JLMoran

Stray observations. 
The staff was amazing. Not one complaint. We've all been reading things about staff issues. I did not have one issue or complaint. The staff was lovely, every single person. Our Izumi waiter (we'd had gone 2 nights) was so nice and kept giving us discounts on our food and drinks. (some allergy issues for my friend and things we assumed didn't have seafood, did). I tipped a lot because I had OBC and not sure when my next cruise was, didn't want to lose it. 
I was on the facebook group and we never met up with anyone. Way too much complaining. Complaining about the amount of kids, the amount of rude people and the large asian groups. That made me feel pretty uncomfortable because while there were a lot of large groups of Asian/Indian I didn't find any issues with them or anyone. This is cruising. You will find large groups of ANY type of people. I dunno. My friend and I didn't notice any issue with them. All people crowd the elevator - no matter the race. 
 
Some might find this a sensitive topic so feel free to skip. My friend and I are both on the cautious side. We wore masks in the elevators. It made us more comfortable. We both ride mass transit so in crowds it's second nature for us to. She's immuno-compromised and I have family who is. We were among the 2%. We got some looks but I don't care. I don't care who does what, it made me more comfortable and that's what's important. I'm claustrophobic and elevators are already a big deal for me, when people crowd in on the best of days I wanna hold my breath. Did not hear anything about covid while onboard. Nothing from the facebook groups either. The family in the room between my friend and I were coughing from day 2. Wasn't my business and not sure what was going on but every time I was in my room relaxing the husband was out on the balcony with a deep cough. We both heard the wife coughing from day 3 on. 
 
As I said before - the MDR is the MDR. The quality does seem to have gone down a little. It's fine for what it is. My only complaint with the Windjammer is there seemed to be less choices than before and no real change from day to day but the food seemed as usual. Izumi - not as good as I remembered but the hibachi side food was great. The Key Chops lunch was good. Giovanni's wasn't my favorite, I liked Jaime's better but it was still good. 
 
Drink package was used. My friend can drinkkkkkkkkkk. I tried to keep up but no way I could. Only day 1 did I try but after that I definitely got my use but was more careful A 2 day headache was a little overkill. lol.
 
Casitas were worth it for this cruise because it allowed us to stay outside in the rain, both days.
 
CocoCay. LOVED. Loved the Beach Club. Will I pay that much again, probably not but it was fun. 
 
All in all, even though it rained almost every day we made the best of it and had a great time. 
 

Debarkation was easy but a little depressing. We had gotten a note in our rooms telling us due to marine traffic we'd need to be off the ship by 745 the latest. Woke up around 430am to open curtains to see the beautiful skyline and fell back asleep for another hour. By 6am we were ready to go and see if we should get breakfast from the Key offering but it was just too early and felt too rushed. We wound up just leaving. Luggage was easy for me but my friend's duffle was missing. After some yelling and a lot of back and forth it magically appeared in the area - I think someone grabbed it accidentally or it was left on the rack because we turned around and it was right there. I mean, right there. lol. I was in my car by 643. If my friend didn't have luggage issues I would've been in my car by 625.
I had worried about the parking situation because I forgot to take note of the parking lot area I was in. It was ridiculously easy. I was worried about the overcrowded lot I was in. Again, ridiculously easy. Made it home in a little over an hour. Because it was so early I went home, unpacked, went food shopping and then told my friend I was home so I could pick up my dog.
I had heard our ship never moved because of the high winds so the early debarkation was not necessary. Not thrilled about it but it was nice to be home. I had had a house cleaner friend clean my house for the first time ever. THAT was fun to come home to. I'm pretty clean but DAYUM she got every crevice and molding. 

Our last sea day was similar to the day before. Rain and high winds. We were able to enjoy the casita on and off. For anyone who's on the fence - you get to pick your spot. It comes with towels. Waters. Bar service with a call button that we never really used because they were attentive. Also an afternoon fruit plate. Depending on the cost it's worth it if you find a spot you like and just want to relax. I've heard midday gets too hot but we didn't encounter that issue. It also helped to have a roof so when it rained we were able to sit there for quite a while.
 
Izumi Hibachi was the last dinner. It was fun. I may have not loved the cramp spaces making everything louder than a normal hibachi but my friend loved it. To me it was a little sensory overload. Food was great. My friend had a seafood allergy so they cooked hers in the back. She wasn't thrilled because she got her food last and when she normally goes to a hibachi place they cook her food on the grill first then the seafood. I figured they had a dedicated grill and didn't want to be responsible for cross contamination but she wasn't having it - until her food came out and then she was happy again.
 
Spent last of OBC at casino and cashed out the rest. Had a few drinks and called it a night.

Still rough seas but nothing like it was. Got out of bed around 10 and forced myself to find my friend but we spend over an hour looking for one another because internet was down. Can’t be mad because who knows what was going on with Ian. I gave up and got myself a drink. Was it the smartest with not feeling great? Probably not but it was fun.   
 
Rained on and off all day til later afternoon but we drank the day away first at the pub then Vintages and then naps since we were both a little queasy. Lunch was the MDR- meh. Wasted some time in the casino. 
 
Dinner. Dinner. Dinner was 150 CP. what a lovely dinner. The food was great and we were both very happy. Still trying to get through my OBC so I splurged on a bottle of Moët. My friend isn’t fancy but she enjoyed it. Got the cheese plate for dessert. Holy crap. Real cheeses, good cheeses. Even a perfect sized spread of Allouette. Every dinner has been decent to good so far (Giovanni’s, Izumi) but this felt special. 
 
I don’t know what’s going on with either of us but we’ve been content to skip entertainment every night. Dinner has been at 730 and if we make it til 10pm it’s late. No complaints, we just are tired. 

This may be my first experience with seasickness. It’s really rocky and I like it when I’m sleeping but idiot me tried to workout this morning and had to leave. 
 
it’s not awful but not fun either. Hoping it’ll pass or that I can get out of bed soon. I’ve never been seasick before, I grew up on boats but I started getting carsick in the back seat a while ago so maybe they are related? 

Biggest difference I can tell you, per podcasts I've listened to and blogs I've read, is that all Celebrity casinos are 100% non-smoking. Having been in multiple Royal Caribbean ship casinos, that is something I personally will look forward to when I finally get to sail on a Celebrity ship. I hate the smell of stale smoke and how it always wafts out of the casinos into the surrounding halls and spaces.

