DCL vs NCL

[clwalkermn]

We have been on Wonder, Magic, and Dream and always enjoy Disney's cruising experience. We are looking forward to sailing on the Fantasy in November. I have also previously sailed on Holland America and enjoyed that. We thought we would try another cruise line for something different and just returned from 3 night Bahamas cruise on the Norwegian Sky. In short...NCL has a lot to learn from Disney (and HAL for that matter). I could write lots, but I will leave it just that service, food, accommodations, etc are all better on DCL.

[GrandmaHofmann]

Nobody compares to Disney in terms of perfection or children's programs or beauty of design or service or entertainment. We were quite happily surprised by the good food we had on Carnival last summer. I just didn't care much for the clientele or the lax attitude towards beginning times for meals, entertainment, childrens' programs, etc. You get what you pay for most often.

[Squidward Q Tentacles]

My wife and I have only cruised on NCL so far, but will be on the Dream very soon. I would hope that the Disney line has better food and such, it should for the cost. We have a cruised booked later this year on NCL Pearl, 7 nights and it cost me $1,087.56 including all fees and taxes, plus I am getting $75 shipboard credit and my daily tips are included in my cost. It is an inside cabin, so that helps keep the costs low.

 

My upcoming DCL Dream cruise is a 4 night cruise and is a balcony cabin. It is costing me $1,894.92 plus daily tips.

 

I really hope that DCL blows away NCL considering the cost difference.

[awaywego0000]

I have also been on both. I really loved my NCL cruise. So much so that I booked another. :)

[Squidward Q Tentacles]

7 nights NCL cost me $1012.56, inside cabin $144.65 a day for 2 people

4 nights DCL cost me $1,990.92 balcony. $497.73 a day for 2 people

 

 

Had I booked an inside cabin on the Dream it would have cost me $1,562.40 at the time. Add to that the $96 for tips and it would have been $1,658.40 for the two of us in an inside cabin. That would still be $414.60 a day for the two of us.

 

$414.60 - $144.65 / 2 = $134.98

 

For $134.98 a day per person should pay for better food and entertainment.

[shepherdqueen]

7 nights NCL cost me $1012.56, inside cabin $144.65 a day for 2 people

4 nights DCL cost me $1,990.92 balcony. $497.73 a day for 2 people

 

 

Had I booked an inside cabin on the Dream it would have cost me $1,562.40 at the time. Add to that the $96 for tips and it would have been $1,658.40 for the two of us in an inside cabin. That would still be $414.60 a day for the two of us.

 

$414.60 - $144.65 / 2 = $134.98

 

For $134.98 a day per person should pay for better food and entertainment.

 

I was perusing this board as friend loved DCL... I see why! It may be a while before we break from NCL with this price difference.

[Love2cruisemom]

My dh and I have sailed both NCL and Disney. We have been on two NCL cruises and after each of those cruises we swear never to sail NCL again. The service is no comparrison to Disney. You will for sure get what you pay for! Excellent service- beautiful ship and great food. Hope you enjoy your Disney Cruise.

[awaywego0000]

7 nights NCL cost me $1012.56, inside cabin $144.65 a day for 2 people

4 nights DCL cost me $1,990.92 balcony. $497.73 a day for 2 people

 

 

Had I booked an inside cabin on the Dream it would have cost me $1,562.40 at the time. Add to that the $96 for tips and it would have been $1,658.40 for the two of us in an inside cabin. That would still be $414.60 a day for the two of us.

 

$414.60 - $144.65 / 2 = $134.98

 

For $134.98 a day per person should pay for better food and entertainment.

 

We are a family of three. Two adults and one child.

 

Our NCL 7 day cruise in June to Bermuda from Boston (with port hole) was $1900. total for all three of us. I am not including excursions or meals/drinks.

 

Our DCL 8 day cruise in July to Bahamas from NYC (inside cabin) was $5000. total for the three of us. Also not including excursions or Palo/drinks.

 

Yes I thought Disney was awesome, but not THAT awesome. The service on NCL Spirit was great. Not as good as Disney, but good enough for me.

[SpoiledTraveler]

I enjoyed our NCL cruise last year, but no, it wasn't Disney.

 

Our cabin on the Disney Dream vs. the NCL Spirit was so much nicer it's hard to even compare, both were standard balcony rooms. I find the value in Disney's cost in a million little details, from the attention the cabin stewards provide, to the "polish" in the stage shows. We were able to communicate better with the Disney staff, they seemed friendlier and more engaged with the guests. The Disney cabin steward was always easy to contact when needed, it was hard to track down our steward on NCL. NCL also seemed much more invested in selling us "Stuff" or getting us to go shopping in Port while Disney didn't have too much pressure.

