is in general a better value.

[Lz2cruise]

We have sailed both celebrity and princess and enjoy both, we think celebrity solstice class is more modern or updated than the princess style which hasnt changed much since we first sailed in the grand in 2003.

If price and itinerary were the same we would choose celebrity but this year we booked a nov transatlantic and the itineraries offered by celebrity were much more limited than in past years so we booked the crown with an itinerary we liked at a great price. We are looking forward to the crown and am sure we will have a great cruise.

[caribill]

As in the past, this will all change when one line decides to make real improvements and other lines follow to meet the competition.

 

The problem is that when a cruise line, like the airlines, reduces quality, then the others follow to "meet the competition." It is a race to the bottom, not to the top.

 

In the airline world there are the following examples:

o American Airlines started to charge for luggage. The other airlines (except for SWA) followed.

o One airline stopped service meals in coach on domestic flights. The other airlines followed.

o One airline started to offer "basic economy" at the old economy price. The other main airlines (except for SWA) followed. The hope is that nobody books basic economy, but just pays more for regular economy class.

 

For Princess examples copied from the competition:

o Require payment for shore excursions at the time they are booked in advance of the cruise, possibly even months before final payment for the cruise is made.

o More specialty restaurants for extra $$$ and lower quality food in the main dining rooms.

o Pay extra to board a few minutes earlier on embarkation day.

o Building bigger ships that are limited as to what ports can be visited or will overrun ports that do not have the tourist infrastructure to provide a good shore experience for all passengers. After all, doesn't everyone want to have their next cruise go to St.Thomas and St. Maarten?

Edited May 2, 2018 by caribill

[GUT2407]

 

 

Personally we are happy with either.

[wishfulone]

Our first cruise was with Celebrity in the Mediterranean. We followed that with Princess around Sth America and fell in love with the genteel old world style of cruising so beautifully presented by Princess.

 

Since then it's all been about the itinerary. We've sailed with RCCL, Celebrity and Princess and find the food and onboard experience is fairly similar between the latter two and the ships are a mix of old in need of refurbishment or glossy and new. But, we've sailed on many more Princess cruises and are now Elite with them while still climbing the Celebrity ladder.

 

We are currently on a Celebrity roll due to the wonderful port intensive itineraries they're offering and extraordinary level of personal attention you receive whilst onboard. Undoubtedly it'll turn around and Princess will once again become the flavour of the month but for now, we'd much rather have the Celebrity onboard experience.

[Doug & Cindy Scrap Hunter]

It looks like the Princess crowd takes constructive criticism better than the Celebrity folks. I asked them about recent reviews and threads regarding changes to their MDR, and they got out their pitchforks. We've only sailed on Carnival and Royal Caribbean but are looking for something more upscale and more activities, with more food options.

[Pierlesscruisers]

For Princess examples copied from the competition:

o Require payment for shore excursions at the time they are booked in advance of the cruise, possibly even months before final payment for the cruise is made.

o More specialty restaurants for extra $$$ and lower quality food in the main dining rooms.

o Pay extra to board a few minutes earlier on embarkation day.

o Building bigger ships that are limited as to what ports can be visited or will overrun ports that do not have the tourist infrastructure to provide a good shore experience for all passengers. After all, doesn't everyone want to have their next cruise go to St.Thomas and St. Maarten?

 

Actually, I can see a very possible rationale for some of the items you listed.

 

Payment for shore excursions: One possibility might have been a large number of cruisers signing up for excursions early and then cancelling very late or even after getting on the ship. I could see this causing major problems with filling excursion slots getting that have been turned back late if it happened often enough. Is this the reason for the change? Who knows, I certainly don't.

 

I haven't noticed any decline in the quality of food in the main dining rooms, so I don't have anything to say about that factor. But, then, I'm a person with pretty simple tastes, so I might not notice anything in that area anyway.

 

 

Paying extra to board earlier? I've not heard of any such program on Princess but I know that it does on Carnival with their Faster-To-The-Fun program. To me, that's a waste of money, but if someone wants to pay the money, I can see why a company would be willing to make a few hundred dollars of income for virtually no cost! (At least they do have a limit on how many can participate on a given cruise. :)

 

 

I've been on the big Princess ships but never been on the smallest one, the Pacific Princesss so don't have any idea what being on the little one is like. We hope to get to try her out some day though. Most of our cruises have been on the 2600-3000 passenger sizes. You make valid points, I believe, on the fact that the larger ships do certainly put a limit on the ports where the larger ones can go and I'd certainly agree that going to all larger ships would have a limiting affect on available ports and could end up taking a cruise line out of some travelers' reach due to the lack of desirable (to those cruisers) destinations. While I certainaly do not have any inside information or knowledge about Princess's future plans, I hope and suspect they won't.

