princess vs celebrity food

[basil1]

We usually sail with Celebrity or Princess. We haven't sailed with Princess in a few years and most recently sailed with Celebrity in February. We were quite disappointed with the food in the buffet (other than breakfast) and the MDR food as well. BUT I was still going to book a Celebrity Hawaii cruise because it's got 2 overnights and is one way so I could add on in Honolulu. Princess doesn't offer anything close. So now I am thinking about looking at a Princess Mediterranean because there is a big stink on the Celebrity forum about how celebrity has cut their food selection again...just this week. So that was a long way to go to get to my question. Has Princess gone bare bones in the buffet and MDR? I am not a big foodie but it was bad on Celebrity and now it has, apparently, gotten worse. I was really ready to go back to Princess anyway it's just they don't have the itinerary  I want for Hawaii. So maybe I'll do a Med. Thanks a bunch 🙂 

[gilboman]

can consider HAL? princess food imo was never that good even precovid.  I've done a few HAL cruises post pandemic and find it much better than celebrity or princess even precovid especially buffet and other venues too 

[Ken the cruiser]

I believe Princess has added some unique 1-way cruises to or from Vancouver. If for some reason the link doesn't work, just go to the Princess site and just search on Hawaiian cruises without putting in and other search options.

 

Cruise Search Results - Princess Cruises

[LACruiser88]

Here are 3 recent threads that you will find on-topic...

 

 

 

 

 

[PacnGoNow]

17 minutes ago, basil1 said:

We usually sail with Celebrity or Princess. We haven't sailed with Princess in a few years and most recently sailed with Celebrity in February. We were quite disappointed with the food in the buffet (other than breakfast) and the MDR food as well. BUT I was still going to book a Celebrity Hawaii cruise because it's got 2 overnights and is one way so I could add on in Honolulu. Princess doesn't offer anything close. So now I am thinking about looking at a Princess Mediterranean because there is a big stink on the Celebrity forum about how celebrity has cut their food selection again...just this week. So that was a long way to go to get to my question. Has Princess gone bare bones in the buffet and MDR? I am not a big foodie but it was bad on Celebrity and now it has, apparently, gotten worse. I was really ready to go back to Princess anyway it's just they don't have the itinerary  I want for Hawaii. So maybe I'll do a Med. Thanks a bunch 🙂 

Food is so subjective.  I think most of the cruise lines have made cuts and cost savings in the food OB.  We’ve been on a lot of ships and cruises on PCL since the restart.  We noticed the lobsters are smaller in the MDR snd some of our favorites were taken off the menu, but back on now, etc.  Buffet has had many choices. 

 

We always find something we like, so it’s a no biggie for us.  JMO

[cruisequeen4ever]

I prefer Princess’s food to Celebrity’s. My most recent Princess cruise was last December, and my most recent Celebrity cruise was last March. That Celebrity cruise did have better food than the one we did years ago at least, but it’s just mediocre compared to Princess. My friend who also sails Princess felt the same way. Celebrity did have good steak, awesome eggs Benedict, and delicious gelato, though. Now Princess’s food has changed in some ways…the fettuccini Alfredo was a shell of its former self, there were hardly any good desserts in the Pastry Shop, and some of the flavors weren’t up to snuff, although we did have very new crew I found out after. Ok the flip side, we had the best lobster I’ve ever had on a ship and plenty of yummy food for over 2 weeks. The overall best food we’ve ever had on Princess was on our Med cruises. The ingredients are just plain superior. We are going on our next one in July, and I sure hope that holds true. 

[Itchy&Scratchy]

2 hours ago, gilboman said:

princess food imo was never that good even precovid.

I would definitely disagree. We sail on Princess for food and food alone. Royal Princess and newer.

Our friends switched from RCI to Princess for food, but tried out Celebrity once. They said - never again, the food was not good at all.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Purplsmurf]

We just got off of a Celebrity ship and there was no change in the menu. Everything was wonderful!

[RedIguana]

Hal Rotterdam March 2022. Celebrity Infinity Sept 2022. Crown Princess May 2023. Actual taste and quality I preferred Princess, followed by Hal, then Celebrity. Hal probably had the most variety. Based mainly on MDR, with lunch/breakfast Buffet. Not a huge dessert eater, so not much imput on those. 

[kywildcatfanone]

We went on our first Celebrity cruise last fall.  I was assured on the Celebrity board that I would enjoy the food better on Celebrity.  I found it to be basically the same as on Princess.  Not great, not terrible, but food and enough options to enjoy each day.

The food quality was not noticeably different for me between the two.

[Honolulu Blue]

3 hours ago, basil1 said:

Has Princess gone bare bones in the buffet and MDR? I am not a big foodie but it was bad on Celebrity and now it has, apparently, gotten worse.