 

I'll cruise NCL again, but Disney has my heart.

[ededmd]

 

For $134.98 a day per person should pay for better food and entertainment.

 

Have sailed both lines.

The Disney premium is largely just that - a premium for sailing Disney and being around the trappings of the Disney empire (theming / characters).

Disney's shows are good / better than entertainment on NCL.

Disney's food is the same quality if not worse than NCL. Like NCL desserts largely look better than they taste. NCL has the advantage of a buffet option and multiple venues (albeit for a fee).

For comparison to WDW (if that helps you) Disney cruise fare is overall better than the average WDW meal and worse than the average WDW Signature Dining restaurant meal. Not a foodie cruise line (defined - where you can get a great meal at any venue) but neither is NCL.

[dexddd]

We have been on Wonder, Magic, and Dream and always enjoy Disney's cruising experience. We are looking forward to sailing on the Fantasy in November. I have also previously sailed on Holland America and enjoyed that. We thought we would try another cruise line for something different and just returned from 3 night Bahamas cruise on the Norwegian Sky. In short...NCL has a lot to learn from Disney (and HAL for that matter). I could write lots, but I will leave it just that service, food, accommodations, etc are all better on DCL.

 

While the age of the Sky is similar to the Magic and Wonder, it really isn't representative of NCL as a whole. For NCL, it is the oldest ship and runs the short 3 or 4 day trips. It is outdated IMO and the trips are the 3 or 4 days run only. I'm not disagreeing that DCL does things better, just that the Sky isn't representative of NCL ships and/or experience necessarily.

[ladybugpug]

The first line I looked into when I planned our first cruise last April was DCL because we LOVE WDW and the whole Disney experience. But quite honestly I realized pretty quickly that it was just out of our price range. Investigated CCL and NCL and NCL was the best value for us..plus liked the concept of Freestyle cruising. NCL departing from NY allowed us to drive from PA to the port and saved on having to pay for airfare.....which for a family of 5 is no small expense. We really enjoyed NCL and are crusing with them again in December.

 

I would love to try DCL tho. I just need to save my money longer. :) When I was looking at the cruises they looked amazing. And I love Mickey.

[Quigley1980]

I agree with Spoiled above. We'll cruise other lines and enjoy them, but DCL (and RCI, frankly!) has our heart.

 

We just got back from our first DCL cruise - we're RCI fans who have also sailed Celebrity and Carnival, but not NCL yet. In a nutshell, we found DCL to be a huge step up from all of the other lines. It was most comparable to Celebrity, but blew the oddly-lackluster service on our Celebrity cruise out of the water. It was a definite step up from RCI and CCL.

 

Full disclosure that we did use a last-minute FL Resident Rate for the sailing, which knocked the price of the cruise under a comparable RCI cruise later this spring. Although we're WDW annual passholders, we're not Disney fiends and prefer to not expose our son to Disney consistently. However, they did such a good job on the cruise that we can't imagine not going back on DCL.

 

Thinking specifically about the Dream: The food was well above theme park food. It was consistently top notch, and similar to what we saw on Celebrity. From my own perspective, I disagree with the comment above that the food was just a notch above theme-park food. Other than the food in the quick-serve pool grill on deck 11, the food was more high-end than we've seen on CCL or RCI. I have a simple palette, and while not all of the choices appealed to me, everything was amazing. However, it was the service and attention to detail that impressed us the most. Staff members would greet our 4-month-old by name, our *waiter* brought a tray of desserts to our stateroom after our little boy had a meltdown at dinner, our photographer introduced us to her colleagues around the ship - she had been telling them about our sweet little guy and the pics she took of him. Everyone went well out of their way to accommodate our little guy and his parents.

 

While I can't speak for NCL, I can say that for the right (incredibly low) price, yes, we'd go back on Carnival...and we would enjoy it. We'd certainly go back on RCI or on Celebrity...although we might wait on Celebrity until our son is much older. We'd definitely go on Disney again as well, even without FL Resident Rates. For what we were looking for, 4 nights on a Dream balcony ended up being a better option than the more-expensive 7-nighter in an RCI interior stateroom.

[hexdragon]

I want to make a snarky comment about people being bean counters: Someone who knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing. However I can't. :(

 

For my upcoming cruise I looked at Disney, Celebrity, and Carnival. For the cost of an inside cabin on Disney, I could get an ocean view on Celebrity. For the cost of an inside on Celebrity, I could get a balcony on Carnival.

 

My sister and her hubby love Carnival. "Much cheaper drinks" :confused: Concidering that Carnival has had two engine room fires in the last two years, I should be nervous. However the ship I am going on is currently in dry dock. Still I wish I could afford Disney.

