Princess Cruises

Princess Cruises is one of the worlds biggest cruise lines that offer a more premium mainstream experience amongst one of the widest ranges of ships and itineraries.

Name: Princess Cruises
Founded: 1965
Headquartered: Santa Clarita, California
Parent Company: Carnival Corporation
Focus Locations: Mediterranean, Caribbean, Asia
Key Home Ports: Fort Lauderdale, Civitavecchia, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Athens, Orlando
Onboard Currency: $ USD
Website: Princess.com
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The modern-day line is owned by the giant Carnival Corporation and are headquartered out of Santa Clarita in California, which has been the case since 2003, but the line’s history is much longer than that after been established by Canadian Stanley MacDonald in 1965.

Nowadays, Princess Cruises offer some of the biggest and most modern cruise ships that offer a great mix of traditional cruising combined with modern preferences but where do they excel, where do they come up short and are they the right line for you.

In this guide and review, I take you through everything you need to know about the line based on my own experience of cruising with them and all of the research I have undertaken regarding them over the years.

Onboard Experience of Princess Cruises

The Princess line offers what I can only describe as a traditional cruising style, where there is lots of downtime and the activities offered tend to be basic.

It’s a line where there is plenty of down time throughout the day, so if like to busy on holiday, they are perhaps not the line for you but if you like to take it easy and enjoy a slower pace whilst cruising, they could be the option for you.

Formal nights tend to be a bit more, well formal, than other similar lines that I have sailed on and there is still a little bit of snobbery from some cruisers, so if dressing up to the nines isn’t for you, other premium lines such as Celebrity may be better suited to you.

If you love great food, decent entertainment and friendly staff, they offer a great onboard experience to unwind and explore the world.

Cruise Style of Princess Cruises

The style of the Princess fleet for me is quite a dated one, starting with the cabins where they have a lot of dark wood and reminds me more of a 1970’s design.

There atriums are also kept basic and their top decks simply offer somewhere to sit in the sun, take a swim or sit with a drink.

Its all done to a good standard and they certainly have a style that you can see a picture of one of the main areas of the ship and instantly know that it is a Princess ship and if you like that style, you will like all of the ships in their fleet.

What’s Included on Princess Cruises

Princess gives you everything you would expect from a cruise line included in the base cost of your cruise including all of your meals in the Main Dining Room and the Buffet.

You also get basic drinks, such as water, fruit squash, tea and coffee included in both of those places whilst every ship has an included café, with food available around the clock.

There plenty of activities around the ship including in the atrium, lounges and on the top deck that can be enjoyed without an extra cost.

Entertainment is also included with musicians and singers playing in different parts of the ship during the day and evening and there are two performances in the theatre each night, including production shows and guest entertainers.

Aside from those choosing the very cheapest fare, you get to pick your own cabin, you can have breakfast delivered for no extra cost to your stateroom and there are some snacks available throughout the rest of the day that you can have delivered to your room- including things such as burgers and chicken sandwiches.

Around the pool deck, there are a few grab and go spots where you can get included food and things such as swimming pools, hot tubs, sports courts and more are included.

Extra Costs of Princess Cruises

As is the case with every cruise line, not everything onboard is included in the cost of your base fare, starting with alcoholic drinks, sodas and speciality coffees- although you can pre-purchase drink packages to cover the cost of these.

Each ship also offers extra dining options at a cost including speciality dining, upgrades at the grab and go spots and even some options that can be delivered to your room.

If you upgrade your journey, you can also get food and drink delivered anywhere on the ship, with your medallion showing wait staff where you are sitting.

Shore excursions all cost extra and the usual add-ons such as the spa, beauty treatments and photos from the onboard photographers are all extra costs.

Entertainment of Princess Cruises

There was a couple of big positives with the entertainment onboard including the overall quality, which was high and the fact that they still had live musicians in the theatre.

On the downside, for my cruising with them I found their guest entertainers to be quite repetitive, as they were 99% singers and most a few songs were repeated across most performers.

The same can be said of the production show as there was little variety there, so it felt more like you were watching a reworking of the same show each performance- although the cast themselves were excellent.

Our favourite lines mix it up with acrobats, impersonators, musical theatre and more but it is perhaps more in-keeping with the style of Princess to play it safe.

