Comparison of cruise lines

[VacationForever]

This thread interesting. We receive postcards periodically from Princess Cruises inviting us to a free/low cost 3 - 7 night cruises but have never pursued this. It sounds much like a timeshare presentation offer.

Does Princess sell timeshares of their ships cabin? If so, would love to learn more about these promo programs if worthwhile.

I do not believe Princess sell timeshares on their ships. There are 2 out there that I am aware of, not the sailboat type, but living on the cruise ship for a duration, like a timeshare. Starts from something like $3M and upwards.

 

[Luanne]

Which cruise line and itinerary? It makes a world of difference if you picked a wrong cruise for your first experience.

First let me say we had both been on cruises in the past (before we were married) that we enjoyed very much. This one was a week long Princess Cruise out of Houston to the Caribbean and Mexico. There were just a lot of things we found we didn't care for, and I'm not sure if a different line, or itinerary, would help. I will also say that I know we did not take advantage of a lot that was available to us, but it either didn't interest us, the timing was off, or it was a ruse to get more money out of us.

 

[VacationForever]

First let me say we had both been on cruises in the past (before we were married) that we enjoyed very much. This one was a week long Princess Cruise out of Houston to the Caribbean and Mexico. There were just a lot of things we found we didn't care for, and I'm not sure if a different line, or itinerary, would help. I will also say that I know we did not take advantage of a lot that was available to us, but it either didn't interest us, the timing was off, or it was a ruse to get more money out of us.

We don't do the Caribbean and Mexico ones. A long time ago, decades ago, I did a Club Med one on the largest cruising sailboat during that era... had a great experience. The ship was sold to Windstar, which is still in use. I also did an American Queen steamboat cruise in the upper Mississippi River about a dozen years ago and had fun. My husband and I started with Celebrity Cruises in 2016 after much research on my part and we went to Alaska. I was very disappointed with the cruise for many reasons, with the main reason being that I had gone to Glacier Bay and visited many glaciers up close and personal on a private yacht in the past and the Celebrity Alaska cruise was nowhere near the experience I had other than we had good food and entertainment. But my husband said he enjoyed it enough to want to go on a Celebrity cruise ship again. Our next cruise was a transatlantic in 2017 and we had a really amazing time. There is no looking back and now our expenditure for cruising is about 3/4 of our total travel budget. This April we will be doing an Italy and Greek Isles cruise and in December a South-East Asia cruise, both with Celebrity. We are eager to branch out to Oceania and possibly Viking for river cruises. Viking reviews have been a mixed bag for us. Our travel agent calls it the Carnival of river cruising as there are many better river cruise lines, with AMA Waterways and Uniworld up there. River cruises are so expensive that I can feel my stomach in knots just looking at the prices.

 

[Luanne]

All I can say is, cruising may not be for everyone.

 

[Glynda]

Windstar has the best food I’ve had on a ship to date.


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That is one we would like to try!


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[VacationForever]

Windstar has the best food I’ve had on a ship to date.


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Ken recommended his Travel Agent to us and he has been amazing. He is the one who baited us to cruise with him and his friends, with an Owner's Suite on Royal Caribbean for next year. Ken is quite a cruiser, would love to read about his experiences!

 

[Ken555]

Ken recommended his Travel Agent to us and he has been amazing. He is the one who baited us to cruise with him and his friends, with an Owner's Suite on Royal Caribbean for next year. Ken is quite a cruiser, would love to read about his experiences!

Ha! I was on a 23N Royal Caribbean cruise from Hong Kong to Sydney last fall, and it was ok...though we had a number of people sick with noro (it was in the news in Australia when we arrived), and I’m fairly sure I had a negative reaction to all the cleaning product they used on the ship.

I’ve got two booked and non-refundable transatlantic cruises on RCL this year, and then I hope to return to Windstar. Hands down Windstar was the best in every category I care about...so they’ll get my business in future. The only reason I’ll go on others is if there’s a special itinerary or a price I just can’t ignore. I don’t want formal, I don’t want bureaucracy, and I want better quality food... Windstar hit all of those and the others failed consistently.




