Instead of doing a trip report on Ruby Princess, I am going to do direct comparisons between Disney and Princess. Why? I think it's easier to compare apples to apples this way instead of wading through a lot of information that you don't want or need! Like, who really cares that I went to the pool deck at 2pm on the first sea day?
If there is anything else you wish to know let me know and I will do my best to answer it.
Overview: We took a five night cruise on the Ruby Princess. She departed Fort Lauderdale and visited Princess Cays, Bahamas and Ocho Rios, Jamaica with two days at sea. We booked this around right weeks ago while Princess was running a deeply discounted sale. We paid $199 pp including $200 OBC pp plus taxes. Our total pre-boarding cost was $600 which included $400 OBC.
Embarkation / Disembarkation: I'm struggling to rate this as in favor or against either one of them. Embarkation was, frankly, a mess. It was incredibly easy to park at Fort Lauderdale ($15/day). The porters take your bags, the you park the car and walk back to the terminal for the ship you are embarking. Simple, right? No. Ruby Princess had just completed a repositioning cruise and only had been granted two customs agents for 3,000 passengers. This wasn't the fault of Princess. They advise you to arrive after 2pm so that there is no line to board. We arrived just after 1pm and boarding hadn't even begun - we weren't alllowed into the terminal. The line snaked all the way along the terminal. Princess had dispensers out with water in for everyone who was waiting which was a nice touch. I believe we started being allowed into the terminal around 2pm. After that it was pretty fast and we were on the boat before 3pm. The staff in the terminal were not friendly at all, probably because they had been *****ed at by everyone in front of us. We recently had a similar experience on the Disney Magic. I've also had a pool experience in Miami with Disney. The only thing Disney did extra was give away one free drink at dinner, but that had limitations (wine or the drink of the day, which I was allergic to). Disembarkation was slightly easier. They have walkoffs starting around 7am. You are assigned a color and number and are told to meet in a certain place at a certain time. We elected to do walk off. It was a pretty simple process. Our assigned group otherwise would have been leaving the boat at 11am which we thought was ridiculous!
Food: Princess wins this hands down. The worst thing I ate on board was a chocolate peanut butter pie which was only okay. (I still ate it.) This doesn't include any speciality dining (Crown Grill), only the included with your fare places.
We ate at the buffet (Horizon Court) for breakfast. There was a good selection of hot and cold food including different types of sausage each day (one day there were British bangers, another Knockwurst) along with 'normal' sausages, bacon, a variety of other meats, at least two types of potatoes, eggs, and an omelette station. The line moved pretty fast for it too. The bacon was crispy (a pet peeve of mine!) and delicious, and so was the sausage of the day. The morning of Jamaica we had an early excursion, and we ordered room service. The croissants were still warm when they arrived and were tasty. We ordered fruit juice with breakfast but the glasses were incredibly small and barely more than a mouthful. That was really only my breakfast complaint. Disney has an okay buffet breakfast but I have never found the bacon crispy. Disney does have better hash browns than Princess though!
Lunch was just as good. Horizon Court had a good selection of items in the buffet. They usually had one meat on the bone item per day. They offered a minimum of two different soups, make your own salad section, curries, meat in sauces, mashed potatoes, fries and a good dessert selection, plus two different freshly cooked pasta dishes each day. Caribe Cafe was also open for lunch but had a themed menu every day which varied from Asian to German to Sushi. I loved the sushi! It wasn't perfect but the fish was excellent. Horizon Court has different stations while Caribe Cafe has a more traditional cafeteria style line. I liked the setup in Cabanas better than either of the buffets but the food on the Princess buffet was ten times better. There were never any empty dishes. On the last three cruises I have felt that Cabanas has been a step down from what it used to be like, especially the quality and cooking of their meats. On the Southern Caribbean cruise on the Magic, around 50% of what I ate from Cabanas was inedible.
The pizza by the pool was absolutely amazing. It was better than a lot of pizzerias on land. They had two staples - margharita and pepperoni - and one specialty pizza which rotated every day. The staples were both good. The specialty - which I tried most days - were better other than the all cheese pizza with no tomato. For me, that was just too cheesy. I like the pizza on Disney just fine, but Princess was seriously amazing. I didn't try the burger place by the pool so can't comment on that.
We also had a pub lunch served in the Wheelhouse Bar one lunchtime. The bangers and mags and fish and chips were both excellent, but the steak and kidney pie was not good at all and not authentic.