In the lounges around the ship and in the atrium, there were musicians playing and it was a similar story there as whilst they were all quality performers, they were also similar.

There was a sail away party on the pool deck, with was good fun and on our sailing we also had a polar bear plunge with was one of the highlights of the trip for me as it was much less formal than the rest of the entertainment and the staff could just relax, enjoy themselves and to be honest be themselves a bit more as it can all be a bit clinical and corporatey on Princess.

Food and Drink of Princess Cruises

This is something I was looking forward to before sailing with the line as I had heard lots about the food on Princess and it had been mainly positive.

To be honest, it was all the same as everything is on Princess cruises, great quality but repetitive and safe. On similar standard of lines, you often get a few food offerings in the buffet based on the ports or countries you are missing, and I always liked that touch.

On Princess, they have themed nights and whilst we got a schedule of what would be on offer each night of our journey, it seemed to not match up but to be honest on some nights it was hard to tell.

In the Main Dining Room, there was once again little in terms of variety, but it was decent quality with the pork with cocoa one of the tastiest meals I have had at sea.

Drink wise, they offer all you would expect and plenty of bars have their own special cocktails and as a non-drinker, I liked that they had a range of mocktails with the banana chocolate drink been my personal favourite.

Each ship in the Princess fleet brings you a range of cabin types, often including inside cabins, outside cabins, balcony staterooms, junior suites and full suites and as is the ongoing theme of this review, they are good quality but all play it safe.

You are not going to find kids rooms with slides, infinity balconies or internal balconies but you will get everything you need, and it all done to a decent standard.

As already mentioned, I am not completely taken with style of the cabins as they do feel dated but everything that is important about your room did impress me.

The tv was large and had plenty on it, the bed was large and comfy, there was plenty of storage, the shower was large and powerful, and the medallion made it easy to enter and exit.

I really like how the line split up the rooms, with a wall creating a storage area that is great for not just putting things away but also for placing any bags etc to keep them out of the way when not in use.

This is somewhere where the line really does excel and something that was part of the attraction of the line for me as there are few parts of the world where the line operates.

They offer a great mix of round trips and repositioning routes, and they also make it easy to do back-to-back routes, especially on their ships that are constantly moving between homeports.

The line has one of the largest fleet of ships and lots of variety of sizes which really do allow them to visit a great range of ports and thankfully, they don’t play it safe in this regard.

From a UK point of view, they offer round trip itineraries to favourites such as the Med, the Canaries, the Baltics, Northern Europe and the Norwegian Fjords and globally they operate from top ports in regions such as North America, Europe, Oceania and Asia.

They also head further afield during parts of the year to places such as the Arctic, South America, Middle East and even all the way down in Antarctica, where I first cruised with the line.

So basically, no matter where you want to cruise to and where you want to cruise from, the chances are that you will be able to do so.

Princess Cruises Cruises From Southampton

If you want to sail out of the UK with the Princess Cruises cruise line, you will have to sail from the United Kingdom’s leading cruise port of Southampton, although some special cruisers do depart form Dover including World Cruises.

Princess has a huge variety of cruise ships, with some been medium sized ones built in the last century, and some been amongst the biggest and newest to sail the high seas.

That tends to mean that if you have a preference to the type of ship you like to, you will find it with the line, and it also means that your favourite style of cruising can often be met.

There smaller ships offer a more traditional style of cruising whilst their newer ships offer a modern resort-style of cruising.

The ships of Princess can be split into a number of classes of size and style including smaller and older ships with a more traditional feel to larger and modern ships with a resort style of cruising to them.

Smaller Ships

These are the ships smaller ships which have been the mainstay of the line for much of this century and continue to be amongst the most popular for long term cruisers.

Grand Class:- Grand Princess (built 1998), Diamond Princess (built 2004), Sapphire Princess (built 2004), Caribbean Princess (built 2004), Crown Princess (built 2006), Emerald Princess (built 2007), Ruby Princess (built 2008)
Coral Class:- Coral Princess (built 2002), Island Princess (built 2003)

Larger Ships

These are larger cruise ships that are some of the more moderner ships in the Princess fleet that also offer the widest range of facilities for cruisers to enjoy.