Good morning from I don’t know where. I’m so happy I have a balcony, I woke up and got a latte at Cafe Promenade and watched the sun rise. A little cool at the moment but just slightly. 
 
Oasis is in great shape. A little wear and tear in the furniture but overall great room. Haven’t tried the chairs yet but I’m not a crowded pool person so not important yet. 
 
I learned my friend can drink. I cannot keep up nor would I try but let’s say what’s ever I paid for drink package was worth it yesterday. Oof. 
 
MDR dinner. No complaints. My friend didn’t love her fried chicken but said it was fine. I got the battered seafood and I liked it. Service was good, loved our server. called it an early night and read in my room til sleep. 

Got a text, message on the RC app to my apple watch and an email last night while at dinner and a show that they are monitoring the weather and there were no changes at this time. ooof. 
Finishing last minute packing stuff, drinking coffee and trying not to feel guilty for leaving my pup. 

ONE MORE SLEEP!
 
Fellow cruisers are losing their minds about the storms. I'm very aware of the weather on a daily basis and have lived through hurricanes...I get it. I knew when I booked a cruise during hurricane season this was a possibility. I don't freak out about these type of things, just get me on the ship. My only meh, which seems like it couldn't happen anyway is if they went north instead. No offense to Canada, I love Canada and went to school right near the NY/Can border. It's just not a cruise destination to me. I've also lived through many storms that DIDNT happen. Last year we were evacuated from Fire Island (small island off of Long Island) back home. We had some wind and rain. Nothing too crazy. We were evacuated and nothing happened. (for the record, we all knew the deal and while disappointed we know this is life)
 
Finished up the last of my work for the week and did most of the packing last night. I overpacked. Nothing new. Today is packing for the pup who knows something's up and is more clingy than usual which is saying A LOT since she's stage 5 clingy on an average day. She stays with a close friend who spoils her more than I do. When she's there she's carried, hand fed people food (hate this - she loves fries because of this family and cries if i ever have them in the house) and sleeps on their pillows at night.
 
Traveling with a friend from work and we've been hit a little. Two coworkers died this week. One always had health issues, the other a late cancer diagnosis, completely unexpected but both way before their time. My friend was very close to one and I had known the other since high school. It's a teeny tiny world - the one I grew up with is related to my traveling friend's boss, who was also mourning the loss of the other co worker who passed. If I made it confusing the world is small and there are more connections then just work connections. We'll be missing all services so we figured we'd do something from the ship. I'm not looking for condolences, I knew both but wasn't close to either, I'm just sad for both, especially since I know some of the families. It's bad enough to lose a loved one, it's horrible to lose them before their time.
 
Tomorrow is the drive. I'll leave about an hour an a half early. Some people have gotten emails about us all being on board by 2:30 for "marine traffic".  I don't care. I'll be there. I did all my planning so the rest is out of my hands.
 
Got the Key a few weeks ago because it was less than VOOM. $16 or $17. Can't remember what I paid because the price went up each hour that day. It'll be worth it no matter what because of the price but we'll see if it's something I'd purchase in the future. 
 

I am an ex-truck driver, so I am not very picky.  I am 61 years old, so I don't eat what I don't like. 
Now with that said I will hardly eat at the buffet on the RCL ships.  Every time I do, I am sorry because of the quality of food.  The main dining on the RCL is not bad and I have a good dinner.  Lately I have been purchasing the Unlimited Dining Plan and eating all my meals at the Specialty Restaurants on the RCL ships.  I have been very happy with the quality in the Specialty Restaurants.
On the Celebrity Cruises I have been very happy with the food in their buffet.  The main dining room is very good and makes me want to eat there and not the specialty restaurants.  The Specialty Restaurants on Celebrity are just OK.  I do not think there is enough difference in the main dining room and the SR to spend the extra money.
Sad to say I have not been on Silver Seas.
Note:  if this helps... I can lose weight on the RCL ships, and I seem to gain weight on the Celebrity Ships.

I've sailed post COVID and recently aboard Allure of the Seas, Celebrity Equinox and Infinity. I've looked at Silver Sea. I found no significant differences between the food quality in the two buffet type venues on AOSv. Equinox/Infinity- both offer varied selections, appetizing presentations and quality foods.
Comparing the restaurant dining venues depends on what class of ships you might want to compare. Equinox, a Silhouette class ship, is not at all like AOS when it comes to comparing restaurants. AOS has many more dining options than any Celebrity ship. IMO, the table service within Celebrity's main restaurants is a bit more elegant - at least that is the corporate goal - than on AOS.
Over the most recent years, specialty dining aboard Celebrity ships has not been that much better than main dining. That is likely because of cost control measures taken at the corporate level. I can't draw any distinction between food quality on AOS v. Equinox - main or specialty dining. I'm pretty sure sourcing of food on both lines is centralized through RCL. It then comes down to table service and presentation. I'd give Celebrity an edge there but that's just me and is a subjective opinion. 
I've not sailed on Silver Sea but have done a lot of comparing. If you're looking for smaller ships and what they can afford in general, Silver Sea is a good option when comparing this line to others in a similar niche. The issue for me is sailing nicely for at or below $200 per day, per person on an RCG brand v. sailing on Silver sea for upwards of $600 per day, per person. It comes down to 3 cruises on an RCG brand ship or 1 on Silver Sea or similar.
As well, you'll see a different cohort of guests on Celebrity v. RCL and Celebrity v. Silver Sea. Service levels between RCL and Silver Sea are going to naturally be different with Silver Sea having a lower staff to guest ratio than either RCL brand. For me, I'm not willing to pay the higher price of Silver Sea for a higher level of service. I'm satisfied with Celebrity - my go to line since 2001. 
 