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[Conan]

There's enormous loyalty on the Cruise Critic boards to Paul Gauguin, a one-ship cruise line running from Tahiti.
https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=627

 

[VacationForever]

I’ve got two booked and non-refundable transatlantic cruises on RCL this year, and then I hope to return to Windstar. Hands down Windstar was the best in every category I care about...so they’ll get my business in future. The only reason I’ll go on others is if there’s a special itinerary or a price I just can’t ignore. I don’t want formal, I don’t want bureaucracy, and I want better quality food... Windstar hit all of those and the others failed consistently.

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I think you said you don't get sea sick but I do. Windstar ships seem too small to not feel the effect of potentially rough seas. How has your experience been, including others who were prone to motion sickness and who were with you on Windstar?

 

[LisaH]

I think that we use the same agent Ken recommended. He is amazing. Just returned from a 22-day South America/Antarctic Cruise on HAL a couple weeks ago. It was fabulous.

 

[DaveNV]

In the world of civilian cruising, the only "real" cruise we've done was on Holland America, last August from Vancouver up the Inside Passage to Alaska and back. It was very nice. Easy, comfortable, good food, nice company. I'd sail with them again. But I can't comment on which line is my favorite, because I have no comparison. US Navy ships don't count.

Dave

 

[Passepartout]

Hands down Windstar was the best in every category I care about...so they’ll get my business in future. The only reason I’ll go on others is if there’s a special itinerary or a price I just can’t ignore. I don’t want formal, I don’t want bureaucracy, and I want better quality food... Windstar hit all of those and the others failed consistently.

We've only taken one Windstar cruise, and I have to say it was special and memorable. DW and I had our own private tour of the galley with the chef, and they have an 'open bridge' where guests can just wander into the bridge and the Officer of the Deck will explain the various navigation and engineering and propulsion tools there. Our cruise only had 125 passengers (out of a capacity of 150ish), by the first mid-day, I was Mr. Jim and DW was Madam Paula, and the crew automatically brought their own Sambal to me every morning for my eggs. Fantastic service. They're a bit higher priced than the big ships, but the personal service makes up for it.

 

[VacationForever]

We've only taken one Windstar cruise, and I have to say it was special and memorable. DW and I had our own private tour of the galley with the chef, and they have an 'open bridge' where guests can just wander into the bridge and the Officer of the Deck will explain the various navigation and engineering and propulsion tools there. Our cruise only had 125 passengers (out of a capacity of 150ish), by the first mid-day, I was Mr. Jim and DW was Madam Paula, and the crew automatically brought their own Sambal to me every morning for my eggs. Fantastic service. They're a bit higher priced than the big ships, but the personal service makes up for it.

If they serve sambal, that is a ship that knows what is great food! (I grew up eating sambal.)

 

[Ken555]

We've only taken one Windstar cruise, and I have to say it was special and memorable. DW and I had our own private tour of the galley with the chef, and they have an 'open bridge' where guests can just wander into the bridge and the Officer of the Deck will explain the various navigation and engineering and propulsion tools there. Our cruise only had 125 passengers (out of a capacity of 150ish), by the first mid-day, I was Mr. Jim and DW was Madam Paula, and the crew automatically brought their own Sambal to me every morning for my eggs. Fantastic service. They're a bit higher priced than the big ships, but the personal service makes up for it.

Exactly. On my cruise we had just 43 out of a max 212...and we think a few of those 43 were the musicians!


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[Ken555]

I think you said you don't get sea sick but I do. Winstar ships seem too small to not feel the effect of potentially rough seas. How has your experience been, including others who were prone to motion sickness and who were with you on Windstar?

I was on a transatlantic from Aruba, and we had moderate waves in the Caribbean (so much so that we had to make an unscheduled stop in Barbados for fuel). That said, I don’t recall anyone being sick.


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[Passepartout]

I was on a transatlantic from Aruba, and we had moderate waves in the Caribbean (so much so that we had to make an unscheduled stop in Barbados for fuel). That said, I don’t recall anyone being sick.

