Usually, but no always

[Sky Sweet]

Even though Celebrity is your favorite cruise line, are there any situations where you feel another cruise line would be preferable?

 

My husband and I usually sail Celebrity when we are cruising by ourselves or with friends, but prefer to go on other cruise lines, that are more kid friendly, when we travel with our extended family.

 

I just noticed that there is a typo in the title of the thread...It should be "usually, but not always"

[ccletzgo]

agree, alone we like celebrity, but with extended family, or with friends I look more toward Royal Caribbean.

[EGG]

Celebrity is our favorite. We were holding a booking from a Celebrity cruise and we could not find an itinerary that was we liked that we had not done before. We ended up moving the booking to the RCL Explorer of the Seas holiday cruise out of NJ because I didn't want to fly in the winter.

 

There were 800 children on the ship and an energy and excitement that I never felt on another cruise line. (By the way, my DH and I were traveling by ourselves). The Royal Promenade was also something that cannot be matched on any of the current Celebrity ships.

 

So to answer your question, if another cruise line has the right itinerary we will consider cruising on that cruise line. We plan to sail on Explorer out of NJ again for another holiday cruise.

[Drew B]

All things being equal, I may choose Celebrity. But Celebrity has very limited itineraries and there are ports at which I'd like to stop that Celebrity just doesn't visit. My next cruise, in fact, is on Carnival because Celebrity doesn't have a single itinerary that visits Belize. That is the Western Caribbean port I am most excited to see, so that immediately rules out Celebrity for me.

[Druke I]

We lean towards Princess, as we think they have a great variety of itineraries.

 

We also are very high on Oceania; been twice with them, and have two more booked.

[kitty9]

When it's with family, it's Celebrity, but when I cruise solo, it's Crystal. They have a much better single supplement and include things like soda, bottled water and specialty coffees, plus there are at least three evenings when they have parties when all the drinks are free.

[CatServants]

SS - Interesting question, as usual. I'm an X fan (Heck, "cheerleader" suits me fine!;)), but...I don't think Randy and I have many more X cruises in us. I still love the CS for Alaska and Canada/New England, so X can count on us for those cruises as long as the M class ships continue those itins and they remain in good condition. But, I think, we'll eventually be making the move to Silversea and other luxury lines in the future.

 

We don't have children, like the 'all-inclusive' concept, like smaller ships with a higher crew/pax ratio, and find many of the luxury lines itins more intriguing. We'll see.

 

Happy cruising!

 

Denise

[2theship]

We always say that Celebrity is our favorite cruise line but it always boils down to what ship has the itinerary we want at a time that's available for us. We become empty nesters this year so we'll be a lot more flexible and will probably choose X more often - we're already booked on the Galaxy in the Med in the fall.

 

I know that X is not the first cruise line people think of with kids but our girls always loved Celebrity - starting at ages 5 & 6. The programs were smaller so they got more personal attention and the dining room staff would fuss over them every night.

 

I know some people rave about Princess but I don't think that the staff is nearly as good - at least that's been my experience.

[DC2OC]

Sailed the Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas out of NJ to NE/Canada in October.4 hour drive from home and since it was off season few kids.Had a nice time,nice ship.Like X better overall but we had a great time.We're stockholders so we like the shareholder credit plus the balcony discount RCCL offers to Captain Club Select and above members..............Frank:)

[usha]

Our 1st choice is Celebrity. BUT, our plan B is, and will continue to be, HAL. If we can't find a cruise on X for a reasonable price, and we CAN find one on HAL for a GREAT price, guess what we're gonna do?

We did try Princess once, and that was enough.:rolleyes: (nooooo big deal).

[Tatka]

Celebrity and Princess are our #1 a and # 1 b.

 

We loved Caribbean Princess. She offered us many things we enjoyed

 

1) 2 adult only pools,

2) Great entertainment in addition to main theatre

3) Minigolf - yes we enjoyed it alot. You can even hear birds singing. :D

4) beautiful ship with many cozy bars

5) Movies under the Stars with cozy blankets

6) Very good service, may be not as white glove as on X but still personal enough.

7) Flexible dining and buffets opened 24/7 + several great seafood buffets.

 

RCCL Explorer class ships maybe have more WOW features, but we had much more pleasant experience with Princess.

 

Our teen enjoyed both. He also loves X, but last time even during school vacation there was very small number of kids on board and teen club hasn't lived up to his expectations.

[oneadam12]

Good question! Celebrity is #1 for my wife and I but this March, we are taking the grandkids on a 5 day Royal Caribbean Cruise. We like their itinerary that includes Belize; plus their children's clubs are better than Celebrity's.

[BrooklynGirl2]

We love Celebrity but they have very limited cruises from the northeast during summer and so we switched over to Princess. I had some trepidation about doing this because we love good food and service.

 

We were very pleasantly surprised at how much we loved our Crown Princess cruise last summer. I thought the food was comparable except for the soups...and felt that Princess did Italian much better than X.

 

There were a lot of nice things that we enjoyed on the Crown and other special X touches that we missed. All said, we would sail either line again but we are booked for our next on the Caribbean Princess.:)

[Susan-M]

We've decided to try Azamara mainly because of the smaller ships, and the itinerary. The smoking policy is a plus for us, and the lack of formal nights will make packing easier (and lighter.)

[DeepWaterMariner]

We always say we don't have a number one cruise line since we sail them all. With that said, at this point in our lives we like Celebrity, Princess, and HAL the best but if we were going with the whole family, including grand kids, it would be on Royal Caribbean or even Carnival before our normal favorites. Without the family the thing that will make us choice a cruise is first and foremost the itinerary but we will not book if we can't get first sitting for dinner...not a problem on most Princess ships and more and more HAL ships since they have an anytime option.