kctwinmommy

And this is why we always walk off with our luggage. I know you said that it would be too difficult for you to do that, but for those that can do it, it's a better option, IMO. And it's a good reminder that you shouldn't pack any medical equipment in luggage that will be out of your hands. I'd send anything else first.

Get to Grease early if you're going. It was pretty filled in when we got there 30-40 minutes before the start. Go to the trivia that they offer and join other people if you can. Many of the times we played with another couple or other people. One, it gives you a better chance, and two, you get to meet other people! If you do the ice show, watch for when they hand out tickets. They did that a day or two before the ice shows. And they do run out.

Yep! Cucine del Capitano and it was really nice to go there on embarkation day. The ship gets pretty busy, it's big & has a lot of people. But this place was nice and quiet, not busy at all. It was kind of a nice way to start our cruise. The pasta was good too!

Like others, I bring extra layers too. Even for the Caribbean cruises. So I bring a couple of different cardigans for dinner in the MDR, and ones I can use with a nice dress for formal nights too. Then I always have at least 1-2 sweatshirts, a pair of jeans, and I love my soft, fuzzy pants (as I call them), for lounging around. But like someone else said too, a few places that seem chilly at first will warm up once it fills in. But I'm also one of those always cold people too, so I have to have the extra layers.

I'm almost done with my review for this ship, our first cruise with RCI. It's in my signature, so feel free to read what I have so far.

I would definitely recommend the Grease show (but get there 45 minutes early - it gets packed). We did see the ice skating show, but we thought it was OK. Go to the trivia activities, if you don't mind giving those a try. We did several of them and had a lot of fun. We even joined with other people to make a bigger team, so it was nice to meet other people.

Explore the ship once you get on board, give yourself a little time to get your bearings. If you have Your Time Dining, you are seated at a table the first night. If you like your waitress (we had Natalia and she was great!!), then you can request that same table every night. It's good to make reservations for that too.

If you want to see the Royal Promenade parade, although it's a little cheesy, we got there about 30 minutes before and grabbed a couple chairs near the one bar. They do rope it off eventually.

I'm trying to think what else I can suggest. If you have any questions, please ask. We were just there last month. Enjoy!

I enjoyed reading your comparison. It was quite interesting.

 

We have now sailed Princess, Carnival, Royal Caribbean and NCL, with repeats on NCL and Carnival.

 

I'm convinced now that many of these things are ship dependent, not always line dependent. Sometimes you seem to get a really attentive, keen crew. Sometimes they seem to care very little. I suspect certain ships get the newer staff, certain ones get the experienced ones. I'm sure the management on the ship makes a difference too.

 

A few procedural things though are line dependent.

 

Like the ice cream set up, seems much better on Carnival.

Also I like how Carnival gives towels and robes in staterooms.

I like showtime at dinner.

One line, I forget which one, gives blankets for movies under the stars, others do not.

 

It's fun to experience the differences.

 

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You're so right! Even within the lines you'll see people comparing different ships and people seem to have their favorites. I guess I don't have or need a ton of attention on my cruise. Honestly, just respond when I ask for something (if you can), be cordial, and have fun! LOL!

I have to say, some of the things we experienced have to do with the fact that we did this cruise on our own. We almost always cruise with at least another couple. So that makes a difference as to what we do on our cruise. When it was just the 2 of us, as it was on this one, we were more inclined to talk to and meet other people.

We missed a port almost 2 years ago in November. We were supposed to go to St. Thomas but got rerouted to Amber Cove, even though it "technically" wasn't fully open. So all those shops there weren't open, and I don't think any of the activities near there were open yet either. They may have had the zip line running though. We just booked a day at a nearby resort to kick back by a pool for awhile. We didn't really want to do much anyway, and had planned on going to Magen's Bay in St. Thomas, so we did this resort pool as it included drinks/food and the beach nearby.

Oh, we were rerouted because of a Tropical Storm, not even a hurricane, and it wasn't that bad. The captain said we would have a little rough seas that night, but it wasn't bad at all. And we knew I think 2 day before our port, so we didn't have a lot of time to decide what to do, but we made it work.

