Help--royal caribbean cruiser thinking of going to carnival

[MustSailNOW]

My first cruise was on Carnival Sensation and it was a short cruise (3 or 4 days, can't remember), but we still had a good time. The food was great, the nightlife was great, the service was great, the other passengers were great....I could go on and on.

 

My husband and I took our honeymoon cruise on Royal Caribbean (Mariner) and had a great time on that ship as well. The room was a lot bigger on RCCL (oceanview) and the decor was a lot nicer, but that is the only difference I really saw between the two lines.

 

As everyone has said, at least give it a try. Honestly, you're the only one who can ruin your own vacation. As long as you're in good spirits, you will have a blast!

[Catswine]

Yes. While we didn't really switch from RCL to Carnival, we've compared both. 18 cruises to date and Carnival ROCKS compared to Royal and NCL.

[LESTRELA]

Thank you everyone for your input. I think I may give Carnival a try. I was very concerned because of everything you hear about it, but it sounds like they've come along way. I have been on the Soverign, Majesty, Monarch and Liberty of the Seas...now I just need to decide if I really want to do Mexico or stick with Caribbean.

 

 

I am with you also, i only traveled with Royal and we are trying Carnival for the first time due to there price's. We always travel Labor day week and found Royal to be so much $$$ this year and to bring my DS he will be 2yrs old when we travel it would cost him $600 just for 3rd person Last year it was only $440 and we paid 899pp balcony this year it would be $1000 more so we decided to look into Carnival i am a little scared what to expect but for the 3 of us on Balcony cabin is costing us $2000 including transfers and insurance so i had to go with the price. I am 30 and DH is 32 and my parents who are in there 50's have been traveling with us also only on Royal so lets see how the Carnival Valor is on labor day week!!

 

Good luck also can not wait to see a new style ship but i do love my big ship's LOL!

[liberty080208]

We're definitely going with Carnival and we are going to book on the Valor voyage that leaves on 8/30--is that the same one you're on? We'll celebrate our 26th anniversary during that week, and spent our 25th on Royal :p

[Dcellbattery]

We were booked on LOS for 7/25/09, but changed to Carnival Liberty because of the great savings. I hope this was a smart move. Will let you know in August.

[carzyboutcarnival]

The conga difference between RCC

= BORING.. 20 person, Princess..50 person....Carnival 200 to 400 ="s MORE FUN.:D Rcc - larger nicer ships, less Americans (most likey the reason for boring), food well.. not good, more things to do (rock wall, Ice ring,etc,) Princess - older crowd, small bathrooms, better shows, good all around. Carnival - people having fun, better food, ice cream anytime, best bargain, best all round. But any day cruising is better than any day work.( ON ANY SHIP line)

 

 

You mean the there is no 24/7 ice cream on the other ships :eek: i am shocked i am staying with carnival for LIFE!!!:D :D :D

 

cbc

[Frank12]

This is a great thread and I'm so happy with all the info!

 

As you can see by my signature we have been all Royal and 1 Princess.

 

Princess I did not care for at all. Just not our style...........but we made our own fun, no Thanks to Princess. But Hey...we were cruising!!

 

We are SO excited to try Carnival as everything I have read here seems RCC & CCL are similar but people tend to like the food better on CCL. I really don't care about the "decor" as long as the foo-foos are flowing and we are sailing!:p

 

I can't imagine having more fun than we do on RCC but we're sure going to give it our best on CCL!! The price was really good so no time like the present to try it out!!

 

You could not have picked a better ship for your first Carnival cruise.

The Liberty is awesome!

[Tapi]

We were booked on LOS for 7/25/09, but changed to Carnival Liberty because of the great savings. I hope this was a smart move. Will let you know in August.

 

I LOVE the Carnival Liberty. In fact, it's my favorite ship in the Carnival fleet!

 

To answer the OP's question, I used to love RCCL and like many others, I used to look down on Carnival mostly based on misconceptions and comments from people not truly familiar with the Carnival product.

 

After a bad Carnival cruise in 1994, I swore I would never cruise on Carnival again. Fast forward to 2009 and not only did I cruise on Carnival again, I'm now a Platinum member! Today, I LOVE Carnival and I recognize how great they are!

 

Trying to be completely unbiased, the product is basically THE SAME. The main difference you'll find between the two is decoration. While Royal Caribbean's ships are low key and more elegant, Carnival's are more colorful and brighter. Some ships, (like the Carnival Liberty) are more tastefully decorated. Others, (like the Carnival Sensation) are loud and gaudy, so do your homework before you book. Besides that, all your basics like food, entertainment, acommodations and service are basically identical.

