Have you ever been on a cruise?

[sweet angel]

Anne, to each his/her own, I suppose. I enjoyed the Disney cruise, but enjoyed the RCI cruise much more. I felt the offerings on RCI far outshone those on Disney. I felt more attended to on RCI than on Disney.

That said, I would never say that I would never take another cruise on Disney, but I honestly don't feel it's worth the extra money.

Perhaps you had a bad experience on that particular ship, but I certainly wouldn't condemn all RCI for that.

I forgot to mention, we had a Meet & Mingle on our cruise -- the captain and his wife both attended and both were very nice. He asked a trivia question and the winner and their spouse were invited to dine with the Captain. He was very apologetic that he could not accomodate all of us that were at the meet & mingle.

You may have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

[bettyann29]

We've been on 6 cruises in the last 4 years, so you can tell we LOVE to cruise.. 5 of them on Carnival and one on Royal Caribbean.. We have been on 2 of them with our kids and 4 have been just us adults.. we have another scheduled for next year.. We personally like cruising because its actually economical to us.. we get to go to the Caribbean and see some beautiful islands that we would not normally have seen.. We do some really cool excursions that we wouldnt have done otherwise.. The food is pretty good and the entertainment is awesome.. I usually shop around for bargains.. the only time we have paid an exorbant amount of money was on our first cruise when I didnt know what to look for.. Both times with the kids has been on Carnival and there is plenty to do for them.. They have classes for different age groups and have fun activities and stuff for them to do.. They keep them very busy.. My youngest dd didnt want to leave each day because she was having so much fun.. every morning she was ready to run back to the room to be with the other kids.. As far as price.. it depends on when you go.. Its just like WDW .. depending on which season you go in the prices will be different.. you also need to decide which type of cabin you want to stay in and what you're willing to pay for it.. we have been in inside cabins, oceanview and balcony cabins.. of course the balcony is extremely nice, but you have to be realistic in that you're not in the room all that much.. it is nice though to go to your cabin when the ship leaves port and you watch right from there.. or you can watch going in or standing out there watching the ocean with the moonlight on you.. Its very nice.. As far as where to go.. I have used several Travel agents over the years .. I have booked a few on my own.. Just depends on whether you want control over everything.. if you book thru a TA then you cant call the cruiseline direct and talk to someone about your booking... everything goes thru the TA.. One of the cruises we did I happened to book direct with Carnival and I would check about every 3 weeks and if the price dropped they adjusted the price for me.. we saved quite a bit doing this.. where as if you go thru a TA this might not happen if they dont want to do this for you.. I think 7 days is perfect!! We have been on 4, 5 and 7 day cruises and the 4 is definitely not enough but it was a weekend getaway for us.. the 5 day is nice, but not quite long enough.. the 7 day is perfect!!..

I personally prefer Carnival to RCCL.. The atmosphere is definitely different.. at least I thought it was.. Carnival seems more outgoing, partying and fun atmosphere.. whereas the RCCL was a little older crowd.. There didnt seem to be as much going on at night.. Even the excursions we went on seemed the same.. There is one particular excursion we have done almost everytime we go to Cozumel and generally it is loud and just fun we thought.. but we went on the same excursion when we did RCCL cruise and everyone just sat down, no dancing, just not much going on.. we could definitely tell the difference..

We havent done DCCL but would love to... We were thinking of it for next year, but my kids want to do a full 10 days at WDW in May/June, so that may be what we will do for our family vacation..

I personally believe its what you make of it no matter what.. if you go on with a negative attitude, you wont have much fun... but its your vacation and I bet no matter which cruise/cruiseline you go on, you will have a great time!!.. You might start out going to a local TA and getting some brochures.. then go on the different cruiseline website.. also you might check out www dot cruisecritic dot com... there is some great info there.. someone may have already mentioned it.. I didnt read over the past comments..

 

[ducklite]

Anne, to each his/her own, I suppose. I enjoyed the Disney cruise, but enjoyed the RCI cruise much more. I felt the offerings on RCI far outshone those on Disney. I felt more attended to on RCI than on Disney.