We boarded earlier than our scheduled time. We were supposed to board in the noon hour, but we got there around 11ish and we were on board by 1145. This was our first RCI cruise, so no status! LOL!

I wasn't going to do a review thread but after seeing the thread "Carnival cruisers go on RCI - our Pros & Cons", I figured I'd share our experience from the reverse POV. (P.S. if the OP of that thread sees this, nice review!)

Hey, that's me!! :D Thanks!

And I can see some of the things you mention in your review. I've said it before, we don't purposely pick a ship/line for that reason alone, we go because it's going someplace we want to go. We never use internet, so I didn't comment on that. But I do feel Carnival buffets were better than the one on our RCI cruise. However, we also did a European cruise, which also brings in different foods to begin with, so I couldn't fully compare them to the actual buffet on Carnival. And we also didn't use the pools much on our cruise, again, because of the cooler, European weather.

The lack of outlets on ALL the ships we've been on is frustrating. Even the RCI one, thought it had 2 at the desk, but that was it. It drives me nuts! LOL!

Day 6 - Hamburg, Germany

Yet another cool, cloudy day! This time the rain wasn't as heavy as Oslo, more a steady mist at times. Enough to need an umbrella for a short period of time, but still a pain trying to walk around. We did do the RCI excursion to Lubeck, which was about an hour bus ride away. We pulled up in the city and our guide got on the bus to drive around as it was raining pretty good at that time. Of course, that also meant that one side of the bus couldn't see all the things she was pointing out.

We did finally get off the bus and went into St. Mary's Church. Again, like with most organized tours, we were rushed. We had about 20 minutes inside the church, maybe 30, but would have liked more time inside. Then we had to go over to the Marzipan place nearby. They had reservations for us to have a drink and some cake. We actually split from the group at this point (after eating quickly) as some family friends were able to find us and meet us. Everyone had about 30-40 minutes on their own right in that area anyway. So we just walked around with the friends, they took us back to St. Mary's to show us the devil statue/story, and a little other Lubeck history. Our guides Kim & Heilke were really nice though. After the Marzipan shop and little time on our own, they took us on a walking tour through Lubeck, which was nice.

Once we got back on the bus, Kim talked to the driver about stopping in Hamburg to drop those off who wanted to go there. Now, the driver told Kim that he could do that and dropped us off by the train station. He also told us that he had to pick up people at the ship and would be back where he dropped us about an hour later. So we grabbed some dinner right by the train station, intending to get on the bus again an hour later. We didn't do much as we didn't want to miss the bus.Of course, the bus never came and we were about 20 minutes early. Honestly, the driver could have told us anything. We saw other people from our tour as well, nobody ever saw the bus come back. Most people ended up grabbing a taxi back to the ship.

Back on the ship we were later than normal for our dining, and I didn't reserve our table for that night. So we ended up having a different waiter, Valeriano, who was quite good. We also went to the Once Upon a Time show that night, which was really cute.

A few pictures from Lubeck...

The ceiling of St. Mary's church

Cathedral ceiling by Cindy, on Flickr

The organ

St. Mary's organ by Cindy, on Flickr

The cracked bells that have been in this same spot since they fell after being bombed during WWII

Cracked bells by Cindy, on Flickr

Our guide pointed these out to us, they're markers for each person who was deported from that address during WWII

Holocaust memorials by Cindy, on Flickr

The buildings have different facades on them, not the same as the rest of the building

Lubeck facade by Cindy, on Flickr

Holsten Gate, entrance to the city, 900 years old

Holsten Gate by Cindy, on Flickr

Well, it doesn't seem to be drawing much interest in this review, but I still feel I should finish it. I still have a couple of days left. Hopefully it can be helpful to someone later on. I realize it seems that this itinerary is unique and that they don't do this exact cruise that often, so maybe that's why. Anyway...

Day 5 - Sea Day

*We had another cool & cloudy day, but we were able to hang around the ship doing some relaxing. I'm missing our Cruise Compass for this day, so I'm truly not sure what we did. I would guess trivia, as we did it almost every day.

