Disney vs. Princess Cruises

[jdb in AZ]

Princess has more walkers/scooters than partyers. Just sayin. Actually, the Alaskan cruisers are younger than the other Princess cruises. They also have great land/cruise packages so you can see Denali National Park, and the train up to Fairbanks. There's so much more to Alaska than the tiny port towns.

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

We are planning to sail Alaska with Princess in 2020, probably either on the break week DD gets in May or August. (Balanced calendar for school.) One of the reasons we have selected Princess is because they cruise in Glacier Bay, which is important to us because my husband wants to visit all of America's National Parks. So, if we are going to Alaska, we need to see at least one or two National Parks!

Our DD will be 7 (turning 8 if we sail in August) and I also think she will enjoy the onboard kids' programming in partnership with Discover and Animal Planet. They seem to have activities for kids and families onboard the Alaska sailings that would be appealing to her, and to us as a family.

I am not super excited about dining on Princess, because rotational dining is one thing I love about DCL. However, for the lower cruise fare, I think we'll try out some specialty restaurants and not be too bothered about the up-charge. I also don't love the art deco style of Princess ships, but that's neither here nor there. In general, I know we will miss the Disney magic that we found onboard our previous DCL sailing (DD will miss the characters especially), but I think for us and for Alaska, Princess offers a great opportunity.

 

[lilsonicfan]

Wow, a super old thread! Princess does tend to have a slightly older clientele than Disney, but it's still a fairly mass market line. I do not think you'd really run into many of the partiers. I agree Alaska cruisers are younger than perhaps some of their other cruises, but Princess offers some amazing Alaskan itineraries. And my kids really enjoyed their kids' clubs; they came back every day with a new craft or a stuffed toy and seemed to really have a great time. In addition, we consistently found food in the Princess MDRs to be better in terms of quality than Disney.

 

[grannyminnie]

I've sailed on Princess 6 times as a teenager and then Disney as an adult (did I do this backwards? lol) I always enjoyed the cruises on Princess, but I haven't been on them since 2007. I have a cruise with Princess booked right now for next year. I know they have a more upscale dress code for the MDR. The age also tends to skew much older. I think their mini-suites are the same size as a cabin on Disney, so comparing prices that is what you should look at. If you don't mind a smaller room though you can get something a lot cheaper with them than you can with Disney. I sailed to Alaska on Princess and had a great time. They get to go to locations Disney can't. They also have cruises that leave from Seattle, which is easier to get to than Vancouver.

Thank you, that's helpful. Do you have a comment on food or entertainment?

 

[grannyminnie]

We are planning to sail Alaska with Princess in 2020, probably either on the break week DD gets in May or August. (Balanced calendar for school.) One of the reasons we have selected Princess is because they cruise in Glacier Bay, which is important to us because my husband wants to visit all of America's National Parks. So, if we are going to Alaska, we need to see at least one or two National Parks!

Our DD will be 7 (turning 8 if we sail in August) and I also think she will enjoy the onboard kids' programming in partnership with Discover and Animal Planet. They seem to have activities for kids and families onboard the Alaska sailings that would be appealing to her, and to us as a family.

I am not super excited about dining on Princess, because rotational dining is one thing I love about DCL. However, for the lower cruise fare, I think we'll try out some specialty restaurants and not be too bothered about the up-charge. I also don't love the art deco style of Princess ships, but that's neither here nor there. In general, I know we will miss the Disney magic that we found onboard our previous DCL sailing (DD will miss the characters especially), but I think for us and for Alaska, Princess offers a great opportunity.

Would you please explain how the dining works? Does one have to eat at a certain time as to having choices of early or late?

 

[FSU Girl]

Thank you, that's helpful. Do you have a comment on food or entertainment?

I thought the food was okay, really liked the pizza. I enjoyed the comedy acts and magic acts. I wasn't too impressed with their big theater productions, they aren't like the broadway style shoes that Disney does. I know that Princess has people come on the boat to talk about the places you're visiting that are really educational and people love.

 

[FSU Girl]

Would you please explain how the dining works? Does one have to eat at a certain time as to having choices of early or late?

You pick either traditional dining or anytime dining. If you go with traditional you either pick the early time or the late time, the times will vary depending on ship and location. You go everyday at that time to the same restaurant with the same serving team. If you do anytime dining you can show up whenever you want and will be seated in different places throughout the restaurant and have a different serving team, sometimes you can end up with the same people. Anytime dining can have a bit of a wait if you show up at a peak time.

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

You pick either traditional dining or anytime dining. If you go with traditional you either pick the early time or the late time, the times will vary depending on ship and location. You go everyday at that time to the same restaurant with the same serving team. If you do anytime dining you can show up whenever you want and will be seated in different places throughout the restaurant and have a different serving team, sometimes you can end up with the same people. Anytime dining can have a bit of a wait if you show up at a peak time.

I think FSU Girl explained this really well!

The anytime dining might be an advantage for us in Alaska, which would be an excursion-heavy itinerary where we'd probably be off the ship for the maximum time allowed in every port. I think that for us, that adds to the advantage of Princess over DCL in Alaska. But, we would miss having servers stick with us in three different dining rooms. We just really like that element of DCL (DD especially).

I think our dinners in Alaska might look like a combo of buffet, quick service, room service, specialty restaurants, and the MDR. Just very different from DCL, where we are show-followed-by-late-dining people every night.

 

[PrincessTrisha]

I'm on the Caribbean Princess right now

Let me say, the food is fantastic! The breakfast buffet has anything and everything you could think of and lunch has a great variety as well.

Dinners in the MDR have been outstanding.

And I don't think you could find a friendlier crew (even on DCL); the number of crew who acknowledge you, say good morning or good afternoon is phenomenal. Smiles all around and everyone seems to have time to stop and chat.

