Carnival Cruisers What Would Make you leave Carnival?

[ATL_Miami_Cruiser]

If cruise prices rise too much

 

If drink prices rise too much

 

How much is too much? Not sure yet but they're definitely testing the waters with the steady rate increases.

[Sweet Dutch Girl]

There are millions of people who sail Carnival every year and maybe a few thousand Carnival passengers who post/read on this particular forum. Not really good odds that any input from CC posters would be even close to what would be the straw that would break the camel's back for the majority of cruisers.

 

Unless there is another major down turn in the economy and inflation rules us once again people will continue to cruise Carnival as long as they can afford it. All the little fru-fru that seems to be important on this board means nothing to the average cruiser...if they can pay the tab they will cruise.

[blondietink]

I would stop cruising with Carnival if some other line would offer me the same size cabin (220 sq. Ft. ocean view) at the same price for a party of 4 people with a great itinerary. Hasn't happened yet and I doubt it ever will. Even with all the "sales" the other lines come out with, Carnival still is the best price for us. We don't care about flow-riders or ice shows or any of that other stuff. That is not cruising to us.

[Indytraveler83]

Ok, one thing Carnival does better than the competition by far is making good itineraries accessible from non-traditional ports. For me, flying to Florida doubles the cost of my trip. I can reach New Orleans, Baltimore and Charleston by car in a day.

 

Noone else even comes close to offering the ship options and selection Carnival does to me. So as long as the stiffest competition is the NCL Dawn, Carnival has me for quite a while.

[poz222]

I have to admit, I have recently booked and sailed a few RCCL cruises and loved them. I still sail CCL (platinum 25 days to diamond) and have 2 booked this year, but I must admit that I have been lured away by the near equal pricing lately and the bonus OBC. I wish CCL would offer some bonus OBC or drink packages or at least allow for the travel agents to offer some (right now they cannot offer lesser proicing). However, I do love both the companies as they each excel in different areas... But the photographers lined up like a gauntlet REALLY turn me off! It totally ruins the atmosphere so I wish CCL would ease up on the paparazzi!

[lemansz20]

I dont appreciate this new Ceo increasing the prices of the cruise to make the stockholders happy, but i guess if your a stockholder you are in a good place.

[poz222]

Stock is actually down. ..

 

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[N2Mischief]

We are looking at booking with Princess for a cruise to South Pacific. Carnival has great prices but we have to fly everywhere. We live very close to Long Beach, but we are tired of Mexico and will be doing Hawaii for the second time. Looking for new itinerary and not having to fly.

[DallasGuy75219]

At this point the main things keeping me with Carnival are the casino rates and the Drinks on Us card in the casino. Given the cumulative cutbacks in almost every aspect of the shipboard experience, I'd have a hard time justifying paying a retail rate for today's Carnival experience and most of their outdated ships.

[Trumpster]

Cost! Overall

 

and then Cost To Value ratio

 

 

[Surfwench]

The 7 - 9 day itineraries are getting a bit stale for me. The more interesting itineraries, like Hawaii are repositioning cruises and take more time than I care to invest in vacation days. Even though I'm 2 cruises away from Platinum I'm seriously eyeballing NCL for a 7 day Hawaii. Not to mention Carnival disappointed me this year by NOT having a complete transit Panama Canal cruise, (I know, those are longer than 7 -9 days, but I was willing).

 

I applaud the pay-for eateries because I'm sick to death of the MDR experience. They are so huge, noisy and brightly lit. Feel like I'm in a hog barn or chicken barn at meal time.

 

Nothing would make me leave Carnival... just because I book on other lines doesn't mean I've left...:)

[joeyancho]

The reason we have stopped sailing carnival is because the whole experience has disintegrated . It is just so low brow. From the food to the entertainment to The demographic. The only thing attractive about carnival is the price. You get what you pay for.

[riffatsea]

We already book land vacations but never AIs.

The thing that would make me leave Carnival for Royal would be if Royal would come back to San Diego as a home port!!

I doubt that would ever happen so right now Carnival is what we book .

[tiggerman101]

I will write some of this out without care of getting slammed by some....

 

After 34 cruises total and 21 being on Carnival I can safely say I am pretty much done with them. In fact, the only reason I did 2 last year was because of other people. I used to defend Carnival a lot, but I really can't anymore. After numerous cruises on other lines, I can safely say they are my least favorite. Here are some of my reasons:

 

- Crowds. Yes, they are more crowded and they feel more crowded. This includes the horrible Lido buffet set-up. I have gotten to the point that I don't go near there at breakfast. It is just a cluster.

 

- High pressure sales. Between the pool waiters, the damn photographers, the shot people coming at dinner now, it is endless and annoying. I am so tired of dodging photo set ups on the Promenade. I am also fed up with halting the line to get off by taking photos on the gangway.