To answer this narrow portion of your question, I don't think Princess has gone bare bones in the buffet.  They do other irritating things around the buffet, but I've always thought the food itself there was good.  But not as good as Celebrity, which I was last on in March.

 

Just my opinion, worth about as much as you paid for it.

[basil1]

42 minutes ago, Purplsmurf said:

We just got off of a Celebrity ship and there was no change in the menu. Everything was wonderful!

They'd make changes starting right at the time of our February cruise but if you go over to the celebrity forum, it's apparent they have made even more.

[basil1]

1 hour ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

I would definitely disagree. We sail on Princess for food and food alone. Royal Princess and newer.

Our friends switched from RCI to Princess for food, but tried out Celebrity once. They said - never again, the food was not good at all.

The food used to be great on celebrity but not so much anymore. And I am not a big eater, lol. But it was really subpar on the last cruise.

[CruiserN1]

Last cruise on Celebrity (Summit) was last July. I thought the food in the MDR was worse than pre-COVID but the buffet was still good. Cruised HAL this past March and thought food was better than Celebrity in both MDR and buffet (on Rotterdam). We're doing Princess (Crown) next month after not cruising with them since 2015. I thought their food at that time was fine.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, kywildcatfanone said:

We went on our first Celebrity cruise last fall.  I was assured on the Celebrity board that I would enjoy the food better on Celebrity.  I found it to be basically the same as on Princess.  Not great, not terrible, but food and enough options to enjoy each day.

The food quality was not noticeably different for me between the two.

The food on all of the main stream adult focused lines (Celebrity, Princess, HAL) is basically Hotel banquet quality with a bigger selection.  The differences between the cruise lines is more dependent on ones personal tastes than any major difference between the food quality.  I, personally, give HAL a slight notch above the other 2.

 

I have found in the past 5 months on the Princess Royal class ships that I have been on, the buffet has been the best I have seen.  Actually better than pre-covid.

[lx200gps]

We've done three Princess trips post-COVID, the last being in Feb 2023, and disembarked from the Celebrity Equinox two weeks ago. FWIW, we tend to eat most of our meals in the Specialty dining restaurants, but occasionally use the MDRs for a few dinners, and some breakfasts. As most will probably agree, the two lines are pretty comparable as far as dining goes, but here's our take:

 

1) Overall, food quality was a wash, just as good on Princess as X and vice versa. The only comment I'll add about our experience, on this last trip is that I did  notice X's food tended to be a bit blander than Princess (needing a bit more salt and pepper, spices, flavoring etc) Could very well have just been the kitchen staff on the Equinox tending to under-do things a bit. This was both in the MDR and the SDRs. Still, overall, little difference in quality, both MDRs and SDRs, both lines very good.

 

2) While food quality was in general very much the same, we  found that X was more "reliable" i.e. had  less variability than our last few Princess trips, fewer culinary boo-boos. On Princess we had more than a few culinary errors than we would have liked. On X, we had exactly one bad course on the entire trip (strangely tough white fish in the fish curry on Indian Night in Sushi On Five)

 

3) One area that X did clearly, to us, beat Princess was in the service level. Even as recently as our Feb trip, Princess still seemed to have issues with staffing, usually a waiter or two short in every venue, causing the inevitable longer waits. (on our first dinner in Sabatini's, we didn't even see our waiter until we had been seated for 30 minutes).  On the Equinox,  no issues with waiting for food, in any venue on the ship, ever. Of course, one area that X also beats Princess is in having dedicated Sommeliers in all dining venues, who handle the wines. We never waited for a glass of wine on the Equinox, as "les Sommeliers" were everywhere. I loved having the guy re-fill my glass even before I knew I needed it refilled ;o). I wish Princess would implement such a system.

 

The differences, quite honestly, were not enough for us to abandon our preferred line Princess. We have three more trips booked, and are on the Discovery this October for the first time.

 

[lx200gps]

12 minutes ago, ldtr said:

The food on all of the main stream adult focused lines (Celebrity, Princess, HAL) is basically Hotel banquet quality with a bigger selection.  The differences between the cruise lines is more dependent on ones personal tastes than any major difference between the food quality.  I, personally, give HAL a slight notch above the other 2.

 

I have found in the past 5 months on the Princess Royal class ships that I have been on, the buffet has been the best I have seen.  Actually better than pre-covid.

Based on our aforementioned trip on the Celebrity Equinox, I'd certainly have to agree. We don't usually eat in the buffet (on Princess we occasionally do breakfast upstairs to be able to eat outside in the aft end of the ship, great views, fresh air etc), but I was surprised at how basic the buffet was on the Equinox. Fewer offerings, much smaller space, though admittedly more open  and not nearly as congested as the buffet areas on Princess. Yes, the Equinox is a smaller ship than a Princess Royal class, on par with a Ruby or Emerald, but I would definitely give the edge to Princess on the buffet.

