RCCL vs. Princess

[Cokeman1959]

Hello, and thank you in advance to whoever takes the time to help mke with my question. My family and I are happy Princess cruisers who are considering Royal Carribean for the Mexican Riviera in 2008. Princess only goes there in the spring, and we are probably looking for a summer trip. Anyway, if anyone has sailed both lines, and can help me with the pros and cons of these two lines in comparison to each other, it would be greatly appreciated.

[negc]

We have sailed both lines and find many more similarities than differences between them. We sailed the Mexican Riviera on Sapphire Princess only last Spring. Have never sailed that itinerary with Royal Caribbean but having sailed with them over thirty times, I am pretty familiar with their flee and with the type of cruise experience that they offer. One significant difference may be that RCI offers only traditional dining, which we prefer, while Princess offers a choice between traditional dining and anytime dining. In our experience, however, if you prefer traditional dining, it can be difficult to obtain on most Princess ships, since they usually offer traditional dining in only one of their several dining rooms. The rest are assigned to 'anytime dining'. I found the dining room food on Princess to be somewhat better, but that is a subjective view, and one with which my wife disagrees. We both, however, preferred RCI's Windjammer to Princess' Horizon Court for breakfast and lunch. An outside room with balcony on Princess was noticeably smaller than a similar category room (D or E) on the newer Royal Caribbean ships (Radiance class and newer).

Service was very good on both with perhaps a slight edge in friendliness to the Royal Caribbean staff. Entertainment was pretty equal but there seemed to be a better variety of daytime activities on our Princess cruise. I found Chops to be a better choice as an alternative dining room to the Sterling Steak house on Sapphire Princess, both in ambience and in menu selection, though the food in both was quite good. I did find that the traffic patterns on Princess ships was not as well designed and sometimes getting from one location on the ship to another involved a rather convoluted route (up one deck, over, and down to get to two different locations on the same deck). Seemed to be much less of that on RCI ships. RCI ships offer interactive TV in your stateroom, a convenience I found regrettably lacking on Princess. Depending on the ship you choose, I think that you will find RCI to be a more than acceptable alternative to Princess. If you do a search on this board, you may be able to find the thread by MerionMom which gives a much more detailed and objective review of the two lines. Give RCI a try and afterwards come back here and let us know your opinion.:)

[TexasMom2]

I'll just a couple of things to Bill's observations. I've been on the Grand, Rhapsody (Vision class) twice, Jewel (Radiance class) once and the Adventure (Voyager class) once. One of my favorite things about RCI is the staff, they are really friendly and seem to be happy with their jobs.

 

Another thing I like is the ability to get a hot breakfast from room service. Great for those lazy mornings when you want to spend some time on your balcony while at sea. You can also order items from the main dining room for dinner, which I had to do once when I experienced a sunburn and was icky with aloe vera gel.

 

We weren't impressed with the food on the Grand but realize it is just one ship and can change in a snap. Maybe we hit an off week. The food on RCI is good to excellent and we enjoy the dining room a lot.

 

Has RCI announced which ship will being doing the Mexican Riviera after spring 2008 yet? If you get a chance to sail on a Radiance class ship, I highly recommend it, although we adored the Rhapsody and the Adventure. Good luck!

[Sue L]

the previous posters probably said most of what you need to know but I will add that I have sailed Princess 5 times and in the fall took my first RCCL and absolutely loved it.

 

The food, entertainment and service were wonderful. I can't exactly put my finger on the difference but there was just something there that clicked. The whole cruise was A+++++ from beginning to end and there really wasn't anything that we disliked. We loved the RCCL cruise so much we booked two more.

 

You really should try RCCL if for nothing else to give yourself a comparision, you really can't go wrong.

 

Sue

[The Big Booper]

If you are thinking of RCI for the Mexican Riviera, then you will probably be booking the Vision of the Seas (1998 new build), which is roughly the size of the Sun-class Princess ships. If you book a standard inside/outside/regular balcony, than the Vision's cabins in these sizes are bigger and better laid out. We have been on the Ocean Princess as well as the Vision, Enchantment and Splendour (all Vision class) and since we don't do suites and were appalled at the tiny cramped cabin on the Ocean we will never do that class of ship again.

 

Bill's answer above was spot on about the two lines. I might add that the Vision has a full-size domed solarium pool for when the weather is rainy or chilly as well as a 7 deck high centrum (atrium) with lots of marble vs the 3 deck atrium in the Princess ships.

[marimojo]

What I liked on the Grand - the balcony cabin was so much less in price than what it was on Rhapsody - it was really nice having that balcony.

 

Rhapsody has a gorgeous atrium - Grand did not have that.

 

Grand had the Movies Under the Stars - we really loved that.

 

Rhapsody had better stage productions (we saw the Fifth Dimension on one of our cruises on Rhapsody - I'm a child of the 70's - so that was a real treat)

 

Grand tried to sell you so many things - I don't remember that on RCCL.

 

We had a wonderful time on both boats - you will too!

[Chicot]

We just got off of our first Princess cruise after several on RCCL (Rhapsody, Voyager, Explorer) and Celebrity(Century 2x, Mercury, Millennium) We had high hopes for Princess but were disappointed on every count. The overall design of the ship and its layouts were not nearly as user friendly as RC and the cabin was not nearly as comfortable, from the bed to the sofa. There were no shelves or any kind of storage in our bathroom, so our toiletries just sat loose on the sink counter, the mattress killed my back, the twin beds in the boys' cabin were so small and narrow that they thought that their cabin was meant for toddlers. The service was indifferent and we did not feel that the festivity level was near what we've had on RC...........and we were on a Christmas cruise!

 

The weight area in the Princess "gym" is too small for using the free weights if there are more than three people trying to lift, finding a ping pong table was difficult, there was no basketball court (or even half-court) for the boys (we were told that there was one, but could not find it and the staff didn't know of one) and felt that we basically had to figure most things out for ourselves because the communications were not very thorough or complete. We were supposed to get canapes in our suite each evening and but only got them once. No big deal, just a curious thing. I made an appointment online three weeks prior to sailing with a trainer, who called to cancel 30 minutes before the appointment due to a scheduled health seminar at the same time. Again, no big deal, just a curious thing.

 

The food is not great on any of these lines, although Celebrity has been the best. (Even better than what we had on Silversea.) But we don't go for the food because really, how good can it be when you are cooking for 3000 people? Still, no one has ever been hungry and there was always something on the menu that was palatable, with a few things even being "good."

 

Our next family cruise will be back on Royal Caribbean because they have got everything down to a science and it works very well. We kept saying to each other that if some one from Princess would just go on one cruise on a Voyager Class RC ship, they could pick up enough tips to drastically improve things on the Princess line. But this is just my opinion based on our very recent experience. I certainly cannot speak for anyone else's experience on either line.

 

Good luck!

Chicot