Check out our list: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2022/09/26/best-shore-excursion-every-caribbean-cruise-port

Figured I'd post a sort of epilogue to this thread. Princess' customer service handling has continued to leave me very unimpressed.
The letters we got from the ship about our FCC stated its should be issued in 30 days. Well, 30 calendar days went by and nothing. I said, "Hm, maybe it's business days. I'll give it until Sept 12".
Guess what still wasn't there on Sept 12? 😡 
I called their customer service line and, thankfully, got a very pleasant and patient rep who went by "Doc". He looked up our booking, and gave me some incredibly aggravating news: The person from the ship who was supposed to report to corporate that we had been quarantined due to Covid never bothered to do that!!! He calmly put up with my anger and frustration, and once I calmed back down and was able to listen again he proceeded to enter the needed information himself. He also gave me Princess' customer relations email address and told me to go ahead and send an email that was as angry and forceful as I wanted it to be; also said to make sure to include photos of the letters we were issued so there was undeniable proof that this was Princess' cock-up.
The ball is now officially rolling, and the FCC should finally be issued in another couple of weeks. (but hopefully sooner)
Meanwhile, Cathy and I had picked out 11 different sailings that would basically give us a free or minimal-cost cruise with the FCC. We have booked a 10-night Southern Caribbean sailing out of FLL in early February on Enchanted Princess (younger sister of Regal Princess). The FCC was so much that after my TA's group rate, we were able to get a mid-forward mini-suite that will only cost us the $200 deposit plus another $300-400 total. Obviously, we also have to pay for airfare and a hotel, but now we have a nice mid-winter trip to look forward to. It'll be our first time cruising in off-peak season, and first time enjoying the warm Caribbean while the north is freezing. I'm praying this works out to be a much better trip than the last one, and that with another 8 months of experience under the crew's belts we'll find the on-board experience and food will be better.
If not, that will be our last Princess sailing and we'll be squarely back with Royal and Celebrity. Which would be ironic, because we'd be higher in Princess' loyalty program than we are with Royal right now. (qualify for Ruby status after 3 sailings, and our med cruise counted as a B2B)

Figured I'd post a sort of epilogue to this thread. Princess' customer service handling has continued to leave me very unimpressed.
The letters we got from the ship about our FCC stated its should be issued in 30 days. Well, 30 calendar days went by and nothing. I said, "Hm, maybe it's business days. I'll give it until Sept 12".
Guess what still wasn't there on Sept 12? 😡 
I called their customer service line and, thankfully, got a very pleasant and patient rep who went by "Doc". He looked up our booking, and gave me some incredibly aggravating news: The person from the ship who was supposed to report to corporate that we had been quarantined due to Covid never bothered to do that!!! He calmly put up with my anger and frustration, and once I calmed back down and was able to listen again he proceeded to enter the needed information himself. He also gave me Princess' customer relations email address and told me to go ahead and send an email that was as angry and forceful as I wanted it to be; also said to make sure to include photos of the letters we were issued so there was undeniable proof that this was Princess' cock-up.
The ball is now officially rolling, and the FCC should finally be issued in another couple of weeks. (but hopefully sooner)
Meanwhile, Cathy and I had picked out 11 different sailings that would basically give us a free or minimal-cost cruise with the FCC. We have booked a 10-night Southern Caribbean sailing out of FLL in early February on Enchanted Princess (younger sister of Regal Princess). The FCC was so much that after my TA's group rate, we were able to get a mid-forward mini-suite that will only cost us the $200 deposit plus another $300-400 total. Obviously, we also have to pay for airfare and a hotel, but now we have a nice mid-winter trip to look forward to. It'll be our first time cruising in off-peak season, and first time enjoying the warm Caribbean while the north is freezing. I'm praying this works out to be a much better trip than the last one, and that with another 8 months of experience under the crew's belts we'll find the on-board experience and food will be better.
If not, that will be our last Princess sailing and we'll be squarely back with Royal and Celebrity. Which would be ironic, because we'd be higher in Princess' loyalty program than we are with Royal right now. (qualify for Ruby status after 3 sailings, and our med cruise counted as a B2B)

