Princess Cruise Line vs Disney

[AnnMorin]

Well we are almost upon our 5th DCL cruise and today started looking towards next year.
The Star Princess will give us a new port and we could go on Thanksgiving week for much less than DCL.
So my question is this, has anyone done Princess? They seem to have a great rewards program, the more you book the higher the reward.
I am a becoming a bit disillusioned by DCL as I have faithfully spent $4000+ each year with nothing but a towel for my loyalty.
We love Disney but to get the same veranda and new ports and a customer loyalty program it is verytempting.. is there a reason to not try them?

 

[staylor]

I just sent you a PM.
Staci

 

[macbaby]

I just spent two weeks on the Sun Princess. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

 

[Mjasp]

Macbaby...How were the kids programs? Were there alot of kids on board?

Was talking to someone last weekend that went on the Caribbean Princess and she said they had alot of kids on board, but she has older children, so didn't know anything about the kids club.

 

[travellady]

I'd like to hear as well. I've only sailed RCCL Voyager of the Seas and my 10 year old loved it - continually busy. We have a 3 day Disney booked this year just before Xmas but booked the Caribbean Princess 7 day Eastern for the following Xmas (wanted to make sure I got a great rate before they start going up). I plan on keeping the Princess booking, I think, but am still debating RCCL (way way expensive during the Xmas 2005 holidays), or the 7 day Disney Magic Western that departs on Dec 17, 2005 as it's not nearly as expensive as the following week's Disney Magic Eastern. My son will need to miss one day of school to fly down to Florida the day before the cruise but not much going on anyway the day before Xmas break.

I am slightly apprehensive about the Caribbean Princess as I've heard they don't have a gameroom, don't have the ice skating and rock wall that the Voyager had, but do have mini golf. For my husband and I to truly enjoy ourselves, my son needs to be happy as well.

Oh, and one other possibility is the Carnival Conquest out of New Orleans. If anyone can send me a comparison to that vs. RCCL or Disney, I'd welcome the info.

Thanks!

 

[macbaby]

Travellady: I just sailed on the Conquest in July (it's been a busy summer)! Ask away.

 

[AnnMorin]

I had several peope tell me it was beautiful..
the thing that is really swaying us it they really seem to value repeat customers,
they actually have a heirarchy set up like airline miles

We have been very faithful to DCL, spent over 20,000 in the past 6 years but it seems like other lines are more appreciative to faithful customers.

Who knows maybe we will be hugely dissapointed, I am not booking anything firm until we return from the cape, the quotes are great and I just wanted to hear what people thought of princess

 

[AnnMorin]

Staci thanks for you pm...
do you know if they ever went on the ship I am considering which is the Star Princess?

 

[macbaby]

While I was not traveling with children, I did see some of the activities and interactions of the Youth Staff and the children in the program. The Sun Princess is an older, smaller ship, with few of the facilities of new ships (the theater did not hold 1/3 of the ship!). That said, there was some organized sports activities (basketball, pool, table tennis, golf), some arts/crafts, attending the afternoon movie, and several scavenger hunts. A few times I saw the group at lunch and diner in the Horizon Court Buffet.

I will admit that many of the teen aged passengers I saw were not involved in the organized programs.

As for myself, I found the staff to be excellent, the food fair, and the ship understatedly elegant and beginning to show her age in a few spots. Activities for adults were varied and well organized, but seldom ever started on time.

All said, I enjoyed this trip very much. I should say that I have not sailed with Disney yet, but have sailed Princess, Carnival and NCL.

Repeat cruisers do eventually get discount cruises (special mailings with some very good deals) and extra services (but those do not kick in until 6 cruises).

Anything else?

 

[travellady]

Macbaby:

How was the food on the Conquest? Was the atmosphere family focused or did you notice a lot of partying 20 somethings? (not that I mind that a lot as my 25 year old joined us on the Voyager and he was a partying 20 something - but the ship wasn't overrun with them).

Would a 12 year old find a lot to do? Besides the water slide, what physical activities can the kids participate in?

How would you describe the ship in a couple of words ? - for example I describe the Voyager as both elegant and fun.

How was the food?

Where are the people who sail on this ship from? Since I sailed the Voyager out of New York, it was mainly a New Jersey/New York crowd. All fun, but not a real representation from other states.

 

[macbaby]

Travellady:

The food was fabulous! Some of the best I ever had on a ship! And the desserts.. :0 The staff ran from ok to excellent (the dinning room staff was perfect; our room stewart was not seen, but did his job).

Unfortunately, Carnival has not shed its party image but there was no evidence of any out-of-control, drunk-as-a-skunk groups on the ship. The passengers were mostly families and couples (both young and old). In fact, Carnival is the favorite cruise line of my very jaded, very proper aunts, all over 75 years of age!

