Ready for a happy thread. How did you start cruising with RCI??

[EJKorvette]

We had read about The Extremely Large Ship of the Seas when she first came to Fort Lauderdale. When we got back from our cruise in January we figured that would be the ship to sail on to the Eastern Caribbean.

[bigeagle12]

Our first cruise was a FREEBIE compliments of AmEx points on Song of America. Sailed out of San Juan .. and we were immediately HOOKED :eek:

[digital_curator]

We booked the Navigator for our first cruise in January of 2005.

 

I was looking for an affordable vacation for my husband and I. The idea of staying at an AI for a week bores me (I burn easily so can't spend too much time on the beach and I love to get out and explore new places).

 

DH hadn't travelled much and I thought a cruise would expose him to a number of new places and cultures. I also don't drive, so this would be an extra vacation for him- no chauffering the wife all over the place!

 

I was afraid that it would be all older clientel and that we would be bored but when I heard about RCI and the rock climbing walls, large variety of lounges, etc. I thought we would give it a shot.

 

Luckilly, I found CC before I booked and we learned a lot from all you seasoned cruisers!:D We got a Promenade cabin which we loved (and still get on this class of ship; on others we get balconies).

 

After that first cruise, we were hooked! We have sailed 5 times in the last 6 years and have another booked for next fall. In fact, we the exception of our annivesary trips to Ireland (every 5 years, to commemorate our honeymoon), it's the only major vacation we have taken since!

 

Cheers,

[Mewissy]

As for the two of us, each time we are on a cruise ship (now D+) we stand at the rail, and as when the ship breaks into open seas, toast this fantastic woman.

 

How nice! Your aunt sounds like she was wonderful.

[emilygrace]

One of my very close friends became a TA in 2001 and she had a group booked on an Alaska cruise for 2002. She tried to get us to join them but we were just not interested. Didn't like the whole concept of cruising, being on a ship with all those people, having to dress up for dinner every night, etc. You name it, we had an excuse to not do it.

 

She finally suggested we try a 3 or 4 night cruise, just for a taste of it. She knew we loved the Pacific Northwest and told us about the Radiance doing these short cruises out of Seattle to Vancouver and Victoria BC (my most favorite city). So we reluctantly said OK.

 

Smart cookie that she is, she booked us in a balcony cabin, which probably was the icing on the cake. When we got back to Seattle at the end of the cruise they had to pry my fingers off the railing to get me off that ship. I totally fell in love with the cruising experience, and here we are 9 years and 18 cruises later (11 of them on RCI).

[paggerscorvette]

our first cruise was FREE..20th anniversary gift from work. Airfare, hotel in San Juan, a junior suite on the Adventure of the Seas. Loved it so much, we went on the Mariner, loved it so much we are going on the Freedom....I see a pattern starting, lol. Always loved Vegas and Cancun, now all we want to do is cruise.

[phoenix1181]

Honeymoon cruise in 1990. DH wanted to cruise, I was afraid of all that water. He talked me into it but only by letting me choose the ship.

 

Sovereign of the Seas was the largest ship I could find & I never looked back.

[mo&fran]

We came to RC after we had achieved Elite status on Celebrity and wanted to try a really big ship, so we booked a B2B on Navigator. (at the time, the largest Celebrity ship was Millenium class). Since Celebrity banned smoking on balconies, we have stayed with RC, but I really liked the promenade on the big ships anyway. Not sure I want to be on a ship without one.

francis

[beagledude]

Wife and kids had been bugging me for 10 years to go on a cruise. We are fortunate to be able to afford first class accomodations when we travel and I had no desire to stay in a little cabin locked inside a "boat" that I couldn't get off of for an extended period of time. We live in Los Angeles and they kept bringing up trying a short three nighter to Catalina and Ensenada. I had heard that cruise referred to that as the "barf boat" and I knew that wasn't going to work at all for me. Not sure why they would even bring it up to me but it was clear they just wanted to try a cruise, any cruise.

