Had to finally book with NCL because Disney wanted me to sell my house... lol

[TestingH2O]

We're jumping ship to try the new Carnival Vista for 2016.

I'm not anywhere near abandoning DCL, but the Vista is very interesting to me. Will you be in the new Family Harbor area? I've tried pricing them, and even in early 2017, all the suites are sold out. The oceanview rooms are all that's left on just about any cruise I search.

 

[kaseyC]

I've sailed Carnival twice and both experiences were great. We sailed the Carnival Destiny in 1998 and the Carnival Dream in 2011. We are sailing them again in June of 2016. They have a fabulous 10 day Eastern Med itinerary Barcelona to Athens on the new Vista. We are taking my husband's parents. So there will be a total of 7 of us in two verandah cabins and one inside for an amazing price. My in-laws have never been to Europe so the ports and tours are a priority. The ship looks very cool and I'm looking forward to sailing it.

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

Will have to look at this!

The Carnival Vista will be going to Miami late 2016, check her out, the Havana Cabana area is freaking amazing! http://www.carnival.com/cruise-ships/carnival-vista.aspx#accommodations/havana

I'm not anywhere near abandoning DCL, but the Vista is very interesting to me. Will you be in the new Family Harbor area? I've tried pricing them, and even in early 2017, all the suites are sold out. The oceanview rooms are all that's left on just about any cruise I search.

No, my wife won't book anything but insides so we're just in connecting insides on deck 8. My kids are teenagers so they actually want to do the Havana Cabana area, (so do I).

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

I've sailed Carnival twice and both experiences were great. We sailed the Carnival Destiny in 1998 and the Carnival Dream in 2011. We are sailing them again in June of 2016. They have a fabulous 10 day Eastern Med itinerary Barcelona to Athens on the new Vista. We are taking my husband's parents. So there will be a total of 7 of us in two verandah cabins and one inside for an amazing price. My in-laws have never been to Europe so the ports and tours are a priority. The ship looks very cool and I'm looking forward to sailing it.

We're on the cruise right before you, we got an amazing price too, $4400 for 4 of us in 2 connecting insides including taxes, insurance and pre-paid gratuities. My parents and my mom's 2 sisters are joining us. Now if only airfare from PHX wasn't so dang expensive!

 

[joe strummer]

After many suite cruises on NCL with our now 4-yr old, we are trying Disney in a "normal" room this fall.

I like NCL very much - and honestly you can only let yourself be nickel and dimed. The kids' club on the Getaway is great, and our son LOVED the "mini" ropes course. (And I loved the real ropes course.) We were at that ropes course every single day. Never had an issue with things to do. Being in the Haven of course makes the cruise a different experience but it is a very nice ship. Don't forget to try the tasting flight of Mojitos!

Joe

 

[sweetpee_1993]

The Carnival Vista will be going to Miami late 2016, check her out, the Havana Cabana area is freaking amazing! http://www.carnival.com/cruise-ships/carnival-vista.aspx#accommodations/havana



No, my wife won't book anything but insides so we're just in connecting insides on deck 8. My kids are teenagers so they actually want to do the Havana Cabana area, (so do I).

Finding an available Havana Cabana isn't easy! I will sail in one, I promise. That's completely awesome!

 

[jahber]

The Carnival Breeze was one of the top 3 cruises we've ever taken (the other top two were Disney, but we've taken 6 total DCL). The ship was amazing--constantly being cleaned and maintained, the three-level splash park!, ropes course, food options (REAL hamburgers at Guy's, hello!). We would sail her again in a heartbeat. We sailed her a week after disembarking the a Wonder and my then-10yo daughter told me she thought it would be a huge let-down to sail a non-Disney ship, but she was so surprised. It was just a perfect cruise. Except for one tiny thing: the ONLY bathroom with a changing table (we had a 6mo) on deck 5 is IN THE CASINO. What the what? But anyway, we look forward to another Breeze trip soon!

 

[Scoobypop]

Two more pages of great posts. Johnlatte, great post as well, loved your perspective! Now we gotta get a Haven suite next time, sounds fantastic!

 

[FLpixie]

I've actually done some reading about Carnival. I would like to try them. My BiL and many people I've read reviews from say Carnival's food is good, better than many other lines. We live maybe 30 minutes (with traffic) from Galveston where Carnival Magic sails from. I seriously want to try it!

With ALL things what you see in the media is going to be what garners ratings. It's never complete thus never entirely accurate. I used to be a law enforcement communications supervisor. I can tell you first-hand that the press releases and what I saw reported in the news was almost always 1/100 of the entire story. News is about ratings, not news. Did Carnival have some serious missteps? Yes. Is that indicative of the environment on every cruise that sails? No. Believe it or not, people do disembark from Carnival ships with a smile! LOL!

My DH had only sailed DCL so I got him to try Carnival this summer. Granted, it was one of the older ships but I had just wanted him to see that it wasn't the frat party that the media would have you think it was.

The shows were great! So much better than what we had seen on the Magic in the spring.

The food in the MDR was fantastic! So very pleased with the options and it blew Magic's food out of the water. We also had an amazing server team on that Carnival cruise - much better than our so-so team we had on Magic in the spring.

In addition, we got to try the Chef's Table. Max of 12 people (on our night it was 9) got to do a galley tour with the Executive Chef and then have a 7 course meal in a private dining area. It was only $75 per person and we were amazed! (On DBL I guarantee this would have been $200+ and been sold out long before the cruise started). Oh, and it also included champagne and wine (all you wanted) during the tour and meal.

Room wise though DCL for the win. DCL rooms are much bigger and my DH's eyes bugged out a bit when he saw the size of the room on the Fascination.

