NCL vs. RCI Cruise Comparison Review

[3red7s]

I really enjoyed your review and ratings re: your trips......You indicated that you received a "free" promotional trip via NCL & a casino, however, I did not notice any review of the casinos. I would be interested in your opinion on both, if you have one. My spouse and I are Diamond members at Harrahs, which offers specials via NCL. We are also members of RC's Club Royale. We are aware that the program will be changing as of 3/2015 with regards to comps. We are trying to determine if we should "jump ship" so to speak & see if our offers will be better with the NCL/Harrahs partnership. (RC is connected with M Life, but we do not play at their casinos) Thank you for your time & thoughts

[Grandprix]

A very informative review. Nice work.

[Big_G]

Having sailed both I think it is a fair assessment. They are more alike than they are different IMO.

 

 

 

Funny we also had a service issue in Cagneys they defiantly do not have their act together. sad because the food is good.

 

 

 

The staterooms may not be a fair comparison. On NCL we always cruise in a Minisuite and find them priced like a regular balcony on RCCL and much less then a RCCL Mini but I think Rccl Minis are bigger than NCL's. Getaway's mini bathroom was amazing with lots of space for a family of 4 (again we are not suite cruisers)

 

 

 

On our Getaway cruise we had no issues of smoke and trusty me my DS make a issue of it on Epic, we had to cross on weird floors to avoid it. I think it al depends on the amount of smokers that are present.

 

 

One thing that holds us back from booking Getaway and/or Breakaway is reports that the balconies are much smaller on these two ships. I'm curious about your opinion as DW spends a lot of time out there and is very skeptical.

 

 

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[Big_G]

Thanks for the very informative review.

 

 

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[Artemis]

Thanks for the detailed comparison--your work is so helpful! Glad you had so much fun doing the research!

 

 

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[American Bear]

great comparison, thought you might like to compare it to our assessment of 3 cruise lines!

 

We cruised the Allure a few years ago, and recently finished cruising the Getaway, and MSC Divina so we thought we'd add our scores to yours for a 'fun' comparison!:)

This is how we saw it!

WE didn't include the Independence!

 

Entertainment (10 points)

Your scores (Getaway 9) (Allure 8)

Our scores (Getaway 9) (Allure 10) (Divina 10)

All met our needs and wants! We thought Chicago and Blue were great!

The Divina's shows are not to be missed, a lot of acrobatics, etc.!

 

 

Activities (10 points)

Your scores (Getaway 10)(Allure 10)

Our scores (Getaway 9) (Allure 9) (Divina 9)

Again, all met our needs and wants! Plenty to do on all!

 

Dining (10 points)

Your scores (Getaway 8) (Allure 8)

Our scores (Getaway 7) (Allure 9) (Divina 9)

Allures score reflects better specialty rests, while Divina has the best buffet!

All MDR's just OK!

 

Public Venues (10 points)

Your scores (Getaway 6) (Allure 9)

Our scores (Getaway 9) (Allure 9) (Divina 10)

We like the strict no smoking policies on Divina including the casino!

 

Bars & Lounges (10 points)

Your scores (Getaway 6) (Allure 10)

Our scores (Getaway 9) (Allure 8) (Divina 10)

Divina's bar entertainment is the best! We like the Getaway's concepts! RCL's is getting old for us!

 

Embarkation(5 points)

Your scores (Getaway 3) (Allure 5)

Our scores (Getaway 4) (Allure 4) (Divina 4)

All were good!

 

Disembarkation

Your scores (Getaway 5) (Allure 3)

Our scores We did self assist on all 3,

(Getaway 4) took 15 mins,

(Allure 3) took 25 mins.,

(Divina 5) took 10 mins.

All good, Divina the best!

 

Pre-cruise Services (5 points)

Your scores (Getaway 5) (Allure 3)

Our scores (Getaway 4) (Allure 5) (Divina 3)

To be fair, we are D+/RCL so it gives an advantage! NCL good, MSC only fair!

 

Helpfulness/Friendliness of Staff (5 points)

Your scores (Getaway 5) (Allure 4)

Our scores (Getaway 5) (Allure 5) (Divina 5)

All are good!

 

Cabin (5 points)

Your scores (Getaway 3) (Allure 5)

Our scores (Getaway 4) (Allure 3) (Divina 5)

Getaway and Divina have advantage, they are newer! We like the Divina's cabin slightly more then Getaway's!

All our scores were of Balconies!

