Comparison Carnival and NCL entertainment

[halos]

[quote name='golfadj']Funny thing in checking rates an online agency had much better rates than she could offer.[/quote]


I never book through the cruise line. There are always better deals from TA's...who will honor the DASH sale, plus have their own perks added in. It's a win-win.

[Mekamax]

Stu - I have been on the Sun and the Dawn. The Pearl is even newer. The Sun I would not choose only because it was not as designed for the Freestyle Dining as the newer Dawn and Pearl are. It is a nice ship and we had a great time and a great aft balcony but would definitely choose the newer Dawn or Pearl.. The Dawn we had a regular balcony and had a great time. The ship is set up with a lot of alternate restaurants for freestyle and we really liked the ship. Try NCL - you will not be disappointed as it is different. We really like it and as many of the NCL people are we are so hoping they will one day come back to Texas! The cabins are smaller. The Freestyle dining is awesome! The entertainment we found to be better. Try it and have fun! If they were in Houston/Galveston we would have more on them than the 4 we have but we are looking at one out of New Orleans late this year or most especially when they bring the newer Jewel in. :D

[Mekamax]

Be careful with online agencies as they are very happy to get your booking but VERY UNLIKELY to take your call again. Even if you want to upgrade. They say: I make more money on new bookings than to take that same amount of time to upgrade you. No matter what they say they have a $75 or so cancelation fee. The guy I booked through said he'd wave it but then wouldn't answer my calls and the "800" would charge me the fee.

[schittenden]

[quote name='zqvol']Have been on 3 NCL and 6 CCL. It depends on what you call entertainment. If it is the production shows, there is no competition, NCL is head and shoulders above CCL. Things like magicians and comedians are about the same. When it comes to things like hairy chest contests CCL is the winner by a landslide.

IMO the bands and music on NCL are much better than any that I have ever heard on CCL.[/QUOTE]

I agree completely. I think NCL is much much better on production shows and the rest is about the same. My experience is limited to one Carnival Pride cruise and one NCL Spirit cruise, but that was our experience. The NCL production shows were far better than anything we've seen on Carnival, Princess, Celebrity or RCCI (my wife).

[golfadj]

[quote name='Mekamax']Be careful with online agencies as they are very happy to get your booking but VERY UNLIKELY to take your call again. Even if you want to upgrade. They say: I make more money on new bookings than to take that same amount of time to upgrade you. No matter what they say they have a $75 or so cancelation fee. The guy I booked through said he'd wave it but then wouldn't answer my calls and the "800" would charge me the fee.[/quote]

I have used this one before with good results. They seem to have locked up a bunch of cabins at very good rates for this sailing. Thanks so much for the info.

[schittenden]

[quote name='Westbank is bestbank']Entertainment is about equal in my opinion. NCL loses when it comes to food. I never ate any thing the entire week on NCL that was good. Even the desserts are bad. It was the NCL Spirit with terrible food.[/QUOTE]

I agree with the comment about NCL food. The food we had in the MDR wasn't just not great, it was barely okay. Often lukewarm, strange, and not very appetizing (often finding cinnamon showing up in odd places). The specialty restaurants seemed much better. We have an Indian tasting menu that was fantastic and the fish and chips and wings (both free) at the Blue Lagoon on the Spirit were pretty good.

[halos]

[quote name='schittenden'] (often finding cinnamon showing up in odd places). .[/quote]

:eek: OMG! That was our biggest complaint on our Celebrity cruise back in 2006..EVERY freaking thing had cinnamon in it.
It was awful.
I had steak one night with potato and the dang potato had cinnamon in it. There was cinnamom sorbet and cinnamon in my vegetables and cinnamon pasta.
REALLY????????? :eek:
I would bet a cruise that the chef from[B][SIZE=4] X[/SIZE][/B] wound up on your NCL ship!

[schittenden]

Our Celebrity cruise had great food. The chefs on our NCL cruise were Indian, which explains it somewhat, but they definitely had a heavy hand.

[halos]

[quote name='schittenden']Our Celebrity cruise had great food. The chefs on our NCL cruise were Indian, which explains it somewhat, but they definitely had a heavy hand.[/quote]

I don't blame you for not enjoying it...but as I am sure that isn't typical of Celebrity food, all that cinnamon isn't typical of NCL either.

