Norwegian Cruise Line vs Princess Cruises: Which is Best?
My first ever cruise was actually on the Norwegian Bliss, so the line will always have a special place for me but things have always been up and down with them in my experience whilst my experience of Princess is a bit more limited but it quite easy to understand how the line works as they tend to offer a consistent offering.
On the face of it, the choice between the two is either a family resort style getaway with NCL or premium experience with Princess but it is a lot more nuanced than that, which makes the decision much trickier.
If you are trying to decide between the two lines, this is the article for you as I breakdown the different areas of cruising to answer the question, Norwegian Cruise Lines vs Princess Cruises: Which is best?
NCL vs Princess Short
As anybody who has cruised in the last 5 years or so will know, the pre-cruise period is now one of the most important aspects of a cruise line as you know do just about everything you need to do before stepping foot on your ship, well in advance of even arriving at the port.
The best lines make it as simple to do that as possible but for whatever reasons, it has been actual hard work and time consuming to achieve the basics of modern cruising and one such line to do just that has been Norwegian.
For my first cruise with them, a lot of things needed to be done at the departure terminal and whilst slow going, I knew no better.
For my 2nd cruise with the line, I injured myself in the days before sailing which made it difficult to walk. I contacted the line to ask to move my cabin to one closer to the lift bank (but in the same category) and was told I would have to pay nearly double the original cost to do so.
That really should have been a simple thing and after getting onboard and unpacking everything, once the cruise director spotted me struggling on crutches, they did offer to move me, but the prospect of packing and unpacking again was something I couldn’t face.
My 3rd cruise with them saw everything that could go wrong, go wrong pre-cruise as the website broke whilst I tried to book, leading me to having to phone the line to complete the booking.
Things weren’t fixed weeks later when I tried to book shore excursions using my discount for booking the Free at Sea offer. Once again, I had to phone up and after the agent for NCL spent far far too long just trying to sell me things I had no interest in, I had to butt in an ask if to stop and simply allow me to book what I wanted to.
With Princess on the other hand, things could be done easily on the website or app and whilst you do have to wait until final payment is made to do things such as book dining (although I did figure out a work around for that!), it still worked and made things straight forward.
Winner: Whilst not perfect and not the best pre-cruise experience, Princess wins this one hands down as in my experience, this is somewhere that NCL really struggle.
The actual arriving at the terminal, checking in and then completing the muster drill can really make or break a holiday as when done well, it’s a breeze and you just get on with enjoying your time onboard your ship but when done badly, it’s a slog and you start your adventure tired and a bit grumpy.
A lot of the issues can come from the departure port and that was certainly the case when I sailed with NCL from Seattle and Princess from Buenos Aires, when both ports were poorly organised.
In fairness to NCL, I have had two great experiences with them when sailing out of Southampton and in fairness to Princess, I do believe a lot of the issues in the Argentine capital was down to the port and not them.
After a long delay before even getting to start the boarding process, it wasn’t helped by Princess asking us to join another long queue to sort some visa issues, to only get to the front of the queue to be told we didn’t need to do it then but it would be sorted once onboard at a later date.
That meant losing more of our holiday time once we were underway and surly could have been sorted at the same time as everybody else was doing it- I had queue anyway.Winner: So, with both doing this aspect relatively well, that slight issue from Princess proves to be the big difference and for this one, I give the point to Norwegian.
I have sailed on both smaller older ships and new, large ships with Norwegian and that gives me a good overview of what they have to offer entertainment wise.
There are a number of plusses, including having lots of musicians and singers around their ships and I love the West End style shows that they offer on bigger ships.
It was hugely disappointing to see that the line had removed live musicians from the theatre, including their production shows and the experience is just not the same with a backing track.
I was so pleased to see that Princess did still have a live band in the theatre for both productions shows and accompany guest entertainers but with them I was disappointed by the variety of their shows.
Each production show was basically cut and paste but with different costumes and each guest entertainers was a singer and despite the seemingly never-ending list of styles and songs available to sing, we heard the same song time and time again.
