Would Princess be good for large family vacation in January

[Mayhalf]

Hi, a friend suggested this site as a source for top information about Princess.

 

Here's the story: At our family gathering yesterday, we decided to do a big family cruise for my parents 50th Anniversay next January. I got appointed "the researcher" in trying to find a cruise for us. I have been on Carnival, but I don't think my parents will enjoy it. They don't like crowds and like to eat early. Dad refuses to dress up ("wore suits for 35 years at work and ain't gonna do it no more" he says). From what I understand that narrows our choices to NCL & Princess. (haven't completely ruled out Royal Carribean either)

We are seriously looking at Hawaii as the destination. I am going to look up some cruises on the various websites, but what are the differences between these cruiselines, and I guess specifically on this board, would Princess be a good choice for my parents and our families. (and why)

There will be about 5-6 rooms of us. My Parents (in their 70's); my uncle and his wife (also in 70's - brother of dad); my husband and I and our children, 9 & 5; my sister, her husband and then 4 year old son and my brother and his wife and two children (10 & 7). A close friend of my parents who lost her husband recently is also considering joining us.

 

Thanks in advance. (posted this same thing on NCL board)

[LisaH]

Hi, a friend suggested this site as a source for top information about Princess.

 

Here's the story: At our family gathering yesterday, we decided to do a big family cruise for my parents 50th Anniversay next January. I got appointed "the researcher" in trying to find a cruise for us. I have been on Carnival, but I don't think my parents will enjoy it. They don't like crowds and like to eat early. Dad refuses to dress up ("wore suits for 35 years at work and ain't gonna do it no more" he says). From what I understand that narrows our choices to NCL & Princess. (haven't completely ruled out Royal Carribean either)

We are seriously looking at Hawaii as the destination. I am going to look up some cruises on the various websites, but what are the differences between these cruiselines, and I guess specifically on this board, would Princess be a good choice for my parents and our families. (and why)

There will be about 5-6 rooms of us. My Parents (in their 70's); my uncle and his wife (also in 70's - brother of dad); my husband and I and our children, 9 & 5; my sister, her husband and then 4 year old son and my brother and his wife and two children (10 & 7). A close friend of my parents who lost her husband recently is also considering joining us.

 

Thanks in advance. (posted this same thing on NCL board)

 

Hi Mayhalf,

 

Princess is a great choice for something like this. On the nights that are formal, you could dine in Horizon court or the pizzeria...or any of the casual restaurants. The only etiquette would be to tell your tablemates and your waiter that you would not be there the next night...unless you do personal choice - then you would not need to notify anyone to the best of my knowledge. I am sure others will post their opinions and exoeriences.

 

That is the beauty of cruising...something for everyone. Sorry that I do not have any info on Royal Carib or NCL. We were on NCL years ago before personal choice and all the casual eating places. You should also check into Celebrity. A Hawaii cruise would be great and so would any Carib/Panama Canal itinerary. So many options, so few vacation days.

 

Good luck and the planning is half the fun!

[luckyking]

We did a family cruise on Princess this past December. We were a group of 18 ranging from 20 months to 80 years and it was a perfect vacation choice. We did the Grand Princess out of Galveston for the Craibbean sailing. For a 7 day cruise, there are two formal nights but you do have the choice to go to the poolside cafe (where you can get pizza, great burgers and chicken sandwiches) or the buffet (where they do have a lot of the same food as you would get in the dining room) where the dress is casual.

 

One thing to look into is to how many ports are going to require a tender, in case that might bea problem for some of the people in your group.

 

Other than that, I think cruising is the way to go because there really is something for everyone.

[spongerob]

Probably your most important consideration is the the difference in the length of the cruises that Princess and NCL offer. With Princess, you're going to have a lot of sea days between the left coast and Hawaii on the way to and from. If none of you have ever cruised before, you might or might not find all that time at sea appealing. It's very difficult to answer your question without knowing all the people involved. I'd hate to tell you that you'll love it, only to find out later that some of your group were miserable for 15 days, and I'm just as afraid that I might scare you off when odds are that everyone will have a great time.

[wystiria]

Mayhalf -

 

I have led many many groups :) we did one on the Tahitian Princess with 20 people and Princess was excellent. We got all the extra help and attention we needed.

 

When it comes to groups your best bet is Princess, Carnival or Norwegien. RC is a great line but they deal with groups differently - in my experience we had trouble pricing with them. But I am sure they would work as well.

 

You just do what you are doing - figure out an itenerary that appeals to your gang and then go from there. If price is an issue you shoudl look at comprable iteneraries and price them both out on a different lines.

 

January is a great time for groups as well!!! Not as many kids or college students and the prices are good. Normally we do our group cruise in January and we have had really good luck. Honestly I have done the most groups on carnival - but princess was just as good :) Though I missed having the Carnival dedicated Group person - Other wise just on groups Princess was fabulous and we had no magor hang ups!.