 

Ease of Getting Around (5 points)

Your scores (Getaway 4) (Allure 5)

Our scores (Getaway 5) (Allure 4) (Divina 4)

Allure was too crowded for us, Divina had some hallways you could get lost in, Getaway's was the easiest!

 

Beverage Packages(5 points)

Your scores (Getaway 4) (Allure 5)

Our scores (Getaway 4) (Allure 4) (Divina 5)

We get access to the D lounge, and get free drinks in the casino on RCL as casino members, but the best drink pkges are on the Divina!

 

Onboard Informational Services (5 points)

Your scores (Getaway 4) (Allure 4)

Our scores (Getaway 3) (Allure 4) (Divina 5)

Divina has the fastest internet at the best price!

Allure's speed is better then Getaway!

 

 

Excursions (5 points)

Your scores (Getaway 4) (Allure 4)

Our scores (Getaway 5) (Allure 5) (Divina 5)]

We enjoyed all of them!

 

Pools and Hot Tubs (5 points)

Your scores (Getaway 3) (Allure 5)

Our scores (Getaway 4) (Allure 4) (Divina 4)

We like the salt water pools on the Getaway and Divina, and when we sailed on Allure it was fresh water! Otherwise Allure would have gotten an extra pt.!

Every morning getting into a new clean salt water pool on Divina and Getaway was great!

 

Final Scores

Your final scores (Getaway 79) (Allure 88)

Our final scores (Getaway 85) (Allure 86) (Divina 91)

(hope I counted right:eek:)

 

We usually sail free on RCL as Casino club members, and with D+ bene. its hard to admit that bigger isn't always better! Lines everywhere, thankfully we got the D+ benes.!

Actually our favorite class is the Radiance!

 

Our Gold benes. on Getaway couldn't swing us to favor the Getaway more with the mediocre food offerings in the buffet and MDR!

If the Getaway had better food, it would be a better choice the the Allure in our opinion! Again bigger is not better, our favorite class on NCL is the Dawn class, specifically the Pearl!

 

We're not Italian, but we liked the Italian Divina a lot, the food, the entertainment, the ship is beautiful, the best drink pkges., and cheap prices for their balconies! If we're forced to pay for our cruises in the future because of changes in the casino club next year, we just might change cruise lines!:eek:

 

But all are a good choice for a fun vacation, this is just our opinion!:D

Thanks Daghis for letting us give our 2 cents worth!:D

[windjamming]

This is a great comparison, Marc! I had been meaning to do something similar, comparing the Breakaway with the Explorer (as NYC area home-ported ships). Of course it doesn't really make sense now, with the Explorer leaving, but I may still post my thoughts to compare RCI vs NCL.

 

And I do agree with your points. We probably would rank NCL a bit higher on the dining, though, because we loved Freestyle. (I may be one of the few looking forward to Dynamic Dining.)

[Daghis]

I really enjoyed your review and ratings re: your trips......You indicated that you received a "free" promotional trip via NCL & a casino' date=' however, I did not notice any review of the casinos.[/quote']

I'm not sure how much I can offer about NCL's casino program since I was basically their as a guest invited from a local casino. If I understand what the casino hosts told me, after this cruise, I still won't have any standing with CAS, regardless of how much I played. CAS did comp a couple hundred off my account at the end of the cruise, so I got some benefit out of being there, I guess. I will say again that bar service while in the casino was far superior to what I've seen on Royal Caribbean in recent history.

 

Adding to this, RCI's casinos onboard Independence of the Seas and Allure of the Seas are a bit older (Independence of the Seas still has a high number of older mechanical slots), plus the service I received was disappointing. On Independence of the Seas, there was no casino host at all, and I wasn't even offered free alcoholic drinks until I called the Club Royale office while we were in San Juan and complained. On Allure of the Seas, they had no record of my cash rebate and I had to wait until day 3 when they straightened that out. In addition, on Allure, the hosts weren't as interactive as I've seen in the past.

 

From these experiences, I'd say that it'd definitely be worth pursuing what kind of relationship you could establish with NCL's Casinos at Sea. From what I've read here at Cruise Critic, they have a very attractive program for retaining cruise guests.

[Daghis]

We cruised the Allure a few years ago, and recently finished cruising the Getaway, and MSC Divina so we thought we'd add our scores to yours for a 'fun' comparison!:)

Thanks for adding your input! It was great getting another perspective. I've heard such wonderful things about MSC Divina, and it was nice to see more confirmation of that.

[TXGalAJ]

Thanks for the great comparison! I was on RCCL's Navigator of the Seas last month out of Galveston and am going on NCL's Jewel out of Houston in a couple of weeks. Same itineraries so I am hoping to do a good comparison review!