*We did have some confusion about getting the room made up on this day. Our steward came by as we were leaving for breakfast, but he didn't come while we were gone. He then came again while we were getting some stuff. We put the sign out, but then he never came and made the room up, we even purposely stayed out for awhile.

*That night at dinner, there was a group of 4 ladies next to us raising a big stink. It was very obnoxious honestly. They had YTD and they were at another table before, but couldn't get it that night. They were being loud about it, demanding to see the maitre'd, the head waiter, and whoever else would listen to them. One woman had to share that she's been on several cruises, and this has NEVER happened.

* We went to see Adam Hepenstall, a magician, who was quite good. We liked his use of a camera to show the close up magic he was doing.

Here's my comparisons between Carnival and RCI...

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2526532

While the HOHOs are great for an easy overview of the city, I would not use one over three days to get around. Much better options once you have done the tour(s) are regular buses and the tube.

I agree! We had a 1-day pass through our London Pass (which we loved the LP!). So we used the ho-ho bus, it was the Golden Tours, that was got through the pass to go from the British Museum to St. Paul's Cathedral. Well, with London traffic, we probably could have walked it faster. It was a lot of sitting in traffic. I'm just glad we didn't use it to actually get around. We had the Oyster Card too, and we used that most of the time to get around on the tube. Way easier!

For those we that did the small group private tour -- not the bus tour -- how did you arrange a commitment for payment with your group?

We emailed with each other during the months before the cruise, once we determined our 3 parties from our roll call. It was a woman with her parents (3 people), another couple (2), and then us and our son (3). So us 3 women all emailed each other, kind of got to know each other a little bit. It was actually funny because the woman with her parents were also from Chicago, and the woman lives like 3 miles down the road from us! LOL!

We just calculated the price/person, and then we each brought the amount of money (in Euros) that we needed. I guess we just all had to hope that everyone else would bring it too. The one woman had to actually make our reservation with her credit card though, but it didn't charge her anything. It was just to hold our tour and if we didn't show up, then they would have charged her card.

We used Smiths for Airports to get from Heathrow to Southampton and they were perfect! It was a bit more than the coach, but when we were coming it for our flight, it was super early in the morning. We didn't want to deal with a bunch of people on a bus. Not only that, the driver was awesome, and went above and beyond for us. I wrote about it in my IOS review (it's in my signature).

It's nice to see so many thoughtful and helpful posts regarding a posting with this kind of content. This kind of question sometimes gets a mixed response. Kudos to so many folks with insightful answers!

I agree! I included the link to my review that compares the two lines. We did our first RCI this summer after mostly Carnival. We're not loyal to one over another, although we have reached a status on Carnival that gives us a little extra, but not much. I tried to stay pretty on topic, not getting picky, just pointing out things that a person used to one line might not like about the other. I just wanted others to know what they might notice or miss being on a cruise different from what they're used to.

What was the weather like temperature wise? We are used to going to the hot places and aren't really sure about Alaska. LOL! What did you wear in ports? Shorts and tank top or pants and long sleeve? Thanks! :)

Alaska is all about the layers! We were there in July and it was chilly almost every day. I ended up buying a good coat on the ship, it was on sale! And being from Chicago, I'm able to use it again. But we wore jeans, boots, long sleeves almost every day. Except in Skagway, in port, we changed when we got back as the sun was out and it was about 70! I could have left a few of my short sleeve tops at home.

Like everyone else said, there are times you can find party people on both cruises. Carnival does a more "party" sail away. RCI didn't do much on ours. I'm including a link to my review comparing the two trips, just the things we noticed to be different.

Go and have fun!!

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2526532

We've used Cocoa Beach shuttle and had no problems for the last 10 years. I find them to be one of the better priced shuttles too.

That being said, no cruise to Alaska is bad. Most repeat some excursions and ports. In my 3 cruises, the helicopter ride to Mendenhall Glacier and the float plane to Misty Fjord (twice) were the best and most worth the money.