 

On a separte note, my PVP said that Carnival is doing extremely well this year and that bookings have exceeded those for the same time frame during the last few years. I'm starting to realize that Carnival is benefitting from a lot of people like the OP watching their $$ on a tough economy who are finally deciding to give Carnival a try.

 

In my opinion, some of the "Loyals to Royal" might not be so loyal after they are "forced" to try Carnival!

[hogtyde88]

We heard all these Carnival stories about crazy kids running around drunk and............. :)

 

Hey...I resemble that remark!! :D (used to anyway) :rolleyes: :cool:

[Perfect Stranger]

The Royal clan on their boards are so snooty! Many have never tried Carnival but they talk as if we're lowlifes for sailing on it.

 

Still others try to think of something to complain about so they pick on Carnival's bright colors. If that's the best they can come up with....:rolleyes:

[Nunu]

The Royal clan on their boards are so snooty! Many have never tried Carnival but they talk as if we're lowlifes for sailing on it.

 

Still others try to think of something to complain about so they pick on Carnival's bright colors. If that's the best they can come up with....:rolleyes:

 

I was surprised at the number of people who said to go for it and were shocked at the price difference.

[Perfect Stranger]

Every time I've looked, RC is $100-$200 higher PP. A rock climbing wall and flow rider doesn't interest us so why pay for it?

[nbsjcruiser]

I am considering the Carnival Splendor in August, 2009. I have never been on Carnival but have been on 4 Royal Caribbean Cruises. Anyone out there who has switched from Royal to Carnival?

 

We've done 4 RCI, 1 Carnival and 1 Princess. Next year we're doing the Valor out of Miami. We love RCI but alas they have priced themselves out of our market as well which is why we've gone back to Carnival. But hey, its not like we're picking Carnival because "we have to". Our very first cruise was on the Fantasy. I can still remember eating breakfast outside, overlooking Nassau thinking, boy this is the life. We had a great time and while we love the Explorer class ships, we often talk about perhaps doing a little 5 day on the Fantasy again someday. Next year we're looking for some more action on the ship which is another reason why we're headed back to Carnival. The Crown Princess was nice but Gawd, after 8pm it was like everyone went to bed or something.

[Perfect Stranger]

The Crown Princess was nice but Gawd, after 8pm it was like everyone went to bed or something.

 

I've read that a number of times. It seems Princess attracts an older crowd.

[LESTRELA]

We're definitely going with Carnival and we are going to book on the Valor voyage that leaves on 8/30--is that the same one you're on? We'll celebrate our 26th anniversary during that week, and spent our 25th on Royal :p

 

We where booked for that week we changed it to the labor day week, i always go away labor day week and this year it is a little later last year we went on the Liberty the week of the 30th!

[Kurbanfan]

The Crown Princess was nice but Gawd, after 8pm it was like everyone went to bed or something.

 

You should have been with us on the Crown.......party til you drop:p

It all depends on the passengers from week to week.......there have been many reports lately that Carnival has been attracting the older generation early to bed crowd too.

 

 

I've read that a number of times. It seems Princess attracts an older crowd.

 

I read the same thing.......good thing I didn't believe it. I would have missed my best cruise to date;)

[katiel53]

When I first started sailing, I cruised Carnival frequently. Somewhere along the line we switched to Celebrity, then RCI. We are Diamond Plus on RCI and love the perks we get with that.

 

A few years ago we went back to Carnival. We sailed the Triumph and had one of the worst cruises we have ever taken. I felt especially bad as I talked 8 others into going with us. I swore I would never sail Carnival again.

 

We wanted to go on a cruise in February/March of this year. We prefer to sail from Pt Canaveral as we live near Orlando. RCI had no 7 day cruise from there, so we decided to try Carnival's Glory.

 

We absolutely loved it. The food at dinner was better than RCI. We loved the deli. Room service didn't have the choices for breakfast that RCI has, but we normally only get coffee in the morning.

 

I missed the Promenade that Mariner has, but I didn't miss the rock climbing wall, ice rink etc. as we don't use them. Embarkation was soooooooo easy on Carnival and debarkation was pretty easy too.

 

We are going on another cruise in October. Freedom of the Seas will be sailing from Pt Canaveral then so we thought that we would try that ship. After all, we have free drinks nightly before dinner and that's a pretty good perk as well as the balcony discount.

 

We looked at Freedom and firstly looked at the western Caribbean trip. The ports hold no interest for us. We have been to Grand Cayman numerous times, don't particularly like Ocho Rios and now that my husband has trouble with his knee, going to their private island for a beach day and walking through the sand presents problems of it's own. Both lines go to Cozumel.