 

- The food. It isn't horrible at all, but my lord it isn't for the "Spa set". I can deal with some junk on a trip, etc but there are far too few healthy choices.

 

- The ships. With the exception of the Dream Class, Carnivals ships are becoming rapidly dated. The Conquest and Fantasy Class are very tired designs.

 

-The prices. Do some shopping, research, etc. When you throw in the perks other lines offer you will come out ahead many times on price with a newer ship on another line.

 

-The fellow cruisers. Give me all the hell you want for this , but it is true. The Carnival crowd is getting rougher and rougher these days. Yes, this is subjective to many things, but overall my experience has been sailing with many more obnoxious people.

 

-The itineraries. Same old, same old.

 

Mind you, I am not totally slamming Carnival and I would book them again. You can find exceptional deals on them from time to time and they are "Fun" ships. I enjoyed my longer cruises on Carnival (15 day Hawaii was great) and I think the Journey cruises are interesting. My Carnival Mediterranean cruises were exceptional values. However, they are the last place I look to these days.

[Podna's]

The reason we have stopped sailing carnival is because the whole experience has disintegrated . It is just so low brow. From the food to the entertainment to The demographic. The only thing attractive about carnival is the price. You get what you pay for.

 

 

Yet bookings are stronger than ever right now even with the prices up. The early saver price drops are getting harder and harder to come by, yet the their ships are still sailing full. The experience has definitely not disintegrated.

[fuddrules]

There isn't any one thing that would do it for me. Well, except if they ever get rid of the solid gold ship on a stick, that's the only exception.

 

As long as we are having a good time at an agreeable price, we'll continue. When that changes, it will be something else.

[ShakyBeef]

Ok, one thing Carnival does better than the competition by far is making good itineraries accessible from non-traditional ports. For me, flying to Florida doubles the cost of my trip. I can reach New Orleans, Baltimore and Charleston by car in a day.

 

Noone else even comes close to offering the ship options and selection Carnival does to me. So as long as the stiffest competition is the NCL Dawn, Carnival has me for quite a while.

 

Have you looked at RCI's itineraries on GotS out of Baltimore? Lots more variety than Pride out of the same port.;)

[BenjiRodney]

Carnival still has the best prices for what I am researching. For what we are paying for Royal in April for an Inside, I have had a Balcony on Carnival. In fact in December on the Magic, the Balcony was less than 500 more than what we paid for the inside. On Royal to go from an inside to a Balcony on this cruise would have doubled the cost of the cruise.

[meatloafsfan]

I don't sail on Carnival exclusively so it's a little different for me because I have a greater variety of vacations and even cruise vacations.

 

Carnival came out of the mix for a little while because of the difficulty in booking accessible cabins. It's much easier on most other lines (Royal, Celebrity, and Disney).

 

Right now with the Pride being out of Baltimore, the prices and the availability of the 4K accessible cabins, Carnival is a serious contender for my cruise dollars. And I want to sail on the Sunshine and the fact that they added 2 aft view accessible cabins for 3 during the refit, makes it again a viable candidate.

 

I would only take Carnival out of consideration for my cruise dollars if they did away with the Pride, the Sunshine and Dream class of ship (they have a great spa oceanview cabin that's accessible and sleeps 3).

 

And I guess if I stopped having fun, enjoying the cruises, or otherwise just decided that I didn't like what I was experiencing.

 

Just completed 21 nights on Carnival and enjoyed it. I couldn't imagine doing the same on Royal (their beds are hard and their pillows too thin) and truthfully now I won't sail on a Royal ship if it doesn't have the freestyle soda machines (other drinks are too expensive and too difficult to come by). I could probably do a long cruise on Disney - though I'd spend less time in their MDR because I think their food isn't as good. I wouldn't do 21 nights on Celebrity because I feel like I'd be bored and end up on too high of a caffeine rush because I'd spend all my time in Café Al Bacio.

[Firefighterhoop]

Each cruise line has their positive and negative aspects to them. I really do enjoy carnival, but I do enjoy RCCL as well, and have been doing pretty much just them in the last several years. I like Carnival's entertainment better, including their stand up comedy and gameshows which I love but I really do like RCCL's physical ships better, and the Crew on RCCL are great as well.

 

For me the deal breaker though is their Loyalty Programs. RCCL offers the Diamond Club/Concierge services to their Diamond and Above tierd guests which includes a cocktail hour from 5pm-830pm (hours vary on some ships). Because of that, I don't have to purchase drink packages etc. Carnival's VIFP Program doesn't match what RCCL has.

 

Personally, thats just what shifted me to doing mainly RCCL.

