CARNIVAL VS DCL: The discussion and comparison thread!

[tidefan]

And I said that Carnival and other lines do all the things I listed better than DCL. Just because DCL has pizza at the pool doesn’t mean they do food better than the other lines. All the other lines have a lot more options overall that are included in the price. They also have a lot more activities included than DCL. I would think for the exhorbitant upcharge that DCL people would be seriously offended that there is really so little included in their fare. I certainly can’t drink $5,000.00 with of soda!

I think that you and I are having 2 completely different arguments...

 

[belle032]

BTW, I never said CCL didn't have great options. I love Guy's Burgers and the tacos at Blue Iguana (It does still puzzle me that Blue Iguana has that great salsa bar, but no chips). I think Carnival has the best "comfort food" at sea. Why am I not allowed to enjoy both CCL and DCL (and Princess)? I love me some shwarma on the Disney Magic too!

AMEN! For the love of everything that is holy, can we please get some tortilla chips at Blue Iguana?! I just want some chips & salsa!

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

Omg, I am addicted to those ghost shows! I love paranormal stuff in general and those shows are a definite guilty pleasure!

Lol.
And at wdw my kids watch some searching for bigfoot show. They haven't shown Disney cartoons at wdw hotels for years which is a bummer. We don't have cable, just netflix and utube so when they get to hotels they are fascinated by these shows!

 

[mevelandry]

AMEN! For the love of everything that is holy, can we please get some tortilla chips at Blue Iguana?! I just want some chips & salsa!

THIS.

 

[mevelandry]

As the original OP, I am not trying to play moderator here, nor sound "like your mom" but I would like to say this regarding regarding this thread:

- Everyone is welcome here.

- Bad reviews are also welcome. But I would encourage everyone to focus on reviewing things that they have experimented. As I always say: seeing a Carnival ship from your DCL ship in Nassau doesn't count as an "experience"

- I'm doing the best that I can but I know my work on this thread is not perfect so I'm more than happy to listen to any suggestion that would make this thread better.

- While this thread is meant to focus on the comparisons with DCL, reviews and prices comparisons with DCL, and companies do compete, this thread is not a competition.

- The very vast majority on this thread also love DCL.

- I would like to encourage everyone to be kind, especially when we have differences of opinions... Remember that we all have one thing in common: our deep love of cruising.

In other words: be kind.

P.s.: Remember that french is my first language. My english and my syntax sucks. Sometimes I mean well but I don't write things the right way and I use words or idioms, thinking that it means something and... Turns out it doesn't. I'm sorry about that. I'm doing the best I can.

 

[mevelandry]

Looks like I have convinced my husband to aim for a short DCL cruise when the new ships come out. We're starting to save money now.

It doesn't change any of our other plans for 2019-2020.

 

[tidefan]

A review of Regal Princess



Background

So, DW, DD, and I are avid travelers. We have done over 20 cruises (DW has done closer to 30) on numerous lines. Our favorite is DCL, but we do branch out and have sailed on Carnival, RCCL, and Princess as well. Princess is our second most traveled line after DCL and since I don't see a lot about it here on these threads, I thought I might try to give some insight as to the line, who may enjoy it, who may not enjoy it, and what the strengths and weaknesses are, IMHO, in comparison to other lines. Also, I'll try to make some additional comparisons to DCL (since that's what this thread is set up to do. So, here is an initial stab at it (BTW, I am a terrible photographer with my iPhone, so I apologize if the pics aren't that great...).

To save you to the end in case you were wondering... We LOVED the ship and it is one of our favorites. I am really looking forward to sailing this class of ship again, BUT, that works for us, I'll detail things that I think some people may want to consider when looking at the ship...

Ship and Itinerary

We wanted to do a Spring Break cruise (our Spring Break was March 9-17) and didn't want to break the bank taking a vacation, so that ruled out DCL. We had also looked into an Oasis class RCCL ship as we've only done one RCCL cruise and it was a complete disaster, but we think that a LOT of that was due to the ship and we'd have liked to have given RCCL another try, but when we looked at non-DCL options, the Oasis class priced out much higher (30-80% higher) than comparable offerings on either Princess or Carnival (Note: We booked late, so that could have contributed to that. Also, the new NCL ships seemed higher as well). We ended up choosing Princess, and even there we had options. Either a 7-night Western on the Regal or a 7-night Eastern on the Caribbean Princess. We had already booked the Regal Princess for what we thought would be our trial run on her for Thanksgiving this year and since that was going to be an Eastern, we decided to do the Western and go ahead and try the Regal Princess now. Our ports of call were Princess Cays (which, BTW, is RIGHT NEXT to Lighthouse Point, the area that Disney just purchased for it's next "private island"), Falmouth, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. Not our favorite ports (save Grand Cayman, which we enjoy), but we wanted to see how the newer Royal class of Princess ships stood up. Most all of the ships that we have been on Princess have either been the Grand Class (Grand, Star, Emerald), and the Sun class (Sun, Dawn - which is now P&O's Pacific Explorer).