Dinner was also great (mostly). We had a less than stellar meal at Crown Grille, but I will get to that later. We are three times at the MDR and once at the buffet for dinner. Only Caribe Cafe is open for a buffet dinner. They serve about 50% MDR dishes from that evening and 50% other food. The light we ate there they had an excellent banana flambé which came with or without ice cream. They also served beef carpaccio which was delicious! I love a good dinner buffet and this didn't disappoint at all. I wish Disney had that option. The MDR also has excellent food all three nights. They had some interesting dishes, such as a shrimp and grouper ceviche. It was one of the highlights of the week! All of the steaks were perfectly cooked each night. We did end up sending one meal back as the meat was too fatty for my father, and it was replaced with only a slight delay and no issues. Requests were made with no problem (my mother is diabetic). I have never taken a Disney cruise without having to send a steak back for being undercooked so it was a nice change! The variety of dishes on Princess are probably for the more adventurous eaters but they have an 'Always Available' section on their menu which did have some more basic items.
Specialty Dining: As we had a lot of OBC, we decided to spend some of it at the Crown Grill which is an upscale steakhouse. The cost was $25pp which is the same as Palo. The room is beautiful and London themed. Personally, it was nowhere near as good as Palo for the same cost. The blue and black onion soup starter was a standout dish and I really enjoyed my carpaccio, but the steak was nothing better than Outback. The service was also horrendous. It took 50 - yes, fifty - minutes to take our order and we actually skipped dessert so that we could make a trivia event. It ended up being a two hour meal with only two courses. Other tables seemed to be having the same issue that evening.
Princess also has an upcharge Italian, Sabatini's, which looked good but my picky-eater-husband didn't like the menu so I didn't try it.
Drinks: Coffee, tea, water and iced tea is free all day and self serve from the buffet. Lemonade is also free but only available on request at the buffet. Princess doesn't have any drinks machines on board their ships. Juice is also free at breakfast only and this must also be requested from a waiter. The soda package on Princess is $4.50 day plus 15% gratuity. It is all Coke products. They have a non-alcoholic package which is $7.00/day plus 15% gratuity. This covers all mocktails ($5.00 each), milkshakes and the aforementioned Coke products. I was told it also covered juice at non-breakfast times. If you purchased a package you received a sticker on your key card. When you ordered a drink, if it was included in your package you didn't have to sign for anything - they just looked at your card and got your drink.
The packages worked in every bar and at breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, it was awkward at the buffet. You would get your seat with your food and you had to flag a waiter down to order your drinks. They would then return with the drinks after a lengthy wait. A couple of times we had actually finished before we received our drinks. A good tip is to order water AND soda/other drink if you want it, as they will bring the water almost straight away. The waiters were good at the buffet and if we had to wait a while they were great at apologizing and explaining why. (They have to go to the bar to get drinks.) It was a weird process. I don't drink soda but I do drink mocktails so I liked my $7.00/day package! As soda being included has zero value for me, I don't care if it's extra on top of the cruise fare but the way Princess handled it was incredibly odd and sometimes annoying. I guess Disney gets a win, but you are paying a lot more than the $4.50/day for the "free" soda! I wish they had a mocktails package though.
Alcohol was reasonably priced from $6.25 for a mixed drink to $8.95 for their speciality cocktails. Most of their cocktails were $7.95. They had the same menu in every bar on the ship so after a while you knew what you wanted to order but there were at least 30 cocktails on the menu. Everything I had was good other than a strawberry margarita. That was from a pre-made mix and you could DEFINITELY tell. There is an auto gratuity of 15% on every bar purchase. Personably I preferred the Princess menu because I have a pineapple allergy and they had a lot more choice for me, but overall there is zero different between the two lines on this, other than Princess has a lot more bars to get alcohol from.
However, Princess had two happy hours! The first ran from 3-4pm in one bar, and the second ran from 11pm-12am in another bar. It's not limited to one order per guest either. It was a great way to fill the bars and we took advantage of it a few times. I believe the afternoon happy hour was only on the sea days but the night happy hour was every night. The bars were packed at these times and then people carried on drinking afterwards. Disney could learn a thing or two.
