Have you ever left RCCL for another line?

[davy jones]

I like a mix of variety and familiar, so I do bounce around and come back. I have enjoyed every cruise that I have been on and every cruise line can deliver most of our simple preferences. Line A may be better than line B in some areas, but B is better in others. I have yet to have a "never again on this line" experience while cruising.

 

Barring a complete, angering, If I were to "leave" a line, it would be because for one of two reasons.

 

1. My preferences have changed so that a line (or any product) is no longer a good fit.

 

2. The product has changed so that it is no longer a good fit for me.

[Kellie Poodle]

Did one NCL cruise and will NEVER do another.

 

Pretty Loyal to Royal but have done Celebrity as well and one Azamara cruise.

 

I like Celebrity, but I think the food on Royal is better. Food is a highly subjective topic and what pleases me won't necessarily please someone else.

 

The quality of service on Celebrity and Royal are, in my opinion, equal. I don't need much attention other than good table service and a well-trained cabin attendant.

 

Did one Azamara cruise just short of a year ago. I was not at all impressed with the dining room. Service was terrible. The food was very, very pretty but not very tasty. The deserts were awful. I am used to small ships as I do some river cruising on high-end lines, so it wasn't the size of the Quest that bothered me. It was more likely the "kitsch" of the over-friendly staff. I thought the "welcome home" when reboarding after a port was tacky. It's not my home it's a cruise ship. The captain went around fist-bumping everyone. Was he ever at the helm or did he just walk around being friendly?

 

The Azamara experience was just not my thing, however if the ports were interesting and price was right, I'd go back just for that.

 

I'll do more Celebrity cruises if the ports are interesting and the price is right, too.

 

My favorite cruise line is still Royal.

[emilygrace]

We have done 24 cruises and 12 of those were with RCI. We started on Royal but got curious as to what else was out there. We have been on NCL (twice, that's enough), Cunard (a bit formal for us, but I was curious about the ships, QM2 and Queen Victoria), Princess (3 times, I'm pretty much done with Princess unless the itinerary is fantastic and unique), twice on Celebrity (loved the Solstice) and 3 times on HAL (our particular cruises were not leaning toward the elderly, unless you count us).

 

But the most were on Royal because we really liked the product. We will be on the Jewel this fall and I am really looking forward to feeling at home. But we have not sailed with them in a while because for the most part their itineraries basically do not interest us anymore.

Edited January 12, 2015 by emilygrace

[dancingranni]

We WERE loyal to royal until we discovered they had changed the points system and we would no longer be diamond on our next cruise. We were also extremely upset when they completely pulled out of the west coast. That being said...we still love RCI.

 

Because of these things we did try a Princess cruise from San Francisco ( extremely convenient for us) and loved it. We do have a cruise scheduled on the Navigator OTS this April and are really looking forward to it.

 

That being said we are no longer hooked on just 1 cruise line and looking forward to being pampered on our future choices. :D Who knows, we may never get the chance to be Diamond level on Royal, but we will be happy travelers whoever we sail with because we are so blessed to be able to cruise at all. Happy sailing to all!

Edited January 12, 2015 by dancingranni
misspelled word

[Jimmers]

We always cruise with a group of 10-25 people and RCI has been a good fit for us. We're familiar with their ships and way of doing things so that makes for a less stressful cruise.

 

But lately we've been talking about taking some cruises on other lines with just the two of us (don't let that get back to our group:))

[TXGalAJ]

If the food on RCCL is part of the reason you are looking at other lines I suggest trying NCL BUT you should get their Ultimate Dining Package ($119 for 7 day cruise) and eat in a specialty restaurant every night. I've been on most of the big lines and eating at the specialty restaurants was the best food I've had on any of them. Yes, it adds to the cost of the trip but even with the UBP my cruise was still much less than an identical cruise on RCCL.

[Clarea]

We WERE loyal to royal until we discovered they had changed the points system and we would no longer be diamond on our next cruise. We were also extremely upset when they completely pulled out of the west coast. That being said...we still love RCI...

That's interesting because I thought that was why Royal added the fudge factor in the conversion. Someone who had 9 cruise credits (one less than Diamond the old way) would have gotten 76 points from the conversion. So anything but a 3 day cruise would get to Diamond on the new system.

[critterchick]

We used to sail RCI and Princess equally, but somehow RCI became our default line, but once they pulled their ships from LA we had a stint with Carnival and now favor Princess for the shorter cruises that we don't have to drive to. I've also sailed on HAL, Celebrity Xpedition (not the real X product, but an amazing experience) and Azamara.

 

DH and I are at different points in our travelling careers - he saw the world when he was in the Navy and I got off to a late start, so am still looking more at the destination than the ship. RCI's European itineraries have suited us, but for Asia we are going on Azamara for the more interesting itinerary than anything we've seen on RCI. For a week in the Caribbean, we'll go on RCI unless another line we know has a screaming deal on a ship that we think we'd like.