Port

So, we loaded up and did the 12.5 hour drive down to FLL, breaking it up by spending a night at Old Key West on the way down (since we had points). We got to FLL around noon, but didn't get to the ship until 1:00 because DD had forgotten some things and we had to make a quick Target run. Anyway, there were 9 ships in port that day, so for those of you used to Port Canaveral, be mindful of this if you depart from Port Everglades. And I'm not talking about 9 small ships either. In addition to Regal Princess leaving that day, there were also ships like Harmony of the Seas, Nieuw Statendam, Adventure of the Seas, Island Princess, Celebrity Edge, and Carnival Conquest among others. Needless to say, traffic around the port area was crazy. Fortunately, Princess uses Terminal 2, which is right inside the port entrance, so we weren't in it too long.

Embarkation

One thing we were interested to try was that this is what Princess calls a "medallion class" cruise. Meaning, that instead of a cruise card, every passenger gets a small disc with a RFID chip in it. This is very similar to Disney's "Magic Bands", with the exception that Princess sends a lanyard, not a wristband for you to carry around.



I had kind of thought that this would be not as helpful as it ended up being, but the medallions did make the cruise experience easier. Especially since I was already used to MagicBands. Similar to MagicBands, the medallion serves as your room key, the way you pay for items on the ship (you can even use it to charge your room in the casino), your ID to get on and off the ship, and it does other things, like you can order a drink from your lounger and the staff can bring it right to you because they can find you via the medallion. This worked surprisingly well. For embarkation, there is an app that you take security pictures and scan your passport into prior to boarding, so check-in is a VERY quick process. From leaving the car in the deck to being on the ship was maybe 20 minutes, tops. One nice thing I like about Princess. Rooms are ready immediately upon embarkation. No waiting until 1:30 like DCL, or having to buy Faster to the Fun like on Carnival.

One thing though, if you go up to the bar to get a drink (I had the Soda and More package) and you ordered more than 1 drink, the staff can see who is there as your face/id pops up on their iPad's. However, this was really useful. For instance, if you went to guest services with a question, they'd already know who you are and what stateroom you are in b/c all of the information pulls up. The other thing that was really useful was the tracking ability of these things. We could always find each other, either on the app, or by using one of the interactive screens in each elevator lobby. You just tap your medallion to it, hit "Shipmates" and it shows you where exactly on the ship everyone is. It was useful enough to us, but I could see it really being useful for those with young children. Also in each elevator lobby, between the elevators was an interactive screen that scrolled and showed all of the day's activities and where they were. It also doubled as some kind of interactive thing for the kids (didn't use that) and trivia games. Yes, I found myself more than once standing the elevator lobby playing trivia. Never thought I'd do that...





Also to mention, though it is not directly tied to the medallions, is the "Medallion.net" internet they have on the ship. It was $59.99 for the whole week and was touted as high speed. My wife used it to keep up all week with her work and it worked fabulously. Very impressed. One other note, this is the first ship other than DCL that I've been on that had a song on the ship's horn. Regal Princess' horn plays the "Love Boat" theme. Very cheesy, but cool at the same time!

Room

So, my DW took most pictures of our room, so I actually don't have many on my phone. But, we had a quad balcony stateroom on Marina deck (M702). I was somewhat worried about this location as we were right under the outside deck of Horizon Court (the buffet), however, other than a few scraping chairs a couple of times, we really didn't hear much of anything. I'd gladly take this location again. We were right by the rear stairwell and 1 deck below the Horizon Court (buffet) and the Horizon Terrace, which is a wonderful open deck area with a bar behind the buffet area that overlooks the aft of the ship.

As for the room itself, for those unfamiliar with Princess, there are 3 non-suite balcony categories, Balcony, Deluxe Balcony, and Mini-Suite. We had the regular balcony and it was fine, but it did not include a loveseat sofa. The Deluxe balconies include the loveseat and the mini-suites include a full sofa (BTW, I think Mini-suites are probably the best to go with if you are used to DCL. They are large - 323 square ft - and have a layout similar to DCL's but with a MUCH better closet). Our room was a bit tight with 4 people in the room (DD brought a friend), but it was fine and it was clean. That said, I'd probably go the mini-suite or deluxe route if I could for a verandah, or, for a quad, actually, I'd get one of the sideways inside staterooms on this ship. They are larger and the beds are against the back wall whereas our 4 beds were against a side wall, so for a quad, the layout works better, I think. Also, interesting to note, there are NO oceanview stateroooms on Regal Princess. They are all either Interior or Balcony.