 

In early 2009 my wife told me about the Mariner coming to LA and showed me some pictures. It was very different than what I envisioned and then I realized you didn't have a choice of just an inside or balcony cabin. It also appealed to me because we are 20 minutes away from the port. After a fair amount of research, we booked an owner's suite and as the time got closer and closer to sail, my expectations were getting higher and higher. The weekend before sailing, the Mariner was featured on TV doing the Mexican Riviera itenerary. WOW, was I pumped and now concerned that my expectations were to high.

 

Left the house at 12:15pm and were in our cabin at 1pm. While we are normally in bed at 10pm, we stayed up until at least 3am each night. My two daughters were just old enough to enjoy the concierge lounge, casino and night club. The crowd on the ship was pretty active so lots of action in all the venues. We all partied together for seven very long days and nights and I think the whole family agreed we had never had so much fun on a vacation together.

 

We were exhuasted by the end of the cruise so it was an extra bonus when we returned to port, that we got up about 8am, got a quick bite to eat and I was on my couch in the comfort of my home by 9am.

 

Even with my high expectations, they were exceeded. I was hooked. In 2010 we sailed the Mariner again prior to her leaving LA and then tried the Freedom. Both cruises were great, but neither compared to our first. Really wish the Mariner was still here ...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKtfRK5-aQA

[Daghis]

Our first cruise was on the Celebrity Century back in 1998, and we had a blast. We took that cruise on the advice of a AAA travel agent. We had no idea what cruising would be like and thought we'd give it a try.

 

Our first Royal Caribbean cruise was our second cruise. I thought it'd be nice to take a little weekend cruise sailing out of a local port near Los Angeles. We sailed on the Viking Serenade. I hated that cruise. Most of it was that I wasn't feeling well before the cruise, but comparing the Viking Serenade to the Celebrity Century was like night and day. What a tiny "cruise" ship.

 

I had given up on Royal Caribbean at that point, choosing to sail on Princess and Carnival. But then I saw a program on TV, probably on the Travel Channel, about the Voyager of the Seas (or one of her sisters) and showing the Royal Promenade with cabins that overlooked it. I thought that was really, really neat, so after a few year break from cruising, we decided to try the Liberty of the Seas during her inaugural season. What a fantastic time we had! That cruise alone made us converts to being "loyal to Royal".

 

We did reserve Promenade cabins and thought that they were absolutely wonderful. I think that the PR category is our favorite and tend to book them now.

[TOlson70]

Wife and I celebrated our 40th Birthdays by booking a cruise, we had looked at Carnival, NCL, and RCI. We are DCL fans and prefer them but wanted a more grown up trip, since we were not bringing the kids. RCI won out, just looked like a better value for the money and did not have the stigma of being a party ship line. I don't mind partying, I just didn't want the whole cruise to be about it. Haven't been back on RCI but planning a trip in 2013 to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary to go to either Europe or Alaska.

[Let'sGo!]

My husband and I had saved up $$$ to go to Europe. Unfortunately, we had scheduled our trip for October 2001. The month before, the World Trade Centers were hit by terrorist planes and our Europe trip was put on indefinite hold, as we didn't know what was going on in the world.

 

Our travel agent who was taking care of our European vacation asked us if we had considered cruising. Actually, I didn't want to do it - I thought it was for the "Senior" set, and I had gotten seasick on a cheesy gambling boat out of South Texas.

 

Our TA told us we would be very, pleasantly surprised and booked us a suite on Enchantment of the Seas the following January.

We have been hooked ever since.

 

I truly believe in fate.