Room: Our theory for rooms is as long as it gets me on the ship, I will be happy. We booked an inside guarantee and ended up extremely forward on deck 9 (Dolphin deck). My parents ended up forward on deck 11 (Baja deck). We had a room that slept four. The room was smaller than Disney. It was decorated in pastel colors which was fine but not as 'bright' as Disney. What they did have was a mirror above the main bed and a mirror opposite above the desk. It was fun to watch a million reflections! There was about a foot between the bed and the desk at the foot of the bed, maybe a little more. As you walked into the room, you had a bathroom and an open closet that was huge! There were no doors so no noise from them at night. It was really a rail on the wall and then a cupboard. There was also two drawers on each side of the bed and two smaller cupboards under the desk. We had plenty of space for everything. The bathroom is about the same size as a Cat 11 bathroom on DCL. There is only a shower, no tub, but lots of storage space around the sink. The water pressure was better than Disney. However I found it so hard to shave my legs because there wasn't really enough space in the shower. Because of the shower design (curtain and a lip around the shower area, I managed to flood the bathroom once by not having the curtain shut properly. I also missed the light that Disney has above the tub as that makes the area a lot brighter.
The one thing I didn't like about Princess rooms was how the bunk beds were set up. They didn't recess into the ceiling, instead they were wall mounted and each one took up about 9 inches of head space next to the bed when you stood up. I banged my head on more than one occasion. If you book an inside, try for a room that only sleeps two. This doesn't seem to be an issue in their larger rooms (I peeked across the hall). The balcony rooms actually looked larger than DCL. I didn't see inside an ocean view. Disney gets a slight nod for the rooms, especially if you are booking more than two people in an inside. To me that is just too right for more than two.
Layout and Decor: Loved the Princess layout, once I had orientated myself! It was different to Disney, but they have every passenger a map at check in (GREAT idea) and that helped a lot during the first few days. There were a couple of weird things such as having to use one specific set of elevators to get to the Michelangelo dining room, and again to reach the mini-golf on deck 19. But overall the layout flowed well. I liked having the cafés dotted around the atrium where you could sit and relax and watch what was going on at that time.
The decor is really where Disney shines. Disney ships are bright and airy with lots of windows and a huge atrium space. I liked the three story atrium on Princess and I liked how they used the space by having games, mixology and musicians there, but the rest of the ship had a lot of wood paneling, making the ship look dark. It wasn't a deal breaker, but the dining rooms especially were dark with the wood paneling (all three of the MDRs had the wood). Some of the bars (Club Fusion especially) had a LOT of dark wood, making that space VERY dark. However it was a nice space and we spent a lot of time there doing trivia.
Entertainment / Activities: There are very few family activities listed per day on the Princess Patter. A lot of them are geared towards adults. There was definitely a lot more organised activities on port days than Disney usually has (other than Nassau if you dock there). They made great use of the atrium space and I enjoyed their mixology demonstration, where the bartenders had a lot of fun and put on a show for everyone, and then the watchers in the atrium were given a free drink. A few people got to participate but not many. There were a lot of trivia events which was great for me because I love trivia. We finally won one at the end of the week! They also had a fun paper plane competition where you stood on deck 6 and had to fly your self-made plan into a hoop someone was holding on deck five. Also a lot of fun. There were a lot of demonstrations held around the ship too.
They made good use of one of their pools by having volleyball in there some afternoons. They also had a ping-pong tournament on deck and a putt-putt competition. There were not a lot of 'active' activities though, so if you are looking to be active then I would probably look to Royal or Norwegian for that. However, I enjoyed the variety of things that they offered and they certainly offered a lot more at each hour of the day than Disney does, except weirdly beterrn 5-6.30pm which was lacking in things to do every day!
The main shows in the theatre were shown a minimum of twice a day, sometimes three times. We only ended up going to one show, because they tried to organise them after dinner and by 10pm I don't want to sit through a show. We saw a comedian - Steve Moris - who used to perform with the Beach Boys. It was okay, but not amazing, but definitely pandered to an older crowd. We saw a second comedian later in the week (who was so popular he packed out a bar four times!) called Tommy Teague who was VERY funny but his brand of comedy was very adult.
The thing I really didn't like about the Princess schedule is that because they do fixed and anytime dining, they run activities all through dinner so by having a traditional 8.15 seating you missed a lot of activities. Next time we would definitely do anytime dining even though we really enjoy the fixed time on Disney.
Kids: All of the kids clubs are aft on deck 16 (I believe). There are no other dedicated kid spaces on the ship. There are also no designated adult areas on the ship. There were almost no kids on our ship though, and we barely see any for the whole trip! That was very different from Disney. The ones we did see were well behaved. It was bliss not to have any kids running through the corridors.