 

hanve fun!!!!

[Splinter]

I would also recommend a 7 day cruise for a large family group instead of a 15 day round trip to Hawaii. This could be either a Caribbean cruise out of Florida, or a Mexican Riviera cruise out of Los Angeles on Princess.

 

Keep in mind that technically the dress code of the evening applies to all locations on the ship, not just the formal dining room.

 

Getting seats together for a large group in Personal Choice may be difficult depending on when you want to eat. Of course if you don't care if the entire group eats in the same locations or at the same times, this is not an issue. Most cruise lines that have traditional dining times (HAL for example) have an early seating that is usually 6:15 or 6:30 PM. Your father could pick that time if you want traditional dining. Not everyone in your party has to pick the same meal options (but it must be the same for each cabin I believe).

[jennew]

we have cruised with our large family on both Princess and NCL. Our 5 children are aged 7 to 22. The entire family enjoyed both cruises but we prefer Princess. The children's program was AWESOME, we practically had to bribe the 7 year old to get him to leave. Kid's loved dressing up for dinner but being casual when they wanted to. My vote would be Princess.

[jennew]

Getting seats together for a large group in Personal Choice may be difficult depending on when you want to eat.

 

On the Star last January we were able to have a standing reservation for a table of 15 people. On the first night we talked to the Maitr de (sp?) and it was arranged. We tipped very well...that might have swayed things:rolleyes:

[LonghornKJK]

Fourteen of us, adults to age 72, cruised on the Grand Princess last November. We switched to anytime dining because, due to a mixup, we were not seated together in the traditional dining room. My mother made a reservation in the anytime dining room and we were given two tables for eight, which were perfect. We asked to keep the reservation the rest of the week -- no problem!

[waterrats]

RCCL - Has plenty of sports activities during the day for the teens through ... Shows are good.

Princess - Not as much sports activities during the day. We mainly rest by the pool during the day. Lots of fun at night for all. Anytime dining is great.

[tequilasunrise]

The best thing about Princess for family reunions is, there should be something most of the time to interest everyone. You can do seperate things, yet meet for dinner so you are together, and everyone has fun.

 

Have a good time!!!

[Mayhalf]

Thank you everyone. I now have done some research and am armed with a few possibilities.

First of all, the children are one of the restraining factors. We basically want to do no more than a seven day cruise because of them. Our school gives three days off at Semester change and along with Martin Luther King Day (another day off), we could do a seven day cruise and only have to pull the kids out of school one or two days. The three days are for a variety of reasons, teacher in-service, teacher record day, etc. I think they do it because we get an overabundance of snow days.

With that restriction, it all but rules out all cruises to Hawaii except NCL's Hawaii ships. Those seem to be more expensive.

I looked up the prices of various seven day cruises on the lines. I just made it easy and looked at 7 day cruises for two people in a balcony cabin. We obviously could adjust accordingly when we decide but used something similar for comparison. I also took the advice of someone on the NCL board and looked at the Norweigan Star and other Mexico cruises. (ok, so I asked both boards, got a lot more responses over here!)

 

Mexico: NCL Star = $2300; Diamond Princess = $2200; Vision of Seas = $2100. (Star is 8 days, others are 7)

Hawaii: Pride of Aloha = $3300; Pride of America = $3800

Carribean: NCL Majesty = $1764; NCL Jewel = $2500; Carribean Princess = $2000; Grand Princess = $2100; Rhapsody of Seas = $2000; Jewel of Seas = $2100.

 

We are seriously leaning toward Mexico right now although we like the price of the Majesty and the itinerary of the Rhapsody.

At this point, we need to look at service issues, because my uncle can be a hard man to please. I also have some concerns because over on NCL they are talking about groups having a hard time booking and another person is talking about being bumped from adjoining cabins that they had booked. (that one really scares me)

 

Finaly, someone on the NCL board explained their Freestyle Dining program to me but can anyone explain Personal Choice (isn't that what it is called on Princess). Hope I am not a pain, but I know I will be inundated with a million questions about both lines from dad and my uncle.

Thanks much.

[LonghornKJK]

I'm not an expert on this but I've become an expert at reading this board ;) and I have experienced Personal Choice on the Grand Princess.

 

Personal Choice means you can choose either Traditional Dining, early or late seating, or Anytime Dining. If you choose Anytime Dining, you can just show up whenever the dining room is open and be seated however you want -- that is, just your party or at a large table with other people. You can make a reservation in advance (but apparently not from 6 to 8 p.m.) or you can walk up, in which case, you may have to wait for a table. However, the main reason to make a reservation seems to be if you wish to sit a a particular table with a particular wait staff. Several have reported here that they never had to wait more than five to ten minutes, if at all.