 

Ann

[RJLEXUS2011]

I had never been on a cruise before but my wife had so for our honeymoon

in 1998 we booked a 12 night RCCL Cruise around Italy(Splendor). It was the most fantastic trip of my life. We took every shore excursion you could and it was simply fabulous. Since then we cruised on the Enchantement and the

a Princess Ship(grand princess-nice boat) and we have been on the

Carnival Miracle(yuk). We will only cruise RCCL now because we find it to be the best combo of price/entertainment value out there. Went on FOS

in 09 and doing the same cruise again in 2012, cant wait. Next we r thinking about either a TA from Europe to here(we live in palm beach fl)

or Alaska when the kids get older. Just love RCCL.

[Venusleo1]

My first cruise was through an organized singles cruise on the Enchantment of the Seas. It was just a short 4 nighter out of Ft. Lauderdale to Key West & Cozumel but I have never had more fun my entire life. I caught the cruise bug so bad that I even started sailing solo, I didnt care I just wanted to cruise! I love to travel and found that I felt very safe and comfortable cruisng solo, where as I didnt feel so comfortable traveling on my own on a land base trip to a foreign country.

 

My husband before he was my husband had never been cruising before he met me, and thats all I kept talking about, so very early into dating each other (we both already knew we'd be together forever, it was love at first site) we booked the Grandeur of the Seas for a short 4 nighter to Key West/Cozumel. Shortly after booking the cruise he proposed. We were thinking about where to get married and it hit me, we should get married on the cruise! So his first cruise was also his wedding and I think that's too cool!

 

Now we plan on spending the rest of lives cruising the world!

[Judi Kozar]

My DD bought a 4 night cruise for me for my 40 Surprise Birthday party. It was something she wanted to do after I, as a single parent, help put her thru Radiology Tech School and got her first job. It was such a treat. She and I have been on a few cruises since then, her step dad and I now Diamond Members on RCCL enjoying our 11th cruise this Sept.

[BillOh]

Ok, this may have been done before, but I have read enough of the threads that never seem to end that the OP keeps getting negative posts (just or not) or the never ending argument on smoking. :(Tell us how you came about choosing to cruise with RCI and what keeps you returning??:cool:

 

 

 

Good idea and since I'm not ready to schedule my next cruise yet, this will be a fun one. I picked up a new customer for my PC repair business, a travel agency. While working with them I started talking about my upcoming 25th anniversary and how my wife wanted to go on a cruise. I only specified I wanted a balcony and a 7 day Caribbean cruise. They picked out the Voyager cruise that occurred the week of our anniversary. It went so well and so exceeded my expectations we just stuck with RC. Haven't had a bad experience yet, and I've been around here long enough that one bad experience probably wouldn't scare me away. Will I ever try another line? Possibly.

[MedicKen]

These stories are fantastic. A few of them brought tears to my eyes.

 

Well, here's our story, We started with a 7 night on the Costa Rivera in 1987. I won this cruise as part of a sales contest. Had we know a bit more about what to expect we would have had a much better time. But it was fun. Our next time in a ship was August 2001 when we sailed the Carnival Victory out of NYC for Halifax. DW, DS and I had fun but another cruise was not in our future until 2008 when we sailed the Legend of the Seas for a 7 night southern Caribbean with my sister and a group of folks. That sailing set the bar for us. Since then we sailed on Freedom OTS, Explorer OTS, Carnival Pride (Baltimore) and we have an Explorer and Enchantment trip on the books.

 

After the Carnival Pride trip we decided that, even though the lines are more similar than different, WE prefer RCI. The crews seem friendlier and the passengers are more our demographic.

 

All that being said; "The worst day cruising beats the best day to work, HANDS DOWN."

[jonbgd]

I was getting burnt out on Carnival and thier customer service slipping over the years.

The Radiance was doing the MR going to our favorite port Zihuatanejo. We booked and cruised on her.

We liked the product so we did the Mariner 2 months later and have done 4 other cruises since.

Now saying that we are trying Ncl this year and will be cruising with Carnival again next year.