What I did like about our stateroom was that it had a LARGE LCD TV on the wall with on-demand programming. The live TV wasn't great, a few news stations and ESPNs, but the on-demand was really good. They had a large TV and Movie selection and they would add the feature movies to the selection the day after they had them either in the Vista Lounge or on MUTS (Movies Under the Stars). We watched "Crazy Rich Asians", "The Favourite", "A Star is Born", and "Bohemian Rhapsody". And yes, in the TV selection, they have a number of old "Love Boat" episodes on demand. Also, what I like about Princess' staterooms is the closet setup. What you sort of lose in the couch, you gain by having a separate closet area in front of the bathroom. Hard to explain if you haven't been on a Princess ship, but the closet is open and is huge. All 4 of us practically hung up all of our clothes for the week. It was great. But the area, because it is separated from the main room, allows you to get ready or use the restroom without bothering anyone else in the stateroom. There is also a cabinet with about 5 deep shelves and a safe next to the closet. In addition, there are drawers in the main stateroom compartment. Lots of storage. I really liked that... Plus, no closet doors banging around...

Here's a messy picture of our closet:



Even though I didn't get a big picture of our stateroom (I'll need to get DW to send me those), I did sneak a peek into a suite at the end of our hall, so that can give you a bit of an idea as to the decor...



There has been much discussion on the Princess boards in other locales as to the balcony size on Regal Princess. They are about 4 x 10 ish (I think the website has them at 41 sq ft), so yes, they are not large, but we found that our balcony was just fine. In fact, it was similar in size to what we've had on say Carnival Sunshine (8A) or Disney Magic (5C). However, if you are used to say the large Caribe balconies on Princess' Grand Class, then these are definitely smaller. That being said, we really enjoyed sitting on the balcony and just reading or enjoying a cheese plate (or for DD - Grilled Cheese, quesadillas, and cheese fries) from room service, which is still complementary on Princess.

Upcoming...

The ship, the ports, the food, the entertainment, kid's clubs, and what suggestions I'd give people about the Regal Princess (and Princess in general).

 

[BrookeMQ]

AMEN! For the love of everything that is holy, can we please get some tortilla chips at Blue Iguana?! I just want some chips & salsa!

OMG please. I say this every time. They have all those yummy salsas and I want chips. (they are my weakness).

 

[mevelandry]

AMEN! For the love of everything that is holy, can we please get some tortilla chips at Blue Iguana?! I just want some chips & salsa!

OMG please. I say this every time. They have all those yummy salsas and I want chips. (they are my weakness).

While we're at it... I'm asking the Universe to send nacho cheese with those chips.

 

[belle032]

https://miami.cbslocal.com/2019/03/21/man-sues-royal-caribbean-cruise-after-bungee-accident/

Oh my, has anyone seen this yet? I'm usually one to dismiss frivolous lawsuits, but this one may actually have some teeth.

 

[mevelandry]

https://miami.cbslocal.com/2019/03/21/man-sues-royal-caribbean-cruise-after-bungee-accident/

Oh my, has anyone seen this yet? I'm usually one to dismiss frivolous lawsuits, but this one may actually have some teeth.

I did. To me, the video speaks for itself and I'm 100% sure that this will result in a settlement.

 

[tidefan]

I did. To me, the video speaks for itself and I'm 100% sure that this will result in a settlement.

Agree. Though, we'd have to know all of the specifics, but it doesn't look good..

 

[mevelandry]

Agree. Though, we'd have to know all of the specifics, but it doesn't look good..

I'm sailing on this ship in October and had planned to try this activity. I will most likely not jump very high...

 

[lucyddr]

Haven't been there before. Not sure what we want to do yet - still in full research mode. Probably something involving snorkeling.

Word of advice: We did the Exclusive Escapes package that included snorkeling the wall and going to Golfs Cay to see the sting rays. It was a terrible experience (and trust me....I almost never complain about a shore excursion). Our ship was late arriving due to an emergency, so they combined two groups. We packed 25 people on to a 25’ boat. A storm was brewing, so the water was rougher than usual. There was so much weight on the boat with such a small motor that those of us in front were drenched with each wave. The wall snorkel was highly rushed and we were forced to stay in a “line.” The second snorkel stop mentioned on the tour description was never offered. Snorkeling near the wall might have been ok on a good day, but the water was so churned that we couldn’t see anything other than the drop off and some dead coral. Once at the island, they were only able to find one ray who was not as cooperative as they wanted. The undertow of the waves was seriously dangerous...adults could barely stand. Lightening was striking and it was pouring on our way back. It was a bad trip and sadly, totally ruined my kids first snorkeling experience...making it hard to convince them to want to do it again!

