Princess Suite Experience

[NevadaJo]

We usually travel on Celebrity in their Retreat suites category.  I was anxious to compare to Princess. Booked a cruise on the Discovery. The ship is gorgeous. Squeaky clean, new, and the staff try their hardest and are very pleasant. That being said, the only perks we found were after going through the immigration process with everyone in the same line, we did get sorted to check-in.

 

 The dining room experience was the same as every other diner with the exception of one additional special.  While it is no where near the Luminae experience on Celebrity, we never had to wait to be seated.

 

on Celebrity we had the Retreat area…very similar to the Sanctuary on Princess. Word of advice…if you want this adults only experience get to the Sanctuary early. We checked into our cabin, had lunch, and went upstairs….too late.  Every chair was taken and cabanas were only available for the AM session (140 a day for those of you who want to know.

 

we asked our steward about the bottle of champagne.  He looked a little surprised and said he could get us a glass. When we returned, there was a warm bottle of sparkling wine.

 

Our Discovery suite was serviced twice a day. The steward never knocked and waited until we left the room and turned on the Service request button.

 

a special thanks to Princess for the plastic water bottles. They taste so much better than cans.

 

Has anyone had a better suite experience?

 

Here is a short video of our cabin. Sorry it is a little choppy but I was trying to make it brief.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by NevadaJo
Added

[VibeGuy]

It’s definitely not as differentiated as X/RCCL and it’s not as good as the “all suite” lines.   95% of the difference can be summed up as “bigger room, nicer towels, full room service”.  

[delondin]

Was there a suite lounge with concierge?

[Ken the cruiser]

We’ve sailed in both Celebrity sky suites and Princess Vista Suites, to include the one we’re in right now on the Caribbean Princess, of which I’m currently documenting in a Princess “Live from” thread. 
 

A few things you forgot to mention about some of the Princess suite perks. For us eating breakfast at Sabatinis, which is usually never crowded, is a big plus for us as well as the unlimited next day laundry. But then we usually cruise on longer 3-5+ week Princess itineraries where the free laundry can really be a big plus! 
 

As far as Club Class dining goes, we usually eat early and are finished within an hour, meaning there is usually no delay in getting our next course served. Also, the servings are usually very tasty, but a little smaller than in the Luminae. We like that because we never feel stuffed after eating dinner and never get heartburn, while we usually have heartburn most evenings after eating the larger, more richly seasoned meals served in Luminae. 
 

Now, I will also say the Princess aft-facing vista suites with their fully covered balconies on most of their ships are awesome whereas most of the corner aft-facing cabins on most of the Celebrity ships have very little to offer when it comes to covered balconies, except for maybe deck 12 where the Sunset Bar is right above those. 
 

Don’t get me wrong, we love cruising with both Celebrity and Princess, but for different reasons. Princess, for their longer, more unique itineraries, and Celebrity if we want to just cruise around the Caribbean.

 

And then, of course, there is the price difference between a sky suite and a vista suite.

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[brisalta]

1 hour ago, NevadaJo said:

We usually travel on Celebrity in their Retreat suites category.  I was anxious to compare to Princess. Booked a cruise on the Discovery. The ship is gorgeous. Squeaky clean, new, and the staff try their hardest and are very pleasant. That being said, the only perks we found were after going through the immigration process with everyone in the same line, we did get sorted to check-in.

 

 The dining room experience was the same as every other diner with the exception of one additional special.  While it is no where near the Luminae experience on Celebrity, we never had to wait to be seated.

 

on Celebrity we had the Retreat area…very similar to the Sanctuary on Princess. Word of advice…if you want this adults only experience get to the Sanctuary early. We checked into our cabin, had lunch, and went upstairs….too late.  Every chair was taken and cabanas were only available for the AM session (140 a day for those of you who want to know.

 

we asked our steward about the bottle of champagne.  He looked a little surprised and said he could get us a glass. When we returned, there was a warm bottle of sparkling wine.

 

Our Discovery suite was serviced twice a day. The steward never knocked and waited until we left the room and turned on the Service request button.

 

a special thanks to Princess for the plastic water bottles. They taste so much better than cans.

 

Has anyone had a better suite experience?

 

Here is a short video of our cabin. Sorry it is a little choppy but I was trying to make it brief.

 

 

 

 

Nice sound recording but no video.