 

Glory, however, goes to islands we haven't visited or visited for a long time. We haven't been to Belize, years since Costa Maya and Cozumel. Nassau is kind of a bonus.

 

Having said all this, the price difference amazes me the most. Usually on RCI we get a junior suite, but decided this time to get a cat 8B instead of an 11. The price on Carnival is $1470. The equivalent on RCI, taking off the $200 for our Diamond discount is $2179, Carnival Glory is $1470. To me, I can buy a whole lot of before dinner drinks for the difference.

 

Another bonus for us on Carnival is that I will become Platinum on this cruise, so we will get a few perks on here too.

 

I know there is a huge difference in decor on the ships, but that doesn't make the decision for me. We are looking forward to our cruise and I know we will enjoy it again.

[Maraprince]

I've read that a number of times. It seems Princess attracts an older crowd.

 

 

It all depends on the ports. If you are in Europe and plan to do excursions, you have to be up at the crack of dawn! So people will not stay up late the night before with an early morning tour. On one sailing going into East/West Berlin, one young lady was so afraid of oversleeping she showered, got dressed for the morning and then camped out in the area closest to the gangway and hung a big sign around her neck showing the tour she was booked on to be sure that someone would wake her! The tour left around 7:00 AM and did not return until 8:00 PM or so. No one would even talk about the tour until 2 days later. It took them that long to recover from it!

 

Also, if the sailing is very port intensive, same thing. People want to get off the ship as early as possible. You are more likely to see partying on sea days since no one needs to get up early the next day.

 

MARAPRINCE

[Maraprince]

Rule of thumb...the longer the sailing, the older the passengers!

 

Older passengers have both the time and money to take longer cruises -- by longer I am talking about anything over 10 or 11 days.

 

 

MARAPRINCE

[WishIwerethere]

I love RCI and didn't really hate my first cruise on Carnival, but it wasn't as great as RCI. But yes for the price, and change in itinerary, I have to go back on Carnival. 9/5/09 Glory

[Tapi]

...there have been many reports lately that Carnival has been attracting the older generation early to bed crowd too.

 

I agree. When we did the 7 night Liberty cruise in November, it was, for a lack of a better word, VERY low key and to a certain degree sophisticated.

 

Contrary to other Carnival sailings were you don't see as many international passengers, there was a very diverse crowd on ours. We met people from Italy, Germany, Spain, and several South American countries (as well as people from all over the U.S.).

 

You could walk around the ship at any point in time and find many passengers in a quiet corner relaxing with a book, or playing cards with friends.

 

Many afternoons, the classical music trio at the atrium attracted more passengers than the night club late at night.

 

You still had the active crowd but it wasn't like other cruises.

 

It might have been time of year, itinerary, or length of cruise, but it was definitely an enjoyable group of fellow passengers.

[dan40]

I remember those gray burgers floating in fat and water on every RCI cruise that I have ever been on, I am surprised that they are still there, LOL!

 

The free burgers are really quite tasty on Carnival and always fresh.

 

I'm not a burger eater CCL or RCL. But that floating in fat and water is a disgusting picture. The Army does better than that, out of cans!!!:D

[OK, I'm old, they don't use cans anymore]

 

Dan

[dclark]

It is funny- there are people that only sail RCL and because of RCL's rate increases, they finally try CCL. They encounter excellent service, food that is way better and all this for hundreds or even thousands less!

 

Think they'll be going back to RCL anytime soon? Doubt it, especially if they liked the lobster served with mushroom risotto and those skewered panke shirmp-Hmmm!

 

Plus, CCL will still leave a chocolate on your pillow!

[dan40]

We have done many cruises on both lines. For 7 day cruises we usually use Carnival, better price, better food, less port intensive. [we like sea days as much as port days]. For long repositioning cruises we usually use RCL, nicer ships, lots of sea days. For tweeners, 10,12 days, Princess most often has the best itineraries for us. Some Princess food good, some not so much. Always seem to meet fun people from far away places on Princess. Princess smaller ships Wheelhouse Lounge, an excellent imbibing area.

 

Dan

[Cruzaholic41]

The Royal clan on their boards are so snooty! Many have never tried Carnival but they talk as if we're lowlifes for sailing on it.

 

Still others try to think of something to complain about so they pick on Carnival's bright colors. If that's the best they can come up with....:rolleyes:

 

 

There are cheerleaders on every board....and there is typically just as much RCI bashing on the Carnival boards, as the recipricol.

 

I have cruised both lines, and found the loyalists of each to be exactly alike.