If we went back, I’d seriously plan on some beach time at the ship and pool time at Margaritaville. If you must leave the port, rent a golf cart and tool around.

 

[starvenger]

Agree. Though, we'd have to know all of the specifics, but it doesn't look good..

It looks really not good. $10 mil seems a bit high (but then I'm not a lawyer), but he's undoubtedly in line for a substantial settlement.

I don't know if Independence of the Seas has one of these things, but it's probably a hard pass for me until I get more information on root cause.

 

[mevelandry]

Word of advice: We did the Exclusive Escapes package that included snorkeling the wall and going to Golfs Cay to see the sting rays. It was a terrible experience (and trust me....I almost never complain about a shore excursion). Our ship was late arriving due to an emergency, so they combined two groups. We packed 25 people on to a 25’ boat. A storm was brewing, so the water was rougher than usual. There was so much weight on the boat with such a small motor that those of us in front were drenched with each wave. The wall snorkel was highly rushed and we were forced to stay in a “line.” The second snorkel stop mentioned on the tour description was never offered. Snorkeling near the wall might have been ok on a good day, but the water was so churned that we couldn’t see anything other than the drop off and some dead coral. Once at the island, they were only able to find one ray who was not as cooperative as they wanted. The undertow of the waves was seriously dangerous...adults could barely stand. Lightening was striking and it was pouring on our way back. It was a bad trip and sadly, totally ruined my kids first snorkeling experience...making it hard to convince them to want to do it again!

If we went back, I’d seriously plan on some beach time at the ship and pool time at Margaritaville. If you must leave the port, rent a golf cart and tool around.

Wow. The Beach at the Cruise Center looks so much better and cleaner than when we went in October! When we went, the spot where your children were was covered with litter, and chairs and umbrellas. (p.s.: They look adorable!)

 

[mevelandry]

It looks really not good. $10 mil seems a bit high (but then I'm not a lawyer), but he's undoubtedly in line for a substantial settlement.

I don't know if Independence of the Seas has one of these things, but it's probably a hard pass for me until I get more information on root cause.

Usually you ask more hoping to meet somewhere in the middle.

 

[mcd2745]

Word of advice: We did the Exclusive Escapes package that included snorkeling the wall and going to Golfs Cay to see the sting rays. It was a terrible experience (and trust me....I almost never complain about a shore excursion). Our ship was late arriving due to an emergency, so they combined two groups. We packed 25 people on to a 25’ boat. A storm was brewing, so the water was rougher than usual. There was so much weight on the boat with such a small motor that those of us in front were drenched with each wave. The wall snorkel was highly rushed and we were forced to stay in a “line.” The second snorkel stop mentioned on the tour description was never offered. Snorkeling near the wall might have been ok on a good day, but the water was so churned that we couldn’t see anything other than the drop off and some dead coral. Once at the island, they were only able to find one ray who was not as cooperative as they wanted. The undertow of the waves was seriously dangerous...adults could barely stand. Lightening was striking and it was pouring on our way back. It was a bad trip and sadly, totally ruined my kids first snorkeling experience...making it hard to convince them to want to do it again!

If we went back, I’d seriously plan on some beach time at the ship and pool time at Margaritaville. If you must leave the port, rent a golf cart and tool around.

Appreciate the heads-up. I'm not that interested in any kind of stingray excursions anyway. We've done the stingray experience at Castaway Cay and have gone to Stingray City from Grand Cayman. So, it's a "been there, done that" sort of thing for us.

I don't know, maybe it's just me and not having been there before, but with Grand Turk, I find it kind of strange to be using the beach for swimming and/or snorkeling so close to the ship. I think I'd want to find a more serene area away from the port, plus I'd think he snorkeling can't be very good. I assume a good number of people just stay in the immediate area...is that a safe assumption?

 

[mevelandry]

Appreciate the heads-up. I'm not that interested in any kind of stingray excursions anyway. We've done the stingray experience at Castaway Cay and have gone to Stingray City from Grand Cayman. So, it's a "been there, done that" sort of thing for us.

I don't know, maybe it's just me and not having been there before, but with Grand Turk, I find it kind of strange to be using the beach for swimming and/or snorkeling so close to the ship. I think I'd want to find a more serene area away from the port, plus I'd think he snorkeling can't be very good. I assume a good number of people just stay in the immediate area...is that a safe assumption?

When I was there, there was almost NO fishes around. I think it's a good call.

 

[starvenger]

Usually you ask more hoping to meet somewhere in the middle.

Fair point. Guess I don't sue enough people.