While I was not traveling with children, there were lots of them on the ship, from infants to young adults. I am not sure what activities were planned for the children, but I seldom ever saw them hanging out around the ship. The pools were not even crowded with them! There were many activities (more than Princess in Alaska) during the day for families to participate in together.

I suspect the ship is decorated much like Voyager. As for describing it, I would say it is energetic and laid back at the same time.

The ship had passengers from all over the US and (if I remember correctly) some 20 other countries!

 

[airtime247]

Finally a question I can help out with! I've only been on three cruises, the most recent being Disney. My first two were Princess. The first was the Sea Princess to Alaska in May '02 and then the Star Princess to the Mexican Riviera in January '03.

The Star is a very beautiful ship - by far the most beautiful and elegant of the three. It was much more modern and visually appealing than the older Sea Princess. It was also a bit larger. It did seem to lack some of the charm the Sea Princess had but maybe it just felt that way since the Sea was our first cruise and will always hold special memories.

One thing that set Disney apart for me over either Princess cruise was the dining. I LOVED the idea of having a rotation at three restaurants that were very different. With Princess (and I imagine almost every other line), you go to the same restaurant every night. If I remember, they split people into one of two depending on if you got traditional dining or Personal Choice (just show up like you would at home).

The standard dining room we at in had a very "Lumiere's" feel to It. It was classy and we had very enjoyable meals there. There is also two pay extra (ala Palo) restaurants in addition to buffets and fast-food type places.

The food was comparable in quality to Disney. Mostly very good but a couple of things were strange. The one thing I didn't like about Disney's food was the lack of lunch options after 2pm after coming back from port. We never seemed to have that problem with Princess.

It's hard for me to compare Disney's service with Princess' as we had Personal Choice for both cruises so we had different table-mates and servers with every meal. It was nice being able to eat when we were hungry as opposed to when we were scheduled to. Also, if we didn't like our table-mates or servers (which never happened), we didn't have to worry about seeing them again.

On our Disney cruise, we had Navneet and Constantin who we loved! We didn't realize what we were missing out on with staff who gets to know you. We travelled with friends so we still have yet to dine every night with people we just met though.

Our cabin stewards were just as good as Disney's (minus the towel animals!) but the rooms are a little smaller than Disney's.

We did notice that Disney's shows were several notches above Princess' sub-Vegas quality shows. Most were good but there were a couple cabaret shows that had me wanting to throw myself overboard to escape! But then again, after seeing Disney's shows so many times, you will probably welcome some variety!

Also, since Princess doesn't have the same family-friendly image that Disney has to uphold, the shows are a lot more adult-oriented. The adult shows on Disney were pretty clean in comparison. There is also a casino on the Princess ships with nice things such as tournaments and free classes.

Depending on where you go and for how long, there will be far fewer children than Disney but I don't know how the kids' programming is.

The Star Princess has a covered pool with a roof that opens. They kept it open most of the time in Mexico although we wish we had it in Alaska as no one used the pools for that chilly cruise!

We were obviously only repeat customers once so I don't know what all they offer as far as perks. We each received a gold-colored pin with the princess logo. We also get regular offers in the mail but the discounts don't seem any better than what we can get online.

I know they have different levels of repeat customers. At the time anyway, if it was your 2nd through 4th or 5th cruise (I don't remember), you were a Gold Member. More than that and you were a Platinum Member. I assume their website can give the specifics a lot better than I can.

I hope that helps! Maybe my DW who reads on here can add to it as she has a much better memory!

Please let me know if you have any other questions!

-steve

 

[travellady]

Thanks to all of you for your input.

It would be nice if there weren't so many to pick from - it seems most cruise lines have something I like whether it be itinerary, food, stuff for kids, quiet and or/activities for adults etc. My current plan is to hold on to the Princess booking as I got it for a great price and suspect that will change as it gets closer to sailing many many months from now.

If we find we really really like the Disney cruise when I go on the 3-day this coming December, I can book the Dec 17 '05 7 day on board and get a 10% discount and stateroom credit. I still have plenty of time to cancel the Princess.

And I am taking the 4 day Carnival Fantasy out of Port Canaveral the same day I get back from the 3 day Disney Wonder this December (kind of crazy I know but my 25 year old can join us at this point so we thought why not) so will get somewhat of a taste for Carnival though the Fantasy is an older ship; not as representative of the newer Conquest so I'll go into this cruise with that viewpoint.

The real solution is to try them all - and I'm working on it

 

[AnnMorin]

Ok do you opt in for that or would ou choose like first seating and then say nope I will do personal choice?
We are really thinking about this but will make the final decision when we get back from DCL in December, it seems like each year I say lets try something new, go on DCL and say nope lets stay with them.
Since we have to go on a school vacation week after this year (DS will be in middle school then) and the price difference is amazing, coupled with the lack of new ports and returning cruiser rewards on DCL Princess is looking very attractive right now.

 

[staylor]

Travellady, I just sent you a PM.

