Princess vs Azamara for the Mediterranean: Which Line Actually Fits Your Trip

To compare anything useful you have to hold the region constant, so both of these are real 2027 sailings between Rome and Athens.

Per person, two sharing, taxes and port fees included. Checked 26 August 2026.

One honesty note before the numbers. These are not laboratory conditions. The Azamara sailing is in August and the Princess sailing is in September, and August is the more expensive month in the Mediterranean, so this comparison flatters Princess slightly. The trips are also different lengths. We've handled that by working in per-night and per-hour terms below rather than comparing totals, but no comparison of two real sailings is perfectly controlled, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

$1,099 against $4,299. Almost four times the price, for a ship most people have never heard of. That is where nearly every conversation about Azamara ends, and it is the wrong place to end it, for three reasons.

The trips are different lengths. Nine nights against seven. Comparing the totals compares the length as much as the line.

The fares don't cover the same things. Azamara's fare includes gratuities and standard beer, wine and spirits. Princess's covers neither. On a seven-night sailing, gratuities alone are $18 per person per day, or $126 per person before anyone orders a drink.

One ship spends two days at sea and the other spends none. You are not buying nights. You are buying days in Greece and Turkey, and the two fares buy very different numbers of them.

Correct for the first two and you get a number worth arguing about.

Here is the comparison we actually use with clients. Take each line's balcony-class cabin, since a Princess balcony and an Azamara veranda are the fair match, and add whatever each one needs to reach the same standard of inclusion: gratuities, everyday drinks, and wi-fi. Then divide by nights.

For Princess that means the Princess Plus package at $65 per person per day, which folds in crew appreciation, a one-device wi-fi plan, fifteen drinks a day and four casual meals. For Azamara, gratuities and standard drinks are already in the fare, so it only needs the Essentials package at $799 per stateroom to add wi-fi.

The gap is 1.5 times, not 3.9.

Do the same at the cheapest end, a Princess interior against an Azamara interior with inclusions matched, and it's $222 a night against $415, or about 1.9 times.

That's the honest size of the premium. It is real, and it is a great deal smaller than the brochure implies.

The advertised fare is the least useful number in cruising, because the two lines draw the line in completely different places.

Two things worth knowing that don't fit in a table.

Azamara includes AzAmazing Evenings, a complimentary hosted event ashore, listed on this particular sailing. It is a genuine part of what the fare buys and it has no Princess equivalent.

Azamara was also advertising up to $1,000 onboard credit per stateroom when we checked. That's a promotion, not a permanent feature, and it will expire. Ask us what's live rather than planning around it.

This is the comparison we haven't seen anyone else make, and we think it's the one that settles the question.

Take the published arrival and departure times for every port on each itinerary. Subtract the all-aboard window, because you have to be back on the ship 30 to 60 minutes before it sails, so a port day is always shorter than the schedule suggests. What's left is the time you actually get to spend in a place.

Our own calculation, from published 2027 port times, using a 45-minute all-aboard allowance. Times change and lines revise them routinely.

About 1.2 times. That is what the Azamara premium looks like once you measure it against the thing most people go to the Mediterranean for.

The reason is simple and structural. Azamara spends nine nights visiting eight ports and never has a sea day. Princess spends seven nights visiting four, with two of them at sea. You are not mainly paying for a better cabin. You are paying for roughly 28 more hours standing in Greece, Italy and Turkey.

Whether that's worth it depends entirely on what you want a cruise to be, which is the honest answer, and it's why the rest of this page is about fit rather than value. If you want the whole trip costed, we've priced the same trip priced three ways, flights and hotels included.

Some of the difference isn't a choice either line made. It's physics. A small ship can enter harbours a large one can't, and in the Mediterranean that changes the itinerary in ways that show up in your day.

The Amalfi row is the one that matters most. Princess's Rome-to-Athens itinerary calls at Naples, and getting to the Amalfi Coast from there is a full-day excursion involving a coach to Salerno and a boat along the coastline. On Azamara you tender into Amalfi and walk to the Duomo. Same coastline, entirely different day.

Sun Princess is a large, new, resort-style ship carrying roughly 4,300 guests. Multiple pools, a full theatre, a proper spa, a lot of dining rooms, a lot of people. It is comfortable and well run and there is always something happening. It is also, unavoidably, a small town, and when it calls at Mykonos it does so alongside other ships of the same size.

Azamara Onward carries roughly 700. There is a pool, a couple of restaurants, a small theatre and a bar where the same bartender will know your drink by the second night. There is no water slide, no production show on the Princess scale, and if the weather turns there is genuinely less to do. The ship is a comfortable way to get between ports rather than a destination in itself, and Azamara is fairly upfront about that.

Neither description is a criticism. They are the two honest answers to "what is a cruise ship for," and people who want one usually don't want the other.

Book Princess if:

• The ship being part of the holiday is a feature, not a compromise. Two sea days on a Sphere-class ship is a genuinely good time.
• You want a shorter trip. Seven nights plus land stays is a two-week vacation; nine plus land stays is closer to three.
• You're travelling with a range of ages. Grandparents and teenagers both find something on a big ship. On a small one, one of them won't.
• The fare is the number you're optimising, and you'd rather put the difference into a better hotel in Rome and two excellent excursions. This is a completely defensible plan and we build it often.

Don't book Princess if:

• Crowds bother you. A ship carrying several thousand people arrives in Mykonos alongside other ships carrying several thousand people, and Chora has one main street.
• Four ports in seven nights sounds thin. It is a good week, but it is four ports.
• You want Amalfi, not the Amalfi Coast excursion from Naples. Those are different things.

Book Azamara if:

• You came for the destinations. Eight ports in nine nights with no sea days is the whole proposition, and nothing else in this price bracket matches it.
• You like small ships, or you've never tried one and suspect you would.
• You want the ports nobody else visits. Gythion, Kefalonia, Amalfi itself. This is where the money goes.
• Not signing for drinks and not calculating gratuities genuinely improves your holiday. Some people don't care. Some people care a lot.

Don't book Azamara if:

• You need plenty to do on board. Nine consecutive port days with no sea day is exactly right for some people and exhausting for others, and there is no third option once you're aboard.
• You're bringing children who want a ship with things on it.
• The fare is the number you're optimising. Princess does the same region for a fraction of the headline price, and the honest case for Azamara is the ports and the pace, not the bedding.

Azamara, for couples, by a wide margin, and almost always with three nights in Rome before and two in Athens after.

The reason is the cost-per-hour-ashore number above. Once clients see that the premium buys roughly 28 extra hours in a destination rather than a nicer cabin, most of them decide that's what they were trying to buy in the first place.

But it isn't automatic. Multi-generational groups go on Princess. First-time cruisers who aren't sure they'll like cruising go on Princess, because finding out you dislike a small ship nine days into a nine-day port-intensive itinerary is an expensive way to learn. And anyone who tells us the budget is firm goes on Princess, because we'd rather spend the difference on the parts of the trip that happen off the ship.

Excursion costs also differ by line, and that changes the onboard budget more than most people expect. Our port-by-port excursion guide prices both sides. If you want to see the full arithmetic, we've also priced our full Mediterranean cost breakdown, Princess, Azamara and a luxury line, with every line item.