I’ve been able to take four cruises in my lifetime, although I plan to take more. I recently came back from a cruise on the Carnival Dream, but before that, I took a cruise on the Ruby Princess in January of 2023. If you’re thinking about booking a cruise and don’t know whether to book on a Carnival or a Princess Cruise, hopefully this article will help. They both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Dinner Service

If I were to judge a cruise line by dinner service alone, Carnival would definitely win out. Carnival gives you three dinner options: early, late, or anytime dining. Pick a dining time if you can. If you go to early dining, you’ll have more time to participate in some of the later activities, like going to a show, karaoke, or a comedy club.

By picking a dining time, they’ll assign a table to you, that you’ll go to every night. You’ll have the same wait staff, and you’ll sit with the same people. In our case, we were cruising with our friends and family, so there were ten of us at the table, but if it’s just you and a loved one, you’ll get to sit with other people.

We really loved our wait staff, and we even gave them hugs on the last night. Carnival dining is a lot of fun. Every night, right around the time you’re finishing your dessert, they’ll have a song and some dancing. On the last night, they all sing a farewell. It’s a great experience.

Carnival typically has a more adventurous dish every night to try, like escargot or frog legs. They used to point out to you which was the more adventurous choice, but on our last cruise, they didn’t do that. The menus were on the Carnival Hub app or you could scan a QR code, although paper menus were available on request.

Princess, on the other hand, does not have such an exciting dinner experience. We had a different table and different waiter every night. For our Caribbean cruise, they did tend to tailor the dinner to the port we were going to, which was nice, but there was no dancing or anything like that. For that cruise, we had a dining time. They seemed to have recently changed their policies—for an upcoming Princess cruise I have scheduled, we scheduled our dining times through their app. Scheduling through the app allows a little more flexibility (I’ll be traveling with seven other people on this upcoming trip so it’s important to have a reservation), but it’s not quite as fun as what Carnival experiences.

Entertainment

Carnival and Princess both offer similar kinds of entertainment. They both have trivia competitions, dancing, and shows. Carnival’s entertainment tends to be geared towards younger people though. It probably didn’t help that my first cruise on Princess was at the end of January, when most kids and college students are in school.

Many Carnival ships have waterslides and similar entertainment on the upper deck. The older Princess ships do not have this, although the newer classes of ships are offering more family friendly options. The Sun Princess has a hang glide ride, climbing wall, and a ropes course; it’s currently the only ship in it’s class, although it will be joined by the Star Princess in October of 2025.

On the Princess cruise I went on last year, I was able to attend a lecture on the Pirates of the Caribbean and what to expect at various ports (including that it’s important to use reef-friendly sunscreen when in the Caribbean). Carnival doesn’t have those.

Communication

Let’s say you’re going on a cruise with some friends. How are you going to find each other on the ship? Perhaps you want to go to the show and your friends aren’t ready. You save a seat for them, but how are they going to find you?

This is an area where Princess shines. Princess has the “Medallion Class,” which basically is an RFID tag that you wear. They will give you a lanyard to wear around your neck, but I prefer wearing a wristwatch like device, which you can get for under $20; it’s reusable on future cruises if you save it.

On Princess, if you need to find your friends, you just pull up your app and their location will show up on the app—assuming they gave you permission, of course. Carnival doesn’t have this ability. Additionally, I could only text one person while I was on the ship. My husband could only text one person, and it was someone else. About half of us were communicating through Discord, but the people not on Discord couldn’t contact us this way.

Carnival allows you to add a chat function to the app for an additional $5. None of our group wanted to do that after already spending money for the WiFi package.

Technological Advancement

You would think that Carnival, which is geared towards younger people, would have the edge on this, right? Not really. Princess beats Carnival here.

The RFID medallions are little miracles. Not only does it allow you to find your friends, it opens  doors for you. On Carnival, you need to insert your Sign and Sail card into a slot in your stateroom door to open it. On Princess, your door unlocks as you approach and greets you by name.

Ordering Food and Drink

This is another area where Princess beats Carnival. On Carnival, getting a drink while waiting for a trivia game took a little effort. I’d have to get up, go to the bar, and wait for them to acknowledge me. I always had to sign for my item as well. If I was at a show, I’d have to flag down one of the waiters.

This wasn’t the case on Princess. Usually, even if I was just sitting down in the lounge to read a book, a waiter would approach me and ask me if I wanted something. If I wanted something later, or they didn’t approach me, I could order through the app and they would bring it to me.

Even better, if I ordered something but then decided to go somewhere else, I didn’t have to wait for my item. They would be able to find me through my medallion. It was very nice.

Room service through Carnival cost money and didn’t offer drinks. Room service is included in the Princess Plus package (which I definitely recommend if you want to use WiFi and, at the very least, drink sodas).

Overall

So would I book on Princess or Carnival? I think they’re both good, although it depends on what you’re looking for. The particular ship and destinations offered will also be factors. For the fun factor, I think Carnival wins; however, if you’re looking for convenience and technological innovation, Princess wins.