Royal compared to Disney?

Is Regal Princess good for kids? Both Disney and Royal (depending on the ship) are very family friendly ships with lots to do for both adults, kids and activities for the whole family. Princess looks like a great cruise ship, but I took a quick look a Regal Princess and it doesn't seem like a ton of activities for kids outside of the clubs and general swimming.

But I would include Carnival and NCL in the loop of comparison.
It depends. Our DD says that Princess is her favorite line (even over DCL). On our Spring Break cruise, we hardly saw her most of the week. Now she is a teen, so take that for what it's worth. They do have really nice Kids Clubs (with Skee Ball, X-box, foosball, and all that) and the teen club had it's own private deck and hot tub. They do some kind of partnership with Discovery channel, so if you kids are into things like Shark Week and Mythbusters, then they will really enjoy it. There is also a sports court like most ships have (with Basketball, etc.)

Our DD says that a couple of her favorite things were 1) they had some kind of thing where one of the chefs took the kids down to the kitchens to cook a meal, She really enjoyed that, and 2) one day on an Alaskan Cruise, one of the Iditarod sledders brought some of the dogs on board...

She and her friend that went with her last time also loved eating at Alfredo's by themselves every night...

However, there won't be waterslides, rock walls, ice rinks, go karts, ropes courses, etc. If you want that, then you are probably better off sticking to Carnival, RCL, or NCL...

One other thing I'll add is that with the Medallion on the newer Princess ships, you can see where your kids are at all times (the RFID in the Medallion tracks them), so it was super easy to track her down if we needed to find her. I really liked that feature...
 
One other thing I'll add is that with the Medallion on the newer Princess ships, you can see where your kids are at all times (the RFID in the Medallion tracks them), so it was super easy to track her down if we needed to find her. I really liked that feature...
Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like there are some fun organized activities.

Wow...that's really cool with the RFID technology! Certainly puts a parent at ease letting their kids off on their own. (Or if you just want to meet up and so easy to find them).
 
Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like there are some fun organized activities.

Wow...that's really cool with the RFID technology! Certainly puts a parent at ease letting their kids off on their own. (Or if you just want to meet up and so easy to find them).
Do note that the Medallion is not on all Princess ships yet. Here is a pic of one of the boards where you can track them (you can do it on the app, too...) (FYI, not sure why this went sideways...)
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I've looked at Princess. I think it would be fine for just me and DH. However I think my kids would be bored out of their mind.

My RCCL cruises have never been double the cost of a Princess cruise. Pricing cruises for next summer, an Eastern Caribbean cruise on Symphony is only $300 more for 2 people in an OV cabin, compared to an Eastern Caribbean cruise on Caribbean Princess. Which is 14 years older.

In the last year I went on 2 cruises. One on Allure and one on Carnival Magic. They both cost $4700-$4800 for 5 people in 2 cabins. On Allure we had 2 Boardwalk view balconies. On Magic we had 2 oceanview balconies. Allure was a much better value.
 
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Yes, I would agree that it is a different experience than you would get on say RCL or Carnival. However, the food is much better (IMHO), room service is still no extra charge, and there are a lot of things going on. It's a bit more elegant and is probably more like Celebrity, so yes, not an apples to oranges comparison, but still an excellent cruise.
I would do Princess for Alaska, as I keep hearing it is a great line for that region. We got an excellent deal on an ocean view room on Royal's Allure for 2 adults, a teen (counts as an adult) and a tween, but we are going in January to the Eastern Caribbean. We looked at Princess, Disney, and a few others for those same dates before we booked Royal, and the cost for Princess was very similar (and nowhere near that $4,000 price range at the time we booked). We do want the rock climbing wall, ice skating rink, and Flow Rider, plus we wanted to go to Coco Cay, so we decided to go with Royal. We'll see how it goes--we are open to trying other cruise lines.
 
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I've looked at Princess. I think it would be fine for just me and DH. However I think my kids would be bored out of their mind.

My RCCL cruises have never been double the cost of a Princess cruise. Pricing cruises for next summer, an Eastern Caribbean cruise on Symphony is only $300 more for 2 people in an OV cabin, compared to an Eastern Caribbean cruise on Caribbean Princess. Which is 14 years older.

In the last year I went on 2 cruises. One on Allure and one on Carnival Magic. They both cost $4700-$4800 for 5 people in 2 cabins. On Allure we had 2 Boardwalk view balconies. On Magic we had 2 oceanview balconies. Allure was a much better value.
So, our cruise next summer for 3 people in an interior cabin on HOTS is over $4,500. It is much more expensive than other options (even RCL ones).

One thing I notice more, though with RCL is that because it is more "family" dependent, is that like DCL, cruises during school breaks are at a Premium compared to other times of the year, whereas on lines like Princess (or HAL) they don't seem to fluctuate quite as much.

Still, looking forward to the HOTS cruise next summer, though we are only doing it because we have to leave from Port Canaveral on a Sunday (due to a conference ending Sunday at noon), so that limits our choice. If we could have left on Saturday, we'd have probably chosen the Carnival Breeze, which you can get a Balcony for 3 people for right around $3,000...
 