[stsomewhere]

Our favorite line is Disney. But, we have sailed most of the lines. We have sailed on NCL twice about 15 yes ago. We are sailing on NCL in December due to price and ports. It is a 10 night. When we sail another cruise lines, we try not to compare it to Disney. Every cruise we have been on, we gave made wonderful memories. Last easter, we sailed on HAL. We were worried about our kids-13 & 11 being bored. They enjoyed it and said that they would cruise them again.

[Mekamax]

We just got back from the Disney Magic and it was worth every penny and then some!! As you can tell by the signature we have done RCL, NCL and CCl repeatedly but Disney was so above them on service, fellow passengers and food. The entertainment with fireworks at sea was awesome! Pirates Night felt like Halloween party on another cruise - so much fun. The adult only venues were adult only not like Carnival. We felt safe and that was weird - could leave an electronic item on a deck chair and go to sleep and not worry that it would be stolen. Even the maintenence people would smile and say hello and spoke English...

[riofriotex]

Every cruise we have been on, we gave made wonderful memories.

 

This to me is the right attitude.

 

I just did the Disney Magic in January. I chose it with trepidation as DH and I are NOT Disney fanatics, but I liked the itinerary offered (4 ports in 8 nights, 2 that we had not been to before), the timing was right, and it was leaving from a port I could drive to.

 

We enjoyed the cruise but weren't too crazy about the lack of dining options. We had dinner at Palo once (first night) and it was good but too heavy for my liking. We did brunch there all three sea days though - only meal we had except for a light dinner in the MDR. I was not too crazy about MDR dining - we had late seating but still lots of kids there, so it was incredibly noisy - but I appreciated the staff accommodating our request for a table for two. The food was fine, but we're not foodies, so that didn't matter to us. We felt there was less to do on the ship for adults who aren't Disney fanatics, but I cruise for the ports, and am happy to spend my sea days reading and sunning on my balcony.

 

I would do Disney again, for the right itinerary, but alas, they are leaving my ports of choice, so we probably won't cruise them again until 2020 at the earliest (post-retirement, when we could drive to Florida).

 

I've done two NCL cruises, one being their awesome Hawaii cruise. What I like best about NCL is the freestyle dining. It just worked best for us. I am looking forward to their coming to Houston; we'll be on them in January 2015.

 

Next January I'm going to do Carnival Magic. They leave from Galveston, they sail when I can go (first two weeks of January is my only choice right now), and both itineraries in those first two weeks include a port I haven;t visited before, which is always a plus for me.

[alinnj]

I enjoy paying Mickey an extra $800 - $1000 for the free soda :D

[riofriotex]

I enjoy paying Mickey an extra $800 - $1000 for the free soda :D

 

Yes, especially when I don't even DRINK soda.:rolleyes:

[gelo7]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[MizDaisy]

I cruised with Disney 11 times. Princess once. Carnival 4 times, and NCL 4 times.

 

Cost-wise, there's no comparison. Disney is way overpriced.

 

Food....it's too subjective to compare. Different people have different ideas on what "good food" is. I happen to think Disney needs to offer more "plain" foods, or as Carnival calls them "Comfort foods"....Disney is trying to be too fancy and the quality isn't that great....but again, that's just my opinion.

 

For ANY of the cruise lines besides Disney....it really depends on which ship and which itinerary and WHEN you go. Spring break is always a crazy time on other lines and even on Disney.

 

The newer ships on NCL are far better than the old ones, and have a LOT more to offer. Like the Pearl, with the bowling alley, rock climbing wall, and their suite area is so far beyond Disney's that it isn't even funny.

[mom2tcdx2]

There is no comparison of Disney IMO to any other cruise line. That being said I have sailed, Disney, Carnival, Princess and NCL. All offer a good product at a good price, Disney offers a fantastic product at a not so great price.

 

Truly I think it is like comparing apples to oranges. If I did say the higher priced cruise lines - Silver Sea, Regent, etc I would expect much higher in terms of service, etc than on NCL, Carnival, Princess, etc.

[jesron1269]

We live in South Dakota so it basically costs an arm and a leg to fly anywhere for our family of five. Therefore, the cost of the cruise is less of a consideration. We sailed Disney last January and then tried Carnival this past Thanksgiving. Thanks but no thanks. We will be returning to Disney for this upcoming Thanksgiving. Like I said when you already have several thousand in airfare no matter where you go you might as well get the product you want. Also, I saved nearly a thousand dollars with the free soda and by bringing my own alcohol on board. No I am not that much of a drinker but if you have four drinks a day (x2 for alcohol drinks) and (x3 for soda) that adds up quick. The food was at least three times better. The service was inmeasurably better. The entertainment was probably only twice as good. I guess you see where I am going with this.