Princess is definitely aimed towards adults. I didn't see many kid friendly activities on the Princess Patter each day. The shows and comedy was definitely adult orientated and even shows at 7pm would not have been appropriate for kids. There was not a kids section of the buffet like Disney has too, so either your kid needs to be a non-fussy eater or be happy to live on pizza and burgers all week.
Service: This is really the area for me where Disney shines. Barring our two cruises on the Dream (which were awful, and on one of them we ended up leaving zero tip for our service team because they were that bad!), we have had good to outstanding service on Disney. Princess was hit and miss. The service overall was okay. Nothing amazing but nothing terrible except Crown Grill as mentioned before and Guest Services. We had a couple of issues with our room. The first night it was very noisy. It sounded like someone was hammering metal above us. We spoke to them the following day and they said that if it happens again to call immediately and they will investigate straight away. It didn't. The second problem was that the water in our shower was scalding hot on day two of the cruise. We spoke to guest services who claimed that it was "because we were in warmer waters". That doesn't make the water scalding! We also explained that we did have cold water from our tap (sorry, faucet), so it wasn't the warm water excuse. Eventually they agreed to send a plumber out who did fix the problem. They don't require you to have anyone in your room if they send someone out to fix an issue. (Disney has told me at least once that I had to be in the room. Not sure what their policy is.)
MDR waitstaff were good but not great. The assistant spoke very little English but I liked our server. He was excellent at remembering meal preferences and anything special that we wanted. As my mother is diabetic, he made sure that she always had a fruit platter for dessert without prompting. The main difference between the staff on Princess and Disney is that the staff on Disney are much more personable than the ones on Princess. There wasn't anything wrong with the service overall, it just wasn't as good as our recent Magic cruise where we had amazing waitstaff.
Overall I liked Princess a lot. I felt it was much better value for money than Disney at the price we paid but I would struggle to find value with some of their normal, non-discounted pricing as for a similar itinerary you are not saving much over Disney unless you book last minute. I wouldn't hesitate to sail them again and it was actually a lot of fun sailing a new line and finding out what we did and did not like about it!
My husband, who has sailed on Enchantment of the Seas, said that he enjoyed that more than Princess. In January I will find out if I do too.
If there is anything else you wish to know let me know and I will do my best to answer it.
Overview: We took a five night cruise on the Ruby Princess. She departed Fort Lauderdale and visited Princess Cays, Bahamas and Ocho Rios, Jamaica with two days at sea. We booked this around right weeks ago while Princess was running a deeply discounted sale. We paid $199 pp including $200 OBC pp plus taxes. Our total pre-boarding cost was $600 which included $400 OBC.
Embarkation / Disembarkation: I'm struggling to rate this as in favor or against either one of them. Embarkation was, frankly, a mess. It was incredibly easy to park at Fort Lauderdale ($15/day). The porters take your bags, the you park the car and walk back to the terminal for the ship you are embarking. Simple, right? No. Ruby Princess had just completed a repositioning cruise and only had been granted two customs agents for 3,000 passengers. This wasn't the fault of Princess. They advise you to arrive after 2pm so that there is no line to board. We arrived just after 1pm and boarding hadn't even begun - we weren't alllowed into the terminal. The line snaked all the way along the terminal. Princess had dispensers out with water in for everyone who was waiting which was a nice touch. I believe we started being allowed into the terminal around 2pm. After that it was pretty fast and we were on the boat before 3pm. The staff in the terminal were not friendly at all, probably because they had been *****ed at by everyone in front of us. We recently had a similar experience on the Disney Magic. I've also had a pool experience in Miami with Disney. The only thing Disney did extra was give away one free drink at dinner, but that had limitations (wine or the drink of the day, which I was allergic to). Disembarkation was slightly easier. They have walkoffs starting around 7am. You are assigned a color and number and are told to meet in a certain place at a certain time. We elected to do walk off. It was a pretty simple process. Our assigned group otherwise would have been leaving the boat at 11am which we thought was ridiculous!
Food: Princess wins this hands down. The worst thing I ate on board was a chocolate peanut butter pie which was only okay. (I still ate it.) This doesn't include any speciality dining (Crown Grill), only the included with your fare places.