 

All things being equal, we'd still choose RCI for what we know will be a pleasant onboard experience. But they rarely are.

[2tall]

A couple of years ago, we tried the Carnival Conquest out of New Orleans. We wanted to give Carnival a try, particularly since so many people like the product and feel about Carnival much as we feel about Royal. We were not thrilled.

 

There was no one thing that put us off of Carnival...it was more of a bunch of little tiny things that added up. We didn't like the layout of the buffet although we liked the food. We didn't like the layout of the ship as only a few decks allowed for passage front to back. Some of the ceilings were low, which we notice because we're both over 6'0". There was trash blowing around on the decks and in the elevators and it seemed as if nobody was making an effort to clean it up. As we sat in the Harry's Steakhouse, I could see paper napkins blowing all over the deck and several crew members and an officer walked right past. The pools were small. Nothing was glaringly wrong...but those little things have made us stick with Royal since.

 

At this point, we're "point whores" and will probably stick with Royal until we make Diamond Plus. After that, I'd consider trying another line...maybe Celebrity or Princess as I've heard good things about both lines.

 

Got to give it to Carnival on that Chocolate Melting Cake thing, though. They have that sucker down PAT.

[Cindy]

We've cruised with 5 different lines, and have found things we liked and disliked about all of them. Right now, Royal Caribbean is getting the bulk of our business, because the product is one that ticks most of our boxes...beautiful ships, nice cabins, decent enough food, and good entertainment. There is also the draw of having a ship I like home ported an hour from our house!

 

We took our first Celebrity cruise last summer and loved it. We can't wait to do another! We had an Aqua Class cabin on Celebrity, and thought the perk of eating breakfast and dinner in BLU was wonderful. Our next Celebrity cruise will be a 15-night trip through the canal.

 

We'd like to try Oceania, Azamara, and a river cruise.

[knittinggirl]

We never looked at other lines until they discontinued the chocolate and the newspaper. Then we started looking at other lines, and discovered new itineraries. Now we're mostly itinerary based. We look first on Royal, then start checking other lines.

 

We didn't really care when they discontinued the 24 hour Windjammer. But when they removed the chocolates I was upset. Especially since the Chocolate expense for Royal should be such a small percentage of their costs. But it really helps the enjoyment.

[smeck]

As you can see by my signature we haved cruised many cruise lines and were about to add Princess to the list. Royal has become our favorite cruise line but they couldn't compete with the European itinerary of Princess.

[Suzcruz57]

I cruise different lines for variety. I enjoy each line I have sailed for different reasons. I prefer RCI although Princess offers a very good product as well and I'm interested to see how their Caribbean cruises stack up to RCI.

 

I love RCI ships, but every now and then the same entertainment, lounges, menus can get boring. Switching it up helps me to not get into any type of "lull".

 

I say go for it...you might find you enjoy the variety of what others have to offer.

 

I agree with above post. Have been with Holland recently, due to ability to smoke on the balcony. I also enjoy a different variety of food and being served on fine china, silver utensils, and all glass to drink out of is very nice.. Oh, did I mention you can stay in your cabin until disembarkation and order room service the morning of departure? Very nice. :)

[lakelorain]

We love RC and will continue to sail on her ships but have 3 cruises booked on Celebrity this year for the itineraries and are looking at other lines. We would really like RC to change up the itineraries more often. We typically look for the unusual cruises(repositionings, tran-Atlantics etc.) but have visited some of the ports too many times. Adding new ports in Asia doesn't appeal to us because it is too far to fly on a regular basis.

[A2Mich]

So I'm also on the other side of the coin here. We've mostly cruised Carnivore and had a decent time, though we really enjoyed the 8 day cruise to Panama. We had also experienced a mediocre cruise on the Imagination--was ok, but the ship was getting pretty run down from doing the 3/4 day cruises and had not been refurb'd yet at the time we sailed.

 

We also took a 10 day Princess cruise which was sort of a mixed bag for us. Food was decent, ship was pretty, but cabins were small, and the crowd was a bit too subdued for us, but we knew that booking a 10 day. We still had a decent time, with the major exception of a loud-mouthed group of Northeasterners who thought it best to leave their 3 cabin doors open and yell from cabin to cabin, rather than use the phones, or get off their butts and walk 2 doors down the hall.

 

For our upcoming cruise, we decided to give Royal a try at the suggestion of our travel agent, and also based on the Freedom class ships offering a lot of options for our family, and for a change of venue. We would have liked to have booked Oasis or Allure, but with airfare costs from Denver, rental car costs, theme park costs, etc., we had to make a compromise.