[Russ Lomas]

Thanks Daghis for the detailed comparison. I enjoyed reading this as well as your live reports from aboard both ships. We sailed NCL twice, but not in the past 10 years and enjoyed the experience. We tried RCCL for the first time 3 years ago, loved it, and now travel annually with RCCL. We will try other lines as we get bored of the ports RCCL offers (unless they start visiting some different ones), but we are loyal to Royal right now.

 

Looking forward to meeting you on the Freedom when we cruise in March 2016. Til then, may all your sailings be smooth ones.

[cjknox]

Thank you very much for this very detailed in depth comparison Marc. Based on my experience I'd say this was a very fair and balanced assessment. Well done!

[American Bear]

I'm not sure how much I can offer about NCL's casino program since I was basically their as a guest invited from a local casino. If I understand what the casino hosts told me, after this cruise, I still won't have any standing with CAS, regardless of how much I played. CAS did comp a couple hundred off my account at the end of the cruise, so I got some benefit out of being there, I guess. I will say again that bar service while in the casino was far superior to what I've seen on Royal Caribbean in recent history.

 

Adding to this, RCI's casinos onboard Independence of the Seas and Allure of the Seas are a bit older (Independence of the Seas still has a high number of older mechanical slots), plus the service I received was disappointing. On Independence of the Seas, there was no casino host at all, and I wasn't even offered free alcoholic drinks until I called the Club Royale office while we were in San Juan and complained. On Allure of the Seas, they had no record of my cash rebate and I had to wait until day 3 when they straightened that out. In addition, on Allure, the hosts weren't as interactive as I've seen in the past.

 

From these experiences, I'd say that it'd definitely be worth pursuing what kind of relationship you could establish with NCL's Casinos at Sea. From what I've read here at Cruise Critic, they have a very attractive program for retaining cruise guests.

 

 

Thanks Daghis, our comparisons were fun.

Did you call the RCL casino club ahead of time telling them you were going to be on the Allure?

If you did, maybe you should call them now after your trip and ask why the problems! They might give you some future benes. for screwing up! The squeaky wheel if you know what I mean!

Your Casino Club experiences are really not acceptable!

Edited October 17, 2014 by American Bear

[Jenjer]

One thing that holds us back from booking Getaway and/or Breakaway is reports that the balconies are much smaller on these two ships. I'm curious about your opinion as DW spends a lot of time out there and is very skeptical.

 

 

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Yes the standard balcony's are tiny almost comically tiny IMO. Stay on Deck 8.

 

We stayed on deck 8 forward in a minisuite and it was amazing. Biggest balcony we have ever had. 2 loungers, 2 chairs and a table. Now most of it was not private, it sticks out father than the balcony's above it. We looked up and saw these people squeezed on small balconys. They looked down with envy.

 

 

We spent more time out there than normal because of the space.

 

This spead sheet...I did not do but its super helpful in selecting a cabin on Getaway or breakaway.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AkRUeqCmOMnGdFZWTVVzZndrc0NkN1N0TGpZb2ZYU2c&single=true&gid=0&output=html

[Aquahound]

They looked down with envy.

 

I'm just the opposite. As large as your balcony was, I hate balconies that are almost completely open to the decks above. I prefer privacy.

 

That's one thing that has me skeptical about my upcoming Getaway cruise. I booked a mini-suite and just could not find a decent balcony. They're either tiny or have no privacy. I thought I found a good balcony on deck 14 aft until I read about noise complaints from Spice H2O above. :rolleyes:

[JohnGaltny]

This was a terrific, well reasoned and overall well balanced analysis.

 

Thanks for the work and time you obviously put in.

 

Of course, to be truly fair you now must sail every ship from both lines. Ready....set.....GO.:D

[Karter]

Can you talk a little more about RCI's internet capabilities and shortcomings?

In particular, will I be able to use my ipad? I will need to use the Blackboard Collaborate app on my cruise next month.

 

I have tried to use the RCI internet for work on several ships but could not long on to the work server because the latency was too long and it kept timing out. Hopefully our work server allows more time to connect than mine does.

 

Good luck

[Big_G]

Yes the standard balcony's are tiny almost comically tiny IMO. Stay on Deck 8.

 

We stayed on deck 8 forward in a minisuite and it was amazing. Biggest balcony we have ever had. 2 loungers, 2 chairs and a table. Now most of it was not private, it sticks out father than the balcony's above it. We looked up and saw these people squeezed on small balconys. They looked down with envy.