So, I'm back from a 2-week Mediterranean cruise on Princess that was going to be a trip of a lifetime with my whole family. Unfortunately, 5 days into our sailing my wife and I both tested positive for Covid-19 and ended up in isolation for a week. I still wanted to give my perspective on Royal vs. Princess, but it's going to be equal parts about my experience as a Covid-positive individual in isolation, along with a general comparison of the two cruise lines and my experience with their ships and regular services.
I'll start with the general impressions I have of each:
The Ship: We sailed on Regal Princess, which I would say is roughly equivalent in size and capacity to Anthem of the Seas. Regal Princess was very nice, with a gorgeous central Piazza going from deck 5 to deck 7 that reminded me of pictures of the Centrum or Atrium on ships like Brilliance of the Seas. Instead of an indoor Solarium for adults-only swimming and lounging, it has an outdoor Retreat Pool area that is similarly adults-only. While it has the usual collection of shops, it seemed to me that there were fewer of them than on Anthem, which I appreciated. The layout of the ship has one incredibly annoying flaw, however: If you are in an aft cabin, there is no way get to any part of the Deck 5 or Deck 6 mid-ship areas from the aft elevators unless you either go to Deck 7 and walk mid-ship, then go down the stairs; or go directly to the mid-ship elevators and take them to Deck 5 or 6. This tripped us up for a couple days every time we had to go to dinner or wanted to visit the Piazza area. Mainly because of this, I'm rating Anthem and Regal Princess the same in my book.
  Itinerary: Princess wins this one hands-down. They have far more options for Mediterranean sailings than anything I could find with Royal or sister line Celebrity. They were the only line I found with a rotating set of 7-day itineraries covering different segments of Eastern and Western Med, allowing for a custom mix-and-match for desired trip length and port set, and this is the main reason I chose to sail with them for this trip. I have no idea why Royal (or at least Celebrity) doesn't do the same thing; any attempt at a 2-week Med trip requires a side-to-side sailing with a few days between each leg, originating from widely separated ports.
  The Cabin: Sailed in an aft-facing balcony when not in isolation, and was in a mid-ship balcony during our isolation period. The mid-ship balconies are just big enough for two chairs and a small table in between, and the chairs need to be up against the sliding door or facing sideways if you want to stretch your legs at all; definitely smaller than Royal's mid-ship balconies that I've sailed in. The aft-facing balcony was about 3 times as large, yet it still had just the standard chairs and table instead of two loungers or two chairs with footrests. This made no sense to me, and we never got a chance to try and get footrests for our run of sea days mid-cruise due to our Covid infection timing. The cabins themselves were basically identical, although I'd say the aft-facing one was slightly more spacious with a less-navigable layout than the mid-ship one. Decor was fine, as long as you like lots of beige. The bed in the mid-ship was hard as a rock, and I had to ask for a mattress topper; the aft-facing cabin's bed was much more comfortable. All that said, I personally liked our cabins on Royal better; decor was nicer, balconies mid-ship are deeper.
  On-Board Entertainment: My experience here was limited to what was presented in the Piazza and aft-most bar area on the Lido deck. A nice selection of classical, jazz, acoustic guitar, and piano music. None of it super-loud, all the performers talented and capable. I have to give Princess the edge here; Royal always blasts whatever music is playing in one of the bars or other venues, to the point where you can't have a conversation if you're sitting with anyone. On Princess, I could talk with people had I wanted to, or focused on the music if that was my preference. None of us saw any of the main theater shows during the entire two weeks; Cathy and I were sick during most of the time the main shows were on, and the girls were far more interested in doing karaoke and hanging with the group of 18-22 year-olds they found.
  Crew: This was the area most clearly impacted by Covid, and I can't give a fair comparison right now. Many of the crew were clearly still green; bartenders didn't know what the drinks of the day were (despite placards for them right on the bar) or how to make them, MDR wait staff varied tremendously in quality of service/professionalism, room service had a chronic problem getting our orders right during our isolation period, etc.
  Overall Experience: For being a premium mass-market line, Princess didn't feel particularly premium to me at all. The wine selections on board weren't as good as on Royal (although I did find a few new wines I am determined to get here at home) Cocktails were consistently super-weak; none of us expected to get loaded off a single cocktail, but all of us agreed that we couldn't even taste the spirit used in anything we ordered. Most of the time, we might as well have ordered a virgin drink. The MDR and specialty dining food quality and menu variety were the same, in my opinion Will note here that several passengers we spoke with on board said that Princess' MDR food was significantly worse than on earlier cruises they'd taken with the line On top of that, my daughters both got food poisoning after eating at the on-board sushi place, which they said was worse than any local sushi place they've eaten or worked at, and was more on par with local supermarket sushi (i.e., the same as what you used to get on Freedom of the Seas) The quality of the crew wasn't any noticeably better or was even slightly worse at times (though I'm trying to give a pass on that because of how new so much of the crew likely still is) Worst of all, Princess pulled a complete bait-and-switch on my whole family. When we booked the cruise in December 2020, we used the Princess Plus option that added their Premiere Beverage Package along with 1-device internet and pre-paid gratuities. In March of this year, Princess replaced the beverage package with a "Plus Package" and never told anyone; if you wanted the Premiere package, you had to now pay several hundred dollars more for their Princess Premiere (which included other extras I had no interest in) or pay the overage for any beverages on the Premiere list. I was beyond pissed off that they didn't grandfather passengers who booked under the original terms. I don't care that it only translated to about $50 in additional charges for me, that is crappy customer service and a pure money grab.  
OK, now onto the Covid handling experience...
Obviously I can't directly compare to Royal, since this is my first cruise since Covid and my first time dealing with isolation protocols. But I have the written experiences of @Matt, @monorailmedic and others to draw on. And Princess just didn't measure up in a few key areas.
Communications: Matt and others mentioned how they had regular communications from both medical and guest services, with each often checking to confirm the other had asked about something or informed them of something. The only calls we received daily were from medical, to check on our symptoms (and later to relay results of our daily re-tests). I never heard from Guest Services in any capacity, besides once about mid-way through to see if we needed anything in terms of cabin items like fresh towels and if we were doing OK with the in-room dining. I had to call Guest Services myself to get answers to every one of my questions How was the per-diem refund of our cruise during isolation being handled? (FCC issued to our accounts; I would have preferred a cash refund tbh) Would we be able to join excursions scheduled the same morning if we tested negative? (yes, thank goodness) Would using the laundry service be charged to our account during isolation? (no, it was free; the included forms gave no such indication) Could we continue to order wine, cocktails, specialty coffees, etc? (yes, thank goodness; by day 5 when symptoms were mostly gone and cabin fever had set in, we were seriously ready to get our drink on) Re-testing: Every morning's re-test was an exercise in stress and worry. Not because we were concerned about testing negative; that would be what it would be each morning. But we had excursions every single morning after our initial 5-day isolation window, with meet-up times around 7:45 to 8:15 AM. And no one came to test us earlier than 7 AM, with no call back to us with the result for a minimum of 30 minutes. The first day, we didn't even get that call until almost 8:30. This was after informing the med team about excursions each morning and that we needed to be tested and get our results ASAP to avoid missing it, due to the early meet times. Cathy and I tested negative on different days, and on both of them we got our results about 10 minutes before we had to be at the excursion meet-up location. This resulted in having to hurriedly get our separate stuff back to our original cabin (which was held for when we cleared isolation), and then run down to the meet-up. Each time, Cathy and I only barely made it. Dining: As noted earlier, there were frequent errors with the deliveries, requiring us to call them back and request the items that had been ordered but weren't delivered. There were other times where we had ordered just one of something and ended up with two, which was certainly a better situation but let to a bit of food waste. And to be fair, we did get a visit from a head steward about 2/3 of the way through our isolation to apologize for the errors, and after this the deliveries did get better. He even gave us a plate of chocolate truffles as consolation, although that was the day we both lost our sense of smell and taste. Not their fault, but we were sad they couldn't be properly enjoyed. All this said, there were some positives: Like with Royal, Princess makes the MDR dinner menu available for guests in isolation. On sea days, the lunch menu was also available. This greatly relieved the monotony of the room service menu for these meals, but there was no such option (even on sea days) for breakfast. We had one lucky morning where Cathy begged and pleaded for pancakes, and they scrounged some up for her I also have to give a point to the room service phone staff; they were always pleasant, always patient, and even took time for a minute of chit-chat to help break up the monotony of isolation time  
I don't really know what my final view of Princess is vs Royal. Getting slammed with Covid and losing half of our vacation really put a damper on the whole experience. But, right now I feel like Royal is still the better line for most times that we'll be cruising. Since we have a decent bucket of FCC available now that will let us get a basically-free cruise (minus deposit), we're looking at options in early 2023; depending on how that goes, I'll likely have come to a more solid conclusion.