 

So we ended up booking Freedom of the Seas, though at the time, a Carnival cruise would have been a little bit less expensive. After stumbling across a WOW sale mentioned by another CC member, our travel agent was able to get the kids sail free promo applied, and with the savings and OBC we netted, this cruise actually came in a bit cheaper than a comparable Carny cruise, and with a larger cabin, though not an outside cabin that we could have booked on Carny. We have a family of 5, and would have been crammed into a standard oceanview on Carnival, but was able to book a Family Promenade on RCI. Though we don't have an ocean view, we still have a view nonetheless, plus an extra 150 sq ft and a bathtub, which will be handy for the kids anyway.

 

So, we'll give RCI a shot and see how they are, and go in with low expectations and hope for the best. At least with low expectations, there is a decent chance of being wowed, as opposed to being disappointed because our expectations were not realistic.

 

 

 

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[Loucat]

Everyone has their own perceptions and that is why it is great to have so much to choose from.

We sailed RCI exclusively until I was so tired of complaining about the food we stopped two years ago.

We have sailed on Azamara, Princess, Celebrity and NCL.

We will not go back to RCI.

We like aspects of all of the rest but have yet to find a consistent experience.. we will keep looking. Right now, Princess and Celebrity are of most interest.

[orville99]

That's interesting because I thought that was why Royal added the fudge factor in the conversion. Someone who had 9 cruise credits (one less than Diamond the old way) would have gotten 76 points from the conversion. So anything but a 3 day cruise would get to Diamond on the new system.

 

We were at 8, and had a short cruise booked in a JS that would have gotten us to 10 (diamond) under the old system, but came up a half dozen points short under the new system.

[Mangomom77]

Have tried Princess and Celebrity, but we always come back to RCCL.

[karena1]

for the most part, we stick with Royal. Still our favorite and we have done many Royal cruises. But we also have done a few Princess and 1 Celebrity and have Celebrity Silhouette booked for next Dec.

 

Since we will NEVER (or doubt it anyway) make Pinnacle, we now look at all 3 lines as we get comparable perks on Celebrity and Princess. Both the other lines are close to Royal. Just got off Ruby Princess in Dec and thought the shows were awesome, decorations for Christmas were outstanding.

 

We will continue to mostly cruise Royal, but we do look at the other 2 lines and if the price/itin is right, we don't hesitate to book with them.

[Chirpbird]

Our first cruise was on RCCL. We enjoyed it a lot, and have cruised every year since then. At first, we picked cruises based on the ports of call. Then, we picked X because of their 'pre-pay' alcohol package. (We found we liked the all inclusive feel, and we really liked that bottled water and premium coffee drinks were covered.) We cruised Carnival once when I had to pay for all 5 cruise goers. And, we just tried MCS. We're coming back to RCCL in May 2015 to see if it is as fun as we remember. If I had to rank the cruises? MCS would be last. Carnival next. And, X/RCCL tied until we see how the cruise in May goes.

[Iluvcruising2]

We recently sailed with NCL and loved it. The suite life on NCL is great.

 

See this thread for a comparison -

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2139442

 

We have also tried Celebrity, which was good too.

 

Don't get me wrong, we like Royal very much. However, the prices on Royal seem to be going stratospheric.

[OfTheSeasCruiser]

So my question for other past or current loyal RCCL cruisers: Have you ever left Royal? Why? What did you try? Did you come back? Why?

 

 

Unfortunately, yes. ;)

 

Why?

Budget - we could find cheaper cruises on various lines.

 

What did you try?

Carnival :(, Princess, NCL :(

 

Did you come back?

Yes, yes I did!

 

Why?

Because after experiencing the other lines, I realized that Royal was the perfect fit us. We love almost everything about a Royal cruise, and we just didn't feel that way about the other lines. I don't want to sound like a cheerleader, but that's how I feel.

[Clarea]

We were at 8, and had a short cruise booked in a JS that would have gotten us to 10 (diamond) under the old system, but came up a half dozen points short under the new system.

Makes sense, I think they set up the fudge factor to handle those that were one credit from a new level.

[dakacz]

We have been on different lines. Liked Celebrity a lot. When they sold the Mercury and pulled out of Baltimore went to RCCL as our elite status made us diamond. Enjoy our RCCL cruises and the Diamond benefits best of the loyalty programs. Really make our choice based on itinerary and price. We have never been on a cruise we didn't enjoy: some were just better than others. I think Princess and Holland America have some great itineraries.

[laurenpie]

We did our first 2 on Royal, then next 2 on Carnival.

 

Reason we changed from Royal was after our 2nd cruise, I was left frustrated by a few things, wanted to try something new and friends convinced us to give Carnival a go.

 

I really like the different varieties that different lines offer.

 

Had a lot of fun on our last 2 Carnival cruises, our next cruise is back on Royal again.

 

After that, it will probably be Carnival. Ship/dates/cost/itinerary etc all worked out better than another line for what we were after.