Disney or carnival???

[ez]

My friends just returned from a 4 night carnival cruise to the bahamas, and had a blast. She said there were 900 kids on board, and they never saw their daughter, she had a ball with all the camp carnival activities. We are doing our first cruise on the wonder, in Sept. I'm hoping we made the right decision to go with Disney, it is a bit more expensive. Can anyone who has done both disney and carnival give me a brief comparison, thanks!

 

[AnnMorin]

We have sailed carnival once and Disney three times.
It is like comparing hamburg to filet mignon... I guess both are fine if you are really hungry but I would rather the filet any day

 

[Rock'n Robin]

There were a comparable number of kids on our Wonder sailing 6/29. Some kids won't like the kids clubs, but mine all loved them--esp. my daughters ages 8 and 11. I've never done Carnival but we sure had a blast on Disney.
Robin M.

 

[hydster]

We've been on several Carnival cruises with our kids and we just experienced Disney with them last November and have another Disney planned in May (surprise to them..they think we are going NEXT September) but anyway our kids loved both cruiselines. There are positives and negatives on ANY vacation and you have to be willing to roll with them. Our kids surprisingly preferred the Carnival kids clubs to the Disney ones most of the time (of course our Disney cruise was only a 4 day cruise and most of the Carnival's we have been on were 7) but they liked them both for different reasons. They liked Disney with the characters and the movie theatre but they loved Carnival because it seemed that they had more structured time for the kids with an activity going almost constantly and the opportunity if you didnt want to participate in the activity to stay and color or do something quiet with another counselor. We thought most of the food was comparable (we didnt do Palo on the 4 day but plan to on the 7 day) and the kids loved the pools better on Disney although Hubby and I preferred the Carnival waterslides that we could go down. The Disney fresh water pool is very nice. Carnival has cold sea water that they use. The split bathrooms are nice with kids on the Disney cruise and having all 5 of us in a room was nice although we have since decided to do 2 rooms instead. Honestly I dont see anything wrong with either cruise line and think for the most part the cruise is more about attitude than anything! You and your kids would probably have a great time on either ship with the right attitude!

Just my opinion! (Flame away)
Heidi

 

[hilltopfamily]

quote: " flame away" by Hydster

Can't imagine why anyone should send flames your way! You gave a nice, balanced review of YOUR experiences on the 2 lines and your childrens thoughts as well. I appreciate & enjoy reading honest responses like yours. We cruise in just 1 week so I have no experiences to share, but I have also looked at & considered other cruise lines for future vacations and, as I said, I like to read threads like this one, and responses like yours--very informative and not emotional. Keep 'em coming

 

[angelam]

Heidi,
We recently cruised Disney and absolutely loved it. We are anxious to cruise again soon and I have been checking out other cruise lines since they are usually a bit cheaper and we can't travel in the more "off peak" times since I am a teacher. I have heard good things about the kids clubs on Carnival, but what I would like to know is, how was the crowd/atmosphere on the rest of the ship? One of the things I loved most about the Disney Cruise, is that it is comprised of mostly families and you do not see loud, drunk adults. It is a very kid friendly atmosphere. I don't want to have my kids on a ship with where the main goal is to "party down". I have been on the Carnival boards and I got the impression that many of the people sailing on Carnival were big on drinking with a main vacation goal of getting wasted.
What kind of atmosphere did you find?

Angie

 

[Mjasp]

What I hear alot of is the older Carnival ships with 3-5 day runs are more the party boat and the newer 7 night cruises are more a mix of everyone.

Hydster...Your report was very informative and balanced. Thanks