[LynnSD]

For me what gives Princess the edge is that they have the international cafe and Alfredo’s/Gigis in addition to MDR, buffet, and specialty restaurants.   We tend to switch around for meals more  than we used to. 
 

On our latest cruise we did think the portions were smaller, but that’s ok with me.  The waiter no longer has to ask me if something was wrong with the food, when I just couldn’t finish it!

[Itchy&Scratchy]

2 hours ago, basil1 said:

The food used to be great on celebrity but not so much anymore. And I am not a big eater, lol. But it was really subpar on the last cruise.

they tried Celebrity out several years ago, so it wasn't post-covid changes.

[lx200gps]

18 minutes ago, LynnSD said:

For me what gives Princess the edge is that they have the international cafe and Alfredo’s/Gigis in addition to MDR, buffet, and specialty restaurants.   We tend to switch around for meals more  than we used to. 
 

On our latest cruise we did think the portions were smaller, but that’s ok with me.  The waiter no longer has to ask me if something was wrong with the food, when I just couldn’t finish it!

Absolutely. No decent pizza on Celebrity was an issue for us, we HUGELY missed Alfredo's when we were on the Equinox.;o). The Buffet "pizza" just didn't cut it. we're not fans of heat lamps. . We also missed being able to find a decent sandwich on the Equinox to be a problem as well.  The IC is a definite advantage, Princess +1

[tserface]

We've done a Princess and Celebrity cruise recently and we liked the food on Princess better.  For one, the specialty restaurants on Princess are still affordable and the Celebrity ones are like 2x the price.  The MDR food was slightly better on Princess and we didn't have to pay extra for lobster.  In fact, the waiter brought extras on a plate to hand out without us asking (don't know if Princess is going to dumb down lobster night like RCI and Celebrity have done).  Our Celebrity experience wasn't bad, but I remember us saying, "Wow that was really good" on the Princess cruise and we opted out of a few MDR dinners to go to the buffet because nothing sounded good on the menu (it could have been good and we just missed out).  Since Celebrity is getting so much more expensive (drink package doesn't cover as much, specialty restaurants too spendy, have to pay for extra tiny lobster tail, etc.) we're considering Princess more and more.

That doesn't mean we won't go on Celebrity as well.  It just used to be our first choice and now it's just a-choice.  I'm sure they won't miss us 🙂

[Plato123]

We always stay in suites and Celebrity is our preference overall.  We like Luminae on Celebrity as food and service, as well as knowlegeable wine servers are excellent and part of the suite package.

As far as specialty dining, we really like Murano on Celebrity regardless of the price but we also very much like Sabatini's on Princess.  We found steaks at the Tuscan Grill and the Crown Grill were not worth it regardless of price,

Value wise, for us, Princess is a better deal and , for us, their itineraries are more interesting at this time.

Celebrity is getting more expensive than we care to pay,

 

[basil1]

Thanks everyone!! I appreciate all your feedback. I think I am going to forgo the Celebrity Hawaii and look at a Princess Med. Food isn't the only factor but my hubby was so aggravated by it all and then now with additional cuts being raved about on the Celebrity forum it's just time to try Princess again :-)

[AF-1]

I've sailed both lines within the past six months.  I choose Princess food over Celebrity.  

[Cruise Raider]

20 hours ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

I would definitely disagree. We sail on Princess for food and food alone. Royal Princess and newer.

Our friends switched from RCI to Princess for food, but tried out Celebrity once. They said - never again, the food was not good at all.

I have always thought the food was better on Princess, as well.  
I am one that does not eat any beef, pork, lamb, etc .. only fish, seafood and poultry for meats.  
We recently went on a Celebrity cruise and immediately, went on Princess, as they were in port together the same day.  
The buffet on Celebrity was pretty good but never did I see one piece of shrimp.  The stir fry station was excellent but the same every day.  We went to the MDR once and my DH said his food wasn’t great.  Mine was good, and I did find a dish with shrimp, albeit, only 3 of them.  Fine with me, as we don’t like to eat so much in one sitting. 
There were things I really liked about Celebrity but the second sailing, on Princess was so much more fun.  I love that I can order off the much expanded room service menu, grab a bite in the International Cafe, sit down for pizza and salads in Alfredo’s/Gigi’s (on some ships), etc.  There were so many more options for casual dining. On Celebrity, the only options really seemed to be in the MDR or up on the Lido deck.  There is Cafe Al Bacio but only sweets are served there.  
No charge for room service on Princess and they deliver your food wherever choose (maybe not the theater).  Plus, the specialty restaurants are excellent but so much cheaper than on Celebrity.  
As others have said, food is so subjective.  Princess just suits us better.