I Go Back On Princess Cruises Despite Saying Never Again! Have They Improved?
I Go Back On Princess Cruises Despite Saying Never Again!
It’s been three years since I was last on Princess Cruises, when I vowed to never return after going on three underwhelming cruises in the space of 12 months: Sky and Regal Princess in Europe and Majestic Princess in Alaska. I felt Princess had lost its way, and they had slipped behind their competition in the premium category. In fact, I made a video after those cruises, which is entitled “My Last Time? Issues I Have With Princess” about my feelings.
But I relented because I wanted to go on a Group Cruise hosted by my vlogger friends “Paul and Carol Love To Travel” which was on Sky Princess. So, I decided to go back and see if they’d improved.
Here’s what I found. Good and bad.
First, a quick reminder of who Princess is.
Who Is Princess Cruises?
They’re part of the Carnival Corporation, operating in what the cruise industry calls the Premium Category, competing with Holland America Line, Celebrity Cruises, Cunard, and Virgin Voyages, based on price and their overall offer. They are the largest of these based on passengers carried.
Like those other premium lines, they offer more traditional cruise entertainment, dining and enrichment.
Princess has a wide range of cabins like those other lines do from inside to suites and attract a wide range of cruisers. While mostly older couples, they also appeal increasingly to families and multigenerational groups particularly in the summer months in the Mediterranean and Alaska, and in the holiday periods in the Caribbean.
They offer itineraries in most regions of the world with a fleet, at time of recording, of 17 ships which are getting larger and larger. While they have some smaller ships, like Coral Princess at 2,000, their more recent Royal Class, which includes Sky Princess carries 3,660, and the newest Sphere-class ships like Sun Princess carry 4,310.
So, let’s find out what I felt has improved.
Improved: The Food
Based on those older trips, I was very critical of the food, and I was delighted to find they have made a huge improvement by bringing on board Rudi Sodamin, a well-respected restauranter and chef to help oversee it.
He worked with Holland America Line, their sister line within the Carnival Corporation, to significantly improve their food, and he has done that on Princess too.
The improvement is most obvious in the Main Dining Room. It has been elevated with a decent sized menu, with good choice. The starters, main courses and the desserts were all consistently good, and certainly for their category and fares, they are now among the best of their direct competition.
Of course, they do not match the luxury lines, but I would not expect that for the fares.
Main Dining Room
They have also made good changes to the Main Dining Room formats, to match the needs of different types of people cruising these days.
On Sky Princess, they had three main dining rooms. Soleil offered traditional fixed dining, so you could have a set table and waiters and choose Early 5:30pm or Late 7:45pm sittings for the entire cruise.
Estrella offered anytime dining, where you could walk in with no reservations. Part of Estrella had Reserve Collection dining, for people travelling in suites or Reserve Collection Mini-Suites with a slightly elevated menu.
Then there was Cielo restaurant where you had to make reservations which could be done before the cruise or during the cruise on the App day by day.
Buffet Restaurant
In the World Fresh Marketplace, which is the buffet, I felt the food there was fine too, probably not as elevated as in the Main Dining Room but also improved.
A stand-out change were the large Vegan, Vegetarian and Gluten-free sections, which is way more than any other line I have been on.
Like the other lines, they did have different themes every day like pub lunch, American comfort food, Indian, Italian, Picnic BBQ, Seafood and Sushi and so on, all of which was very popular.
They also have kept and elevated the bakery section, as Princess place focus on cookies, cakes, and desserts which is strong in the category still.
Speciality Dining
In terms of speciality dining, it has not changed significantly from my last trips, although the new large Sphere-Class Ships (Sun and Star) have added new venues.
They still have the Crown Grill, which is their steakhouse, which is a pretty standard one and while my visit was fine it was no better than the past, others on the Group Cruise reported a more mixed experience.
Sabatini’s, which is their Italian restaurant still exists and has not changed much, but they now have a seafood restaurant Catch by Rudi, which was probably the most popular of the three specialty restaurants.
Informal Dining
Informal dining options have not changed, though unlike before you cannot go as often as you like within the fare.
Alfredo’s still is there and still has excellent pizzas which are probably my favourite at sea on any line, and the Ocean Terrace Sushi Bar is still there with no real change.
But, when I was last on both were included in the fare, and I could dine as often as I wanted, but now as I paid for the “Princess Plus” package I could go just twice (once to each or twice to one). If I’d bought the “Princess Premier” package I could have gone as much as I wanted, and if I had neither package, it was an added charge.
Though still included in the fare up on the pool deck is the Salty Dog Grill, for hamburgers and hot dogs, Slice, for pizzas but not as good as Alfredo’s, and Swirls soft-serve ice cream.
All are the same as my older trips and not better nor worse.
The other Princess standard is International Café, which in Sky Princess is on deck five in the atrium, and still open 24-hours a day with food and snacks relevant to the time of day. Those are included in the fare, but coffees and teas are not but are included in the Plus or Premier packages.
The other venue is the Gelato store which serves ice cream and sundaes which cost around $17 each, but two a day are included in the Plus package and unlimited in the Premium. The options look to be the same as from past trips.
I will talk more on the packages later as some negative changes since my last trips to talk about.
But I was pleased that I found the food to be a big improvement. What else did I find improved?
Improved: Entertainment
The second area, which I thought was elevated versus last time, was the entertainment and the daily program. It is now jam-packed, and seems to be catering even more for higher energy, active, and social travellers.
I counted at least 75 different activities on a sea day listed in the “Princess Patter” daily program, with 15 of those running after 10pm and late into the night.
