Princess vs. Royal Caribbean?

[lizgrl76]

My fiance and I are planning on taking a 7 day Caribbean cruise for our honeymoon next July 2005. We are debating between the Caribbean Princess or one of the Royal Caribbean ships. We are also trying to figure out which would be better - the Eastern Caribbean or Western Caribbean cruise?

 

We definitely want to scuba dive and swim with dolphins and are not so interested in shopping. We'd also like to avoid a ship full of kids if at all possible (which may be difficult considering we are going in the middle of summer!)

 

Any opinions?? Which ship would be better for a honeymoon? Princess or RCCL? Western or Eastern?

thanks!

[MandyGirl]

I have not cruised Princess or Royal Caribbean, so I cannot share any input there. They each have many ships ranging in many sizes. A friend has suggested Royal Caribbean's Radiance class ships for hubby and I since they are smaller than the Voyager ships (hubby likes the smaller ships with less people - preferrably under 2000 people). So we'll see. We've only cruised on Norwegian, Holland America, and Celebrity.

- RCCL Corp owns Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruise lines.

- Carnival Corp owns Princess, Holland America, Windstar, Carnival, and others.

- Norwegian is not owned by either of those corporations, but has the Freestyle cruising.

What are the characteristics of those two that narrowed it down for you versus the other lines?

As far as Eastern versus Western - that depends on your personal interests. Each port usually has something unique to offer. Here is what we like about various itineraries/ports:

Eastern-

- sailing from the mainland US, you usually have an extra "at sea" day due to distance

- St Maarten - Orient Beach, America's Cup Regatta, planes at Maho Beach

- St Thomas - Magen's Bay, incredible shopping, nice golf course

- St John (short ferry from St Thomas) - many incredible beaches along the north shore, Trunk Bay with it's underwater snorkel trail, 2/3 of the island is a National Park, great hiking, unique shopping, my favorite place in the world, our wedding location :)

- Tortola - home to Pusser's (I like their silk dresses), swimming with dolphins; easy to take a sail to the Baths of Virgin Gorda (we're doing that this November)

- sometimes you might go to Key West or private island in the Bahamas or Nassau as part of this itinerary or as part of the Western itinerary.

For Key West, you have Hemingway's house, Duvall street, Mallory Square, and of course the original Margaritaville.

For Nassau, you have the Atlantis resort, swimming with dolphins, straw market

Western -

- usually less 'at sea' days since they are so close; you can cruise out of Houston, Galveston, New Orleans, Tampa, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, etc.

- Grand Cayman - stingray city, Hell, turtle farm

- Cozumel - incredible snorkeling, we actually did "Discover Scuba" here and loved it, ruins

- Jamaica - depending on which port (Ocho Rios or Montego Bay) you have options. We've been to Ocho Rios - Dunn's River Falls, Fern Gully, botanical gardens. However, now that we have done the touristy things, if we were to return to Jamaica, we would stay on the ship. It's the only port where I have felt uncomfortable with the people being so pushy and offering drugs.

- Honduras

- Belize

- Cancun

- and also possibly Key West and Nassau like I mentioned above at the bottom of Eastern.

The Bahamas is where a few cruiselines have their private islands. Norwegian has Great Stirrup Cay while Holland America has Half Moon Cay - the message boards of cruisers who have visited several private islands declare this to be the best of them all. We've been there, and it is definitely quite impressive. I'm not sure about other cruiseline's private islands. We use the private island day to be a "beach day" with a massage on the beach. These private islands are often incorporated into both Eastern and Western itineraries. There are some pics in my signature that might give you ideas of various ports and what you can see/do.

Also, check around here on CruiseCritic at the various boards for different cruiselines. Just keep an open mind - some people ONLY cruise ONE line and ONLY cruise in ONE category on the ship, so they have nothing else to compare it to. It is good to find people who have cruised a variety of ships and lines so they can give you comparisons.

As for our personal preference... it is Eastern. We have found it to have more of that "Caribbean island feel". We've also taken two land vacations in the eastern Caribbean: St Croix in 2002 and St John in 2003. Also, Curt enjoys the sea days, whereas I am one who could "go go go" like you do on Southern itineraries. It just all boils down to finding an itinerary you like with the balance of "sea days" and ports you want to visit... and making sure it is a cruiseline you would want to cruise. We usually base our choices off of itinerary first, then if we like the line/ship, we'll book it. We don't stick to any specific cruiseline, but they all have their uniquenesses. Obviously, if it is out of our budget, then we don't do it, but we cap our cruises at $100 pp per day or less. You can definitely cruise for a lot more.

Just my two cents... :)

[lizgrl76]

Thanks for the fantastic advice. I wish we had enough time to do both the Eastern and Western! One day...:rolleyes:

thanks again!