What cruise ship is better? The Carnival Cruise Ship, The Disney Cruise Ship, others.?

Question

My family and I are deciding to go on a cruise for vacation. We've been having some trouble on trying to pick a cruise. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

QM2

Answer 2

Hi Jake!

Please do yourself a favor and find a good travel agent to help you find the best cruise to suite your interests and budget. How do you know if you have a good agent?

If you contact an agency and, when you tell them you'd like to take a cruise they give you several brochures, that's not what you're looking for. Don't hesitate to just say "no thanks" and move on. You're spending a lot of hard-earned money on this cruise, so it would be in your best interest to find someone who really wants to give you and your family the best cruise possible and considers what your budget as well as what you want to get out of a cruise. I would definitely stay away from NCL or Carnival. Royal Caribbean is great for families. Disney and Celebrity are a bit more upscale than Royal Caribbean, but still affordable and very nice. Princess, Cunard, and Holland-America tend to cater to an older crowd.

As an agent I'd recommend the following:
- Don't automatically agree on the airfare offered by the cruise line. Ask the agent to find you a better air rate.
- Same for the travel insurance. Don't spend all this money and then lose it because someone gets sick 2 days before the cruise or your flight delays cause you to miss the sailing. Try Travelex - children under 16 are insured at no charge under their parent's policy. Cruise lines simply charge a flat fee for each passenger.
- Do fly into your embarkation port the day before and overnight. Flying in on the day of the cruise and you could risk missing the sailing due to factors out of your control such as weather, aircraft equipment problems, etc.
- Make sure you have valid passports that will still be valid for 6 months after the date of your expected return. Most countries will require this. If some or all of you require passports, make sure you expedite the application if you are planning to go anytime in the next 6 months. The passport offices are months behind in processing passports and the only way to assure you're going to get them in time is to pay the expediting fee.

Answer 3

Each cruise line and ship have their own personality. Carnival is less dressy than Celebrity. The food was better on Celebrity. Celebrity has a (verified) Catholic Priest on board. Those are the only cruise lives I've been on so far.

Take a look and see which cruise line is going where you want to go and when. What port does it leave from and return to. Then do some research online. Check out the cruise critics for that particular trip or cruise line.

Whatever cruise line you go with, have a Great time.

God Bless You in your choice and on your trip, ;-)

Answer 4

These answers are all fine and good, but its your honeymoon so do yourself a favor and contact a travel agent. Talk to them about what you'd like to do, what your interests are, and what type of budget you have. Then let the agent do what they do best - booking your travel. Please consider the following advice as well, whatever you pay for the cruise, figure at least 1/2 that much or more for shore excursions, drinks (about $7 each), salon or spa treatments, casino, gratuities (about $11 per day per person), and souveniers. If the cost of your trip, for a 7 day cruise is not in your budget, consider a cruise for a shorter period of time however, a 3 day cruise is not worth the money. If a cruise is not within your budget, consider an all inclusive resort in the Caribbean or Mexico where your air, room, food, drinks, gratuities, and transportation are all included in one set price. Congratulations and good luck!

Answer 5

I personally like Royal Caribbean, but it all depends on who I am traveling with and what port I am leaving out of. Carnival and Royal are similar and only have a few differences from what I can tell. Of course Disney is geared for children and Celebrity, Regeant and Princess are usually a little more expensive but also are nicer and provide a little more service to thier guests. Nowergian are somewhat different than Carnival and Royal Caribbean because they offer freestyle cruising. If you have never cruised before what this means is that usually with most companies you pick a certain time to eat and a certain time to do certain activities. Nowergian offers do what you want when you want. They are also famous for their Hawaiian cruises and even dock overnight.

Answer 6

I just saw a special on TV about the Disney cruises, and if you have kids/teens that's the place to go. They do have many "no one under 18...adults only activities also. They have activities for the children to occupy them from 9am to 12 midnight, if say, the parents wanted a day to themselves. Pagers are issued to both children and parents for constant communication. Each cruise ends with a stay at their private island. I just had a cousin and her family, 2 boys ages 10 and 6 go on one at Christmas. They've lived in FLA their whole lives so, although they knew it would be to the Disney standard, they were totally taken off guard by how upscale it was. So, good luck. Hope you and your family have a great vacation!

