Celebrity vs RCCL

[BillOh]

Not sure of your views on formal nights; however, on Celebrity if you dine in a specialty restaurant or Blu (is Aqua Class) you do not have to dress in formal attire. Unlike RCCL, where formal attire applies to the MDR and the specialty restaurants. (Based upon our experience and reviewing the RCCL and Celebrity brochures.) Just a point of reference if formal nights are something important to you.

 

Thank you for this post, it was one I was looking for. We are very much done with formal nights at least as far as preparation and carrying extra luggage. That said, I have no animosity towards people who enjoy it and go all out. For several cruises we would do the specialty restaurants on formal nights and do our normal smart casual dress for these restaurants. I specifically remember on my 2011 Allure cruise the specialty restaurants were smart casual every night. On my 2013 cruise they posted, in the compass only that the specialty restaurants followed the MDR's dress code. I was a little angry to find this out after we boarded. We went to Chops on formal night in our normal smart casual attire and nobody minded or said a thing. We did the same in Freedom this year. Just another case of Royal being inconsistent.

 

We still do formal night on occasion, but its usually a white shirt and tie for me with dark pants and a dinner dress for my wife. That is as far as we go on RC. I wonder if that would be acceptable on X. If not, we could plan the specialty restaurants, or the buffet restaurant that night. Thoughts or opinions welcome .

[north29]

with good comparisons. I simply prefer RC over X, but some times like this Christmas and other itineraries from X are better than RC. I have been on 2 X fourteen day cruises with another booked for Xmas.

My only real complaint is the lack of physical activity on the Eclipse and Equinox except for the Spa, Ping Pong is the most strenuous offered and it is a very poor place and with many people walking through.

On a positive note the Apple/ipad/IOS classes are good.

I have to agree with one poster above, the crew can be snotty especially in the stores. If you are shelling out or about to shell out a $1000 they just do not seem to care, of course this will vary from ship to ship but was true in our cruises with X

[sauvichick]

Sorry but have to disagree with all this.

 

Royal no longer charge for towels and haven't done for some time.

 

On the Liberty of the Seas The $25 fee for pool towels that were not returned still applied.

Edited August 7, 2015 by sauvichick

[cocacola86]

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[mil76]

We're Diamond on RCCL but did Equinox on the Med since we wanted a cruise that hit both Mykonos and Santorini. The crowd is definitely older, but even my In-Laws in their 70's said they missed RCCL when it was all said and done. The kids, especially my teenager at the time, were pretty bored onboard since there few other kids his age. It was port-intensive so we knew it wasn't going to be RCCL, so no big deal. We spent a lot of time doing lawn bowling on sea days.

 

However, don't count on the older average age meaning everyone on the ship will act more mature. There was a large contingent of 20-somethings on board and they spent their days at the pool talking about all of their hooking up the night before and using foul language, even though they saw my 10 year old within earshot. So you can still get that "frat party at sea" experience I have heard about on RCCL but have never experienced.

 

I also disagree on the quiet factor. We had a balcony cabin mid-ship. but we could hear the bands playing a couple decks below loud and clear in the cabin.

 

Food was definitely good (kids loved Bistro on Five), and I thought they really took care of Elites with perks I cared about, like free laundry service on a 12 day cruise.

 

I'd probably do Celebrity again if the itinerary was port intensive and exactly what I wanted like this one was, but if it had lots of sea days like a repositioning I think I would go stir crazy.