I'm afraid the bad luck was worse than you know. When we got home, we found one of our two cats dead at the top of our second-floor stairway. As best I can guess, she died just a couple days before we got home. We have no idea why or what caused it, and it clearly wasn't "peaceful". She was always a shy cat and hid from strangers, so absolutely no one who had been coming to the house to check on them had any idea it had happened.
I spent an hour of my day back home burying her in our back yard, and the next 3 days getting over intense grief as well as jet lag. 😢 😢 😢 

I'm walking away from $800 in Princess FCC.  It expires at the end of this month and Princess doesn't sail from Florida until October.  With so few ships I could only use the FCC by flying somewhere I and I didn't want to pay for flights or do Alaska again this year.  
Some of their itineraries are nice in other regions but no options from North America while my FCC is valid and there hasn't been for over 6 months.  There was a one-way involving Quebec this summer to Florida but I didn't want to pay $1,000 in airfare to fly to Canada so I could use my $800 FCC and pay another $1,000 in cruise fare on top of it.  They've had nothing round trip available from Florida all summer.  A deliberate move I think.  
Oh well.  I earned it when they removed 2 of 4 ports of call to Alaska in 2021 so it was paper money with no value to me.     

So, I'm back from a 2-week Mediterranean cruise on Princess that was going to be a trip of a lifetime with my whole family. Unfortunately, 5 days into our sailing my wife and I both tested positive for Covid-19 and ended up in isolation for a week. I still wanted to give my perspective on Royal vs. Princess, but it's going to be equal parts about my experience as a Covid-positive individual in isolation, along with a general comparison of the two cruise lines and my experience with their ships and regular services.
I'll start with the general impressions I have of each:
The Ship: We sailed on Regal Princess, which I would say is roughly equivalent in size and capacity to Anthem of the Seas. Regal Princess was very nice, with a gorgeous central Piazza going from deck 5 to deck 7 that reminded me of pictures of the Centrum or Atrium on ships like Brilliance of the Seas. Instead of an indoor Solarium for adults-only swimming and lounging, it has an outdoor Retreat Pool area that is similarly adults-only. While it has the usual collection of shops, it seemed to me that there were fewer of them than on Anthem, which I appreciated. The layout of the ship has one incredibly annoying flaw, however: If you are in an aft cabin, there is no way get to any part of the Deck 5 or Deck 6 mid-ship areas from the aft elevators unless you either go to Deck 7 and walk mid-ship, then go down the stairs; or go directly to the mid-ship elevators and take them to Deck 5 or 6. This tripped us up for a couple days every time we had to go to dinner or wanted to visit the Piazza area. Mainly because of this, I'm rating Anthem and Regal Princess the same in my book.
  Itinerary: Princess wins this one hands-down. They have far more options for Mediterranean sailings than anything I could find with Royal or sister line Celebrity. They were the only line I found with a rotating set of 7-day itineraries covering different segments of Eastern and Western Med, allowing for a custom mix-and-match for desired trip length and port set, and this is the main reason I chose to sail with them for this trip. I have no idea why Royal (or at least Celebrity) doesn't do the same thing; any attempt at a 2-week Med trip requires a side-to-side sailing with a few days between each leg, originating from widely separated ports.
  The Cabin: Sailed in an aft-facing balcony when not in isolation, and was in a mid-ship balcony during our isolation period. The mid-ship balconies are just big enough for two chairs and a small table in between, and the chairs need to be up against the sliding door or facing sideways if you want to stretch your legs at all; definitely smaller than Royal's mid-ship balconies that I've sailed in. The aft-facing balcony was about 3 times as large, yet it still had just the standard chairs and table instead of two loungers or two chairs with footrests. This made no sense to me, and we never got a chance to try and get footrests for our run of sea days mid-cruise due to our Covid infection timing. The cabins themselves were basically identical, although I'd say the aft-facing one was slightly more spacious with a less-navigable layout than the mid-ship one. Decor was fine, as long as you like lots of beige. The bed in the mid-ship was hard as a rock, and I had to ask for a mattress topper; the aft-facing cabin's bed was much more comfortable. All that said, I personally liked our cabins on Royal better; decor was nicer, balconies mid-ship are deeper.
  On-Board Entertainment: My experience here was limited to what was presented in the Piazza and aft-most bar area on the Lido deck. A nice selection of classical, jazz, acoustic guitar, and piano music. None of it super-loud, all the performers talented and capable. I have to give Princess the edge here; Royal always blasts whatever music is playing in one of the bars or other venues, to the point where you can't have a conversation if you're sitting with anyone. On Princess, I could talk with people had I wanted to, or focused on the music if that was my preference. None of us saw any of the main theater shows during the entire two weeks; Cathy and I were sick during most of the time the main shows were on, and the girls were far more interested in doing karaoke and hanging with the group of 18-22 year-olds they found.
  Crew: This was the area most clearly impacted by Covid, and I can't give a fair comparison right now. Many of the crew were clearly still green; bartenders didn't know what the drinks of the day were (despite placards for them right on the bar) or how to make them, MDR wait staff varied tremendously in quality of service/professionalism, room service had a chronic problem getting our orders right during our isolation period, etc.
  Overall Experience: For being a premium mass-market line, Princess didn't feel particularly premium to me at all. The wine selections on board weren't as good as on Royal (although I did find a few new wines I am determined to get here at home) Cocktails were consistently super-weak; none of us expected to get loaded off a single cocktail, but all of us agreed that we couldn't even taste the spirit used in anything we ordered. Most of the time, we might as well have ordered a virgin drink. The MDR and specialty dining food quality and menu variety were the same, in my opinion Will note here that several passengers we spoke with on board said that Princess' MDR food was significantly worse than on earlier cruises they'd taken with the line On top of that, my daughters both got food poisoning after eating at the on-board sushi place, which they said was worse than any local sushi place they've eaten or worked at, and was more on par with local supermarket sushi (i.e., the same as what you used to get on Freedom of the Seas) The quality of the crew wasn't any noticeably better or was even slightly worse at times (though I'm trying to give a pass on that because of how new so much of the crew likely still is) Worst of all, Princess pulled a complete bait-and-switch on my whole family. When we booked the cruise in December 2020, we used the Princess Plus option that added their Premiere Beverage Package along with 1-device internet and pre-paid gratuities. In March of this year, Princess replaced the beverage package with a "Plus Package" and never told anyone; if you wanted the Premiere package, you had to now pay several hundred dollars more for their Princess Premiere (which included other extras I had no interest in) or pay the overage for any beverages on the Premiere list. I was beyond pissed off that they didn't grandfather passengers who booked under the original terms. I don't care that it only translated to about $50 in additional charges for me, that is crappy customer service and a pure money grab.  
OK, now onto the Covid handling experience...
Obviously I can't directly compare to Royal, since this is my first cruise since Covid and my first time dealing with isolation protocols. But I have the written experiences of @Matt, @monorailmedic and others to draw on. And Princess just didn't measure up in a few key areas.
Communications: Matt and others mentioned how they had regular communications from both medical and guest services, with each often checking to confirm the other had asked about something or informed them of something. The only calls we received daily were from medical, to check on our symptoms (and later to relay results of our daily re-tests). I never heard from Guest Services in any capacity, besides once about mid-way through to see if we needed anything in terms of cabin items like fresh towels and if we were doing OK with the in-room dining. I had to call Guest Services myself to get answers to every one of my questions How was the per-diem refund of our cruise during isolation being handled? (FCC issued to our accounts; I would have preferred a cash refund tbh) Would we be able to join excursions scheduled the same morning if we tested negative? (yes, thank goodness) Would using the laundry service be charged to our account during isolation? (no, it was free; the included forms gave no such indication) Could we continue to order wine, cocktails, specialty coffees, etc? (yes, thank goodness; by day 5 when symptoms were mostly gone and cabin fever had set in, we were seriously ready to get our drink on) Re-testing: Every morning's re-test was an exercise in stress and worry. Not because we were concerned about testing negative; that would be what it would be each morning. But we had excursions every single morning after our initial 5-day isolation window, with meet-up times around 7:45 to 8:15 AM. And no one came to test us earlier than 7 AM, with no call back to us with the result for a minimum of 30 minutes. The first day, we didn't even get that call until almost 8:30. This was after informing the med team about excursions each morning and that we needed to be tested and get our results ASAP to avoid missing it, due to the early meet times. Cathy and I tested negative on different days, and on both of them we got our results about 10 minutes before we had to be at the excursion meet-up location. This resulted in having to hurriedly get our separate stuff back to our original cabin (which was held for when we cleared isolation), and then run down to the meet-up. Each time, Cathy and I only barely made it. Dining: As noted earlier, there were frequent errors with the deliveries, requiring us to call them back and request the items that had been ordered but weren't delivered. There were other times where we had ordered just one of something and ended up with two, which was certainly a better situation but let to a bit of food waste. And to be fair, we did get a visit from a head steward about 2/3 of the way through our isolation to apologize for the errors, and after this the deliveries did get better. He even gave us a plate of chocolate truffles as consolation, although that was the day we both lost our sense of smell and taste. Not their fault, but we were sad they couldn't be properly enjoyed. All this said, there were some positives: Like with Royal, Princess makes the MDR dinner menu available for guests in isolation. On sea days, the lunch menu was also available. This greatly relieved the monotony of the room service menu for these meals, but there was no such option (even on sea days) for breakfast. We had one lucky morning where Cathy begged and pleaded for pancakes, and they scrounged some up for her I also have to give a point to the room service phone staff; they were always pleasant, always patient, and even took time for a minute of chit-chat to help break up the monotony of isolation time  
I don't really know what my final view of Princess is vs Royal. Getting slammed with Covid and losing half of our vacation really put a damper on the whole experience. But, right now I feel like Royal is still the better line for most times that we'll be cruising. Since we have a decent bucket of FCC available now that will let us get a basically-free cruise (minus deposit), we're looking at options in early 2023; depending on how that goes, I'll likely have come to a more solid conclusion.