So, more going on and later than their competitors. I did find it to be a much more party atmosphere, buzzier, and higher energy especially in the evenings than before.
In terms of entertainment, they’ve kept their production shows which are more contemporary than some lines. The three on Sky Princess were Rock Opera, with creative staging, glitzy costumes, and high production values. 5-SKIES a story themed around a video game. And Spotlight Bar, which is heavily inspired by he popular Choir of Man show, set in a bar.
There’s a lot of live music and cabaret shows around the ship, with a band in the Atrium, occasionally on the pool deck, and at times in the Vista Lounge, along with cabaret shows by some of the Guest Entertainers there too.
There’s Take Five with a resident jazz band, and at the Crown Grill bar a pianist, guitarist, or violinists playing sets.
In terms of the other activities it is fairly classic including Zumba and dance classes, enrichment and port talks, culinary-based events like vegetable carving, executive chef and galley tour, multiple sessions of games shows like Deal or No Deal, Yes and No, different themed trivia, movies on the pool deck or In Princess Live, games in the Atrium like Officers versus Passenger Challenges and Hoopla, a “Voice of the Seas” competition version of TV’s The Voice, arts and crafts classes, bingo, Silent Discos, and various sport activities, like five-a-side games, and table tennis.
There were also many revenue-generated activities like shopping events, art auctions, wine tasting, cocktail making and so on. More on this later.
I felt entertainment has been ramped up, higher energy and there is much more a feeling of buzz and activity, catering for a livelier party and social crowd. Certainly, many on the cruise were up the small hours of the morning every night.
Improved: Port Immersion
Another thing I felt was elevated since those last trips I’d been on, was port information and immersion, and Princess Cruises particularly seem to be catering much better for people who want to self-explore, which I really liked.
The port talks were by an independent speaker not connected to Shore Excursions team, who gave information on history, sights to see, place to eat and how to get around.
Then they had two sets of port guides for each port. One 4-pager was available on the App or as a document with an overview of each of the port. But the night before another 2-pager was left in the cabin with specifics about where the ship was docking, how to get into town, a map, currency required, and importantly the port agent and all aboard time.
They also had all the screens around the ship reminding people of all aboard time and encouraging self-explorers to take a photo of the important port agent information in case of issues or delays.
Of course, they did still have a range of shore excursions of different types available, but I really liked the focus now on also catering for self-explorers like me.
So, that’s what I felt has improved. Now on to what unfortunately stayed the same and then what I felt has got worse.
Not Improved: Service
While some I spoke to felt service was good, I did not think it was, and it was no better than my last times. I think it was fine and more transactional and at times erratic.
I found and still do see the service on Princess at best average, and below the larger competitors like Celebrity and Holland America which have smaller ships overall. The service is fine, but I felt it didn’t really go that further step, it didn’t feel particularly elevated.
Like on my past trips I did not even feel anyone was worth naming as stand-out crew on the end-of-cruise survey. It was all just fine and standard.
It is clear to me that the benefits of the Medallion technology have not helped improve service since my last times. Let me talk more on this.
Not Improved: Medallion
The Princess Cruises Medallion is a small wearable device that replaced cruise cards to open cabin doors, check on and off the ship and to make purchases on Princess ships. The ships have technology that tracks and identifies each guest on devices the crew have.
It was supposed to help provide a more personal service on large ships as the crew would be able to address guests by name, and at launch it was said it would allow crew to capture key information about guests in notes to help crew personalise without asking, such as favourite drinks and so on.
I saw no improvements from before, and even the waiter I had every day for breakfast did not remember my usual order.
It was still handy as opened my cabin door as I approached and worked to buy things and check on and off, and often crew would call me by name. But not always.
It is also supposed to make ordering drinks and food on the App better as the Medallion identifies where you are for the crew to bring it. Like before, I found it remained hit and miss on how effective and fast ordering worked, and I ended up like in the past just going to the bar or venue.
I could use it to activate some of the screens to then get into my account to make various bookings but no better than before.
So, what did I think has got worse versus the last time?
Worse: “Nickel and Diming”
They all fall under the term of “nickel-and-diming” in several areas.
First, there was more focus and push on revenue generation on board by Princess Cruises than before, with as I mentioned many daily program activities to generate money like art auctions, bingo, spa events, fitness classes, shopping events, shopping advisors, drink tastings, photographers all over and so on. On the daily program, at least up to 20 of the 75 activities per day were designed to generate more revenue.
Second, some things included on the fare are now extra charges. I already mentioned Alfredo’s and the Ocean Terrace Sushi Bar but now there were upcharges on all of menus, both Main Dining Room and even speciality restaurants like Crown’s Grill for some cuts of meat and dishes.
Third, there have been some downgrades on the Princess Plus and Princess Premier packages. Just before this Princess cruise they removed soda cans out of the drinks package, so unlike before I had to pay, with some discount, if I wanted soda cans like Caffeine-free Diet Coke not available in the bar soda dispensers, could only order one drink at a time, and no doubles.
Also, while with the Princess Premier package you get unlimited speciality dining, friends of mine who had it, and hadn’t booked speciality dining before boarding, found it was full and so could not use the perk.
Based on all of this, is Princess firmly back on my list of lines to cruise with again, or even over their other direct competition? Probably not as I feel Holland America and Celebrity probably meet my needs still better, but for the right itinerary I may. However, if you’re looking for a premium line, like the choices bigger ship can offer, want diverse itinerary options, and a more active and livelier daily program, Princess Cruises could be right for you
