Norwegian VS. Royal Caribbean?

[welove2cruise*]

Does your group do better with a schedule? If so, RCL may be better - you will have assigned tables and dining times.

 

A new ship will almost always be nicer than an older ship. I have never been on a newer ship that did not in some way outshine an older one. (Think new hotel vs. older) Also, you mentioned one was an extra day. That would help me make a decision. Personally, I prefer freestyle. I have enough deadlines (accounting) to want to avoid them at all costs on vacation.

 

Something else to consider for your age group is this - do you plan to hang out at the pool a good deal of time? NCL offers poolside BBQ (I believe this is on every ship).

 

For the most part (we are Diamond RCL) I have not found anything superior on an RCL ship (other than the ship itself when considering Voyager class) over NCL on the sailings we have had.

[silkhair1]

Go for the extra day! That is the best part! LOL

[Former Goalie]

I have cruised NCL once, and most likely will sail again on Jewel. I am also Diamond Crown and Anchor (more than 5 cruises) on RCL. I love the RCL experience, especially the large ships when sailing with children. I also prefer NCL freestyle to RCL's fixed seating.

I would pick the Pearl for your first cruise. I would agree with the other poster, there is nothing like sailing on a brand new ship. The Enchantment may have been stretched, but it's been around a while. You'd still have a great experience on Enchantment, but I'd opt for the Pearl.

[ukchris]

I would definately go for the Pearl. Don't know if anyone is aware but RCCL has just got rid of all it's safety managers as a cost cutting measure, bad move, especially in this day and age. Princess did the same and has been criticised in the report coming out soon about the fire on the Star Princess for that very reason. NCL has extremely experienced safety managers and the safety standards are extremely high.

[superjerryw]

I just sailed on the Norwegain Dawn and I have sailed numerous times with Royal Caribbean. I posted the following comparison on the RCI board. If it were me, I would probably select the Pearl over the Enchantment.

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I had the chance to get a great deal on a 7 day sailing of the Norwegian Dawn to New England so I decided to give it a try. I haven’t sailed with NCL since they got any of their newer ships so I thought it would be a worthwhile experiment. Some people seem to think that NCL is a step below RCI but I found that not to be the case at all. In fact, we really had a great time. Here is my comparison of NCL to RCI. To provide a basis for comparison, the Norwegian Dawn would be similar to a Radiance class ship.

 

Let me start off with the cabin which was an inside cabin on deck 5. To provide the best comparison I will comment separately on the bathroom and the living space. The bathroom on the Dawn was pretty nice. My wife noted that the sink basin was bigger than she had seen on any other ship. The shower was large, the same size as those found on Celebrity ships. In addition, the shower had a nice sliding door, no annoying curtain. Some of the bathroom walls were also wood (perhaps simulated wood). Best of all, when you get cold water from the tap, it was actually cool and drinkable unlike the warm water that always comes out of the tap on RCI ships. Overall, a definite edge on the bathroom to NCL.

 

The living space however was rather small. The cabin seemed to be as wide as any other cabin but not as long. When we entered the cabin the beds had been made up separately with an aisle between them. An analysis of the layout of the cabin revealed that it would not be practical to push them together. If pushed together one person would be able to walk around their side of the bed to get in. However, the other person would not be able to do so since there would be a table at the foot of the bed blocking the path to the other side of the bed. The second person would have to crawl in to the bed from the foot of the bed. Storage space, though adequate, was rather weird. Each nightstand had two shelves, no drawer, no concealed storage. I’ve never seen a nightstand like this on any ship. The closet was wide enough for all our hanging garments and there were lots of hangars. To the right of the closet there were three large drawers. The remaining storage space consisted of four shelves inside the closet to the left of the hanging area. These were inconvenient to use since you had to push the hanging clothes out of the way to gain access to the shelves. Fortunately, we are the type of people that spend very little time in the cabin so the small size of the cabin and poor layout of the storage areas was only a minor inconvenience. If you’re the type of person that spends a lot of time in their cabin you would likely be unhappy with an inside cabin on the Dawn. Overall, a definite edge on cabin living space to RCI.

