Cruises

[Xidelt]

So, my husband and I are seriously thinking about taking a cruise during Thanksgiving week. We haven't taken a vacation in quite awhile and would like to enjoy some travel before we start a family. We have narrowed it down to some week-long cruises to the Caribbean or Bahamas. All departure ports are located in Florida. We are looking at Carnival or Norwegian. However, we can't decide and would like some feedback from those who have cruised with either of these lines. There is an itinerary we really like on Carnival and it is about $400 cheaper than Norwegian. But when I look online for reviews, Carnival has really mixed results. A friend also posted on my Facebook that Carnvial isn't really awesome (food wasn't that great, fellow travelers are "rowdy Nascar fans"). If we are going to spend the money, we would like a nice experience. Not snooty or terribly fancy, but a memorable, relaxing vacation. So any suggestions or reviews?

[DubaiSis]

Both NCL and Carnival are going to be about the same - mass market, not the greatest food, but good enough rooms, standard ports of call, good price, etc. NCL has some great upgraded rooms if you're looking for a suite or other special category room. I'm not a huge fan of Carnival, but you'll be fine if you go with them too. HOWEVER, if you can make the price jump (should be a small difference, and possibly the same) to Princess or Celebrity you're going to have a nicer experience.

[SWTXBelle]

I can only speak to Disney Cruises - which are AWESOME. If you are afraid that it will be too child-oriented, let me assure you they go out of their way to make sure adults have their own spaces. They also don't overdo the Disney stuff, imho. Pluses for Disney - you can bring your own booze on board. Food is great - shows are Disney quality - their private island doesn't require you to tender - you just walk off the ship. The adults only beach at Castaway Cay is amazing. Only possible minus (not one for me) - no casino gaming on board. Check it out! http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/sp...CL.AM.K3503.01

We once went on a Disney cruise and then spent Thanksgiving at Disney's Vero Beach resort.

[DubaiSis]

Disney is a great cruise line and SWTXBelle explained it really well. The one thing is the price point for Disney is going to be higher than the ones XiDelt mentioned. I just wish Disney would get back into the Mediterranean market! I have clients who are itching to go on one but don't want to go to the Americas to get it done.

Oh, and for just a little bit more a Southern Caribbean cruise is great. The cruise itself won't cost more, but the flights to San Juan can be more. But I love sailing out of San Juan!

[ComradesTrue]

I did Carnival in 1998 and again in 2005. Both experiences were okay at best. Neither sold me on the idea of cruising, and yes, I did feel that there was a "Ugly American" element that just heaped food 14" high on the buffet plates and trash talked all the lovely islands that we went to. Carnival sells a "party" cruise, which is fine if that is what you want. Just know that many of the fellow passengers are drawn to this concept so the crowd is different than on other boats.

This past February we did the Disney cruise. I echo what those above me stated. First, I found my fellow travelers to be much more respectful of other passengers as well as the islands that we visited. The service was extraordinary, as one would expect with Disney. Finally, I didn't feel that the boat was covered in mouse-ear vomit all over the place. The decorations were very tasteful and surprisingly non-Disney. As Belle mentioned, they do go out of their way to cater to adults traveling without children. There is adult only dining (though this cost extra per meal), adult only pool area, adult only beach area, and many clubs/bars that are open late into the night.

There are tons of little rug-rats running around, but at least on my cruise I found them to be VERY well behaved. Even better? So were their parents.

I am not a Disney person by any stretch of the imagination, yet I would get back on that Disney boat tomorrow.

ETA: all three cruises were out of Florida and to the Eastern Caribbean.

[Sciencewoman]

We love to cruise. Here is my advice:

Disney (twice): expensive, but loved it. We did go with kids. Everything is top of the line. But, I would wait and splurge on this once you have children, because the kids' areas are worth the cost. Without kids, you're not able to take advantage of the fabulous "check them in and have fun on your own without feeling guilty" kids' areas, so I'd definitely wait. Plus, our kids kept begging to go again, so save your money for now.

Carnival (3 times): I will NEVER go on another Carnival cruise again. I'm just too old for the drunken pool games and blah food. We went right before we had kids and it was the best trip we ever took...we had a big table of 5 couples and we all hit it off and had the BEST time. I've been waiting for another trip like that! We did another one out of San Diego about 5 years ago, but it was only 4 days and there were a lot of singles and bachelor party types. We thought that was due to the length, so we tried again 2 summers ago on a week long out of Florida and we were not impressed. There were smokers on the balcony below us causing a "stink" and throwing their butts onto the lifeboats (security came to our cabin twice to try to catch them in the act, because there were several reports about their frequent smoking, which was against the rules). Definitely a low-brow crowd, which I don't remember from 20 years ago.