 

Tom

[caribill]

Actually, I can see a very possible rationale for some of the items you listed.

 

Payment for shore excursions: One possibility might have been a large number of cruisers signing up for excursions early and then cancelling very late or even after getting on the ship. I could see this causing major problems with filling excursion slots getting that have been turned back late if it happened often enough. Is this the reason for the change? Who knows, I certainly don't. You can still cancel a pre-paid excursion before the cruise or on the ship before the penalty period starts, so requiring pre-payment does not stop the possible problem of last minute needs to fill empty slots. Carnival Cruise Line does charge a penalty (25% ?) for any excursion cancelled while on the ship before the 100% penalty time.

 

Paying extra to board earlier? I've not heard of any such program on Princess but I know that it does on Carnival with their Faster-To-The-Fun program. To me, that's a waste of money, but if someone wants to pay the money, I can see why a company would be willing to make a few hundred dollars of income for virtually no cost! (At least they do have a limit on how many can participate on a given cruise. :) The Princess program is much more limited that the FTF program. It just gets you onto the ship (a little) faster on embarkation day. No on-board benefits during the cruise. No faster luggage to the stateroom either. Read about the Princess program at

First to board for purchase

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/show....php?t=2606688

 

Pay to upgrade?

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/show....php?t=2606447

Basically it is:

For $49 per booking purchase Princess Advance Boarding. The description reads; Access the priority line for check-in and boarding at the terminal. Board earlier to reserve shore excursions, specialty dining and The Sanctuary. Choose your preferred time to disembark.

 

I've been on the big Princess ships but never been on the smallest one, the Pacific Princesss so don't have any idea what being on the little one is like. We hope to get to try her out some day though. Most of our cruises have been on the 2600-3000 passenger sizes. You make valid points, I believe, on the fact that the larger ships do certainly put a limit on the ports where the larger ones can go and I'd certainly agree that going to all larger ships would have a limiting affect on available ports and could end up taking a cruise line out of some travelers' reach due to the lack of desirable (to those cruisers) destinations. While I certainaly do not have any inside information or knowledge about Princess's future plans, I hope and suspect they won't.

 

Tom

 

see above in red

[Literary Lynne]

We board Sapphire Princess this weekend, our first time with Princess, having cruised mostly with Celebrity and Azamara. We have always heard that Celebrity and Princess are comparable so had no hesitation in booking this cruise. We have recently found that Celebrity are covering the same ports and this cruise with Princess visits ports which are new to us. The price was a real incentive too.

Lynne:)

[diane.in.ny]

We board Sapphire Princess this weekend, our first time with Princess, having cruised mostly with Celebrity and Azamara. We have always heard that Celebrity and Princess are comparable so had no hesitation in booking this cruise. We have recently found that Celebrity are covering the same ports and this cruise with Princess visits ports which are new to us. The price was a real incentive too.

Lynne:)

 

Looking forward to hearing back from you after your cruise.

 

Hope you have a great one!

[Pierlesscruisers]

You can still cancel a pre-paid excursion before the cruise or on the ship before the penalty period starts, so requiring pre-payment does not stop the possible problem of last minute needs to fill empty slots. Carnival Cruise Line does charge a penalty (25% ?) for any excursion cancelled while on the ship before the 100% penalty time.

 

For $49 per booking purchase Princess Advance Boarding. The description reads; Access the priority line for check-in and boarding at the terminal. Board earlier to reserve shore excursions, specialty dining and The Sanctuary. Choose your preferred time to disembark.

 

My thoughts on the reason for having to prepay the excursions was that people might not be as likely to pre-arrange the excursions if they had to put up the money at the start. That would thus cut down on the number of cancellations. Having to tie up $600 for a couple of months to reserve spaces for a family of 4 for 2 $75/person excursions might be a big incentive not to put down reservations for 2 excursions that you "think you might" want to take whereas it would be no big thing to make a reservation for those same to excursions if you have $0 tied up for a couple of months. As to Carnival charging a cancellation penalty after boarding. I wasn't aware of that but that doesn't apply here since I was only referring to the new Princess prepayment requirement.

 

 

As to the faster loading plan, I wasn't aware of that at all. Thanks for the info.

 

 

Tom

[caribill]

As to Carnival charging a cancellation penalty after boarding. I wasn't aware of that but that doesn't apply here since I was only referring to the new Princess prepayment requirement.

 

I only mentioned the Carnival cancellation penalty as that is a much bigger incentive not to book an excursion you might not take vs. just having to pay in advance for an excursion.

 

Many people who cruise can afford to pay for excursions many months before a cruise. But there are also passengers who have to save up for the cruise and may not have enough money saved that far in advance of embarkation.