Also, in Alaska, onboard shows are an after-thought and should not be a deciding factor in booking. I did Norwegian and Princess the first 2 times I cruised Alaska, and both were better than Carnival Legend. And normally, my cruise preference is Carnival.

 

Hope you have a great cruise.

I agree about the Mendenhall Glacier helicopter trip. Hands down, our best excursion ever!! Expensive? You bet! But totally worth it. Our advice to anyone who considers Alaska is to do everything you want in case you don't get back. It's expensive, but there's some amazing things to see and do.

And yes, the shows were fine last year, nothing spectacular. We kind of joked that this is where they sent the entertainers who couldn't quick cut it on the big ships.

I do have a trip report in my signature as well, but the pictures are gone because of Photobucket. :mad:

Thanks for the review so far. I guess I'm going to need to get pop package. $3 is to much and I love my pop.

Yeah, Carnival's soda package, which includes juices, is a better deal for sure, IMO. But when I saw the $3.50/soda on the first day, I realized I would make it worth it. Even if I didn't drink at least 3/day, I could always get a fresh one when I wanted. Or I did get a couple for my husband/son. I certainly ordered enough to make the $11/day worth it.

One more question.

 

On RCCL,we have my time dining....you can pick a certain time to eat or just show up.

 

Now,how does it work with Carnival?

We did that just once, on our cruise to Alaska. Each time we would just show up to the dining room and they would seat us at a table. We always chose to dine by ourselves. We had one kind of off night with the waitstaff in Alaska, felt that it may have to do with the YTD, like they're not trying to earn an extra tip. Not sure, but they just didn't give us the attention we normally received. The rest of the nights, with all different waiters, were good though.Oh, and we would go a little bit after the early dining was seated, so like 6:15-6:30 I think.

I did like on RCI that we could actually make a reservation and have the same table every night, so the same waitstaff. But a couple times we still had to wait in line.

Definitely try the Cucina restaurant. We did that on our embarkation day last fall. It was so quiet and relaxing, not busy at all.

We were on the Magic in May and didn't note any real changes from our B2B on her last November. We enjoyed the pasta bar at lunch on that first day. It's not so busy and with sit down service, we find it a nice change from the busyness of the Lido buffet, and it is free!

We enjoyed Flick, 88 Keys and the comedy club. Our cabin was cleaned 2x a day. The pools are small, but we didn't have real problems with chair hogs as attendants were marking the times and removing items if guests did return before that time. Not so fond of the Serenity deck on this class, but it was popular. We spent a lot of time on Deck 5. Live music there and in the atrium.

Others are correct about the staggered check in times. As for disembarkation, if you don't do self-assist, you will get Zone tags the night before and that determines when you can leave the ship.

I agree! We were on it in November last fall and it was great. Although we did find the pool decks a little crowded, they weren't really enforcing the chair hogs issue, but there was only 1 day where I couldn't even find a decent single chair. Then the other couple of days I found a spot that we seemed to be able to get each time. I don't like or need to sit right by the pool either.

We also went to the shows, had our room taken care of, etc...

Oh, and I agree about going to the Cucina restaurant on embarkation day. While we did get on earlier than before, we had FTTF and our friends are Platinum, it was still getting busy on board. But the restaurant is fairly empty and a little more relaxing. Even on our embarkation day on RCI last month, it was super crazy busy at their Lido buffet. We couldn't find a table for about 10 minutes. But again, there were people hogging empty tables, while we walked around looking with our food.

I always say - it's your vacation. YOU make of it what you want. Yes, unless there's a true disaster beyond your control. But for the most part, it seems what people get upset about isn't really worth it. Don't let the little things ruin your trip. :D Enjoy!!

Oh, and I do have a trip report in my signature. Sorry the photos have been deleted by Photobucket! Argh!!

I was going to write up things for each of the cities, since how you get there, doesn't usually matter. But the cutting/pasting of pictures is a pain! LOL! I figure it's just easier to share my trip report instead. It does cover our whole cruise, but it also may give some ideas for those spending a day in Oslo.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2527009