I haven't been on Celebrity for a long time, but other than the cinnamon items, the food was really, very good. :)

[denas]

I haven't been on Carnival in about 15 years - we are going again with our kids next January. DH and I did go on the NCL Pearl last October and LOVED the entertainment. I thought the production shows were really good - better then on our previous cruise-without-kids on RCCL. I am a big fan of the production shows in general because I like the dancing/costumes. What I liked most about NCL was how talented the dancers were - they danced the ENTIRE show with tons of costume changes and they were really talented. Even when the singers were on, the dancers did background dancing. We had 2 production shows - one with Broadway music, one with Vegas. The Broadway music was all from recent (past 10 years) musicals. The Vegas was great as well. There was also a Jersey shore type show which isn't my thing, but lots of people reallly liked it. The comedy was OK. Second City does a couple of great shows as well as a murder-mystery lunch (wouldn't recommend that) I also really liked all of the live music - a couple of great salsa bands. Overall, I was really impressed with the entertainment! I also reallly liked the ship. I debated doing the same cruise again with the kids, but didn't want to do a Jamaica port which tipped us to choosing our upcoming CCL.

I will say that some people don't seem to like the free style dining. I loved not being on a schedule (I was without kids so not having to eat at a certain time was part of my vacation), but some people really missed the set table an didn't care for the lax dress codes. MDR food was OK (I am never a huge fan of cruise food). Buffet was wonderful. We even skipped dinner one night in the MDR because we liked the buffet so much. We saved so much on our cruise and got so much extra on-board credit that we splurged for a couple of the pay restaurants and the French restaurant is well worth the extra money - DH would have eaten there every night!

[sail2sea]

The Norwegians cover bands are much better. Shows are on par, unless you are talking about Epic.

[golfadj]

[quote name='halos']:eek: OMG! That was our biggest complaint on our Celebrity cruise back in 2006..EVERY freaking thing had cinnamon in it.
It was awful.
I had steak one night with potato and the dang potato had cinnamon in it. There was cinnamom sorbet and cinnamon in my vegetables and cinnamon pasta.
REALLY????????? :eek:
I would bet a cruise that the chef from[B][SIZE=4] X[/SIZE][/B] wound up on your NCL ship![/quote]

Yuck not a fan of cinnamon at all.On the other hand DW would love that.

[halos]

[quote name='golfadj']Yuck not a fan of cinnamon at all.On the other hand DW would love that.[/quote]

I love cinnamom...on a sticky bun or in an apple pie...it has it's place, and it's place ain't on a potato. :p

[golfadj]

[quote name='halos']I love cinnamom...on a sticky bun or in an apple pie...it has it's place, and it's place ain't on a potato. :p[/quote]

Actually my favorite wife likes to put cinnamon on a sweet potato.[IMG]http://boards.cruisecritic.com/images/icons/icon7.gif[/IMG]

[kerrytens]

[quote name='golfadj']Yuck not a fan of cinnamon at all.On the other hand DW would love that.[/quote]

[quote name='halos']I love cinnamom...on a sticky bun or in an apple pie...it has it's place, and it's place ain't on a potato. :p[/quote]
OMG, you two have reminded me of the infamous 'curried' shrimp dinner my mother decided to whip up for us not too long ago. Well, she is getting up there in age and the vision isn't what it used to be ... and apparently neither is the sniffer ... yup, we had cinnamon'd shrimp for dinner that evening:eek::D

I'm so glad she does still have her great sense of humour though because we remind her of that faux pas every chance we get!

[kerrytens]

[quote name='golfadj']Actually [COLOR=red]my favorite wife[/COLOR] likes to put cinnamon on a sweet potato.[IMG]http://boards.cruisecritic.com/images/icons/icon7.gif[/IMG][/quote]
You have a not so favourite wife Stu:confused::eek:

(sorry, couldn't resist:D )

BTW, give NCL a try. I thought the food was as good as any other line's food that I've tried, the entertainment was amazing (granted, I was on the Epic). Staff are really good.

[halos]

[quote name='kerrytens']OMG, you two have reminded me of the infamous 'curried' shrimp dinner my mother decided to whip up for us not too long ago. Well, she is getting up there in age and the vision isn't what it used to be ... and apparently neither is the sniffer ... yup, we had cinnamon'd shrimp for dinner that evening:eek::D

I'm so glad she does still have her great sense of humour though because we remind her of that faux pas every chance we get![/quote]

Man, that must have been gross!! :p



[quote name='golfadj']Actually my favorite wife likes to put cinnamon on a sweet potato.[IMG]http://boards.cruisecritic.com/images/icons/icon7.gif[/IMG][/quote]

It would taste better on a sweet potato...it just didn't sit well in my regular old white potato-thing they concocted along with a steak. (the steak was pretty awesome though...but then again, this was 6 years ago when mdr cruise food was amazing)