Which Cruise - Carnival or RCCL ?

[Highz]

I am organizing a family reunion cruise for Easter 2005 for our mom's 80th birthday.

 

There will be three families plus my mom, or 7 adults + 6 kids (7,8,10,12,14,16).

 

I found a cruise on RCCL's Explorer for a 7 day Western Caribbean. My brother found a cruise on Carnival's Triumph for a 7 day Eastern Caribbean.

 

Overall, is there any differences between these two cruiselines, or anything I could use to guide our decision on the quality of the cruises?

 

Because my brother would use some timeshares to get a discount on the Carnival cruise, it would be much less expensive, like $700 less per person, but then the staterooms aren't as nice and not everyone has a balcony room.

 

Thanks for any recommendations or guidance!

 

Robert

[serene56]

Easter is a prime week $$$-

 

Triumph has bigger cabins compared to the explorer. (especially if you book the bigger cabins 6432-6424 6459 6451

7416-7419 (these cabins hold 4 and will go very quickly especially since its a prime time.) The balconies are very long and can host your families get together. THey have the same price as an 8A or 8B.

 

Western caribbean has lots more to offer in the way of excursions for kids.

 

Myself--I would be oing with price. 700.00 is a lot of money.

 

I have sailed the Victory and the Voyager-- (voyager only because of the prrice was a lot lower pp then carnival was offering)

 

Royal has rock climbing, roller blading, mini golf, ice skating. But how many times can kids do all that stuff in a week?

 

I found them both to be comparable with service and food. Carnival had more choices for night time activiites- especailly for adults.

Both lines have a teen meeting for the older teens the first night- Its very important they attend this meeting because at that age they dont really want to have sructured activitites but do want to meet teens to hang out with. Its easier to get into the groove of this on the first night/

 

A suggestion to save money--adults get a balcony and get the kids a inside cabin across the hall. put the younger 3 in one and the older 3 in the other.

 

No matter what you chose it will be the best vacation yu ever had.

[serene56]

Here is deck plans for the ships you requested. click on the deck you wish to see.

(carnival)

http://www.carnival.com/Deck_Plans.aspx?shipCode=TI

 

(royal)

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/ships/class/ship/home.do;jsessionid=0000P18OzNQvGhK2YCwi4JbZEFK:v29bc4qk?br=R&shipClassCode=VY&shipCode=EX

[scubaRN]

Whichever line you choose continue looking for a better price. I looked at our timeshare exchange and found the prices ok, not great. Sometimes the group price will be cheaper than the timeshare one.

Carnival's rooms are a nice size, and I agree give the adults the balconies and kids inside. The kids are never in their rooms except to change anyway.

[CarolGS]

I agree with scubaRN - I also looked into exchanging our timeshare weeks for a cruise and found that I could get as good a deal or better on my own without trading a week. You would be better off booking on your own and selling your week on a timeshare trade board such as TUG.

[Highz]

Thanks for all your replies!!

 

For the Carnival cruise, I think that they did suggest putting kids in internal rooms, and having four double balcony rooms.

 

I think they said they were 8A rooms on deck 4. Does that make sense? Is that a good deck?

 

I think they also said that we could upgrade from 8A to 8E, although I don't know what the difference is between the rooms.

 

Great advise re: the timeshare exchange. We have been working with the timeshare company, but I will try to call Carnival direct to see what the rate would be. Would the timeshare company have a block of rooms they hold, and perhaps Carnival would have limited availability, or are all the rooms open to all?

 

It would be great if some of the rooms for four people were available, but I am realizing how late we are booking for an Easter cruise. Some of the RC ships had little if any availability. I was told though that anyone who had reserved a room could cancel without penalty by mid-January. I wonder how many rooms become available at the beginning of the year because of cancellations.

 

Thanks again for the posts. I feel more comfortable now with Carnival. One of my travel agents thought that they were not at the same level of RC, but it sounds like on Triumph at least that there are as good or even better.

 

Robert

[matcris77381]

Not even close.

[serene56]

The difference from an 8A to an 8E is which deck= unless the agent wants to give you the extended balconies. Are you wanting all your cabins to be close?? then book certain cabins and dont let the agent talk you into a gauarantee- especially with kids across the hall.

[momofmeg]

The difference from an 8A to an 8E is which deck= unless the agent wants to give you the extended balconies. Are you wanting all your cabins to be close?? then book certain cabins and dont let the agent talk you into a gauarantee- especially with kids across the hall.

 

 

We ended up with an 8E on Carnival Miracle when we had booked a guarantee of 8A. Ours was an extended balcony on the empress deck. This was a spirit class ship. If you look at the diagram of spirit class ships it shows an 8E is an extended balcony.

 

I did not realise we had an extended balcony until we returned home and I looked at the ship's diagram. This was our first balcony because before the Miracle we had only cruised on older ships that only had balconies with suites.

 

Hubby took me on the Miracle because in Dec. when we went on Inspiration I had wanted to do the Grand Princess or Carnival Legend that week as I had wanted to try a balcony. Him and his friends wanted to go on Carnival Inspiration because they wanted to dive in Grand Cayman and cozumel both-the other 2 ships did not offer both ports in their ittenary. To upgrade to a suite on the Inspiration doubled the price. We were actually able to do the Inspiration and then the Miracle 4 months later for less then the suite would have cost on Inspiration.

 

We had a balcony on Disney Wonder this Past Sept. and I was amazed at how much smaller it was then the balcony we had on Miracle. Not that it really matters. Both balconies just had 2 chairs and a small table. Neither had a chase lounge seat-so even though on the Miracle we had a larger balcony I believe I would have been just as happy in an 8A.

[Cotton]

Hi Robert. What a nice gift for your mom's 80th! Hope y'all have a wonderful time together.

 

For $700 per person LESS, how could you not choose Carnival?:D I haven't cruised on RCCL, but I have enjoyed all my cruises on Carnival, NCL, and Princess. Carnival has the largest cabins/staterooms of any cruiseline, and friendly, helpful personnel - also great production shows! I'm a retired F&B director for hotels, and caterer - and I absolutely love Carnival's food...in the dining room. (I don't much care for buffet food, so I have all meals in the dining room.)

 

There are lots of activities all day every day - and I'm sure some your mom would enjoy. All Carnival ships have arcades for the kiddies, as well as Camp Carnival for the younger ones, and teen activities (day and night) for the older ones. I agree with someone above, how many times would rock climbing be done?:rolleyes:

 

Why not go over to the Carnival board and take a look? Lots of answers to all your questions.