Difference between Carnival, Royal C, Princess, and NCL

[CruisingSoon88]

I have only cruised Princess once and all of my other cruises have been on Carnival. I am always curious about other lines. As another pp stated, I think what you look for in a cruise and cruise lines changes as your life does. For us now, we have 2 small children and if I told my 7 year old that we were going on a ship without a waterslide, he would be very disappointed. I have looked at cruising on NCL and RC, but the prices for when I looked have been much more than Carnival. We are fortunate that we are able to cruise multiple times a year right now. If our cruises cost more, we would not be able to this.

 

I would like to ask those of you who have cruised on RC about something that I have heard. In reading RC reviews and reading things on this board, it seems that you need to make advance reservations for many things on RC. This includes specialty restaurants as well as shows. Is this true? In my mind, I liken it to a trip to Disney where you must plan anything special that you want to do well ahead of time. If this is the case, I don't think I would enjoy that very much. I personally like my vacations to be very unscheduled and flexible. Others feel differently, I'm sure. I was just curious to see if my perception was correct.

[soccersharon]

We are really looking forward to trying NCL. While I enjoy the Carnival product, I believe "variety is the spice of life". I'm fully expecting to enjoy my cruise on the Epic, and I also expect to sail with Carnival again in the future.

 

Thank you for posting.