Opinions on princess cruises
 

Hi, as above & in particular Caribbean princess. Myself & DH are newbies to cruises but found an itinerary & price for a western Caribbean cruise with princess. My finger is hovering above the ‘book’ button however, I’ve read some poor reviews on cruise critic but because I trust dibbers views a whole lot more, I’m looking for your opinions & reviews.

Ive never been with Princess, but have done the Caribbean with Tui Marella cruises.
I am on a FB group for Marella and many peiople on there are cruise experts having cruised with all the companies, so can offer good advice.

Our trip with Marella was fabulous, they are All Inclusive cruises ,so no added extras to pay for, their Caribbean itinerary was great visiting 11 islands in 14 days, only 1 sea day each week.

I’ve never sailed anything other than DCL but I’m booked on a Princess Cruise on the 7th September. If you can wait that long I’ll report back.

We've sailed on Ruby Princess and loved everything about it. The food was the best we've had on any cruise (including DCL).

As someone above has already mentioned see if there is a Facebook group (if you do Facebook) for the ship as the people on there seem to have a much more balanced view than those who like to use Cruise Critic, or they certainly do for the Marella fleet. If I'd listened to the CC forums I'd have missed out on two amazing cruises on Marella.

Our second cruise was with Princess - we jumped in with 2 feet so to speak and went from a 7 nights Fjords to a 15 night trans atlantic one!

We have done a couple more since then and we both agree that for service, food, and all round quality the Princess one was the best - certainly better than our Celebrity one and they are supposed to be amazing.

We would happily travel with Princess again - plus today they are doing a £1 deposit on some 2021 cruises too.

We've only had 6 cruises so our experience may not be too extensive. Two with Carnival in the Caribbean, two in the Med with RCI and two with Princess, one to the Caribbean and one to the Canaries. Oddly enough both on Emerald.

The experience of Princess was perfectly fine in terms of the cabin, entertainment and food. Shore excursions in the Caribbean were good as well (I think we did 7 ports in ten days)

Only minor criticism was the choice of excursions in the Canaries.

Mick

We are soon going back on the Regal Princess & have been on her sister ship the Royal but we haven’t done the Caribbean Princess.
We really like Princess, the ships are lovely, food great as is entertainment. Drinks are expensive but that’s fairly general when cruising.
Cruise critic reviews are like Trip Advisor, people who like to complain are more likely to post than those who have a great time.
We have cruised Carnival, good but less shops and entertainment venues & Royal Caribbean which we would say is comparable standard wise with Princess for service and dining.

We’ve done about 20 Princess cruises with 5 of those being on the Caribbean Princess. We like the ship, especially after the refit a couple of years ago. As others have said, the food, service and entertainment are all good.
Edited to add - last year we did three cruises on the Caribbean Princess (38 days in total) 2 x Caribbean and 1 Panama Canal. The ship, as the name suggests, was designed with Caribbean itineraries in mind.
I don’t think you will be disappointed with what Princess has to offer.

Honestly I don't even look at the Cruise Critic ship reviews anymore as they as just nonsense and serial complainers. Like it was the WORST CRUISE EVER because their cabin steward didn't bow every time he saw them or something.

Anyway, we did a 10 nighter Eastern/Southern Caribbean on the Crown Princess in December. We've also sailed with Royal, NCL and MSC. On paper we weren't expecting to like Princess that much as we love the massive all singing all dancing megaships, which they don't go in for. You may be asking 'well why did you book then?!' but the itinerary was excellent and the price very good. While the ship was smaller than we are used to and didn't have as many bells and whistles, we had a great time! We would certainly sail with Princess again.

The service was great, nothing to complain about at all. Shows, while not broadway style like NCL or RCI were of a very high standard. Super fun gameshows, quizzes, all sorts going on so it certainly wasn't stuffy or boring- we had an excellent entertainment team who had us in absolute stitches every time. We also loved the more educational programs which included star gazing at sea, cookery demos and a series of lectures from a Shark expert.

We were in the perhaps 10% under the age of 60 on the ship which does happen with longer cruises from the US and we didn't feel the atmosphere to be stuffy or old. There wasn't a party atmosphere or lots of nightlife but we didn't mind as we were there to chill.

Food was a crazily mixed bag to be honest- one night DH had a dessert that he declared possibly the best pud he's ever eaten (the Norman Love Chocolate Journeys bar if you do sail with them), on one night I had to send back my main as it was inedible, which I've never done on a cruise before! We had a free dinner in the speciality steakhouse one night as a booking perk, and we'd heard much talk of how it was the best steak house at sea blah blah. Unfortunately the meal was not good at all, from service to food- NCL's steakhouse blows it out of the water. Overall we found the food on NCL and RCI consistently good (we don't talk about MSC, its a curse word in our house lol), whereas Princess veered wildly between amazing and poor. But overall we were more than satisfied with the food- especially the pool deck offerings! The pizza and fresh grilled burgers, yum. Much higher quality than the pre made frozen ones on some other lines. And ice cream on tap all day which of course is vital.

So as I say while we haven't sailed on that specific ship I would be confident to tell you you'll have a good time on Princess. Is this your first time in the Caribbean? Just asking as we have done a Western and Eastern/Southern itinerary and would go Eastern 1000% any day over Western.