Princess Sphere ClassDining, Decoded

Every number below — every venue score, every category score, every weighted total — comes directly from Sun Princess’s and Star Princess’s own dining guides, linked throughout this page. Nothing here is re-scored or estimated fresh: this page exists to put the two ships’ published scorecards side by side, so you can see exactly where they agree and exactly where they don’t.

Eight categories make up each ship’s total, the same eight on both ships’ own pages: Included Dining (25%), Specialty Dining (20%), Variety (15%), Quality Ceiling (10%), Value (10%), Casual & Quick Dining (10%), Special Experiences (5%), and Suite & Restricted Dining (5%). Each category is judged on its own merits — it isn’t mechanically averaged up from the 21 venue scores you’ll see further down.

You will not find a sailing-specific dining calculator on this page. That tool lives on each ship’s own guide — Sun Princess dining and Star Princess dining — because the right answer depends on your itinerary length and how many specialty nights you’re planning, not on which of these two ships you pick. What belongs here instead is the comparison: how the two ships’ published numbers actually stack up.

Nine included-tier venues score identically on Sun and Star: both main dining rooms (Traditional Dining and Anytime Dining, under different deck names on each ship), the buffet, the 24-hour café, the included diner, both quick-service zones, the app-based ordering system, and round-the-clock room service. Alfredo’s Pizzeria scores an identical 8.2 on both ships too — but it isn’t actually included: it’s $14.99 per adult plus a service charge, waived only on Princess Plus or Princess Premier. All eight specialty restaurants also score identically — Crown Grill, Sabatini’s, the award-winning Makoto Ocean, Umai Teppanyaki, Umai Hot Pot, Love by Britto, The Catch by Rudi, The Butcher’s Block by Dario, and the hosted Chef’s Table experience. Two of those eight — The Catch by Rudi and The Butcher’s Block by Dario — got their own dedicated rooms on Star instead of the awkward, buffet-adjacent space TravelMarketReport reported on Sun, and Love by Britto picked up roughly 20 more seats on Star too, but none of those three upgrades moved a score: they’re all Specialty Dining venues, and Specialty Dining reads an identical 8.8 on both ships. And the Sanctuary Restaurant, the one genuinely suite-exclusive venue in the roster, scores the identical 8.2 on both ships, whether it was built in from day one (Star) or retrofitted after launch (Sun).

That’s 20 of the class’s 21 venues carrying the exact same score wherever you sail. The one that doesn’t — O’Malley’s Irish Pub — gets its own section next.

Princess Plus runs $70 per person per day pre-cruise, $75 per day onboard — a $5-a-day premium over Princess’s $65/$70 fleetwide standard rate, identical on Sun and Star. It includes four casual dining meals across the voyage, but no specialty dining of any kind on either ship.

Princess Premier runs $105 per day pre-cruise, $110 per day onboard — again a $5-a-day premium over the $100/$105 fleetwide rate — and it includes unlimited casual and unlimited specialty dining, on both ships. Premier costs $35 a day more than Plus — $245 across a seven-night sailing, on either ship — and two specialty dinners at $72 a cover ($144) or three ($216) don’t fully close that gap on their own; Premier tends to become the better overall value once you’re also counting its unlimited casual dining and the waived 20% service charge, not from specialty dining alone.

Every specialty cover runs $60 per adult plus a 20% service charge (raised from 18%, effective March 7, 2026), for an effective $72, on both ships. That’s a $5 premium on the four restaurants also found fleetwide — Crown Grill, Sabatini’s, Makoto Ocean, and The Catch by Rudi — while the four Sphere-class-exclusive restaurants simply price at $60, since there’s no older fleetwide version to compare against. Chef’s Table runs $149 plus the same 20% charge, versus a $105 fleetwide base, on both ships. The service charge is waived when prepaid as part of either package.

None of this differs by ship. That consistent premium is why Value scores 7.0 on both Sun and Star — the class’s lowest category, and the one place the Sphere-class premium shows up most directly, regardless of which sister you sail.

One category moves; seven don’t. Casual & Quick Dining is higher on Star than on Sun — 8.4 versus 8.3 — entirely because of O’Malley’s Irish Pub, covered above. Included Dining, Specialty Dining, Variety, Quality Ceiling, Value, Special Experiences, and Suite & Restricted Dining are identical on both ships, even though two more venues also picked up real physical upgrades on Star. This isn’t a coincidence dressed up to look tidy; it’s the actual evidence for a class that shares its entire dining roster and genuinely diverges on the physical fit of a single venue.

Specialty Dining (8.8) is the class’s strongest category, identical on both ships — anchored by a genuinely deep eight-restaurant bench and Makoto Ocean’s April 2026 Best Restaurant win at the Seatrade F&B@Sea Awards, which applies equally to both hulls since it’s the identical restaurant concept. Value (7.0) is the class’s lowest category, also identical on both ships, reflecting the consistent Sphere-class premium covered in the section above.