Carnival vs. Royal

[Steve8]

First of all reviews really aren’t fair at all. They’re just a matter of opinion. And quite honestly most of our comparisons just aren’t very fair. How can you compare the Carnival Fantasy to the Carnival Breeze? How do you compare Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Seas with the Quantum of the Seas? How do you compare a 4 day cruise with a 10 day cruise? Let’s just face it – it’s impossible to do it fairly.

Yet, that is exactly what Cruise Critic is here for. That’s why we continue to read everything we can on our next ship to build our excitement. Some of us seek out the positive and others seem to seek the negative. And let’s face it EVERY line has both. One of the interesting parts of this is my negatives may be your positives. A friend of mine and I were talking about the differences between Carnival and Royal Caribbean and we each mentioned what we liked best and why we liked one over the other. And we actually agreed 100% on the differences. The only real difference is some meant more to him and some meant more to me.

A simple piece of advice for whichever line you choose - just go and have fun. Do your research but take everything with a grain of salt. A cruise is what you make it. Go with a great attitude and you will have a great time, I know I always have. Go and look for things to complain about and I’m guessing you will find plenty.

All of that being said we just finished a cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Seas. In full disclosure 15 of our previous 16 cruises were on Carnival ships ranging from the Miracle to the Breeze and the other was Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas. Obviously my family likes Carnival. Obviously I liked Royal Caribbean enough to book another Royal cruise.

So instead of going into great details on many things I thought I would just share what I feel are some of the positives from one line to the other in bullet format. For the most part I tried to do more “overall” type comparisons or when possible more of a comparison for the Pride vs Grandeur to be as fair as possible. Yes they are just my opinions and yes each would very from ship to ship. For what it’s worth:

Royal Caribbean Pros

• Nicer décor for the ship
  
• Buffet area is “classier” and everything is close together
  
• They serve your drinks at buffet and get you refills
  
• Getting off the ship is easier than Carnival mostly because they aren’t stopping everyone to get pictures taken and they “scan” your card
  
• Freestyle soda machines (Great choices and lots of them)
  
• Better drink packages (One person in a room can purchase even if other does not and there is no drink limit or time limit)
  
• They have a formal Meet & Mingle for Cruise Critic members with ship personnel & prizes
  
• Daily announcement with excellent details from the Captain even on port days (and you could even understand him)
  
• Less push for sales by Cruise Director
  
• Longer cruises (Carnival has very few over 8 days)
  
• Rock wall
  
• Tutti salad bar in dining room on sea days
  
• Park Café (Nice choices and good selection with small lines)
  

The Same

• Wait Service (Both have been equally excellent every time for me)
  
• Housekeeping service (Also both are excellent)
  
• Quality of dining room food
  
• Quality of breakfast foods at the buffet
  
• Cleanliness
  
• Embarkation/Debarkation
  

Carnival Pro’s

• Bigger rooms
  
• Much bigger showers
  
• Bigger bathroom sinks
  
• More storage space
  
• Suitcases fit under the bed
  
• Entertainment (I do not go to Production shows so please exclude those)
  
• Activities (Many more activities and in my opinion better and more exciting)
  
• Comedy Club (One of my favorite things about Carnival)
  
• Piano Bar (MUCH more interactive and fun)
  
• Bigger casino (obviously dependant on ship)
  
• Double odds craps (Single odds on Royal is ridiculous)
  
• More choices on dining room dinner menu
  
• Better desserts
  
• Lower drink prices and packages
  
• Soap dispenser in showers
  
• Early saver (I Love it! Some hate it!)
  
• Many more TV Channels and include networks
  
• Shorter lines for buffet on private islands
  
• Many more choices for lunch (Guy’s, Mongolian Wok, Blue Iguana Cantina, Fish & Chips, etc.)
  
• Easier to find seating in the much bigger spread out buffet area
  
• Buffet area is always open
  
• 24 hour pizza and ice cream
  
• Better beds and bedding (I would even say much better)
  
• Water slides
  
• Miniature golf
  
• Much easier to find chairs in the Serenity area than the Solarium
  
• Dress shorts are allowed in dining room for dinner (my preference but others feel exact opposite I’m sure)
  
• Real anytime dining (Royal really pushes for you to make a reservations which defeats the purpose)
  

So is my goal to convert anyone to Carnival over Royal – absolutely not. Why would I want to do that and make the prices on Carnival go up? Will I go on another Royal Caribbean cruise – probably some day. Just go with a great attitude and take the knowledge you can gain on Cruise Critic and have a great cruise.

Happy Cruising!

Steve

[DDFla]

I finally tried RCL and you are spot on. I had a bad experience booking my shows for my RCL trip and then they didn't save once we were on the vacation, waiting for an opening sucks.

[CruzCrazy]

I agree that comparing different cruise lines is difficult, even when you try very hard to be objective. I did a comparison after our Oasis cruise in December (after 10 on Carnival). I even stated in my review that I didn't think the comparison was apples to apples because I hadn't sailed on the Breeze yet and was thus comparing the Oasis to Liberty and Glory and Miracle, etc.

 

This summer, we are finally sailing the Breeze, so I may do another comparison after that.

 

I agree that most things are subjective. Whether it is just ship specific to the Oasis, I have no way of knowing, but we definitely thought the beds and bedding were far superior on Oasis than anything we have yet experienced on Carnival, so there you go. And the entertainment was over the top superior on Oasis--I've never seen anything like that on Carnival, and not likely to. Did we love the show CATS? No, we didn't. But you couldn't deny it was a fabulous production. The ice show, the diving show, and the rest....fabulous!

 

That being said, we love Carnival and plan to go and have a fantastic time on the Breeze. Where we sail after that we will decide after that trip. I think the Carnival Vista looks nice--and Royal is doing some "interesting" things with their pricing right now, making a booking there looking less appealing for now, so we'll see.