[NevadaJo]

1 hour ago, delondin said:

Was there a suite lounge with concierge?

Yes. However, we were told to call them to make first night specialty dining reservations through them. When we did we were told to just show up at any restaurant. Of course  that is what we did. Turned away from Sur Le Mar.   Honestly, we never went to there as we had complimentary drinks as part of our package.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by NevadaJo

[NevadaJo]

1 hour ago, delondin said:

Was there a suite lounge with concierge?

 

[NevadaJo]

2 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

We’ve sailed in both Celebrity sky suites and Princess Vista Suites, to include the one we’re in right now on the Caribbean Princess, of which I’m currently documenting in a Princess “Live from” thread. 
 

A few things you forgot to mention about some of the Princess suite perks. For us eating breakfast at Sabatinis, which is usually never crowded, is a big plus for us as well as the unlimited next day laundry. But then we usually cruise on longer 3-5+ week Princess itineraries where the free laundry can really be a big plus! 
 

As far as Club Class dining goes, we usually eat early and are finished within an hour, meaning there is usually no delay in getting our next course served. Also, the servings are usually very tasty, but a little smaller than in the Luminae. We like that because we never feel stuffed after eating dinner and never get heartburn, while we usually have heartburn most evenings after eating the larger, more richly seasoned meals served in Luminae. 
 

Now, I will also say the Princess aft-facing vista suites with their fully covered balconies on most of their ships are awesome whereas most of the corner aft-facing cabins on most of the Celebrity ships have very little to offer when it comes to covered balconies, except for maybe deck 12 where the Sunset Bar is right above those. 
 

Don’t get me wrong, we love cruising with both Celebrity and Princess, but for different reasons. Princess, for their longer, more unique itineraries, and Celebrity if we want to just cruise around the Caribbean.

 

And then, of course, there is the price difference between a sky suite and a vista suite.

 

We were in a Premium Suite on Discovery and our most recent experience on Celebrity was a Celebrity Suite.  We thought the Princess food portions were larger than Luminae . Princess was a little bland.  My husband did go to Sabatinis one AM for breakfast. He enjoyed it. Actually the lemon chicken I had at Sabatinis was my best meal on the cruise. However, it was fully booked so we never returned.  I much prefer the suite in room dining on Celebrity. Our Princess Room Service AM menu was very limited.  I am trying to figure out if it could be the newness of the ship. 
 

I must admit, if we were on a longer cruise the free laundry is very enticing!

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by NevadaJo

[NevadaJo]

1 hour ago, brisalta said:

 

Nice sound recording but no video.

Actually there is no sound. Only video.

[NevadaJo]

2 hours ago, VibeGuy said:

It’s definitely not as differentiated as X/RCCL and it’s not as good as the “all suite” lines.   95% of the difference can be summed up as “bigger room, nicer towels, full room service”.  

Perfect description.  The staff on Discovery were all lovely. Many learning their job but every single one of them had a smile on their face. 

[VibeGuy]

Am I correct in recalling that full suites on Royal don’t even come with complimentary Enclave access?  Grand/Gem-class ships with Thermal Suites certainly came with that access. 
 

Were I a full-suite passenger I might feel marginally cheesed off that I didn’t get at least some level of included access to Retreat Cabanas/Sanctuary/Enclave.  It feels nickel-dimey relative to competitive lines.  
 

I admit, on our most recent month onboard in March, our steward was so surprised and delighted to see us back that he did one thing no other one has - he upgraded our bath towels to the suite ones.   They are remarkably nicer.  Not to the level of the best hotels (winner is a tossup between St Regis and Luxury Collection to my backside - I like velour-finished bath sheets) but enough to make me price a suite for our voyage this week.  Turns out I’m better off to buy a stack of the towels off the St Regis or LC brand sites and light it on fire after use, as that would only add $180/day for the two of us. 

[dog]

What is difference between this suite in video to an aft facing corner PH suite on Discovery?

[XBGuy]

11 hours ago, NevadaJo said:

Yes. However, we were told to call them to make first night specialty dining reservations through them. When we did we were told to just show up at any restaurant. Of course  that is what we did. Turned away from Sur Le Mar.   Honestly, we never went to there as we had complimentary drinks as part of our package.