Royal Class:- Royal Princess (built 2013), Regal Princess (built 2014), Majestic Princess (built 2017), Sky Princess (built 2019), Enchanted Princess (built 2020), Discovery Princess (built 2022)
Sphere Class:- Sun Princess (built 2024), Star Princess (built 2024)

Princess is a premium line but whilst you will likely pay more for the base fare, you do get more included and you do get better quality than a regular mainstream line.

They offer a more relaxed getaway with a traditional style of cruising, so I would say they are more suited to older couples, looking for a peaceful time where they can relax and enjoy travelling to great ports.

With little for kids and plenty of downtown throughout the day, the line is not really one for children and it may be a struggle for younger couples or those who like to be busy.

It really does depend on the itinerary you choose however as whilst I personally found that there wasn’t quite enough to keep me entertained and I do prefer it when there is always something happening around the ship, so if I fancy doing something, I can, the itinerary really can save things.

Cruising somewhere with outstanding natural beauty, where been outside on deck is part of the entertainment of your getaway or been on a port intensive itinerary where you keep busy by exploring new ports each day and you don’t have to worry about the lack of activities and entertainment that often crops up.

Overall, I have been happy with the experience I had with the line but just as is the case everything, they are not perfect.

The shore excursions that have been offered in both South America and Europe are grossly over-priced, even when compared to other line who also make you pay far over the odds.

On my first sailing with them, health and safety protocols were the slackest I have experienced at sea and far below what you would expect from a premium line with basics such as not making you wash your hands before eating in the buffet and having nobody at the muster station leaving guests to finish the process themselves was a disconcerting start to our getaway.

A few smaller points to keep in mind is that if you have the basic drink package, you are left in the confusing situation that you can get sodas anywhere around the ship but if you are given an unopen can at a bar without a soda machine, you are charged and for our sailing with them, the times in the app, the daily patter and what were given by the cruise director were often all different.

The dis-embarkation times constantly changed and left to lots of confusion and a bit of panic with those only having limited wiggle room to get to the airport and check-in.

The Princess cruise line was established back in 1965 when the lines founder, Stanley McDonald chartered the Princess Patricia cruise ship to sail in the Mexican Riviera during the winter months.

The Princess Patricia was designed to sail in Alaska and so wasn’t suited to the warm climates of SoCal and Mexico, so the line would quickly need a new ship and they would soon get one known as the Italia.

She wouldn’t last long either, but the lines third ship, the SS Flandre, that would really make it for the long in a unforeseeable way.

It was whilst cruising on the ship as a passenger where Jeraldine Saunders wrote the first parts of the Love Boats, which would go on to become a hit tv show where the action was filmed on a Princess ship and the line would become an icon of the industry.

In 1974, the line was sold to P&O and by 1984, the line would launch their first purpose-built ship.

In 1988, the Sitmar Line would be bought, and all of their ship rebranded in the Princess livery and that was soon followed by the purchase of Princess Cays.

The 1990’s was a decade of change of the line and the industry which in part led to the now named P&O Princess company been sold to the Carnival Corporation, who still own the line, with themselves and P&O trading under the umbrella of Carnival UK.

Overall, there are lots of plusses and the line is certainty one that I will look to sail with in the future.

There is nothing wrong per se with the lines offering and you will have a great getaway but on the flip side of that, there are lines offering similar standards of cursing at a similar cost who give you lots more.

The line really needs to stop playing every safe and try to find a unique hook of there own to make them standout and I wish there was more variety with the food and entertainment.

They offer a great range of ships and itineraries and their prices are often competitive, so if you are not sailing as a family and if you don’t need something happening all of the time onboard the ship, you should give them a go.

Princess Review

Princess Cruises are a premium cruise line that are part of the Carnival Corporation family of lines.

They keep adding new ships whilst renewing their older fleet of ships, so if you prefer large modern ships, you can sail on them with the line, if you prefer older ones, you can choose those and everything in-between.

That also allows for a great mix of itineraries and whilst their upfront costs are often higher, you can get great value cruising outside of the high season.

If you are looking for Princess Cruises reviews, you are in the right place, as we bring you our honest review of the Princess Cruises cruise line.