Can't afford Disney anymore. Comparable cruise line recs?

[criscoloo]

My teenage girls and I have only cruised Disney (9 times), but I simply can't afford it anymore. What other cruise lines should I look at? I am not interested in party boats, such as Carnival. I think I've read that Holland America and Royal Caribbean are decent. Not sure what I've heard about Norwegian, but I don't think it was positive reviews. Princess or Celebrity? Thanks!

 

[tinkerone]

were going to be giving RCL a try. it will be our first outside of DCL as well. i'm actually looking forward to it, I think it will be a good fit for us.
you may want to look at what they offer. from what I see there is tons to do for teenagers. not sure about the teen clubs but the stuff outside of the clubs look amazing. there's rock wall climbing, flo rider, on some ships there are bumper cars, tons of stuff.
I can't really direct you as to whether they are better or not but we feel its worth a try. a lot cheaper as well, how can that be bad??
what ever you decide, have a great cruise.

 

[Foxes Den]

RCL

We sail CCL as well, but not on 3/4 day cruises as a family. Thats the Booze cruise.

 

[JMHDisney]

We are trying RCCL in May. I'm a little nervous that they won't have much for my 7 year old (we aren't on a boat with characters) but Disney prices are insane so it's time to branch out.

If we like it, we will probably do an RCCL cruise in Europe in 2017 rather than Disney.

 

[eskimoinparadise]

Have sailed every line you mentioned. Our preferences (when we cruise with our teen aged grandsons) in order are RCL at the top, then Princess, Carnival (bigger/newer ships and cruises longer than 3-4 days), HAL, Celebrity, and NCL at the bottom.

 

[MUN]

My teenage girls and I have only cruised Disney (9 times), but I simply can't afford it anymore. What other cruise lines should I look at? I am not interested in party boats, such as Carnival. I think I've read that Holland America and Royal Caribbean are decent. Not sure what I've heard about Norwegian, but I don't think it was positive reviews. Princess or Celebrity? Thanks!

I bet you will find Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line to be affordable.

MUN

 

[nhgirl]

I have sailed Norwegian a few times. I have no complaints.

 

[Winston Wolf]

For families? RCI, NCL, Carnival

 

[PrincessTrisha]

What Carnival cruises were you on that were party boats?

 

[AquaDame]

We are sailing on our first RCCL next week! Jewel of the Seas on a Southern Caribbean route. I have only sailed DCL as well so far, but from reading, rereading and researching everything I could it seems like RCCL was the next best thing for younger adults and families. Holland and Celebrity are usually recommended for older folk and Princess is hit or miss on reviews for kids along with Norwegian. Some people think all the options are fine, and other people say their kids were bored. I think YMMV depending on what your kids want and things outside your control like how many other families are on a given cruise.

Overall the whole business has been ask 10 people get 10 different answers so we are embarking on finding out what WE think this time around.

 

[dgaston]

I sailed NCL 5 times and really love their Freestyle dining. Their entertainment is very good. Can't speak to traveling with children.

 

[Angie789]

FWIW.... on my last DCL cruise I was selected to be a part of a focus group on board, and the majority of the questions that were asked had to do with DCL vs. RCCL. It was clear from that experience that even Disney considers RCCL to be their most direct competitor.

 

[SRH]

I've done four HAL cruises prior to my upcoming DCL and absolutely loved them. There wasn't a lot to do on board, but the itineraries were great and the atmosphere was relaxed.

 

[papertraveller]

We are sailing on our first RCCL next week! Jewel of the Seas on a Southern Caribbean route. I have only sailed DCL as well so far, but from reading, rereading and researching everything I could it seems like RCCL was the next best thing for younger adults and families. Holland and Celebrity are usually recommended for older folk and Princess is hit or miss on reviews for kids along with Norwegian. Some people think all the options are fine, and other people say their kids were bored. I think YMMV depending on what your kids want and things outside your control like how many other families are on a given cruise.

Overall the whole business has been ask 10 people get 10 different answers so we are embarking on finding out what WE think this time around.

We sailed on the Jewel over New Year's, our first trip on Royal Caribbean after six Disney cruises.

The ship is a bit newer than the Magic/Wonder, and comes from the same shipyard. As a result, there are many features that are reminiscent of DCL. We loved the Jewel -- she's really a beautiful ship.

Key difference from Disney, for us, is the entertainment. The shows tended to be late, and other features are more adult-oriented: fabulous performer in the piano bar, great ship's orchestra, but nothing much organized otherwise. Disney tends to keep you hopping through the evening from event to event. (We also didn't find the cruise director to our taste.) We were with a large group, so made our own fun.

We had set time dining, so had the same servers the entire week. This team, along with the room steward and other staff we encountered, were every bit up to DCL par. The service we received was exceptional. The food wasn't quite to DCL levels, but it wasn't far off. (For example, no fresh shrimp or smoked salmon at the buffets. That's nice, but my vacation isn't spoiled without it!) No toiletries left in the room -- just generic stuff in a pump dispenser on the shower wall.

We had a balcony room, which was smaller than our ocean view 9B on the Magic. But the room was very well designed, and had much more storage space.

Drop by to meet Bernadette in the Champagne Bar, and Damian at the bar in the Solarium pool area. Say hello and chat a bit, and they'll remember you throughout your cruise, helping make it a memorable experience. Have a wonderful cruise.

