Carnival vs DCL... I would not cruise CCL again!

[trvlgirlmq]

Out of the main lines you have Carnival known as the party boats no matter the length. Royal Caribbean is the something for everyone line. Celebrity is the pseudo-luxury older crowd, Holland America is the old-age classical cruising and Disney is family and kids.

I've been on 6 Carnival cruises and have never seen all this party stuff everyone keeps talking about. If it had a bad atmosphere I would never take my children and expose them to outlandish behavior.

 

[Neptune's Fork]

I've been on 6 Carnival cruises and have never seen all this party stuff everyone keeps talking about. If it had a bad atmosphere I would never take my children and expose them to outlandish behavior.

Maybe it's just a random thing. A few people here were saying they experienced the sewage issue on the Magic and Wonder, but just finished reading on another site regarding this and many many people said they've never experienced anything like that on Magic or Wonder.

 

[cruiser21]

Definitely try a longer cruise before you write-off the line entirely. I have to think Concierge DCL cost 5X-10X more than the 4 nt. CCL out of NOLA. Lines with lots of ships will put the older, less-efficient ships on the short routes, and local ports. A 7-nt on one of the newest ships would have much more experienced staff, and higher expectations all around, but at a higher price point as well.

Word of advice to anyone who ever books a Carnival cruise, for $50 per cabin you can book Faster To The Fun (fttf). It gets everyone in your cabin priority boarding, tendering, and debarkation. Before sailing on a new line, I always scour the Cruise Critic message boards for details like this, heads up about potential issues, and alternate dining venues which have shorter lines . That is how I knew to reserve character meets and adult dining in advance of our first DCL cruise. Research and planning make most vacations more enjoyable!

I think this is good advice. The Vista is by no means a cheap ship to sail on. I'm looking for a cruise next Fall. Yes it's less then the Fantasy because every ship is less then the Fantasy, but it's priced higher then the NCL escape and some of the Royal ships. I agree with you on cc it's a great place to do research.