I'm considering sailing on Princess and am wondering if it tends to cater to any particular demographic. For instance, I've found a mostly older crowd on HAL, and a younger "party" crowd (with more offered late at night) on Carnival. Where does Princess fit in?

Thanks.

More or less like HAL. However as they also have a nice kids=programma there can be many kinds on board. Of course depending the season and itinary,.
Have you considered Celebrity?

Where are you sailing to? That can also influence the age demographic.

I think the demographics on Princess, HAL and Celebrity are all very similar. The destination determines more than the cruiseline itself IMO.

Thanks for the responses. I've enjoyed HAL and Celebrity much more than Carnival -- so I may give Princess a try.

We just returned from an Alaskan cruise on the Sapphire Princess. If you have any questions please ask. Larry

Larry,

Does Sapphire have basketball? When we were on Grand, they transformed the court into paddle tennis only due to complaints from spa below.

We've done HAL once and Princess 4 so here are my thoughts. I thought the food was far better on HAL over Princess, ice cream is served all day on HAL as well as hot chocolate and juices, on Princess you have to pay extra for it. At 34 I always seemed to be the youngest on the Princess cruises also, though I did find a handful more in my age group. But as noted above I also think this has a lot to do with the itinerary. Age really isn't important to me except that I don't want to be around a lot of kids or the party types So Princess works out perfectly for us. I also sail when children are in school so overcrowding has never been apparent to me. No expereience on Carnival.

Spur: No Bball dude, sorry. I think the RCCL voyager class has at least a half court set up.

Hmmm....that's odd, the Diamond, the Sapphire's sister ship did. I wonder if it's still there I remember that the Diamond was getting Movies Under the Stars too, I think?

Travelinwifey: I looked at the Princess web site and checked the sports activities for the Diamond and the Sapphire and neither mentioned a Bball court. Perhaps they removed them?

Maybe they were, they also took away the 4 themed restaurants, who knows

There are two themed restaurants, Sabbatinis and the Sterling Steak House and each has a surcharge. Then there are two others, the Sante Fe and the Pacific Moon which serve the same food as the formal dining room only its for anytime dining vs. standard seating. We came in late from our Victoria excursion and popped right into the Sante Fe for dinner on our last night so it worked out well. Pretty good house merlot too. Cheers, Larry.

All Princess ships I have been on have had a bbq court - it would surprise me if the Sapphire didn't. They are usually under the funnel.

I think they did the same transformation on the Sapphire that spur mentioned inre to the Grand. Anyway I saw no Bball at all last mo. on the Sapphire. I called Princess to get some brochures and asked about them. They said the Grand class ships are the only ones that have Bball and its half-court. I could be mistaken but I don't think the Sapphire had it.

Thank you everybody and special thanks to Larry for the research. I promised my boys bbal before our Grand cruise as it was still advertised. It turned out to be a big disappointment as bball is attraction # 1 for them. I am lucky they did not throw me overboard (and they are big enough now to do that). I am pretty sure Princess shut it down on every ship: of course spa makes a lot more money for them than bball. All I can say is it's a crappy ship design. On Voyager class ships it does not interfere with anything.

Your welcome spur. Take em to the hoop!

travelwifey-

a heads up on ice cream on ALL Princess ships---Hagen Daz ice cream counter closest to the pool is what you PAY for...

but there is FREE ice cream that Princess makes daily and served in their Horizon Court ( buffet area) on the pool deck daily around 3-4pm--plus their awesome homemade chocolate chip cookies....

We have been on 2 Princess cruises in the last 2 years and always had the Princess homemade ice cream..

Everyone says ice cream is a cost on Princess but Princess really never advertises Ice Cream hour and we ran into it accidentally on our first day on board...

By the way, it changes daily and is WONDERFUL!!

Hi Andy, yes, thanks so much for your comments. We've sailed Princess a few times too and have never taken advantage of the afternoon ice cream because of the odd hours it's served. The nice thing about HAL is that it is availible all day, yogurt incuded, with all those delectable hich calorie toppings. I am actually relieved it is not so readily availible on Princess because I feel obligated to eat it, bad, bad girl!

I agree, not a lot of people know about the Princess ice cream! It took us a while until we figured it out also, where were you before our first cruise?

Many happy sailings to you and yours in the future

travelwifey-

Nice to know the good stuff about HAL as I was hesitant to go on them--but we do have a cruise booked this fall on the Zuiderdam....

Means I need to LOSE tons before this cruise...as I am an ice cream freak!

Am hoping this is not an elderly cruise but we are going with friends, so that is not a major issue..and it never has been....

While we are not elderly, we are not young like the Carnival kids...LOL!