 

[criscoloo]

What Carnival cruises were you on that were party boats?

only sailed disney, but i heard that Carnival is a party boat line with lots of booze. Don't know whether that's true since I've never been on a Carnival cruise.

 

[criscoloo]

FWIW.... on my last DCL cruise I was selected to be a part of a focus group on board, and the majority of the questions that were asked had to do with DCL vs. RCCL. It was clear from that experience that even Disney considers RCCL to be their most direct competitor.

I find that it very fascinating that you were asked to compare DCL v. RCCL.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

only sailed disney, but i heard that Carnival is a party boat line with lots of booze. Don't know whether that's true since I've never been on a Carnival cruise.

I've been on a Carnival cruise. Just one. It's one of the ones that's typically branded "party cruise" - a 4 night Baja CA cruise. While there wasn't much that really appealed to us, entertainment-wise, it certainly wasn't a party cruise, either. The most obnoxious group we encountered was in the piano bar. But I put that on the piano player, he was changing lyrics to songs with obvious sexual innuendos, and it sort of riled up the overly-imbibed group that was there (younger than us).

For the most part the cruise was pretty laid back. To the extent when the CD was trying to get the crowd warmed up before the shows, most people in the audience were basically just sitting back, arms crossed waiting for the show and not interacting with the CD at all.

 

[ladypiph]

Other than DCL I sailed with Carnival 1 time before I had my DS. I personally would not take DS on a Carnival cruise. I have been looking into RCL, they don't have as many kid/family friendly entertainment options as DCL but I like the itineraries that they offer along with the excursion options they have.

 

[Ofinn]

I think short cruises in general have more of a party atmosphere. Even on the Dream. I would look at the newer ships. I'm interested in doing a Med cruise in Sept or Oct I was looking at the New Carnival Vista that' going to be in the Med next Fall. The ship looks fabulous. A family deluxe inside room for 3 is 1,900 for an 8 day cruise compared to the Magic which is 3800 for an 11b. The family ocean views rooms on the Vista are bigger than DCL. I haven't gotten the square footage on the inside rooms yet. I never thought I would consider Carnival, but that price is certainly tempting. I'm also looking at RCI's new ship Harmony that is going to be in the Med. It's less than DCL, but more than Carnival. Both these ships are coming to Florida I think they will give the Fantasy some competition.

 

[emma'smom]

We've sailed DCL (7 cruises including two 14 nighters), RCCL (3 cruises) and NCL (2 cruises). We just returned from an NCL that we intentionally picked over RCCL because we felt it would better cater to families (and we were right). We have two daughters (10 and 13). Our experience with RCCL is that they do not really have much interest in families. They have activities for kids (which are hit or miss) in kids/teen clubs--but that is pretty much where they want the kids to stay while leaving the rest of the ship to the adults. For example, our girls tried to go a a "bowling" event on the main pool deck (so not in an adult's only area) at noon on a sea day--- and they were told (by the crew member in charge) that they couldn't do it and that there was a kid's club for kid activities. We've also found RCCL to say things like (at the first night's early show) "Let's hear from all the kids here tonight!" (everyone cheers) "Ok..that's the last we want to see or hear from you all week! Ha Ha Ha!" And we've found the RCCL kids /teen clubs to be hit or miss in terms of their offerings, times open, etc. Also, RCCL just has a much more Vegas/Glitzy feel. That being said, we've done three of RCCL---so it's not bad enough that we don't return---but we do so with careful intentionality (ie. specific itinerary).

On NCL, we had a bad experience the first time (really bad food), but decided to try again because they did have more activities for families and seemed to embrace the idea that children are paying customers too. We had a much better experience the 2nd time (dining upgrade promotion took care of the food issue for the most part) and there were many more tween/teen friendly activities to do with families. The one issue we encountered was the the teen club had an age range of 13-17 in one group, so my daughter (who likes Edge) was hesitant to participate--which meant neither really did because they did stuff together instead. Was this horrible? No--but she was bored sometimes because she didn't participate in the kid's activities---her own fault though because she enjoyed them the first time.

I would say NCL is really the competition that DCL should be paying attention to more than RCCL-- the overall culture/feel of the experience mirrors DCL. DCL is a higher quality experience (in my opinion) as the service is more personalized and the shows are better (and there are movies)....but overall NCL seemed to have a good level of respect for families/children/teens including providing activities that appealed to us (like Family Feud) and the activities that were more adult-oriented were well labeled so there were no surprises (for example, some "game shows" were labeled PG-13 or "adults only" which meant we were able to decide what was appropriate for our kids and did not end up encountering raunchy/tasteless jokes in a main theater show). Note--we let our kids join us for the PG-13 things--but not the adults only (of course).

One interesting note-- we went to hear the CD talk about programming and he noted that the cruise we were on (a holiday cruise) had 784 under 18's on it----about a 1/3 of the passengers. Knowing this, he intentionally created/scheduled programming that appealed to this demographic. He also noted that the repositioning cruise that they had just prior only had THREE under-18's on it---so his programming was very different as his mean passenger age was in their mid-60s. He noted they had several "How to Use Your Ipad" sessions that were packed!

The lesson-- pay attention to your cruise line, but also how likely it will be that there will be enough other teens that make the programming worthwhile for your children.