[ShakyBeef]

The pay restaurants are increasing because the passengers are paying.

The people fell right in the cruise lines trap. :mad:

 

I would not pay a dime to eat on a ship. The thought of it is insane.

 

They would love to eliminate the free food in the dining room.

 

The passengers created the mess by continuing to pay pay pay to eat.

 

Its getting worse and worse.

 

cruise lines are thrilled to take the suckers, OOPPS- I mean the cruisers fine money to eat.

 

Wow, way to misdirect the anger there, man.:rolleyes: You're putting the cart before the horse. Those of us that pay to eat in the specialty restaurants onboard did not "create the mess". We are simply reacting to Carnival's actions, and playing by the rules of their game.

 

Carnival has made so many repeated, obvious downgrades in the quality of the "free" food and dining experience, that many of us decided it is better to pay for decent food in a nicer atmosphere than suck it up and eat less-than-satisfactory food in a less-than-enjoyable atmosphere. Carnival added the pay-for restaurants and Carnival made the cutbacks. We are working within the parameters given to us by Carnival to make our cruise experience closer to what Carnival used to give us. Carnival, not the guests, "created the mess". I DIY what I have to in order to make my Carnival cruises more palatable.

 

Perhaps, just perhaps, it's cheap people like you, that break the rules to carry on more than the allowable wine and would "never pay a dime for food on a ship", and not we "insane" "suckers" that might have driven Carnival towards cutbacks and pay-for venues?

 

As we all know, Carnival doesn't make much, if any, money from our fares (other than for Suites, etc.), but from our onboard spending.;) But I'm sure you're right: it's all the big-spending guests' fault, not the cheapskates'.:cool:

[Firefighterhoop]

Wow, way to misdirect the anger there, man.:rolleyes: You're putting the cart before the horse. Those of us that pay to eat in the specialty restaurants onboard did not "create the mess". We are simply reacting to Carnival's actions, and playing by the rules of their game.

 

Carnival has made so many repeated, obvious downgrades in the quality of the "free" food and dining experience, that many of us decided it is better to pay for decent food in a nicer atmosphere than suck it up and eat less-than-satisfactory food in a less-than-enjoyable atmosphere. Carnival added the pay-for restaurants and Carnival made the cutbacks. We are working within the parameters given to us by Carnival to make our cruise experience closer to what Carnival used to give us. Carnival, not the guests, "created the mess". I DIY what I have to in order to make my Carnival cruises more palatable.

 

Perhaps, just perhaps, it's cheap people like you, that break the rules to carry on more than the allowable wine and would "never pay a dime for food on a ship", and not we "insane" "suckers" that might have driven Carnival towards cutbacks and pay-for venues?

 

As we all know, Carnival doesn't make much, if any, money from our fares (other than for Suites, etc.), but from our onboard spending.;) But I'm sure you're right: it's all the big-spending guests' fault, not the cheapskates'.:cool:

 

Look at cruise fares now vs. 10 years ago. They are about the same, if not less in some situations.

 

Many people including myself have noticed that across the board cruise lines have cut back on things here and there, but they have had to to keep prices low - and then charge more for ala carte things that you can add on to your cruise for those who want them (specialty restaurants as an example). If people want to pay more for the specialty restaurants, that is their business and I hope they have a great dinner.

 

As was stated, as a result of keeping the fares low, the cruise lines have to make it up somewhere, which is in the "extras" now - drinks, casino, excursions, specialty restaurants

[ShakyBeef]

Look at cruise fares now vs. 10 years ago. They are about the same, if not less in some situations.

 

Many people including myself have noticed that across the board cruise lines have cut back on things here and there, but they have had to to keep prices low - and then charge more for ala carte things that you can add on to your cruise for those who want them (specialty restaurants as an example). If people want to pay more for the specialty restaurants, that is their business and I hope they have a great dinner.

 

As was stated, as a result of keeping the fares low, the cruise lines have to make it up somewhere, which is in the "extras" now - drinks, casino, excursions, specialty restaurants

 

Right, I think you and I are in agreement here. Was there something I said in the post you quoted with which you disagree?:confused:

Edited February 22, 2016 by ShakyBeef

[Indytraveler83]

Have you looked at RCI's itineraries on GotS out of Baltimore? Lots more variety than Pride out of the same port.;)

 

I've looked, but the GotS only has been doing 9 and 12 day runs for well out of our price range. So far too long and too expensive. But I do look every time!

[ShakyBeef]

I've looked, but the GotS only has been doing 9 and 12 day runs for well out of our price range. So far too long and too expensive. But I do look every time!

 

Oh, darn, sorry. I thought I might be suggesting an option of which you weren't aware.:o