Help Choose Ship-Princess's Diamond/Royal's Radiance or Carnival's Spirt?? Next July

[232271]

Okay, so got 3 quotes for indentical cabins on

 

Princess Diamond,

Royal's Radiance of the Seas

Carnival's Spirit

 

They are so close that I cant decide!! Help! :confused:

This is for July 08, Northbound, Embark Vancouver end Whittier.

 

 

Which ship and why? any advice appreciated.

 

 

TIA:p

[NancyIL]

I would choose by the itinerary you prefer. We did a northbound cruise on the Coral Princess last month, and the itinerary was the same as that of the Diamond Princess - which we liked very much: 3 port towns and two glacier days: Glacier Bay and College Fjord. Both the Carnival Spirit and Radiance of the Seas go to 4 port towns and visit one glacier - with the Spirit going to College Fjord and Radiance going to Hubbard Glacier. Both Princess and Carnival have a naturalist onboard. Radiance may or may not have a lecturer/naturalist onboard. The advantage of the Diamond Princess is that you can have Anytime Dining - which was great for us. I've been on Radiance's sister ship, Jewel of the Seas, and the Radiance-class ships are very pretty. But we ultimately chose to cruise with Princess because of the itinerary and Princess's reputation for doing a great job in Alaska.

 

By the way - have you gotten a quote on the Coral/Island Princess - which departs on Mondays? Those ships are smaller than the Sapphire and Diamond Princess, and are the favorite Princess ships of many cruisers.

[Quilting_Cruiser]

We sailed on the Carnival Spirit on our first Alaska cruise. That was in 2001 and it was the Spirit's inaugural year and at the time she was the largest ship to sail Alaska. It was a wonderful experience--best cruise we've ever taken. When we decided to cruise Alaska again this year, there was no question that we wanted to sail the Spirit again--this will actually be our third time as we sailed the Spirit to the southern Caribbean in 2002.

 

More important than the ship, we love the itinerary. Sitka is included in addition to Skagway, Juneau, and Ketchikan. We love Sitka and we're looking forward to having a much longer day there than we did on our last Alaska cruise.

 

I agree with Nancy...choose the itinerary that you like the best.

 

Happy sailing!

Jayne

[232271]

I would choose by the itinerary you prefer. We did a northbound cruise on the Coral Princess last month, and the itinerary was the same as that of the Diamond Princess - which we liked very much: 3 port towns and two glacier days: Glacier Bay and College Fjord. Both the Carnival Spirit and Radiance of the Seas go to 4 port towns and visit one glacier - with the Spirit going to College Fjord and Radiance going to Hubbard Glacier. Both Princess and Carnival have a naturalist onboard. Radiance may or may not have a lecturer/naturalist onboard. The advantage of the Diamond Princess is that you can have Anytime Dining - which was great for us. I've been on Radiance's sister ship, Jewel of the Seas, and the Radiance-class ships are very pretty. But we ultimately chose to cruise with Princess because of the itinerary and Princess's reputation for doing a great job in Alaska.

 

By the way - have you gotten a quote on the Coral/Island Princess - which departs on Mondays? Those ships are smaller than the Sapphire and Diamond Princess, and are the favorite Princess ships of many cruisers.

 

the coral/island are more expensive...hmmmm.

[NancyIL]

the coral/island are more expensive...hmmmm.

 

 

Since Princess still allows travel agents to discount, shop around! I booked our Coral Princess cruise with one of the agencies listed at the top of the page (click on "Cruise Agencies"). Unless an agency has group space booked on Radiance - you will get pretty much the same quote from different travel agents.

[kellywhitehills]

We just got off the Spirit and she was awesome...VERY well kept and gleeming!..I would look at the ports of call and make your decision there...The Spirit visits 4 ports...I talked to a few people cruising on other ships and they were disappointed they only stopped at 3...