Princess (once) Last summer we went on a 12 day Norwegian cruise. It was very nice. Definitely an older British crowd, with food to match. Mmmmm...tongue sandwiches on the lunch buffet! Soggy vegetables! The ship was very nice, though. My parents love Princess, and they're picky and pretty hip. The mattress and pillows were like rocks, though.

Holland America (once) Our favorite. I loved the ship, the food...very classy and elegant. They have those old-fashioned padded steamer chairs and you can sit on the promenade deck and watch the world go by. Or try an Eames chair in the vast library and watch the world go by from inside. No plastic. They won't be going out of Florida, though, at this time of the year. We did Alaska for 2 weeks and loved it. They do have a very good price on summer Bermuda cruises. That would be my vote.

Here's an edit: summer too far south in the Caribbean/Mexico will be really hot and humid. We're not hot weather people, so we didn't like it...you might, but it is something to consider. I couldn't stand being out on our balcony for too long before it just got too sticky.

[Tulip86]

Holland America is actually owned by Carnival Cruises.
I've had a tour of one of their ships, It was gorgeous! Never sailed with them though.

[DreamfulSpirit]

I can only speak for Royal Caribbean, which my DH and I have gone on twice (the last time was last year for our honeymoon). While it is a little bit more expensive, it it soooooo worth it! They have so much planned to do on board that you just can't get bored! The food is fantastic! Both times we talked with people who had done cruises on the other cruise lines, including Carnival, and multiple people have said, hands down Royal Caribbean is the best! We have definitely become cruisers!!

[ASUADPi]

I have only traveled on Carnival and Royal Caribbean. Out of the two I preferred Carnival. Mainly because Carnival plans TONS of activities on sea days and even port days. The one Royal Caribbean I was on did absolutely NOTHING on port day. Our port of call was Catalina Island, which unless you get a golf cart and drive around is pretty boring. We got back to the ship at around 12, but we didn't leave port until like 8. There was nothing planned all day. It was so incredibly boring. Now, I don't need to be entertained 24/7 but I like how Carnival will have little "games" (like name that tune or name that star). Heck, there wasn't even music playing at the pools. I went to the pool and I was seriously that youngest person sitting in the hot tub (and I was 30 at the time).

I love cruising. I would love to go on a Disney cruise, I've heard they are amazing!

[IrishLake]

Be sure to search the tripadvisor.com forums as well.

[Sciencewoman]

Originally Posted by Tulip86

Holland America is actually owned by Carnival Cruises.
I've had a tour of one of their ships, It was gorgeous! Never sailed with them though.

Carnival owns Carnival, Holland America, Cunard, Princess, Costa, and about 3 other lines, but they're run separately and each line has its own niche/feel. I think a lot depends on age and what you like to do. I liked Carnival when I was younger, but it's not the right fit for us now.

[DubaiSis]

and www.cruisecritic.com. Princess, Holland and Celebrity are all about the same caliber, and in my opinion, WAY better than Carnival and Royal Caribbean. That being said, if what you're after on a cruise is lots and lots of activity (see ASUADPi) either Carnival or Royal Caribbean should work. I'm surprised about the comments about no on-board activity on a port day, but the short duration (3/4 days) LA departure cruises are weird at best and to be avoided if you're not there for heavy duty partying. Royal Caribbean has recently repositioned themselves as the market leader in family cruising, so you can plans on lots of kids and lots of activity poolside. NCL is considered lower tier than Carnival, but I must admit the most fun I've ever had on a cruise was on NCL. I personally won't cruise on Carnival again (twice was 2 times too much). I prefer Princess, but I'm here to tell you that it's worth sailing on Holland if ONLY for the bread pudding. Yes, it's that good. Everything else about their cruises is good too. But the bread pudding...

eta/oh, I just did a quick check of cruises for Thanksgiving and there are still some great rates available out of New York, Baltimore, Florida, San Juan, Galveston, New Orleans... lots of choices!

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by ASUADPi

I have only traveled on Carnival and Royal Caribbean. Out of the two I preferred Carnival. Mainly because Carnival plans TONS of activities on sea days and even port days. The one Royal Caribbean I was on did absolutely NOTHING on port day. Our port of call was Catalina Island, which unless you get a golf cart and drive around is pretty boring. We got back to the ship at around 12, but we didn't leave port until like 8. There was nothing planned all day. It was so incredibly boring. Now, I don't need to be entertained 24/7 but I like how Carnival will have little "games" (like name that tune or name that star). Heck, there wasn't even music playing at the pools. I went to the pool and I was seriously that youngest person sitting in the hot tub (and I was 30 at the time).

I love cruising. I would love to go on a Disney cruise, I've heard they are amazing!