 

[staylor]

Also, look into vacationstogo.com

 

[lsmac]

Hi Ann! As you know I cruise Disney quite often too, but we just got back (in June) from the Golden Princess (sister ship to the Star). So here are my thoughts:

Like you, I always think we are going to try something new as we get tired of our Disney cruise by about Weds of the week we are sailing. Of course then we hit CC on Friday and don't want to leave! We actually went for it this year as we wanted a better itin. Golden went to the Southern Caribbean and let me tell you...other than San Juan...we LOVED the ports! As for the ship: they are HUGE, but we were getting around just fine within the first day or two.

The things we liked (btw, we have also cruised Grand Princess)
about Princess:

**Loved the mini suite, with the Grand (several years back) we had concierge service, this time. No.

**Food was so much better on Princess, at least for myself and I am a very picky eater. (ducking now for all the die hard Dis fans will surely dispute this one!)

**Kids club...ok, Ryan is a teen so he "did his own thing". They have a great teen area and on our trip there were quite a few teens. They actually had more planned activities for this age group than Disney. That said, he loved the Disney teen group as well, yet never hung out at the Stack. They basically hooked up with a group on the first day and then did their own thing. (I am seeing a pattern with the teens here.)

**Service: before our last Disney cruise I would give the edge to Disney, but now I would definately say Princess is heads and tails over Dis. This may just have been our experience, so take it for what it is worth, but our last Disney cruise (in November 2003) just didn't meet up to our expectations.

**Ports: WOW! All I can say is that we had the best time in June. Aruba is great, Grenada was cool tromping through the jungle..well you get the idea.

While I still love Disney, I would definately give the edge to Princess. I love the personal choice dining (we never had to wait for more than 10 mins), I love the mini suites (so much more spacious for the three of us), and the ports are far more interesting. BTW, on the Grand we did the same ports as Disney's Western, but went to their private island. Princess has a very nice island (I believe it is on the other side of Elethura?) but you do tender into it. CC still holds the edge there.

Any other questions just ask or email me! We would love to go with you btw (in reference to your earlier email), but I won't have Ryan's school schedule until next summer! Since he will be a junior in high school (gasp) I am more hesitant to take him out for trips. (thus the June trip)

Have fun at the Cape!

Lisa

 

[dclwdwlover]

Friends of ours who have cruised DCL, RCCL & Princess told us that Princess is the closest to DCL of those lines. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. They very much enjoyed all of their cruises, but preferred DCL the most & 2nd Princess. (BTW, The wife works for Disney).

I am like you, Ann, in that I frequently wish to try other lines, especially to 'size them up', but then am afraid to because of what I read about them. It's not the BAD things people say, either, it's the statements about the quality of the shows, the lack of the 'Disney clean' atmosphere that you get on DCL & type of dining, etc. that doesn't appeal to me.

Also, it seems that you must do at least a 7-day to get a newer, decent ship with the other lines & so far, we've only done 4's because of $$ & time. Ports aren't really that important to me, as we tend to stay on the ship {except for CC} anyway, although I don't know if it's just because I don't care for Nassau (& Freeport originally) or because I feel that our money was spent on the cruise/ship & we might as well get the most of it.

 

[westjones]

Originally posted by dclwdwlover

Also, it seems that you must do at least a 7-day to get a newer, decent ship with the other lines & so far, we've only done 4's because of $$ & time.

This is one of the considerations for us. We would like to try the RCCL with the ice rink and rock climbing, but we are thinking that starting in 2006 we will be going to Florida for spring break (no more September value season--the twins are going to middle school next year).

The 4 night Disney cruise would work out for us to be able to make the 17 hours drive to Florida from Indiana (leaving Friday night for at least 4 hours, then try to finish up on Saturday but giving us Sunday morning as a back up plan to get to port). Then we would have Thursday and Friday after the cruise to go to the parks before the 2 day trip back home.

If we did a 7 night cruise, we would have to fly, and that really adds to the cost.

BUT I would like to look into trying another cruise line because the DCL is so expensive during regular and peak season. I'm still waiting for the 2006 dates to come out so I can tell my kids if we will be able to continue to cruise on DCL or not.

DJ

 

[Jimbo]

We've been on several Princess cruises, and I can certainly vouch for their repeat cruiser program. It's rare that a week goes by without getting some sort of offer in the mail for a cruise discount. Some weeks we'll get two or three of them. Work usually gets in the though. But we'll be retired in 6 years and then watch out!

The best cruise we've ever taken was a 10 day Panama Canal cruise on the Royal Princess. That time we were offered "buy one, get one free", so the cruise was half price. Then they upgraded us to a room with a verandah. They said that something like 90% of the passengers on that cruise were Princess repeaters.

One thing about Princess is that they've got a wide variety of ships. Some are very small and pretty old, but they've also got 3000 passenger megaships. So you need to make sure that you're on the right kind of ship for you. But it's good to have a choice.