That said, I would never say that I would never take another cruise on Disney, but I honestly don't feel it's worth the extra money.

Perhaps you had a bad experience on that particular ship, but I certainly wouldn't condemn all RCI for that.

I forgot to mention, we had a Meet & Mingle on our cruise -- the captain and his wife both attended and both were very nice. He asked a trivia question and the winner and their spouse were invited to dine with the Captain. He was very apologetic that he could not accomodate all of us that were at the meet & mingle.

You may have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Here's where I feel it's OK to condemn the entire line. After we returned, I took a week to calm down, and wrote a letter outlining our complaints in a very non-emotional manner (I had my editor copy edit it for me to make sure!). I told them I wasn't looking for compensation, but I wanted them to address our complaints--as I said, while some were subjective, we had others that were totally objective--maintanence issues, and perks described in the brochure simply not delivered, etc. It's now ten weeks later--at first I gave them the benefit of the doubt as the first letter would have arrived in Miami about the time Wilma hit. I sent the same letter with a note saying it was a duplicate of one sent three weeks earlier, and to date they still haven't bothered to respond. IMHO, not responding to a letter from a guest who had valid, substantiable, objective complaints, particularly one who booked the top of the line suite, is bad service. And that bad service is exactly why I would never sail RCCL, once they have your money, they just don't care.

We had a meet and mingle--no Captain, although that certainly didn't matter to us, but they had only enough chairs for about half of us, the space was MUCH too small, and it was hard to participate when half of us were standing in a corner behind the CD and LA and couldn't hear anything. I didn't even bother to complain about that in my letter, but that's just one more "little thing" that added up to a poor experience.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

I personally believe its what you make of it no matter what.. if you go on with a negative attitude, you wont have much fun...

If you're referring to me with that comment, I did not have a negative attitude. In fact before we got on the ship we fully intended to book another cruise with RCCL while onboard. By the end of the second day we were rethinking RCCL and leaning towards Celebrity. By the end of the fourth day we had enough of the entire corporation. By the end of the sixth day we couldn't wait to get off. Needless to say we didn't rebook.

Anne

 

[HoneyPooh]

The thought of 30 foot swells terrifies me. Does it feel like the ship is going to capsize? I am so scared of drowning if the ship falls over. Seriously.

Nope, doesn't feel at all like you're going to capsize. Just a rolling feeling. 30 foot swells to a really large cruise ship are nothing at all. The only thing I recommend is that you don't look out the window at the horizon if there are big swells. You can tell by the horizon how much the ship is bobbing and it can make you feel a little.... Seriously, you will be pleasantly surprised.

 

[sweet angel]

Here's where I feel it's OK to condemn the entire line. After we returned, I took a week to calm down, and wrote a letter outlining our complaints in a very non-emotional manner (I had my editor copy edit it for me to make sure!). I told them I wasn't looking for compensation, but I wanted them to address our complaints--as I said, while some were subjective, we had others that were totally objective--maintanence issues, and perks described in the brochure simply not delivered, etc. It's now ten weeks later--at first I gave them the benefit of the doubt as the first letter would have arrived in Miami about the time Wilma hit. I sent the same letter with a note saying it was a duplicate of one sent three weeks earlier, and to date they still haven't bothered to respond. IMHO, not responding to a letter from a guest who had valid, substantiable, objective complaints, particularly one who booked the top of the line suite, is bad service. And that bad service is exactly why I would never sail RCCL, once they have your money, they just don't care.

We had a meet and mingle--no Captain, although that certainly didn't matter to us, but they had only enough chairs for about half of us, the space was MUCH too small, and it was hard to participate when half of us were standing in a corner behind the CD and LA and couldn't hear anything. I didn't even bother to complain about that in my letter, but that's just one more "little thing" that added up to a poor experience.

Anne

I'm sorry you had a bad experience. Ours was definitely a nicer experience than Disney -- and we enjoyed Disney. We may try other lines in the future, but for now, it's RCI all the way.