We ate at the buffet (Horizon Court) for breakfast. There was a good selection of hot and cold food including different types of sausage each day (one day there were British bangers, another Knockwurst) along with 'normal' sausages, bacon, a variety of other meats, at least two types of potatoes, eggs, and an omelette station. The line moved pretty fast for it too. The bacon was crispy (a pet peeve of mine!) and delicious, and so was the sausage of the day. The morning of Jamaica we had an early excursion, and we ordered room service. The croissants were still warm when they arrived and were tasty. We ordered fruit juice with breakfast but the glasses were incredibly small and barely more than a mouthful. That was really only my breakfast complaint. Disney has an okay buffet breakfast but I have never found the bacon crispy. Disney does have better hash browns than Princess though!
Lunch was just as good. Horizon Court had a good selection of items in the buffet. They usually had one meat on the bone item per day. They offered a minimum of two different soups, make your own salad section, curries, meat in sauces, mashed potatoes, fries and a good dessert selection, plus two different freshly cooked pasta dishes each day. Caribe Cafe was also open for lunch but had a themed menu every day which varied from Asian to German to Sushi. I loved the sushi! It wasn't perfect but the fish was excellent. Horizon Court has different stations while Caribe Cafe has a more traditional cafeteria style line. I liked the setup in Cabanas better than either of the buffets but the food on the Princess buffet was ten times better. There were never any empty dishes. On the last three cruises I have felt that Cabanas has been a step down from what it used to be like, especially the quality and cooking of their meats. On the Southern Caribbean cruise on the Magic, around 50% of what I ate from Cabanas was inedible.
The pizza by the pool was absolutely amazing. It was better than a lot of pizzerias on land. They had two staples - margharita and pepperoni - and one specialty pizza which rotated every day. The staples were both good. The specialty - which I tried most days - were better other than the all cheese pizza with no tomato. For me, that was just too cheesy. I like the pizza on Disney just fine, but Princess was seriously amazing. I didn't try the burger place by the pool so can't comment on that.
We also had a pub lunch served in the Wheelhouse Bar one lunchtime. The bangers and mags and fish and chips were both excellent, but the steak and kidney pie was not good at all and not authentic.
Dinner was also great (mostly). We had a less than stellar meal at Crown Grille, but I will get to that later. We are three times at the MDR and once at the buffet for dinner. Only Caribe Cafe is open for a buffet dinner. They serve about 50% MDR dishes from that evening and 50% other food. The light we ate there they had an excellent banana flambé which came with or without ice cream. They also served beef carpaccio which was delicious! I love a good dinner buffet and this didn't disappoint at all. I wish Disney had that option. The MDR also has excellent food all three nights. They had some interesting dishes, such as a shrimp and grouper ceviche. It was one of the highlights of the week! All of the steaks were perfectly cooked each night. We did end up sending one meal back as the meat was too fatty for my father, and it was replaced with only a slight delay and no issues. Requests were made with no problem (my mother is diabetic). I have never taken a Disney cruise without having to send a steak back for being undercooked so it was a nice change! The variety of dishes on Princess are probably for the more adventurous eaters but they have an 'Always Available' section on their menu which did have some more basic items.
Specialty Dining: As we had a lot of OBC, we decided to spend some of it at the Crown Grill which is an upscale steakhouse. The cost was $25pp which is the same as Palo. The room is beautiful and London themed. Personally, it was nowhere near as good as Palo for the same cost. The blue and black onion soup starter was a standout dish and I really enjoyed my carpaccio, but the steak was nothing better than Outback. The service was also horrendous. It took 50 - yes, fifty - minutes to take our order and we actually skipped dessert so that we could make a trivia event. It ended up being a two hour meal with only two courses. Other tables seemed to be having the same issue that evening.
Princess also has an upcharge Italian, Sabatini's, which looked good but my picky-eater-husband didn't like the menu so I didn't try it.
Drinks: Coffee, tea, water and iced tea is free all day and self serve from the buffet. Lemonade is also free but only available on request at the buffet. Princess doesn't have any drinks machines on board their ships. Juice is also free at breakfast only and this must also be requested from a waiter. The soda package on Princess is $4.50 day plus 15% gratuity. It is all Coke products. They have a non-alcoholic package which is $7.00/day plus 15% gratuity. This covers all mocktails ($5.00 each), milkshakes and the aforementioned Coke products. I was told it also covered juice at non-breakfast times. If you purchased a package you received a sticker on your key card. When you ordered a drink, if it was included in your package you didn't have to sign for anything - they just looked at your card and got your drink.
