Booked First Princess Cruise

[Chip AZ]

I booked my first cruise with Princess. I have been on Crystal a couple of times and I am looking forward to not having to eat dinner with the same people at the same time every night. Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't. I'm going on the 14 day Iceland cruise from Southampton. I have the standard balcony cabin as the rest was booked up. How does Princess compare with Crystal and Radisson is my first question?

[Golfette]

Princess doesn't compare to Crystal. It's in another class entirely. Crystal's food and service is much better. You don't have the "herd" feeling on Crystal. We definitely did on Princess. Although the balcony suite we had on Princess was as nice as the one on Crystal. The best way I can put it, although the cheerleaders will undoubtedly scream, is that Princess is J.C. Penny's and Crystal is Nordstrom's or Neiman Marcus. If you're happy with Sears or Penny's, you'll be happy with Princess. Also, if you're taking Alternate Dining instead of Traditional there can be a problem if your ship is full. When we traveled Princess, the ship was full & we were unable to dine between 5:45 p.m. & 8:15 on any night of our trip, although we called each & every night.

[Chip AZ]

I took part of the world cruise on Crystal. Stuffy, expensive. Part of the problem were the Crystal world cruise regulars. Which the staff fell all over looking for the big tips.

 

I'm looking forward to trying new lines. The itinerary attracted to me to this as all other lines were full up. Tried to get on HAL, but this was the last one left. I got the very last balcony cabin. I'll live for two weeks. I hope it isn't that bad

[cruise fairy]

Princess doesn't compare to Crystal. It's in another class entirely. Crystal's food and service is much better. You don't have the "herd" feeling on Crystal. We definitely did on Princess. Although the balcony suite we had on Princess was as nice as the one on Crystal. The best way I can put it, although the cheerleaders will undoubtedly scream, is that Princess is J.C. Penny's and Crystal is Nordstrom's or Neiman Marcus. If you're happy with Sears or Penny's, you'll be happy with Princess. Also, if you're taking Alternate Dining instead of Traditional there can be a problem if your ship is full. When we traveled Princess, the ship was full & we were unable to dine between 5:45 p.m. & 8:15 on any night of our trip, although we called each & every night.

 

I don't agree about the Personal choice dining. Our ship was completely booked - Golden Princess. We had absolutely no problem dining every evening between 5:45 pm and 6:30pm. Our wait time was approx. 2-5 minutes.

I certainly can't speak as a Princess cheeleader because I have only traveled one Princess cruise, although I am booked on another in approx. 3 weeks. The reason we decided another Princess ship was because we were treated so well.

I believe in good customer service wherever I dine, shop, travel, etc....this is the very reason we chose Princess - again:D Customer service was terrific, friendlly and professional. Room and ship decor - beautiful, wait staff - friendly and prompt, room stewards - cheerful and available. I really can't ask for anything more in a vacation.:p

[Texcruise]

Chip AZ: We just returned on 2/2 from our first Princess cruise aboard the Coral after taking three others on Radisson. There were obviously a few differences, but we felt that Princess was an excellent value and have nothing but good things to say about the ship, service, food and so on. We did PC dining as we had on Radisson and were very pleased. We ate late every evening 7:00 to 8:00 and never had to wait over five minutes for a table. We have five other Princess cruises booked so that should tell you how much we enjoyed the Princess experience.

[Druke I]

As noted above, food (subjective) and service better on Crystal than Princess.

 

We sailed Crystal Harmony twice, loved the ship, food, and stewards, etc., but had some differences with upper management types (concierge & maitre 'd) whom we found overbearing and somewhat "snooty". We also thought Crystal very high-priced when compared to HAL and Princess.

 

Princess certainly has a much broader range of itineraries, but they have many more ships. Love some of the Princess "exotics" itineraries.

 

We recently sailed with Oceania, and found their food to be better than Crystal's, but again food is very subjective. Oceania, which uses former Renaissance "R" class ships (sisters to Pacific and Tahitian Princess), is a high-end line and I think much more competitive price-wise than Crystal. We have booked another Oceania cruise, Istanbul to Singapore, through the Suez, 11-06.