That wasn't our experience with Royal Caribbean last month but we had a 7 day cruise with three ports of call and several days at sea. I went on a Carnival cruise back in '89 (first honeymoon) so it probably isn't fair to compare because I think most of the changes that surprised me are probably across the board, not just Royal Caribbean vs. Carnival. Everybody used to rave about food on cruises and I found the food to be incredible in '89, but just 'pretty good' now. The tradition on Carnival at that time was that there was a flaming dessert every night in the main dining room and the waiters danced with it on their heads in a conga line each night! There was also a midnight buffet that people would wait up for with incredible ice sculptures, animals made of fruits.. very cool! I was sad that didn't happen on this cruise. Back in the day, all the restaurants were included and now, on RC, some of them cost extra. Those restaurants had the caliber of food I remembered from my first cruise... but they were way too pricey. I was also shocked.. really shocked... that soft drinks were not free. Soda fountain drinks are so cheap yet they charged an arm & a leg for them. I bought the week long unlimited soda package for both hypo and I (at $42 each) and I only ended up drinking two sodas because they were Coke products and I really like Diet Pepsi. You could get iced tea, water and lemonade for free at any time so why bother with the soda package? Rip off!

I don't know if I was just less aware last time, but every time we turned around it seemed like they wanted more money for something. I think cruises have gone down in price, but not as much is included. I'd rather have everything included and pay a little more up front.

The other disappointment was the main dining room dinners. Not just the quality of the food, but the quality of the service. I don't know if our assistant waiter was new, lazy or if they just assigned our waiters too many tables, but our service was painfully slow. Painfully. Slow. I didn't want dinner to take two hours. I wanted to go do other things, especially since we had an 8 pm seating.

Overall though, I thought the service was great and there was a lot to do all the time on our ship. I'm not really sure about the days at port because we were only in port from 8 am - 5 pm and we stayed off the ship until around 3 or 4 each of those days. We left out of Galveston with the ship leaving around 4:30 pm on Sunday. We had gotten on board at 1 pm so we had a lot of time on Sunday onboard. Monday and Tuesday were days at sea. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were all ports of call and then Saturday we were at sea again. Sunday we reached port early and got off the ship early. Getting off the ship was a NIGHTMARE of the nth degree. We stood in line for 3 hours between getting off the ship, getting our luggage and going through customs. I don't know what the problem was. We did discover that if we had used a porter for our luggage, we would not have had to wait in the two hour line to get through customs. They had a special line for those people using porters. I will use a porter next time. There was also a problem with our transfer to the airport. Hypo and I weren't on the list of people who had paid, but I had paid a few weeks prior. I was frantically going through my phone trying to find the confirmation email and couldn't find it. One of the workers said "That's happened with a lot of people today, just get on the bus". So, bring paper confirmation of everything, just in case.

There were a lot of things that were wonderful and I'd do a Royal Caribbean cruise again. I did like that there was a mix of ages on the ship.. families, elderly, etc. My dad prefers Princess but says himself that it is mostly senior citizens. I have heard that Carnival is the party line these days. RC had some major partying available, but it also had things for other age groups too.

I can't wait for my next cruise My expectations will be a little different and there were some lessons learned, but it was the best vacation I've had .. possibly ever.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

A lot of cruises are now nickel-and-diming every last thing on the ship, so be sure you look at that when you are comparing prices.

I was on NCL a few times in the early aughts, right when they switched over to "Freestyle Cruising", which was nice, because you could eat in the main dining room or eat in any of the specialty restaurants. I'm pretty sure that these days, you have to pay for all of the specialty restaurants. We liked NCL a lot, but my family drank/gambled enough to be VIP's, and the second year we were upgraded to a ridiculous suite, courtesy of the Casino Manager. I also wouldn't comment on quality from ten years ago, because things change.

There are other good ways to watch your budget. A big one is shore excursions. I dive, and I always book with local shops for FAR less than what the cruise line wants to charge me. If you want to snorkel or go river tubing or whatever, always see if you can work with local operators.

The other big one is obviously alcohol. Some ships offer packages, but these are rarely a good deal unless you are a heavy drinker or always want top shelf stuff.

Don't eat ashore. Every tourist place in the tourist stops is exactly the same.

Don't cheap out on tipping, though. NCL has (had?) a system where you don't tip each time you get a drink, which is fine, but then be sure you are paying the recommended service charge at the end of the trip. Heck, tip on the individual drinks sometimes, too, if you get exceptional service. For most of the cruise staff, a dollar here or there means more to you than to them.

[AGDee]

Royal Caribbean added a gratuity for drinks automatically. One of the other women I was traveling with didn't realize that until the third night. She'd been giving them a full tip on top of the automatic gratuity every time!