The packages worked in every bar and at breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, it was awkward at the buffet. You would get your seat with your food and you had to flag a waiter down to order your drinks. They would then return with the drinks after a lengthy wait. A couple of times we had actually finished before we received our drinks. A good tip is to order water AND soda/other drink if you want it, as they will bring the water almost straight away. The waiters were good at the buffet and if we had to wait a while they were great at apologizing and explaining why. (They have to go to the bar to get drinks.) It was a weird process. I don't drink soda but I do drink mocktails so I liked my $7.00/day package! As soda being included has zero value for me, I don't care if it's extra on top of the cruise fare but the way Princess handled it was incredibly odd and sometimes annoying. I guess Disney gets a win, but you are paying a lot more than the $4.50/day for the "free" soda! I wish they had a mocktails package though.
Alcohol was reasonably priced from $6.25 for a mixed drink to $8.95 for their speciality cocktails. Most of their cocktails were $7.95. They had the same menu in every bar on the ship so after a while you knew what you wanted to order but there were at least 30 cocktails on the menu. Everything I had was good other than a strawberry margarita. That was from a pre-made mix and you could DEFINITELY tell. There is an auto gratuity of 15% on every bar purchase. Personably I preferred the Princess menu because I have a pineapple allergy and they had a lot more choice for me, but overall there is zero different between the two lines on this, other than Princess has a lot more bars to get alcohol from.
However, Princess had two happy hours! The first ran from 3-4pm in one bar, and the second ran from 11pm-12am in another bar. It's not limited to one order per guest either. It was a great way to fill the bars and we took advantage of it a few times. I believe the afternoon happy hour was only on the sea days but the night happy hour was every night. The bars were packed at these times and then people carried on drinking afterwards. Disney could learn a thing or two.
Room: Our theory for rooms is as long as it gets me on the ship, I will be happy. We booked an inside guarantee and ended up extremely forward on deck 9 (Dolphin deck). My parents ended up forward on deck 11 (Baja deck). We had a room that slept four. The room was smaller than Disney. It was decorated in pastel colors which was fine but not as 'bright' as Disney. What they did have was a mirror above the main bed and a mirror opposite above the desk. It was fun to watch a million reflections! There was about a foot between the bed and the desk at the foot of the bed, maybe a little more. As you walked into the room, you had a bathroom and an open closet that was huge! There were no doors so no noise from them at night. It was really a rail on the wall and then a cupboard. There was also two drawers on each side of the bed and two smaller cupboards under the desk. We had plenty of space for everything. The bathroom is about the same size as a Cat 11 bathroom on DCL. There is only a shower, no tub, but lots of storage space around the sink. The water pressure was better than Disney. However I found it so hard to shave my legs because there wasn't really enough space in the shower. Because of the shower design (curtain and a lip around the shower area, I managed to flood the bathroom once by not having the curtain shut properly. I also missed the light that Disney has above the tub as that makes the area a lot brighter.
The one thing I didn't like about Princess rooms was how the bunk beds were set up. They didn't recess into the ceiling, instead they were wall mounted and each one took up about 9 inches of head space next to the bed when you stood up. I banged my head on more than one occasion. If you book an inside, try for a room that only sleeps two. This doesn't seem to be an issue in their larger rooms (I peeked across the hall). The balcony rooms actually looked larger than DCL. I didn't see inside an ocean view. Disney gets a slight nod for the rooms, especially if you are booking more than two people in an inside. To me that is just too right for more than two.
Layout and Decor: Loved the Princess layout, once I had orientated myself! It was different to Disney, but they have every passenger a map at check in (GREAT idea) and that helped a lot during the first few days. There were a couple of weird things such as having to use one specific set of elevators to get to the Michelangelo dining room, and again to reach the mini-golf on deck 19. But overall the layout flowed well. I liked having the cafés dotted around the atrium where you could sit and relax and watch what was going on at that time.
The decor is really where Disney shines. Disney ships are bright and airy with lots of windows and a huge atrium space. I liked the three story atrium on Princess and I liked how they used the space by having games, mixology and musicians there, but the rest of the ship had a lot of wood paneling, making the ship look dark. It wasn't a deal breaker, but the dining rooms especially were dark with the wood paneling (all three of the MDRs had the wood). Some of the bars (Club Fusion especially) had a LOT of dark wood, making that space VERY dark. However it was a nice space and we spent a lot of time there doing trivia.