Entertainment is a bit on the tame side - though they do have evening production shows, entertainers and then evening quiz shows (like, Are you Smarter than the Cruise Staff, or Yes/No). There's also live music in several venues over the ship. During the day though it's a bit light on stuff to do (other than shopping/spa/bingo or stuff like that).

This ship also has the Medallion Net and Medallions (which are like the Disney bands); super fast internet - just like my high speed at home and unlimited for $10 a day. Really great bargain and great for keeping up with family at home and posting pictures to make others Jelly!

 

[grannyminnie]

Thanks for the live report, Princess!

 

[dmbcrush5]

We've sailed Fantasy 5x, Ruby Princess once (this past July) and Magic once (this past Oct). Unfortunately, our Princess experience was horrible compared to all of our DCL cruises. We too selected Princess because Glacier Bay is on the itinerary and that certainly was a highlight of the trip, but we spent a lot of time reminding us of that fact while we continued to be disappointed with the level of service at every turn. On Princess, out stateroom host was the only person who had anything close to a "Disney" attitude. We found the other staff to be disengaged and downright rude in some instances. The ship is 4 years older than the Fantasy, but looked to be 30 years older. It didn't seem like they put any care into maintaining the ship. There was rust and chipped paint in common areas. Someone broke a glass on the sport court and it wasn't cleaned up over the 4 days that remained on our cruise! There were frequently glasses/coffee cups left around the railings on the jogging deck that weren't cleaned up for days. The breakfast and lunch buffet were much more limited and repetitive than Cabanas. We did traditional dining because we figured that it would be good for our kids to keep the same servers (like on Disney). Our assistant server was decent and he seemed to try, but the main server bordered on obnoxious at times. My parents were traveling with us and my mom asked whether the Cilantro was a garnish or if it was cooked in a certain dish and he told her that he didn't now and she should just pick something else. The kids clubs also operate differently. Upon check in and hearing that we had been on Disney cruises in the past, they may sure to repeatedly tell us that Princess runs a "program based" offering. This means that kids are NOT allowed to come into the club and just "play". They run craft and entertainment programs that kids who are in the club are required to participate in. They told us to pay close attention to the schedule and only bring the kids for the activities that they are interested in and to make sure to promptly pick them up when the activity ends. We're usually a pretty easy to please group, but Disney set the standards so high and we continued to be disappointed and shocked at the lack of service and caring as the week went on. It very well could be that the Ruby is one of their older ships, so doesn't attract their best talent and doesn't get the love that their newer ships do, but it was a very disappointing experience.

 

[jdb in AZ]

We've cruised with DCL six times, Princess seven times -- two of them on the Ruby Princess in 2014, and last year. The service on the Ruby was just fine. We didn't have kids with us, so we can't compare the kids' clubs, but the food was actually better than on DCL. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[lilsonicfan]

The kids clubs also operate differently. Upon check in and hearing that we had been on Disney cruises in the past, they may sure to repeatedly tell us that Princess runs a "program based" offering. This means that kids are NOT allowed to come into the club and just "play". They run craft and entertainment programs that kids who are in the club are required to participate in. They told us to pay close attention to the schedule and only bring the kids for the activities that they are interested in and to make sure to promptly pick them up when the activity ends.

We were never told to promptly pick kids up when the activity ended, and there was definitely free play time, though they will obviously try to engage children in the activities. It's interesting, as I agree this was a stark contrast from DCL, but I liked it FAR more. On DCL, after a week of my kids being in kids club on every single day for at least a few hours a day if not more - not a single counsellor knew the name of any of my 3 boys. Not one. On Princess, my kids were greeted by name by the second day. My kids went to an activity on DCL but missed the announcement, so they missed the activity. on Princess, they were actually engaged by the counsellors. I totally agree with jdb in AZ - different strokes for different folks.

 

[Intr3pid]

One advantage of sailing on Princess in Alaska is that you won't have to look at floating milk cartons anymore. You might actually get to take a perfect shot of the Wonder sailing next to you.

 

[LCoulter]

We used to sail and like Princess before we had kids, then switched to Disney. Because of the crazy price of Disney, I started looking into Princess again but what I found was that the cabin for four, consists of two bunk beds? Is this configuration across all Princess ships? I just don’t get why Princess claims to be moving toward family friendly cruise but they think that parents want to sleep bunk bed style. Just so I’m clear, the upper bunks pull down from the ceiling over the bed that is meant for parents.

 

[grannyminnie]

What?!? Surely that's not the "wave" (no pun intended) of the future for Princess ships!

 

[oumagic]

We did a Princess cruise to Alaska (July 2015) on Crown Princess and it is our favorite cruise to date and least favorite ship to date (our favorite ship to date has been Disney Magic). Alaska is the overwhelming star of any Alaskan cruise, not the ship. We didn't have anything bad on Princess, it is just in every aspect, we liked previous ships with Disney and Carnival better. We booked Princess because of Glacier Bay and it was as good as I hoped.

I think Disney is unique in the industry with their room configurations; you would need to book a mini suite on Princess (or two rooms) if you wanted the same type of Disney room configuration. We did a balcony on the Crown Princess to Alaska and I don't recall there being room for a second bed unless it is in the ceiling. I met a couple on our Alaskan cruise that were DCL fans and booked an inside and balcony on our Princess cruise because it was still cheaper than DCL and gave them better sleeping arrangements and more bathroom space.

Our Princess balcony room

A Princess mini-suite on the same ship

 

[mevelandry]

One advantage of sailing on Princess in Alaska is that you won't have to look at floating milk cartons anymore. You might actually get to take a perfect shot of the Wonder sailing next to you.

If I was sailing to Alaska, the last thing I would be interested in taking a picture of is a DCL cruise ship. LOL