 

The traditional and anytime dining rooms are separate but they have the same menu, though the anytime dining rooms apparently also have a "'themed" dish that the others may not have.

 

Our group of 14 (no children) started with traditional late seating and would have continued it but we were not seated together due to a mixup. Since this was a reunion-type cruise and dinner was the only time we were sure to see one another, we wanted to sit together. So we switched to anytime dining with a reservation each night (8 p.m. or so) so that we could be sure to have two large tables together. We never had to wait for our tables.

 

Once you switch from traditional to anytime dining, though, you apparently cannot go back.

[CrusinAgain]

Personal choice dining on the Princess means you go to that particular dining room and it generally looks just like the traditional dining room but you can go anytime; for example on the CB it was 5:30 p.m. - 10 p.m. and you will be seated at a table whereever space is available. But, you must not wear shorts, jeans, or t-shirts. On our ship they did turn people away.

 

On our Carnival trip they only turned people away for shorts but not jeans.

 

The buffet deck is for those who want to remain in casual clothes. That is the purpose of the buffet deck. I know some people like to think you have to wear a tux to go to the buffet but that isn't what the rules or suggested attire is.

 

I also noticed on Princess versus Carnival that the majority of people once dressed in evening attire stayed dressed.

 

Personally, I was going to look into Norwegian and see what their attire is.

[tonidee]

We did the Sapphire last January to Mexico, La to La, with 17 family members...children ages 6,8,9,9,and 14. They loved it and the weather in Mexico is perfect that time of year. The kids had so much fun that we went ahead and booked it again for next Jan. 20, 2007 on the Diamond.

We did anytime dining and it didn't worked for us if we wanted to have everyone at the same table, so had to split up tables, although next to each other, and it worked out fine then.

Don't know where you live, but from experience, if you don't have to fly, the better....making sure everyone gets to where they are suppose to be at the same time if coming from other states, can be stressful.

[luckyking]

For our group of 18 on the Grand Princess, we chose the anytime dining.

We usually talked the evening before with everyone to see what they had going on for the next day and what time we thought that we could dinner.

Then, in the morning, someone would call and make a reservation for our entire group for that evening. It was so nice to be flexible with our schedule. One evening we ate at 6:00 and on a different evening, we ate at 8:30.

We never were able to all sit at one table together, however they did make sure that we had tables next to each other. I kind of prefered it this way because it was easier to talk at the smaller tables.

We just made sure that our group knew what time the reservation was and if you could make it, great, if not, then we might have an extra spot or two at the table. This did happen a couple of times due to people not feeling well but it was never a problem for our waiters.

They were VERY accomidating in the anytime dining rooms (there are 2 on the Grand.)

 

The short of the idea behind anytime dining is that it's more of a resturant type feel when it comes to being seated. Walk up, tell them how many in your party and off you go. But if you need make a reservation, you can. You also might have to wait a few minutes if it's busy.

[thewolffs]

I haven't been on Princess yet, but I just thought I would offer some advice on the other ships. If you are going to do NCL, make sure to do one of the newer ships that were designed for Freestyle. The Star and Jewel would be good choices. I've been on the Star's sister ship, Dawn, twice and have my third cruise booked on her. It is a great ship with lots of different dining options. The big plus is that you don't have to get dressed up on formal nights and can still go to the main dining rooms. Usually there is one dining room set aside for formal wear.

 

I also would choose a newer RCCL ship. The Voyager-class ships and the Radiance-class ships are great. I've been on Jewel of the Seas and loved it. It is the prettiest ship I've been on. I also loved Explorer of the Seas. There was so much to do.

 

I'm excited to try the Crown Princess this fall. Princess seems like it would be a great choice as well. I am going to do the anytime dining because I don't like to have to eat at the same time every night. With a group, I would probably go with traditional, though. I did a group cruise and it was nice to catch up with everyone at dinner. Sometimes that was the only time I would see some of them.

 

Good luck!

[Mayhalf]

Many thanks to all. This has been a positive experience. I will admit that I am also posting on the NCL board in order to get a true comparision. (many more responses over here by the way than from the NCL posters)

I am leaning toward recommending the Star to the family with the Grand Princess as a second choice. Freestyle just sounds more flexible than Personal Choice, mainly for the dress issues. We have ruled out Hawaii, too expensive for my uncle to have to pay for. Someone on the Princess board made a comment about NCL's newer ships being better equiped than the older ones and even recommended the Jewel & Star. Must be why the Majesty is cheaper.

RCCL seems just to restrictive on dining and dressing.

My only issue appears to be with the problems that have been brought up about NCL's reservation system. I have read the posts about cabins being switched and reservations lost and that worries me. What if we book adjoining cabins for ourselfs and one of my siblings in order to help with watching the younger children and then we get moved. I will continue to watch that situation and the lost reservation story during the next couple of weeks as we make our final decision.