demoiselle

Thank you for the suggestions! MSC looks like it would be wonderful, though the Yacht Club may be a bit above our budget right now, especially if we have to fly to the departure port. Princess and Celebrity were both cruise lines I wondered about.

Greetings!

My husband just finished our first ever cruise, on Carnival Fascination out of San Juan. We always doubted whether we would enjoy cruising and were delighted to find it was one of our best, most restful and enjoyable vacations. We want to do it again.

However, we felt very aware that we are not the ideal customers for Carnival. We would sail them again, but I think that we might fit another line better. Can anyone help us find a good match?

On Fascination, we found the accommodations good and the food mostly good, though my husband prefers vegetarian food and found the selection a bit thin.

Whereas the music was loud, we would prefer some soft jazz in the evenings.

The bars were too loud and smokey (we are driven away by smoke drifting from neighboring areas) for our chosen evening activity, curling up with a book or for intimate conversation.

We didn't mind the size of the ship, which I gather some consider small, but in the evenings the main deck with the bars was too crowded with people and kids for us. We spend very little on extras (like alcohol, coffee, or alternate dining).

We like ballroom dancing and tango, and would like to do it every night, but Fascination mostly had hustle music and latin, and no dance floor.

We didn't go to a single show, but might if the offerings were more to our taste. We are destination-oriented.

We live in NYC. Norwegian sails out of port here and has the right price, but I get the sense that it is a line catering to a similar audience as Carnival. We kept running into a Viking ship in port, and it seemed to be up our alley, but twice or four times the price, so beyond our current means.

We are a couple in our early to mid 30s.

What cruise lines should we explore?

I just booked this ship for August. My research so far has everyone saying FTTF is not worth it at all. I'm planning on flying in the day/night before. Not seeing a lot of good flight times. Also on the return flight I'm planning leaves at about 11:30. It was the only good option. I cruised Valor out of San Juan a few years ago and I recall we were at the airport much earlier than we expected.

We just got off this cruise. I'd never been on one before, and I did buy FTTF for priority embarkation/disembarkation. Hubby and I are not sure whether it is worth it overall (they did not maintain separate lines at various ports, so if you wanted to go faster, you'd have to cut, and we aren't that assertive).

However, reading about the staggered boarding times, and seeing the staggered disembarkation times upon return, I think it was worthwhile for us this particular time. We were able to get on the boat the first day by 11 AM and put our extra bags in our stateroom, then get off the boat and have a full day to explore Old San Juan unencumbered. When we returned, our check out time was 8:30 AM, two or more hours earlier than it would have been without FTTF.

Our flight out was at 4 pm, so we took our bags to the Sheraton across the street and asked to check them for the day (they let us, for a fee), and had the whole day to enjoy San Juan again. So for us, it was like paying for a single ticket to a city excursion, and getting two excursions for two in return. :-)