 

 

This sounds very disappointing.  We have four or five suite experiences on Princess but only one on a Royal-class ship with the Suite Concierge Lounge.  The concierge bent over backwards for us--specialty restaurant reservations, Chef's Table reservations, he even summoned a plumber to our cabin to address a problem one day.  

 

On the other hand, I thought they'd discontinued the complimentary bottle (and I think it was a 1/2-bottle) of Champagne.  In our last few suite experiences (all pre-pandemic) a couple glasses of sparking wine were delivered.

 

The laundry benefit is darned cool.  Here is a tip:  if you have both laudry, and "cleaning" items, separate them into two bags each with their own form.

 

I like the fruit bowl that is delivered on embarkation.  It provides some great snacks for several days.

 

I also like the canapes that are delivered on embarkation.  Many people don't seem to like them--diffeent strokes.

 

Mrs. XBGuy sleeps in every morning.  So, I am always on my own for beakfast.  I find it more enjoyable to have breakfast in the dining room or in the buffet so that I can chat with other cruisers,  Sitting at a table by myself in Sabatini's is not as much fun--even with all the attention that I get from the servers.

 

We've ordered room service off the dining room menu a few times.  That's OK, but everything is delivered at once.  So, a lot of elegance is lost.

 

Something that I think is hilarious, is that on one of the formal nights, room servvice delivers a selection of chocolates--compliments of the casino.  I have never spent a single nickel in a Princess casino.  I guess that they figure that suite passengers have excess dollars and, of course, would be happy to spend them in the casino.  Typically. when I return home after a cruise, I just take my extra dollars out back and burn them.

 

I have to say, though, that as far as the XBGuys are concerned, the best thing about a suite cabin on Princess is the extra space.

[latebloomer56]

We sailed on our Baltic cruise a few years ago on the Regal (loved this ship even in a mini). The suite was awesome, aft with full wraparound balcony so we always had a shady spot to sit. The Enclave was wonderful we went daily. The concierge lounge was a joke, mornings had the same items as the casino and buffet, coffee machine never worked correctly and nobody around 90% of the time. On day 8 there was a young lady there I interrupted her she was no help with the machine and never offered to get it checked. Only went in the morning a few time but checked inside to see if it was covered nope just her twice useless space for us. Did love that cabin though wouldn't pay full price (got a huge deal through our TA). We also had dinner in the cabin twice hard to eat off the coffee table but didn't mind all items at once. We had such a late all day excursion it felt good staying in.

 

[NevadaJo]

14 hours ago, dog said:

What is difference between this suite in video to an aft facing corner PH suite on Discovery?

This was a premium suite in the front.  Very similar to a concierge mini suite on the Royal but is classified as a Premium Suite on Discovery. We were right under the bridge. The cost was higher than a Vista suite.

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by NevadaJo

[NavyVeteran]

16 hours ago, NevadaJo said:

We were in a Premium Suite on Discovery and our most recent experience on Celebrity was a Celebrity Suite.  We thought the Princess food portions were larger than Luminae . Princess was a little bland.  My husband did go to Sabatinis one AM for breakfast. He enjoyed it. Actually the lemon chicken I had at Sabatinis was my best meal on the cruise. However, it was fully booked so we never returned.  I much prefer the suite in room dining on Celebrity. Our Princess Room Service AM menu was very limited.  I am trying to figure out if it could be the newness of the ship. 
 

I must admit, if we were on a longer cruise the free laundry is very enticing!

 

The Princess Room Service AM menu is not limited in a suite. You can order anything from the full MDR menu from room service if you are in a suite. You are not limited to the same room service menu that everyone else uses.

[Ken the cruiser]

For those that haven’t seen the full compliment of Princess suite perks, like we didn’t when we first boarded the CB a few days ago, here it is in pdf form. Please note that not all Princess ships offer the same perks.

 

PrincessSuite_eFlyer.pdf

[cruzsnooze]

19 hours ago, NevadaJo said:

Yes. However, we were told to call them to make first night specialty dining reservations through them. When we did we were told to just show up at any restaurant. Of course  that is what we did. Turned away from Sur Le Mar.   Honestly, we never went to there as we had complimentary drinks as part of our package.

 

 

That was a blessing in disguise. We thought Sur Le Mar was substandard and the atmosphere not very inviting. I sent my dinner back 2 times to get it cooked to "cooked", it came under cooked both times.