Figured I'd post a sort of epilogue to this thread. Princess' customer service handling has continued to leave me very unimpressed.
The letters we got from the ship about our FCC stated its should be issued in 30 days. Well, 30 calendar days went by and nothing. I said, "Hm, maybe it's business days. I'll give it until Sept 12".
Guess what still wasn't there on Sept 12? 😡 
I called their customer service line and, thankfully, got a very pleasant and patient rep who went by "Doc". He looked up our booking, and gave me some incredibly aggravating news: The person from the ship who was supposed to report to corporate that we had been quarantined due to Covid never bothered to do that!!! He calmly put up with my anger and frustration, and once I calmed back down and was able to listen again he proceeded to enter the needed information himself. He also gave me Princess' customer relations email address and told me to go ahead and send an email that was as angry and forceful as I wanted it to be; also said to make sure to include photos of the letters we were issued so there was undeniable proof that this was Princess' cock-up.
The ball is now officially rolling, and the FCC should finally be issued in another couple of weeks. (but hopefully sooner)
Meanwhile, Cathy and I had picked out 11 different sailings that would basically give us a free or minimal-cost cruise with the FCC. We have booked a 10-night Southern Caribbean sailing out of FLL in early February on Enchanted Princess (younger sister of Regal Princess). The FCC was so much that after my TA's group rate, we were able to get a mid-forward mini-suite that will only cost us the $200 deposit plus another $300-400 total. Obviously, we also have to pay for airfare and a hotel, but now we have a nice mid-winter trip to look forward to. It'll be our first time cruising in off-peak season, and first time enjoying the warm Caribbean while the north is freezing. I'm praying this works out to be a much better trip than the last one, and that with another 8 months of experience under the crew's belts we'll find the on-board experience and food will be better.
If not, that will be our last Princess sailing and we'll be squarely back with Royal and Celebrity. Which would be ironic, because we'd be higher in Princess' loyalty program than we are with Royal right now. (qualify for Ruby status after 3 sailings, and our med cruise counted as a B2B)