 

 

We spent more time out there than normal because of the space.

 

This spead sheet...I did not do but its super helpful in selecting a cabin on Getaway or breakaway.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AkRUeqCmOMnGdFZWTVVzZndrc0NkN1N0TGpZb2ZYU2c&single=true&gid=0&output=html

 

Thanks for the info.

[Daghis]

Thanks Daghis, our comparisons were fun.

Did you call the RCL casino club ahead of time telling them you were going to be on the Allure?

If you did, maybe you should call them now after your trip and ask why the problems! They might give you some future benes. for screwing up! The squeaky wheel if you know what I mean!

Your Casino Club experiences are really not acceptable!

Yes, I had called Club Royale in advance (soon after my March cruise) to arrange everything. I guess I should have called again shortly before the October cruise to confirm that it was in place.

 

I did just call now to find out about my rebate for next March's cruise, but that information isn't available yet. I mentioned about the poor experience I had on the March cruise and she sent a note off to the manager of the casino programs and apologized profusely for how I wasn't recognized as a "VIP" then.

 

Regarding the delayed rebate, she also apologized for that, saying that there had been a staff member whose responsibility it was to take care of this process and that she had not been keeping up with the necessary transactions.

 

I guess it's good that Club Royale is going to a new system next year, whatever that system may be.

 

As a separate note, I did call NCL to ask about benefits for future cruises and contrary to what I was told onboard, I do qualify for stuff including a comped oceanview or balcony cabin on a 7-9 night sailing. I guess if casino services and offers are sufficiently important to me, I'll definitely want to make sure that I keep NCL in mind for future cruise plans.

[Schasz]

Thanks for the comparison and we would definitely agree with your thoughts on the Getaway H2O Spice adult area. That was a huge disappointment for us on our Getaway experience. We spend a lot of time in the adult area especially on sea days. We prefer the Royal Caribbean and Celebrity adult pool areas to NCL Getaway. We now look forward to our 11 night cruise on Celebrity Equinox.

 

Shari & John

[Majestic-NJ]

Thanks for the review. My wife and I are considering a cruise for our anniversary at the end of May and our go to line has always been RCCL. My friend who sails NCL frequently just got off the Gem and has been prodding me to try them out. I am looking at a Mini Suite on the Getaway out of Miami and seriously considering it but I guess I have a lot of reading to do about FreeStyle. :)

[Daghis]

You're welcome!

 

I can say that the NCL cruise was good enough that I'm going to be doing it again next year. With their current Freestyle Choice promotion, which includes the Ultimate Beverage Package for free as an option, I think that I can get a great deal on Norwegian Escape.

 

Don't let Freestyle scare you away. Just imagine that it's like My Time Dining, but with more options.

 

One thing I'll note is that from what I've read, a Norwegian "Mini-Suite" is more comparable to a Royal Caribbean "Balcony" cabin and smaller than a Royal Caribbean "Junior Suite". Keep that in mind when comparing cabins between the two lines.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Daghis

[jticarruthers]

I can say that the NCL cruise was good enough that I'm going to be doing it again next year. With their current Freestyle Choice promotion, which includes the Ultimate Beverage Package for free as an option, I think that I can get a great deal on Norwegian Escape.

 

Thinking the same thing, trying to decide whether to book Escape before the promo runs out this month and found your side by side to be very helpful. Just off Indy at Thanksgiving so she is fresh in mind and on balance it sounds like Escape should be a comparable but new experience.

 

Thanks for the hard work :)

Edited January 20, 2015 by jticarruthers

[Majestic-NJ]

Just off Indy at Thanksgiving so she is fresh in mind and on balance it sounds like Escape should be a comparable but new experience.

 

Kinda of off topic and not trying to hijack the thread but the other cruise I am looking at happens to be the 7 night out of Fort Lauderdale on the Indy. I've been on Liberty and loved it. Should we expect the same experience? How was the ship for you? I think it was recently refurbed in 2013? Anything we should consider should we choose her for our anniversary cruise?

 

I'm torn. While I was thinking of trying NCL this next cruise would put me in Platinum. :) We were also going to get a Junior Suite.

[rifky]

My Breakaway mini suite was smaller than my Allure balcony stateroom was a great disappointment.

If you plan breakaway , better do it on the heaven they are the only guests having the Royal treatment . And by royal I mean the awesome treatment you normally get on any RCC.

On my experience with NCL vs. RCCL while it may happen that a staff member will be cold to you in RCCL , same in NCL may happen that a staff member will be FRIENDLY to you.