Carnival or RCCL for 1 year old

[sabbie]

We have already taken our DS on Freedom of the Seas at 9 months and loved it and we are booked for Independence in February with DH's family but we are now thinking of sneaking one more cruise in Nov or Dec. The reason is that every other year we do Christmas in Nebraska with my family so DH had vacation time saved up but with airfare so outlandishly high we are thinking of staying here in FL for Christmas with his family and doing a cruise earlier in December and it be cheaper. I feel horrible not wanting to fly home for the holidays but to be honest it will be $2500 if we don't buy DS a seat which I'm uncomfortable with and that's just fights and car rental not all the other stuff that goes in to 10 days out of town. We are figuring that we will spend at the very least $3200 or we could go on a cheaper cruise here and do Christmas with DH family instead. Not to mention I am already planning on flying home Sept, Oct, and November (less then $200 a ticket) so we will still be seeing them quite a bit.

 

So after a long story, I've only sailed Carnival once and it was before DS so I wasn't paying much attention to baby stuff. What are the benefits of sailing Carnival over RCCL? This would be our 5th on RCCL so getting to platinum would be nice but we will hit that in February anyway and we know that they would have in room babysitting available at night since he would be 16 months plus all the great things we enjoyed before but just want to make sure we aren't rushing to RCCL without looking at other options. Thanks for any advice!