I would do Princess for Alaska, as I keep hearing it is a great line for that region. We got an excellent deal on an ocean view room on Royal's Allure for 2 adults, a teen (counts as an adult) and a tween, but we are going in January. We looked at Princess, Disney, and a few others for those same dates before we booked Royal, and the cost for Princess was very similar (and nowhere near that $4,000 price range at the time we booked). We do want the rock climbing wall, ice skating rink, and Flow Rider, plus we wanted to go to Coco Cay, so we decided to go with Royal. We'll see how it goes--we are open to trying other cruise lines.
For Alaska, my key thing wouldn't necessarily be the line, it would be to try to go out RoundTrip out of Vancouver (assuming you wanted a R/T) because the ship would go up the inside passage on the eastern side of Vancouver Island...
 


Does anybody know if any of Royal’s ships combine age groups in the kids clubs? We like how Disney does that so all 3 of our kids can be together.
 
The ships that are getting "Amped" are creating a common area for the 6-11 year olds. 3-5 is still being kept separate. So not exactly the same as Oceaneers, but I think it might work out better like this - no fear of a 3yo getting trucked by a 11yo.
 
I like the separate age groups. Allure is getting amped after our cruise, so I do hope it is separate. However, we are going in January. Someone in a FB group said if there are not a lot of kids on the cruise they may not separate groups by age. Has anyone sailed recently on Royal where they did not separate the kids by age?
 
On my Aug 2018 Allure trip they put 6-11 together during the evening session. And I think during one of the port days. But since this was at the end of summer break there were still a lot of kid cruisers.
 
I like the separate age groups. Allure is getting amped after our cruise, so I do hope it is separate. However, we are going in January. Someone in a FB group said if there are not a lot of kids on the cruise they may not separate groups by age. Has anyone sailed recently on Royal where they did not separate the kids by age?

3-5's are nearly always separate. If they combine its usually 6-11's.

However, I did work one cruise where there was one 4 year old and two 6 year olds on the whole ship, so we combined them.
Occasionally for port zones (port time) they may be combined if it's quiet/and or they're related/travelling together. And depending on the ship, after 10pm, again if numbers are super low and it's late and they're doing something quiet. But all this depends on the numbers of kids/manager/ship...

They'll also be combined for the 2 hours between sessions if they stay for dinner, but any time of that that's not in the windjammer is movie time.
 
Still at the airport coming back from our first RCCL cruise (on the Mariner of the Seas, went to CocoCay) and RCCL just took the #1 spot when it comes to cruise lines and CocoCay took the #1 spot for best private island for my husband and I.

We don't care for characters and got bored with the DCL shows very fast... For everything else, we found that RCCL beat DCL and CocoCay litterally puts Castaway Cay to shame IMO...

...all that for half the price tag that DCL charges.
 
Still at the airport coming back from our first RCCL cruise (on the Mariner of the Seas, went to CocoCay) and RCCL just took the #1 spot when it comes to cruise lines and CocoCay took the #1 spot for best private island for my husband and I.

We don't care for characters and got bored with the DCL shows very fast... For everything else, we found that RCCL beat DCL and CocoCay litterally puts Castaway Cay to shame IMO...

...all that for half the price tag that DCL charges.

I was thinking of doing a royal cruise instead of disney

mainly due to money but I love the disney magic and just can’t decide
 
So my take is a bit different, mainly because my circumstances are a bit different. We were on the Symphony in May, and we have decided that the Oasis class ships are too large for us. My daughter uses a wheelchair, and what we found was that everyone MUST use the elevators on a ship that large, which makes it very difficult for those of us who have no other choice. On the more mid-sized ships, people are more inclined to take the stairs when they are within a couple of floors of their destination, and we were often stuck waiting for an elevator for 20 minutes or more with several passing us because they were too full to accommodate a wheelchair passenger. As far as the shows and their quality, we ran the gamut from cruise-ship corny (ice show) to truly spectacular (Hiro). We loved the Mexican restaurant, and overall found the food good, but we did miss the connection with our servers that you get on DCL.

We will probably cruise RCL again on one of their smaller or mid-sized ships, but as of right now, we are planning to save up for the release of the summer 2021 DCL Europe itineraries.
 
So my take is a bit different, mainly because my circumstances are a bit different. We were on the Symphony in May, and we have decided that the Oasis class ships are too large for us.
This isn't an uncommon opinion. The ships ARE quite large, and some don't like that.

My daughter uses a wheelchair, and what we found was that everyone MUST use the elevators on a ship that large, which makes it very difficult for those of us who have no other choice.
You are right - there are a lot of people that take the elevators when they really don't need to. It's highly unlikely they can prevent people from using the lifts or to even consider giving folks that must use the lifts priority, so maybe there's a way they can increase efficiency, because sometimes just trying to walk around the elevator banks is an exercise in frustration.
 
Still at the airport coming back from our first RCCL cruise (on the Mariner of the Seas, went to CocoCay) and RCCL just took the #1 spot when it comes to cruise lines and CocoCay took the #1 spot for best private island for my husband and I.

We don't care for characters and got bored with the DCL shows very fast... For everything else, we found that RCCL beat DCL and CocoCay litterally puts Castaway Cay to shame IMO...

...all that for half the price tag that DCL charges.

We just got back from our Harmony cruise. We LOVED CocoCay as well. The kid had an absolute blast on the water slides and in the wave pool. Best $55 (per person) we've spent! Oh, and the food was awesome! Mozzarella sticks and funnel cakes!
 
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We just got back from our Harmony cruise. We LOVED CocoCay as well. The kid had an absolute blast on the water slides and in the wave pool. Best $55 we've spent! Oh, and the food was awesome! Mozzarella sticks and funnel cakes!
Is it 55pp?
 

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