[Priusprof]

Our first cruise was a wedding gift from my parents. We did Song of America when she was about 6 months old.We did an Eastern Caribbean out of Miami that went to Nassau, San Juan, and St. Thomas. We had an inside cabin on Deck 2 but had a great time everywhere we went. We did Southward, Seaward, and Norway twice on NCL. We did Song of America a second time in between the NCL cruises. When NCL switched to it's Freestyle dining is when we opted to sail with RCCL because we did not want to hassle with figuring out where to eat dinner. As time has passed we have really loved RCCL's innovations in terms of new ship designs and concepts. We have always had great experiences on our RCCL cruises so we keep coming back. Being Diamond Plus in the C&A is also a big plus with the concierge lounge benefits as well.

[linkerbink]

My mother's sister raved to my mother about her cruise to Bermuda and urged my mother to do one as well. So, in 1996 my mother, sister and I went on the Song of America at the TA's suggestion. The TA asked us about our interests, etc. and decided RCI was the best fit for us. We did two more cruises together until our mother passed away. We liked RCI so much my sister and I have our 10th and 11th cruises booked. Saw no reason to switch.

[erbunny]

DH and I have a hobby of Antique and Classic boats (Chris-Craft, Lyman, etc) and one year our national organization had their winter meeting on Monarch, this was January of 2009, and coincided with our 40th wedding anniversary. We had always pooh-poohed the idea of cruising, but knew we'd have a good time just being with friends. Ha ha, joke's on us! Like so many here, good ol' Monarch, with her fabulous crew, got us hooked on cruising. We've been on a second Monarch cruise, Allure , Voyager, and Celebrity in Alaska, each trip very unique and special. Our next may be on Princess because of a unique itinerary, but I know we'll also be back on Royal, maybe introducing our grandson to cruising (on Monarch, I hope, if she is still in the fleet)

[ktbr11crs]

I met my BF at a mutual friend's house. We got to talking about cruising; I had been on 5 (Carnival & NCL), he had been on 14 (mostly RCI). We started dating and booking cruises together! Fourteen years and 41 cruises (36 RCI, 4 NCL, 1 X) later, we still love RCI and have 9 more weeks booked! Between their Crown & Anchor program and how great they have treated us over the years, it would be tough to go with anyone else.

[LisaGoeke]

My first RCCL cruise was 8/7/83 on Song of America. I was a teenager and went with my parents. We had been on many other cruises but decided to try RCCL and immediately became hooked. We took many other cruises after that, almost all on RCCL, and now for me, many years later, that is the only line we sail with. Luckily my love for cruises has rubbed off on DH and when we got married he inherited my Diamond Status. :DWhen we step onboard RCCL I feel like I am back home again which is why we keep coming back. We also enjoy the extra perks that repeat passengers get so that is a plus too.

[NotTheBatesMotel]

My first cruise was my wedding cruise on Freedom. I was planning a traditional wedding but with each planning step I realized that I would be covered in hives and not actually enjoy my wedding day (I HATE being the center of attention.) My Husband and I talked about it and decided to do a very small ceremony on a cruise ship, sail with the people who attended the ceremony (we had 14 other guests), and then do a mini Disney honeymoon. It is honestly one of the best decisions I have ever made. I was so relaxed the entire day. Everyone in our party had an amazing cruise. I feel like such a cheerleader for gushing, but everyone who attended raved about it. Best vacation of my life! It's no coincidence that we went on Navigator 9 months after our wedding and we're going on Oasis in November. We love RC. We are very go-with-the-flow kind of people. I'm sure if we were picky we would find things that we don't like, but every time I'm on a cruise I just feel very grateful that we are able to go.

[janetz]

My dh and I and our best friends were booked to go to Bermuda on NCL Oct, 2009. Right before final payment, my workplace started having layoffs and we were not comfortable,the economy being so bad. We cancelled. We got talking about the Oasis and wondering about it, after thinking I would never want to be on a ship that big. We decided to book for Oct, 2010. So we booked in June of 2009 for our cruise on the Oasis for Oct 2010.

 

Loved it! Loved RCCL as much as Celebrity. :D