Plan Your Princess Cruises Vacation
Princess Cruises may be best known for introducing cruise travel to millions of viewers, when its flagship became the setting for The Love Boat television series in 1977. Since that heady time of small-screen stardom, the Princess fleet has grown both in the number and size of ships. Although most are large in scale, Princess vessels manage to create the illusion of intimacy through the use of color and decor in understated yet lovely public rooms graced by multimillion-dollar art collections.
Princess has also become more flexible; Personal Choice Cruising offers alternatives for open seating dining (when you wish and with whom you please) and entertainment options as diverse as those found in resorts ashore.
Lovely chapels or the wide-open decks are romantic settings for weddings at sea with the captain officiating.
Key Princess Cruises Tips
Are you a first-time cruiser? View our helpful hints and tips on Your Shipmates, Dress Code, Junior Cruisers, and much more! See Tips
Top Reasons To Cruise
- Accessibility Princess is a top choice for travelers with disabilities because the ships and even shore excursions offer more choices for them.
- Movies Under the Stars An innovative feature copied by other cruise lines, Princess was the first line to offer movies and other programming on giant poolside LED screens.
- Relaxation Ships in the Princess fleet feature another cruise industry first—The Sanctuary, where adults can get away from it all, has become a signature element imitated by many other lines.
- Sophistication Princess Cruises’ ships range from midsize to megaship, but all have a sophisticated ambience.
- Weddings Noted as the "Love Boats," Princess ships were the first at sea to offer captain-officiated weddings, and unlike most cruise lines they still do.
Is This Line Right For You?
Choose This Line If
- You're a traveler with a disability. Princess ships are some of the most accessible at sea.
- You like to gamble but hate a smoke-filled casino. Princess casinos are no-smoking areas.
- You want a balcony. Princess ships feature them in abundance at affordable rates.
Don't Choose This Line If
- You have a poor sense of direction. Most ships are very large.
- You think Princess is still as depicted in The Love Boat. That was just a TV show, and it was more than three decades ago.
- You're too impatient to stand in line or wait. Debarkation from the large ships can be lengthy.
What To Expect On Board
Food
Personal choices regarding where and what to eat abound, but because of the number of passengers, unless you opt for traditional assigned seating or make a reservation, you might have a short wait for a table in one of the open seating dining rooms. Menus are varied and extensive
in the main dining rooms, and the results are good to excellent. Vegetarian and healthy lifestyle options are always on the menu. A separate menu is designed for children.
Alternative restaurants are a staple throughout the fleet but vary by ship class. Grand-class and newer ships have upscale steak houses and Sabatini's, an Italian restaurant; both require reservations and carry an extra cover charge. Sun Princess offers a similar steak-house option, although it's in a sectioned-off area of the buffet restaurant. On Caribbean, Crown,Emerald, and Ruby Princess, a casual evening alternative is the Crab Shack—adjacent to the Lido buffet restaurant, it serves shellfish such as Bayou-style boiled crawfish, clams, and mussels. With a few breaks in service, Lido buffets on all ships are almost always open, and a pizzeria and grill offer casual daytime snack choices. Open 24 hours a day, the International Café located in the Atrium Piazza is the place for an ever-changing array of small bite meals. The fleet's patisseries and ice cream bars charge for specialty coffee, some pastries, and premium ice cream. A complimentary daily British-style pub lunch served in the ships’ Wheelhouse Bar is available fleet-wide, with the exception of the Sun Princess and Island Princess.
Ultimate Balcony Dining—either a champagne breakfast or full-course dinner—is a full-service meal served on your cabin's balcony. The Chef’s Table allows guests (for a fee) to dine on a special menu with wine pairings. After a meeting with the executive chef in the galley (and some champagne and appetizers), guests sit at a special table in the dining room. The chef joins them for dessert.
Entertainment
The roster of adult activities still includes standbys like bingo and art auctions, but you'll also find guest lecturers, cooking classes, wine-tasting seminars, pottery workshops, and computer and digital photography classes. Nighttime production shows tend toward Broadway-style
revues presented in the main show lounge, and performers might include comedians, magicians, jugglers, and acrobats. Live bands play a wide range of musical styles for dancing and listening, and each ship has a dance club. The cruise director's staff leads lively evenings of fun with passenger participation. At the conclusion of the second formal night, champagne trickles down over a champagne waterfall. Ladies are invited to join the maître d' to assist in the pouring for a great photo op.
Fitness and Recreation
Spa rituals include a variety of massages, body wraps, and facials; numerous hair and nail services are offered in the salons. Both the salons and spas are operated by Steiner Leisure. For a half-day fee, escape to The Sanctuary—the adults-only haven—which offers a relaxing
outdoor spa-inspired setting with signature beverages, light meals, massages, attentive service, and relaxing personal entertainment.
Modern exercise equipment, a jogging track, and basic fitness classes are available at no charge. There's a fee for personal training, body composition analysis, and specialized classes such as yoga and Pilates. Grand-class ships have a resistance pool so you can get your laps in effortlessly.