 

Moving on to the entertainment I can only say that it was great. There were two production shows that were outstanding. The level of the productions seemed to surpass anything that I have seen on other ships. One of the shows had many aerial acts similar to something you would see in Cirque de Soleil. The singers in the production shows were mediocre, about the same as on every other ship. The dancers though were great, far better collectively than I have seen before. The production company was also rather large, close to 20 people between the singers and dancers. On another night there was a juggler/comedian that was great, one night there was a magic/illusion act that was great and on yet another night there was a road troupe from Second City TV. In general, you could say that the entertainment was geared to passengers of all ages. This is in contrast to many cruise lines that frequently have singers as headline entertainers that are geared more towards one age group. If you’re not from that particular generation you probably don’t find the singer or their music very interesting. In addition to the entertainment there were of course numerous lounge acts. One of them, a duo called Fire & Ice needs to be mentioned. This duo consisted of a woman that sang while the guy sang background vocals and played the organ. The woman did great renditions of a lot of Motown hits. She also did a special show one night of only Tina Turner songs. During the Tina Turner show the lounge was packed with every seat taken and probably 200 people standing just to see the show. Overall, over a 7 day period the entertainment was better than anything I have seen on an RCI ship in a similar time frame.

 

Last but not least is the food. While RCI offers traditional dining with 2 dinner seatings each night, NCL offers Freestyle dining where you eat whenever and wherever you want. The Dawn has 3 dining rooms rather than one cavernous dining room as found on most ships. The menu in the 3 dining rooms is different each night although on any given night it is the same in all 3 dining rooms. The dining rooms open for dinner at 5:30. Since we normally have early seating we went for dinner each night between 6:00 and 6:30. On the 4 nights we ate in one of the dining rooms we were always seated immediately. I sort of envisioned that service would be poor with passengers continually coming and going in the dining room and the waiters serving different courses to different tables. In reality, it was just the opposite, service was fast and efficient. We were able to sit down and enjoy a multi-course meal in little more than an hour. I realize that some people prefer a really long and leisurely dinner but we prefer not to wait 15 minutes between each course. The food itself was on a par with RCI. I enjoyed all of the dishes that I ordered as did my wife. The desserts were not too good, the same situation we find on RCI where most desserts are not to our liking. The Dawn did however have some nice chocolate cake a few nights which is something we seldom find on RCI. The remaining 3 nights we ate in the specialty restaurants. There are 5 such restaurants; a steakhouse, a French bistro, Oriental, Tex/Mex and Italian. We dined in the Italian, the French bistro and the Tex/Mex. The food was very good in all of them. Some of the specialty restaurants carry a surcharge and some do not. If you are seated before 6:00 the surcharge is cut in half. I have to say that it was a very nice experience eating in a different locale each night. It was also nice eating in smaller venues as opposed to the giant dining rooms on most ships with all the accompanying noise and commotion. As for breakfast and lunch, we always ate in the buffet. The buffet food was typical of any ship, neither better nor worse. I did notice though that the food in the buffet was served up hot more frequently than on other ships where it is typically lukewarm or cold. Overall, we enjoyed the food and the quality of the food and the service provided was certainly equal to RCI.

 

As for formal nights, there were two, actually, they are formal optional nights. Some people elected to dress formally while many did not. The dress code for the dining room is the same as on any other ship – no shorts, tank tops, etc. To be honest, I don’t recall seeing anyone in the dining room in shorts on any night. While people may not have been elegantly dressed all the time, they were not dressed like bums either.

 

For those of you that like to work out to burn off those extra calories there is a very nice gym on the Dawn. Lots of treadmills, bicycles and elliptical trainers. The weight training area has dumbbells up to 75 lbs. and a good assortment of machines. The area is also rather spacious and could easily accommodate more equipment.

 

As for tipping, they add a $10 per person per day charge to your shipboard account. You don’t tip the staff members individually as you do on RCI. All of the service we received was very good so it sort of debunks the myth that the service won’t be as good as when a tip is withheld until the end of the cruise.

 

In conclusion, we had a great time and would not hesitate to sail with NCL again. The only caveat being that we would only sail on one of their newer ships. Our experience on NCL was equal to any experience we have had on RCI and I would not consider them to be a step below the other mainstream cruise lines.