Figured I'd post a sort of epilogue to this thread. Princess' customer service handling has continued to leave me very unimpressed.
The letters we got from the ship about our FCC stated its should be issued in 30 days. Well, 30 calendar days went by and nothing. I said, "Hm, maybe it's business days. I'll give it until Sept 12".
Guess what still wasn't there on Sept 12? 😡 
I called their customer service line and, thankfully, got a very pleasant and patient rep who went by "Doc". He looked up our booking, and gave me some incredibly aggravating news: The person from the ship who was supposed to report to corporate that we had been quarantined due to Covid never bothered to do that!!! He calmly put up with my anger and frustration, and once I calmed back down and was able to listen again he proceeded to enter the needed information himself. He also gave me Princess' customer relations email address and told me to go ahead and send an email that was as angry and forceful as I wanted it to be; also said to make sure to include photos of the letters we were issued so there was undeniable proof that this was Princess' cock-up.
The ball is now officially rolling, and the FCC should finally be issued in another couple of weeks. (but hopefully sooner)
Meanwhile, Cathy and I had picked out 11 different sailings that would basically give us a free or minimal-cost cruise with the FCC. We have booked a 10-night Southern Caribbean sailing out of FLL in early February on Enchanted Princess (younger sister of Regal Princess). The FCC was so much that after my TA's group rate, we were able to get a mid-forward mini-suite that will only cost us the $200 deposit plus another $300-400 total. Obviously, we also have to pay for airfare and a hotel, but now we have a nice mid-winter trip to look forward to. It'll be our first time cruising in off-peak season, and first time enjoying the warm Caribbean while the north is freezing. I'm praying this works out to be a much better trip than the last one, and that with another 8 months of experience under the crew's belts we'll find the on-board experience and food will be better.
If not, that will be our last Princess sailing and we'll be squarely back with Royal and Celebrity. Which would be ironic, because we'd be higher in Princess' loyalty program than we are with Royal right now. (qualify for Ruby status after 3 sailings, and our med cruise counted as a B2B)

How ironic.  
Joe, I've always enjoyed your posts (I thought it was like 25,000 before your first cruise!) and am very sorry about the crappy experience and, worse still, your poor cat.  
A little while ago, I was wondering where you had gone, so I actually did a search of your name and found this thread.  Talk about irony.
I agree with you about the blog family - it seems to have grown a lot, even since CV.  There was always the same folks contributing and replying, but I guess the virus caused a big pause for all of us.  I kind of miss having familiar names to converse with and seemingly get to know.
 
Anyway, it's good to see you're still around; I hope you post more.  

I'm afraid the bad luck was worse than you know. When we got home, we found one of our two cats dead at the top of our second-floor stairway. As best I can guess, she died just a couple days before we got home. We have no idea why or what caused it, and it clearly wasn't "peaceful". She was always a shy cat and hid from strangers, so absolutely no one who had been coming to the house to check on them had any idea it had happened.
I spent an hour of my day back home burying her in our back yard, and the next 3 days getting over intense grief as well as jet lag. 😢 😢 😢 

