Carnival vs. Royal

[Heimey]

We have only travelled with Carnival in the past. We were considering a cruise on Royal Carribean but are worried about the kids program. I have heard different opinions about Royal's program. Some good, some bad. Having been on the Carnival ships, we are quite impressed with their program but we want to see if we are missing anything on another cruise line. We seem to be seeing a lot of similarities in the Carnival activities for adults and kids from ship to ship. Could somebody please give me their opinion, good or bad, about both. All comments would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance

Brian

[lilpootr]

We have been on Carnival and Disney, we have not yet been on Royal. Since the kids were younger when they were on Disney the club worked for them at that time. Our most recent cruise was last year on Carnival and the kids love their programs!

 

As much as I really want to try Royal the reason we haven't so far is because I guess we are applying the "if it aint broke don't fix it" rule here. We have enjoyed all of our Carnival cruises thus far and don't see any reason to try a different line right now.

[Queen of Oakville]

I'm in the opposite boat (kinda!). We love Royal. Its our fave line, having tried Royal, carnival and princess.

 

On our last cruise (the Dream) .... we went with carnival because we were taking two cabins one of which had 1 adult and 2 toddlers and Carnivals pricing was way better.

 

Our next trip will be 2 adults and 2 kids in one cabin, so I am sure (at least hopeful) that Royal will be much more cost competitive.

 

Personally, I was not thrilled with Camp Carnival and I look forward to trying out Adventure Ocean. I didn't think the Camp Carnival Counsellors were all that great and I personally don't think they made the kids all that excited to be there. There were a lot of crying kids and well, maybe that gets depressing over time, but the counsellors didn't seem to want to win the kids over.

 

What most disappointed me, was that there did not seem to be a lot of activities on Carnival for families. There were kid activities and adult activities but not a whole lot that was planned for families. I checked out Crusin Mama's page which has all the Compass bulletins posted and was thrilled that they had a family disco and that almost all days, they had posting for family activities (I was just looking at Aquanots 3-5).

[joejo]

We have only cruised Carnival in the past - and did not bring the kids so please take my words with a grain of salt.

 

From what I understand, the staff that work with the children on Royal are more educated. They are more likely to have post secondary and that education is likely to be in child related fields.

 

I chose Royal for my kids first cruise, not because I didn't think Carnival would be great, but because I thought they both would be great. Royal won out for other reasons ;)

[heidigrims]

We have cruised on NCL, Princess, Carnival, Celebrity, and Royal. My kids will be going on their 6th Royal cruise in several weeks. Royal wins everytime! While the other ships are OK, Royal's ships and kids club is the best! My kids love to go and hate to leave. I usually find them in tears on their last day and wishing they cruise could last longer! The leaders of the kid's club, I believe all have some kind of college degree in education. Or at least they use to. I love Royal Caribbean!

[crusinmama06]

I usually find them in tears on their last day and wishing they cruise could last longer!

 

Actually, funny that you mention THAT! Looking back on our cruises, my oldest is 10, been on 9 ships. Out of those 9 ships, she had tears in her eyes when we landed in the airport after TWO of those cruises. Both of them were Royal Caribbean ships. :D

 

LOL! That's funny. I never thought about that before. They must really brainwash those kids on the last day. They must tell them something like "When you go home, you'll never be able to have fun again" or something...LOL! :eek:;););)