Royal caribbean vs Carnival

[Guest]

Having just returned from our first ever cruise, a 3 night taster from port canaveral to bahams with Royal caribbean, we have decided we would like to do another maybe for 5 nights.

Just wondered if anyone has used both RC and Carnival, then if you could tell me which one you preffered and why.

Thanks

[*source*]

If nobody on here has experienced both then check out cruise critic ~ they have all the cruising answers!

[mariechez]

I may be wrong here but from everything l have read and when chatting to others I get the impression that the difference is like going with Virgin(RC) and Travel City (Carnival).

I did think about Carnival as they are slightly cheaper but something stopped me

[truesdpr]

We have been on short cruises with both. Bahamas with Carnival and Caribbean with RCI most recently. We really enjoyed both cruises but it's hard to say which I preferred overall. On balance eating in the main dining room I would say the food was better on the Carnival cruise which I must admit surprised me. The food in the supplement restauarnt on RCI though was excellent. The Carnival ship felt more friendly and we saw a lot of the passenger facing crew and the captain - didn't really see this on RCI. In terms of the actual ship my prefernce would be RCI - it was bigger and had more facilities and more choices of restaurants, bars, shops etc. We also had a better cabin on RCI we had an aft cabin which was large with a huge balcony - we had a suite on Carnival but it was quite small with a tiny balcony and it did cost more. This of course is a lot to do with the desgin of the ship but pound for pound the RCI cabin was better value. Overall the entertainment offered and the range of food and drink was very similar and I think the cafeteria restaurant on RCI was better and we also had Johnny Rockets and Ben & Jerry's ice-cream parlour. We wanted to be casual all the way through the cruise and this wasn't a problem at all on either ship. To be honest for a short cruise I don't think you can go wrong with either. We chose based on our dates and itinerary but we did enjoy the sheer size and scale of the RCI ship and having a large balcony was a real bonus as we could get our cocktails and sit on our sun loungers and relax. My daughter enjoyed kids club on both cruises but probably more so on RCI as she is older now and could participate more fully.

Don't know if this has been any help at all as I haven't really come up with a clear favourite but just wanted to give you my impressions. If you have any specific questions on the RCI cruise please let me know.

Pam.

[Guest]

Thanks for the opinions, the RCI ships are looking good at the moment

[DIBBadmin]

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