 

[FLpixie]

We have never sailed with a third person in our room. Can someone please explain how NCL and DCL handles gratuities for the third person? I know they only pay a partial room rate but I don't know how the rest works.

Thanks!

 

[jahber]

We have never sailed with a third person in our room. Can someone please explain how NCL and DCL handles gratuities for the third person? I know they only pay a partial room rate but I don't know how the rest works.

Thanks!

The third and additional people pay full gratuities. It's charged just like the first two people's are.
Edited to add: on Carnival, though, our infant wasn't charged gratuities. He was on Disney.

 

[bond24seven]

I had only sailed with Disney. When I was looking into going to Alaska, sailing on the Wonder was going go be about 8000.00 for a balcony. I have sailed on the Wonder 2 other times and even though a little higher I loved it and thought it was worth it.. But 8000.00 for a standard balcony room was way more then I wanted to spend.. I booked a 7 night Alaska on the Norwegian Jewel for 3100.00 for 3 people (third and fourth sail for free). The cruise was awesome and the buffet was great! We also had the free ultimate dining plan, so we ate in a lot of the specialty restaurants. We thought they were great, but the main dining rooms were great too. We were very happy with Norwegian, so we booked 2 more cruises while on board.. One is a seven night eastern Caribbean on the new Norwegian Escape.. We got an aft facing large balcony for 3 for 2700.00... It will have a Margaritaville on board that will be included with the cruise fare, only alcohol will be extra.. I keep shopping Disney, but at more than double the price, I will keep cruising Norwegian.

 

[perditax]

Haha, I love this thread but you all are making me DREAD the food on my upcoming DCL Dream cruise.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Haha, I love this thread but you all are making me DREAD the food on my upcoming DCL Dream cruise.

It's not terrible. If you do a Palo dinner you'll enjoy it. My biggest pet peave is the lack of options as far as venues. That's been grinding my gears for a while. When it was all new to me I was perfectly happy. As the repetitiveness set in after many cruises I started wishing for other options. Honest, I think you have this whole cruise thing down. How smart are you to start out totally unbiased trying multiple cruise lines to get the full spectrum? I wish I hadn't stuck in a Disney rut for as long as I did!

 

[Scoobypop]

Haha, I love this thread but you all are making me DREAD the food on my upcoming DCL Dream cruise.

You'll be fine, I've never had a bad meal on DCL. As sweetpee said, Palo is great and Remy is amazing as well, albeit pricey. My personal favorite meal on the Dream MDR is in Enchanted Garden and my least favorite is Animators Palette. On the Dream/Fantasy, Animators is a bit chaotic, and loud, with Crush talking and engaging kids, so it seems like a chaotic dining experience to me. I'm sure some people love it though.

 

[perditax]

You'll be fine, I've never had a bad meal on DCL. As sweetpee said, Palo is great and Remy is amazing as well, albeit pricey. My personal favorite meal on the Dream MDR is in Enchanted Garden and my least favorite is Animators Palette. On the Dream/Fantasy, Animators is a bit chaotic, and loud, with Crush talking and engaging kids, so it seems like a chaotic dining experience to me. I'm sure some people love it though.

Thanks! I've been trying to figure out which rotation to try for and I'd been thinking of trying to get out of AP for exactly the reasons you described. That said, I'm on a weird itinerary (I), and a friend who was on the only other I this year said she was given completely incorrect rotation info from shoreside, so I may have to punt.

...yeah, looking at my email, I requested ERAA, with the intention of Palo on night 3/pirate, and probably room service or something on the last night.

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

Haha, I love this thread but you all are making me DREAD the food on my upcoming DCL Dream cruise.

I've spent 17 nights on Dream and Fantasy and have eaten in the MDR's all 17 nights, never had a bad meal. There were a couple things I didn't care for, (duck confite), but all in all it was very good. I personally love animators palette, but I also make sure to go to turtle talk with crush every time I'm at WDW and DL. I would suggest giving it a try, it's one of the things that makes a Disney cruise different.

Just my $.02

 

[PrincessTrisha]

Haha, I love this thread but you all are making me DREAD the food on my upcoming DCL Dream cruise.

Don't dread it but I wouldn't go in expecting to say, "This is the best XX I've ever had..."

Food though is highly subjective and it can also depend on what/where/when you eat. My parents and I raved about the food at WDW (all of us adults), my brother, his wife and their 3 kids went. When they returned home, my brother said he didn't think the food was that good and basically told us we didn't know what good restaurant meals were. They had done practically non stop character meals for the kids - of course the food was mediocre at best. Buffet after buffet of lukewarm trays of various foods served in various sauces.

The next trip I urged them to mix up the restaurants a little - not everything had to have Mickey and Friends jumping around them. He came back with a completely different view of the food.

On one cruise on Pirate night, both my dad and I ordered the short rib. His was fantastic - he had little to no fat and only 2 bones. Mine had 5 bones and a big blob of fat along one side. By the time I took that off, I had maybe 2 bites of not so good meat. He of course loved his. Although it's the same meal, two different experiences.

 

[kaseyC]

Haha, I love this thread but you all are making me DREAD the food on my upcoming DCL Dream cruise.

No, don't dread the food. Maybe it's me but I think most MDR cruise line food tastes the same. I always equate it to 'good' wedding banquet food, satisfying but mass produced. I think where all cruise lines shine is their specialty restaurants where the food is more innovative, with fresher ingredients and unique flavors.

 

[yorkieteacher]

My husband and I booked a NCL Alaskan cruise in 2016 because Disney's was too expensive. I love that I am learning as much about NCL on this forum as ones devoted to NCL!