Answer 7

I have been on 11 cruises in the last 10 years, and for me, i like Royal Carribean. But if you have kids, you probably want Disney or Carnival. For me, Royal carribean is the nicest, especially the Mariner of the Seas, by far the best. I was REALLY impressed. Have fun!!

Answer 8

The best cruise that I've ever been on is with Star Cruise. They have different ships, all are equipped with wonderful things to offer. They name their ships after a Zodiac Sign, like Aquarius, Leo, etc.

Visit them, or try to google more about them: http://www.starcruises.com/

I hope your family will have a wonderful vacation.

Answer 9

I heard Norweign has a lot of freedom.... freedom to eat when you want and not necessarily during dining hours only. Disney, usually is great all round... lived in Florida and no one complained about that one. Carnival is good but can be hit or miss. I wish I were on a cruise right now... have fun!

Answer 10

I have been on NCL, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean and Princess ships and my favorite and the ones I recommend are all Royal Caribbean. Carnival is a budget cruise line and Disney is great for kids. But all of the cruise lines have programs specifically for kids and staff people assigned to supervise them in the programs. So you don't have to do Disney to have great fun and activities for your kids.

The ship that I recommend most highly for families is the new Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas. It has something for everyone. Here's the review I wrote of my cruise on that ship.

We went on voyage # 23 on Nov 5th, 2006 on the Freedom of the Seas. It is a very nice ship. This ship is designed to attract young people and families with kids. It will compete with Carnival and Disney because of its features.

I was somewhat surprised that check-in for a ship holding over 4,000 passengers went so quickly. The check-in could have been even faster if they had more than one person checking Set Sail Passes at the door and opened more stations to take security photos for the Sea Pass. As it was it took less than 45 minutes.

I will not try to list all of the great new and different things on this ship as they are available on the Royal Caribbean web site. Our cabin (8560) was great, as nice as any I have had. It was very roomy and had plenty of space for clothing. The balcony was huge and only needed better chairs for relaxing, like loungers, to make it the best. I give the ship’s Spa a rating of A+ for the quality and diversity of equipment and the fact that it has both a steam and sauna, plus a speed bag and a heavy bag to go with a boxing ring. Each treadmill, elliptical, stepper and bicycle had its own TV screen and you could select the channel you watched (had to use your own headphones for sound). There were plenty of pools and hot tubs, and an abundance of lounge chairs around the pools and on other decks. It was not hard to find a seat.

The formal dining room is a three story room that is elegant. The food was good and so was the wait service for dinner. We didn’t feel the same for breakfast and lunch, but it was acceptable. The major problems I had with food service on ship was accessibility for casual dining. It appears that the intent on the ship is to keep all food consumption in one area of the ship. The primary casual dining place is the Windjammer Café on Deck 11. The Windjammer is too small to handle all of the passengers on ship for casual dining. When we first boarded ship we had to really hunt for a place to sit and found that the same applied any time we went there during peak hours. The option of taking food from the Windjammer to the pool or your cabin is made difficult because you must go back out of the one entrance, through a busy elevator bay, and then through a revolving door in order to get to the pool area and the first pool that you come to is the kids’ H2O zone. In addition, if you want a cup of coffee or tea, or even iced tea or lemonade you have only one place to go, the Windjammer. That’s a long walk from most anywhere, and you have to negotiate the crowds. We found that ordering breakfast room service was much better than trying to get to the Windjammer. The room service was great with food usually delivered in 15 to 20 minutes.

The entertainment was good, except one comedian who stuck, and the last show was really good. Another big plus for this ship is its’ stop at the Royal Caribbean’s private island, Labadee. The island is huge and has a variety of beaches and activities (like Jet Ski and parasailing). There were enough lounge chairs for everyone and plenty of shade trees. They even have a tram to take you from one end to the other and sand wheel chairs for the handicapped. The beach party food was nothing special, standard foods like hot dogs and hamburgers, etc. The one thing that we needed was a map of the island so we would know where things were.

I also highly recommend the RC Jewel of the Seas and Brillance of the Seas.

Answer 11

Hi there, both my sister and I have traveled on the ship Golden Princess, I throughout Europe and my sister through Japan/China, and we both loved our experience on the ship and its staff. Even though the rooms are small, you are really only in them when you sleep. I highly recommend though getting one with a balcony if you can afford it, especially if you are going to a place with a warmer climate. Was really nice to go out on the balcony on at sea days, and read a book and relax. Also, get a room in the center of the ship as you can't feel the rocking or the engines there very much. Have fun!