So, I'm back from a 2-week Mediterranean cruise on Princess that was going to be a trip of a lifetime with my whole family. Unfortunately, 5 days into our sailing my wife and I both tested positive for Covid-19 and ended up in isolation for a week. I still wanted to give my perspective on Royal vs. Princess, but it's going to be equal parts about my experience as a Covid-positive individual in isolation, along with a general comparison of the two cruise lines and my experience with their ships and regular services.
I'll start with the general impressions I have of each:
The Ship: We sailed on Regal Princess, which I would say is roughly equivalent in size and capacity to Anthem of the Seas. Regal Princess was very nice, with a gorgeous central Piazza going from deck 5 to deck 7 that reminded me of pictures of the Centrum or Atrium on ships like Brilliance of the Seas. Instead of an indoor Solarium for adults-only swimming and lounging, it has an outdoor Retreat Pool area that is similarly adults-only. While it has the usual collection of shops, it seemed to me that there were fewer of them than on Anthem, which I appreciated. The layout of the ship has one incredibly annoying flaw, however: If you are in an aft cabin, there is no way get to any part of the Deck 5 or Deck 6 mid-ship areas from the aft elevators unless you either go to Deck 7 and walk mid-ship, then go down the stairs; or go directly to the mid-ship elevators and take them to Deck 5 or 6. This tripped us up for a couple days every time we had to go to dinner or wanted to visit the Piazza area. Mainly because of this, I'm rating Anthem and Regal Princess the same in my book.
  Itinerary: Princess wins this one hands-down. They have far more options for Mediterranean sailings than anything I could find with Royal or sister line Celebrity. They were the only line I found with a rotating set of 7-day itineraries covering different segments of Eastern and Western Med, allowing for a custom mix-and-match for desired trip length and port set, and this is the main reason I chose to sail with them for this trip. I have no idea why Royal (or at least Celebrity) doesn't do the same thing; any attempt at a 2-week Med trip requires a side-to-side sailing with a few days between each leg, originating from widely separated ports.
  The Cabin: Sailed in an aft-facing balcony when not in isolation, and was in a mid-ship balcony during our isolation period. The mid-ship balconies are just big enough for two chairs and a small table in between, and the chairs need to be up against the sliding door or facing sideways if you want to stretch your legs at all; definitely smaller than Royal's mid-ship balconies that I've sailed in. The aft-facing balcony was about 3 times as large, yet it still had just the standard chairs and table instead of two loungers or two chairs with footrests. This made no sense to me, and we never got a chance to try and get footrests for our run of sea days mid-cruise due to our Covid infection timing. The cabins themselves were basically identical, although I'd say the aft-facing one was slightly more spacious with a less-navigable layout than the mid-ship one. Decor was fine, as long as you like lots of beige. The bed in the mid-ship was hard as a rock, and I had to ask for a mattress topper; the aft-facing cabin's bed was much more comfortable. All that said, I personally liked our cabins on Royal better; decor was nicer, balconies mid-ship are deeper.
  On-Board Entertainment: My experience here was limited to what was presented in the Piazza and aft-most bar area on the Lido deck. A nice selection of classical, jazz, acoustic guitar, and piano music. None of it super-loud, all the performers talented and capable. I have to give Princess the edge here; Royal always blasts whatever music is playing in one of the bars or other venues, to the point where you can't have a conversation if you're sitting with anyone. On Princess, I could talk with people had I wanted to, or focused on the music if that was my preference. None of us saw any of the main theater shows during the entire two weeks; Cathy and I were sick during most of the time the main shows were on, and the girls were far more interested in doing karaoke and hanging with the group of 18-22 year-olds they found.
  Crew: This was the area most clearly impacted by Covid, and I can't give a fair comparison right now. Many of the crew were clearly still green; bartenders didn't know what the drinks of the day were (despite placards for them right on the bar) or how to make them, MDR wait staff varied tremendously in quality of service/professionalism, room service had a chronic problem getting our orders right during our isolation period, etc.
  Overall Experience: For being a premium mass-market line, Princess didn't feel particularly premium to me at all. The wine selections on board weren't as good as on Royal (although I did find a few new wines I am determined to get here at home) Cocktails were consistently super-weak; none of us expected to get loaded off a single cocktail, but all of us agreed that we couldn't even taste the spirit used in anything we ordered. Most of the time, we might as well have ordered a virgin drink. The MDR and specialty dining food quality and menu variety were the same, in my opinion Will note here that several passengers we spoke with on board said that Princess' MDR food was significantly worse than on earlier cruises they'd taken with the line On top of that, my daughters both got food poisoning after eating at the on-board sushi place, which they said was worse than any local sushi place they've eaten or worked at, and was more on par with local supermarket sushi (i.e., the same as what you used to get on Freedom of the Seas) The quality of the crew wasn't any noticeably better or was even slightly worse at times (though I'm trying to give a pass on that because of how new so much of the crew likely still is) Worst of all, Princess pulled a complete bait-and-switch on my whole family. When we booked the cruise in December 2020, we used the Princess Plus option that added their Premiere Beverage Package along with 1-device internet and pre-paid gratuities. In March of this year, Princess replaced the beverage package with a "Plus Package" and never told anyone; if you wanted the Premiere package, you had to now pay several hundred dollars more for their Princess Premiere (which included other extras I had no interest in) or pay the overage for any beverages on the Premiere list. I was beyond pissed off that they didn't grandfather passengers who booked under the original terms. I don't care that it only translated to about $50 in additional charges for me, that is crappy customer service and a pure money grab.  
OK, now onto the Covid handling experience...
Obviously I can't directly compare to Royal, since this is my first cruise since Covid and my first time dealing with isolation protocols. But I have the written experiences of @Matt, @monorailmedic and others to draw on. And Princess just didn't measure up in a few key areas.
Communications: Matt and others mentioned how they had regular communications from both medical and guest services, with each often checking to confirm the other had asked about something or informed them of something. The only calls we received daily were from medical, to check on our symptoms (and later to relay results of our daily re-tests). I never heard from Guest Services in any capacity, besides once about mid-way through to see if we needed anything in terms of cabin items like fresh towels and if we were doing OK with the in-room dining. I had to call Guest Services myself to get answers to every one of my questions How was the per-diem refund of our cruise during isolation being handled? (FCC issued to our accounts; I would have preferred a cash refund tbh) Would we be able to join excursions scheduled the same morning if we tested negative? (yes, thank goodness) Would using the laundry service be charged to our account during isolation? (no, it was free; the included forms gave no such indication) Could we continue to order wine, cocktails, specialty coffees, etc? (yes, thank goodness; by day 5 when symptoms were mostly gone and cabin fever had set in, we were seriously ready to get our drink on) Re-testing: Every morning's re-test was an exercise in stress and worry. Not because we were concerned about testing negative; that would be what it would be each morning. But we had excursions every single morning after our initial 5-day isolation window, with meet-up times around 7:45 to 8:15 AM. And no one came to test us earlier than 7 AM, with no call back to us with the result for a minimum of 30 minutes. The first day, we didn't even get that call until almost 8:30. This was after informing the med team about excursions each morning and that we needed to be tested and get our results ASAP to avoid missing it, due to the early meet times. Cathy and I tested negative on different days, and on both of them we got our results about 10 minutes before we had to be at the excursion meet-up location. This resulted in having to hurriedly get our separate stuff back to our original cabin (which was held for when we cleared isolation), and then run down to the meet-up. Each time, Cathy and I only barely made it. Dining: As noted earlier, there were frequent errors with the deliveries, requiring us to call them back and request the items that had been ordered but weren't delivered. There were other times where we had ordered just one of something and ended up with two, which was certainly a better situation but let to a bit of food waste. And to be fair, we did get a visit from a head steward about 2/3 of the way through our isolation to apologize for the errors, and after this the deliveries did get better. He even gave us a plate of chocolate truffles as consolation, although that was the day we both lost our sense of smell and taste. Not their fault, but we were sad they couldn't be properly enjoyed. All this said, there were some positives: Like with Royal, Princess makes the MDR dinner menu available for guests in isolation. On sea days, the lunch menu was also available. This greatly relieved the monotony of the room service menu for these meals, but there was no such option (even on sea days) for breakfast. We had one lucky morning where Cathy begged and pleaded for pancakes, and they scrounged some up for her I also have to give a point to the room service phone staff; they were always pleasant, always patient, and even took time for a minute of chit-chat to help break up the monotony of isolation time  
I don't really know what my final view of Princess is vs Royal. Getting slammed with Covid and losing half of our vacation really put a damper on the whole experience. But, right now I feel like Royal is still the better line for most times that we'll be cruising. Since we have a decent bucket of FCC available now that will let us get a basically-free cruise (minus deposit), we're looking at options in early 2023; depending on how that goes, I'll likely have come to a more solid conclusion.

Interesting, that they've done a shift to all-white for the dining room chairs and and whites / grays with blue accent for the rooms. If you take a look at Celebrity's page for the Celebrity Summit and click the links for accommodations and dining about halfway down the page, you'll see examples of the new look under the "Celebrity Revolution" revitalization program. That also has a shift in decor to mostly white and gray with small accent colors, but even more pronounced. The accommodations page doesn't show regular rooms until you go most of the way down, as it's mainly dedicated to the suite changes, but you can see a couple of examples of regular rooms as well.
Given the earlier discussion between @twangster and me of how Radiance class is nigh-indistinguishable from Celebrity's Millennium class ships in terms of size and other "base specs", and how they might be working on a long-term plan to phase out those smaller ships from Royal's fleet and get the people who like sailing them (and the ports they visit) to move over to Celebrity, synching up the decor to a degree would be a smart move. Then when you move from Radiance class to any Celebrity ship, you get a sense of familiarity while noticing that the decor is kicked up a notch.
 

And oh so much better for you than the 8 tablespoons of butter on the escargots. ??