Winner: They too offered different acts around the ship and whilst NCL perhaps should be the winner in this category for the better variety, the penny pinching of getting rid of live musicians really does dampen the experience and reminds you have what is more important to them- money over your enjoyment, so Princess get the win.
This aspect of the lines has to be the biggest difference between them as Norwegian offer a relaxed style of cruising where they like to promote things as being “do what you want, when you want”, but that in reality often means having to queue or pre-book things as the other few thousands cruisers also want to do what they want, when they want.
Things are quite laid back onboard, with only limited restrictions for things such as dress code and no formal requirements in restaurants, aside from a couple of speciality restaurants.
The activities offered around the ship tend to be a bit more active whilst Princess tends to offer a more formal and relaxed style of cruising that is more ‘traditional’ in nature.
There is more of an expectation to dress up on an evening, and they do have formal nights and whilst on NCL the singers will likely paly rock, country or current pop on Princess it is more 50s, 60’ and 70s or classical music.
Norwegian big ships offer lots of activities and attractions for the whole family to enjoy and you can enjoy things such as go-karts, flumes and mini golf whilst on Princess your attractions tend to be more sun lounges, pools and putting.
If I was sailing with my young niece, NCL would win every time and I do like the onboard experience with them, whilst the slower pace onboard Princess certainly has its place, but that does tend to be limited to more port intensive cruises.
Winner: Its really a flip of the coin for this one and I am going to give it to Norwegian as a do like having a bit more variety on a ship.
This is something that is always subjective and it depends on what you value as been a good itinerary but for me it’s a variety of ports, going to places not too many other ships do and also having long days in port.
Overall, this is a category that both really do well at and thanks to both having a large and varied fleet of ships, they take advantage to offer lots of options across the globe.
I love repositioning cruises and both offer plenty of those and both even offer numerous cruises in polar regions- again where I love to cruise.
In reality, it would come down to which line offered the best itinerary in the region I wanted to cruise at the best cost but for the purpose of this, I can only base it on the itinerary’s that the lines offer in general.
Winner: Princess do have more options, they do have a bit more variety especially in non-western parts of the world such as Asia and they do group trips together to make it easy to create a trip you want, so with all of that in mind, Princess just scrape the point in this one.
This can be a tricky thing to judge different lines on as the price of a cruise can be determine by things such as the destinations you visit the costs they charge, the time of year when you cruise and how popular your sailing is.
To try and keep this one level, as I sailed over the Christmas and New Year period with Princess and out of season with NCL, I will use the none-holiday price of the same route I sailed on with Princess to judge this.
Princess are a premium line, so whilst they do have a slightly higher price in general, they do offer better quality in terms of the food on offer, less crowded ships and more often than not, longer times in ports.
All of that offers value to me personally whilst it has been a growing trend with NCL to offer a poorer variety of ports and cost cutting in every aspect, such as in the theatre as already mentioned.
Winner: Despite all of that, their prices have continued to rise much more than over lines and so there can only be the one winner in this category and that is Princess.
This can be a tricky thing to judge different lines on as the price of a cruise can be determine by things such as the destinations you visit the costs they charge, the time of year when you cruise and how popular your sailing is.
To try and keep this one level, as I sailed over the Christmas and New Year period with Princess and out of season with NCL, I will use the none-holiday price of the same route I sailed on with Princess to judge this.
Princess are a premium line, so whilst they do have a slightly higher price in general, they do offer better quality in terms of the food on offer, less crowded ships and more often than not, longer times in ports.
All of that offers value to me personally whilst it has been a growing trend with NCL to offer a poorer variety of ports and cost cutting in every aspect, such as in the theatre as already mentioned.
Winner: Despite all of that, their prices have continued to rise much more than over lines and so there can only be the one winner in this category and that is Princess.
As you have read, both liens have areas they do well at and both have areas they struggle in, but it is Princess that gets the overall win due to winning 5 categories whilst Norwegian only get the 2 wins.
Winner: I have to say though that a lot of these categories are much closer than that indicates and its certainly not the case that Princess are 2 and a half times better overall than NCL, but if you are trying to decide between the two, I hope the points raised will help you to make the right decision for you.
