We just got back from sailing the Caribbean Princess on an 8-day Southern Caribbean cruise to the “ABC” islands from Ft. Lauderdale and overall had a great time.

Background and Overview: My wife (35) and I (41) took this cruise as a 10-year anniversary trip. It also marks our second cruise with Princess, the former being our honeymoon cruise in 2007, also on Caribbean Princess, which also happened to be our first cruise. In between those ten years, we’ve sailed exclusively with Celebrity (X) 6 times, though this was our first cruise in 4 years. I wrote CC reviews for each cruise we’ve been on shortly after returning, and thus reflecting the experience at the time. We had an excellent time on this cruise, far better than our first for reason explained below. Also, I feel have more of a comparison with X now, and – with the break in cruises while traveling the world a bit – a better perspective on it all. As a result, I have some thoughts at the end of this very long review on my perspective on Celebrity vs. Princess.

During our honeymoon cruise, we remember the fun, but there were literally over 1000 children onboard and it was a tough spring break cruise in that sense. My wife is a school teacher, so we have limited time to go during the school year, but with a few days off during MLK/inauguration week, we were able to make it happen, just we did 4 and 8 years ago. Obviously, very few children on this one—almost assuredly under 100 and probably under 50 of them. Moreover, their presence in terms of issues we had previously was a complete non-factor. Mostly very young and well behaved. The majority of the cruisers were 60-70 year-old baby boomers, with plenty 75+. Not so many sub-55 year-olds (fewer than Celebrity), but we never felt out of place. Over 400 Canadians, and almost 100 Brits, but no significant numbers of other nationalities. Read more