Entertainment / Activities: There are very few family activities listed per day on the Princess Patter. A lot of them are geared towards adults. There was definitely a lot more organised activities on port days than Disney usually has (other than Nassau if you dock there). They made great use of the atrium space and I enjoyed their mixology demonstration, where the bartenders had a lot of fun and put on a show for everyone, and then the watchers in the atrium were given a free drink. A few people got to participate but not many. There were a lot of trivia events which was great for me because I love trivia. We finally won one at the end of the week! They also had a fun paper plane competition where you stood on deck 6 and had to fly your self-made plan into a hoop someone was holding on deck five. Also a lot of fun. There were a lot of demonstrations held around the ship too.
They made good use of one of their pools by having volleyball in there some afternoons. They also had a ping-pong tournament on deck and a putt-putt competition. There were not a lot of 'active' activities though, so if you are looking to be active then I would probably look to Royal or Norwegian for that. However, I enjoyed the variety of things that they offered and they certainly offered a lot more at each hour of the day than Disney does, except weirdly beterrn 5-6.30pm which was lacking in things to do every day!
The main shows in the theatre were shown a minimum of twice a day, sometimes three times. We only ended up going to one show, because they tried to organise them after dinner and by 10pm I don't want to sit through a show. We saw a comedian - Steve Moris - who used to perform with the Beach Boys. It was okay, but not amazing, but definitely pandered to an older crowd. We saw a second comedian later in the week (who was so popular he packed out a bar four times!) called Tommy Teague who was VERY funny but his brand of comedy was very adult.
The thing I really didn't like about the Princess schedule is that because they do fixed and anytime dining, they run activities all through dinner so by having a traditional 8.15 seating you missed a lot of activities. Next time we would definitely do anytime dining even though we really enjoy the fixed time on Disney.
Kids: All of the kids clubs are aft on deck 16 (I believe). There are no other dedicated kid spaces on the ship. There are also no designated adult areas on the ship. There were almost no kids on our ship though, and we barely see any for the whole trip! That was very different from Disney. The ones we did see were well behaved. It was bliss not to have any kids running through the corridors.
Princess is definitely aimed towards adults. I didn't see many kid friendly activities on the Princess Patter each day. The shows and comedy was definitely adult orientated and even shows at 7pm would not have been appropriate for kids. There was not a kids section of the buffet like Disney has too, so either your kid needs to be a non-fussy eater or be happy to live on pizza and burgers all week.
Service: This is really the area for me where Disney shines. Barring our two cruises on the Dream (which were awful, and on one of them we ended up leaving zero tip for our service team because they were that bad!), we have had good to outstanding service on Disney. Princess was hit and miss. The service overall was okay. Nothing amazing but nothing terrible except Crown Grill as mentioned before and Guest Services. We had a couple of issues with our room. The first night it was very noisy. It sounded like someone was hammering metal above us. We spoke to them the following day and they said that if it happens again to call immediately and they will investigate straight away. It didn't. The second problem was that the water in our shower was scalding hot on day two of the cruise. We spoke to guest services who claimed that it was "because we were in warmer waters". That doesn't make the water scalding! We also explained that we did have cold water from our tap (sorry, faucet), so it wasn't the warm water excuse. Eventually they agreed to send a plumber out who did fix the problem. They don't require you to have anyone in your room if they send someone out to fix an issue. (Disney has told me at least once that I had to be in the room. Not sure what their policy is.)
MDR waitstaff were good but not great. The assistant spoke very little English but I liked our server. He was excellent at remembering meal preferences and anything special that we wanted. As my mother is diabetic, he made sure that she always had a fruit platter for dessert without prompting. The main difference between the staff on Princess and Disney is that the staff on Disney are much more personable than the ones on Princess. There wasn't anything wrong with the service overall, it just wasn't as good as our recent Magic cruise where we had amazing waitstaff.
Overall I liked Princess a lot. I felt it was much better value for money than Disney at the price we paid but I would struggle to find value with some of their normal, non-discounted pricing as for a similar itinerary you are not saving much over Disney unless you book last minute. I wouldn't hesitate to sail them again and it was actually a lot of fun sailing a new line and finding out what we did and did not like about it!
My husband, who has sailed on Enchantment of the Seas, said that he enjoyed that more than Princess. In January I will find out if I do too.
YASSS!! I'm so relieved that dressing up is not mandatory. Thank you for answering my question! 
Well, with it being a Christmas cruise and longer itinerary, my hope is there will be more families and more activities...? 