I get a weekly 'Sale' email from Windstar, and there are several T/As. I don't think I'd do a T/A with them. First, they're slow. (14 days) without enroute stops- like they do Barbados to Lisbon and take 2 weeks to do it. There aren't many places to stop (OK-Azores or Canaries). And on our one cruise with them, Barcalona to Lisbon, it rode smoothly in the Mediterranean, but as soon as we cleared Gibralter and were in the Atlantic, it was decidedly rougher. If I were susceptible to motion sickness, I'd pass on these repositioning cruises. There's NO sick like sea sick!.

 

[Passepartout]

If they serve sambal, that is a ship that knows what is great food! (I grew up eating sambal.)

The entire crew is Indonesian, and the chef makes it onboard for the crew. Yummy!

 

[alwysonvac]

Try these Cruise Critic articles

• What's the Best Cruise Ship Size for You? - https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=360
• How to Pick a Cruise Line? - https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=66
• Best Time to Cruise? - https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=133
• Best Cruises for Seniors & Multigenerational Cruising - https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=112
  
• Best Cruise for Teens - https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=159
• Cruise Pricing by Destination - https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=2084
  
• The World's Roughest Waters for Cruising - https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=1226

I've enjoyed cruising as well. I've been on Norwegian (Hawaii), Royal Caribbean(Caribbean 3x) and Disney (Bahamas).
We're going on Princess (California Coastal) next month and Celebrity (Caribbean) next year.

 

[Mosescan]

All this talk of great cruises is making me consider taking a cruise. Ironically as I was reading this post today my wife reminded me that I promised her an Alaska cruise and asked if I would consider taking any other type of cruise. She didn’t even know I was reading this! I suppose I would also consider a Disney cruise for the kids. We’ll have to do some research.

 

[Ken555]

I get a weekly 'Sale' email from Windstar, and there are several T/As. I don't think I'd do a T/A with them. First, they're slow. (14 days) without enroute stops- like they do Barbados to Lisbon and take 2 weeks to do it. There aren't many places to stop (OK-Azores or Canaries). And on our one cruise with them, Barcalona to Lisbon, it rode smoothly in the Mediterranean, but as soon as we cleared Gibralter and were in the Atlantic, it was decidedly rougher. If I were susceptible to motion sickness, I'd pass on these repositioning cruises. There's NO sick like sea sick!.

Excellent! Did I mention just 43 people? I loved having an almost private yacht for my transatlantic, and look forward to repeating the experience.


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[EZ-ED]

FWIW... we avoid Carnival and Costa. We have sailed on NCL, RCCL and Princess and we really have no preference. Our main selection criteria is itinerary and date and any cruise line that falls into that category is fine with us. We do book full suites so have access to most all the perks a loyalty program may offer.

 

[Ken555]

FYI, I just placed a deposit on my first MSC cruise for Nov 2019. I've read mixed reviews of MSC (it seems to have many negative reviews from North American cruisers but not Europeans...). My impression is that the ships are nice, but service and food is similar to NCL. However, I found an itinerary and price I couldn't ignore.

MSC Lirica
20N Venice-Dubai
11/21/19 - 12/11/19
Ports: Split (Croatia), Athens (Piraeus), Heraklion (Crete), Rhodes, Limassol, Suez Canal, Eilat, Aqaba, Salalah, Muscat, Al Khasab

MSC also offers status match, so I got their "Black Card" which gave me 5% off the cruise fare.

I'm planning on a Spring 2019 Windstar Tranasatlantic, as well, but likely won't book until last minute early next year.

 

[beejaybee]

Late to the party, but I have to chime in regarding Celebrity as it is our cruiseline of choice, too. Our first cruise was on Norwegian's Pearl r/t from Seattle to Alaska. While it was certainly enjoyable, we ended up booking Celebrity for our 2nd cruise which was to the Baltics. The differences, e.g. no constant loudspeaker announcements for bingo, art auction, etc., a glass of bubbly when boarding, no repeat entertainers, just to name a few positives, led us to become Celebrity loyalists. The ambiance is refined but not snobby.

I'd not be adverse to trying Viking Ocean, but their pricing seems to be quite high in comparison to Celebrity.

Speaking of Windstar, what about a trade into Tradewinds thru RCI?